Belfast Again

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April 21st 2005.......very late.
Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Am back in Belfast and have been since the day before yesterday. Faye continued on her way to Londonderry and I caught an early bus back to the hostel. I miss the coast and if I were to stay in Northern Ireland I think that a coastal town is where I would be. But as it is, I'm itching to be back in London and cursing every delay.

I met up with some Aussies yesterday (yay! that beloved accent is like a benediction), and we all went out for a drink, which is something I've missed in Belfast this past week before Faye and these guys. It's apparently too dangerous (just recently there was a scandal on the news about a raped student, just down the road near the Uni) and too much of a hassle to go out in an unfamiliar town by yourself, but it really isn't that much fun not to.

Creepy foreign guys in the hostel keep hitting on me, and since I left Cairns there have also been quite a few African guys doing so who don't seem creepy but still manage to alarm me with their intensity...and I'm starting to view them as predatorial, which isn't nice or unbiased, but then neither is being treated like a sure-thing shag. Anyway, before the Aussies turned up (two guys, one girl) I was contemplating going to another hostel because all the chicks have cleared out and I'm feeling uncomfortable, surrounded by so many guys, however uninterested they may be. Plus, all the showers smell like male urine, which is just gross. They also hog the telly. On the whole, I'm basically very disillusioned with men at the moment and feeling very cranky at the prospect of being stuck here in Belfast.

But anyway the evening out was enjoyable, and I was sad to see them leave the next morning. I was back to having roomies last night - the hostel is under construction and some nights I am all alone in the four-bedder room. It's so funny, how lovely it is, and what a luxury, to have a room to yourself after full dorms for so long - but the overall lack of chicks in the hostel sucks.

I keep forgetting to write about the food. I made a little promise to myself before the trip began to be authentic and try at least one of the national dishes in each country I visit. That has now expanded to include the nation's alcoholic beverage (what a chore). So anyway, I fell in love with Pad Thai and reluctantly downed a Singha beer in Thailand, tried some Spotted Dick (giggle, it's a dessert) in London, and when I return I have plans to try some other dishes, and whatever ale or stout they're famous for (but certainly not all in the one sitting). In my time in Ireland I have choked down a Guinness, had a 'fry up', and quite enjoyed a 'soda' with the lot, which is not in fact a drink but a strange bread which is 'griddled' and stuffed with sausages, egg, bacon.... that sort of thing. So I feel very authentic.

I've reconsidered the above, and in saying how smelly the showers are and so forth in my hostel I should also be fair and say that the staff, all male, are absolutely adorable and I just love them. I can't decide if they're gay or just very Irish, but they feel safe and they're very funny and sweet and they keep giving me discounts - and the hostel is actually quite good. If only there was a second telly room and female-only showers....

After some thinking and I've decided to try my luck at going down to see Dublin for the weekend if these bank problems I’m working on don't come through before then. I will definitely not be here after Monday, though - that's it, I'm off, stuff the paperwork. There's a pretty cool deal where I can get from Belfast to Edinburgh for less than £20 by bus' and ferries, so I am thinking of doing that rather than going straight to London. Edinburgh, I am told, is lovely - and, after all, it's Scotland, so how can it be anything but? We're talking Braveheart, here, people. Haha. But seriously, it's starting to sound like a good plan to me.

I went walking last night after a serious little pep talk to myself. I haven't really been inspired to take any pictures recently, apart from that weekend with Faye and the Causeway, so I decided to take a walk around Belfast purely for the purpose of taking pictures. They have quite a few older buildings which have been renovated into shopping malls or such, with elegantly elaborate older-style architecture and gargoyle-type lions and such forth. Some, strewn throughout the city, have jade-green tower tops, which I've yet to discover the significance of, but they look pretty.

I also finally managed to stumble upon the Belfast Murals which the city is famous for, synonymous with its turbulent history with the IRA. The murals are not actually within the city proper or within walking distance of my neighbourhood, and let's face it, I'm just too damn cheap to spend so much money on a tour to photograph some paintings on buildings, so it was pure luck that I found them. But, unfortunately, while they are each obviously imbued with political, religious, or some hidden historical significance to the city, without a guide, it's hard to decipher. I took photos of the murals I came across, each ultimately a visualization of the country's history of civil fighting over church and land. Undoubtedly, with a guide to explain the intricacies and history, etc, it would have all been much more interesting.

Although I would have thought that most of the fighting and all was in the past, the police force here seem very hard done-by. They have normal cop cars, but there are also a lot of these heavy-duty, steel-meshed war-like vehicles cruising the streets, and their police stations have steel mesh over the lower windows and razor-wire around the tops of the fences. I wonder, given all that defensive armor, what their annual intake of new recruits is...surely nobody wants to be a cop in such a city? I should also mention that while I have seen no active IRA badge-waving members, there are several banks and shopping centres and such forth around with smashed glass doors - one bank even has three bullet-holes in it's revolving-glass door. I have to admit, such scenes are a bit of a surprise for a peaceful little Queenslander like myself.

Another thing I forgot to mention in my initial observances of the past-times and hobbies of the Belfast locals is their preoccupation with gambling.....there are gambling venues, or "Entertainment Halls" on every single street, and often two or more on more popular streets.

Yet another break from familiarity here is the smoking laws. In Australia there's a slowly creeping ban on people smoking pretty much anywhere in public. Here? Not so much. I was actually verbally harassed by an awful old man in an internet cafe the other day for covering my nose from his smoke. Yes, true! I went in, got waved into the only vacant chair, and realised after sitting down that he was smoking. Wonderful, I thought, they're allowed to smoke inside here. But hell, it wasn’t my country, and I certainly wasn't about to lecture the local's on their habits, laws or customs. Nor had I any intention of trying to breathe through it.

So I very subtly - subtly, I swear it - tugged my jacket up to cover my lower facial region, hunching down a little. I did not say a word, did not glare at him or do one of those loud hacking fake-coughs that people have been known to do. After several blissfully ignorant minutes he must have noticed, because he got up and stormed over to the counter to complain darkly about my rudeness in an audible tone. I ignored him and continued my typing. The next thing I know he's up in my face, barking at me, telling me how rude I am and how I'm trying to make him feel bad about smoking. I was like, dude, I don't care if you combust, none of my business, leave me alone. But he kept going on and on, ranting away, and my responses escalated from trying to ignore him to mind your own business....piss off....how dare you.... and excuse me, you think I'm rude? I'm not the one insisting you inhale my smoke!! How dare you insist I inhale your exhaust for the sake of being polite?!?

After a couple of minutes of throwing retorts at him and trying to concentrate on my screen, I gave up, logged off and went over to the counter to ask, in an affronted tone, if the internet guy actually expected me to pay for the full fifteen minutes? He was affirmative, which really pissed me off, but I slammed down the money and stormed out. I wish, in retrospect, that I'd said, "he's paying" and stormed out. That would have been cool, and would serve him right. Insecure prick.

Then, as if that wasn't enough to put me off Belfast, the next day I was walking in the town centre, preoccupied with trying to organise my schedule in my head, when somebody in front of me flicked a cigarette at the building, pulled me out of the reverie. Would you believe that it was a girl of about fourteen, tops? Or, more to the point, that she was with her mother or aunt (family resemblance) and a sister of no more than eight... all of them smoking!!! In the city centre, next to Town Hall!?!! Oh my gosh, but how disgusting is that. To have their mother (?) with them, happy to have her less-than-ten year old child smoking in front of her. Somebody call family services.

Bleh. Never mind me. Maybe I’m just having a cranky day or something. Deep breath, just let it go. I am the foreigner here. No judging. Nobody’s perfect, and I less than most. But I miss London. Things made sense in London.

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