A Wonderful Weekend in Belfast

On Saturday morning five other girls and myself started our journey toward Belfast. Our first task, well mine was waking up on time, but otherwise our task was to make the bus on time. It is fairly cheap to travel around Europe but you just have to learn the rail/bus systems. So we hopped on a bus for an hour and a half ride into the city and there we were! So now what...? Well we had to figure out where exactly we were as the stop I anticipated us getting off at was passed so thankfully we had a map and started walking. Walking is the other main form of transportation over here. I do not even want to guess how many miles we walked this weekend.


We arrived at our hostel and we weren't too thrilled about the quality of it but decided to stick it out so we reserved our beds and then went out to find lunch. Stopped in few shops before making it to the food court in the mall. We have been very good up to this point of not eating fast food/American food so we kind of had a splurge this weekend starting with Chinese. Mmm chicken fried rice never tasted so good. But I asked for Sweet and sour sauce as well, as my mom would agree we both enjoy it, and it was £1.50 for the extra sauce! (Also note, £1=$1.50) So needless to say I did without the sauce. After enjoying our 'American lunch' we continued our shopping quest and I finally found my brown boots I have been wanting! I was very excited because the rain just doesn't work in my favor around here and my shoes are always soaked. We also made our last stop in the mall called Castle Court, at a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream stand. hehehe...it was so very delightful.

This is Castle Court mall

Then we decided to go on a Taxi Tour of Belfast. We all had a grand time seeing West Belfast, where most of the violence occurred during the Troubles, and where there are a lot of murals in memory of these events.

This is just a semi-normal scene to us now.



The group at the 'Berlin Wall' of Belfast
The murals/artwork along this stretch of road
are painted on what is called 'Peace walls' they separate
the two opposing communities-Catholics and Protestants.



This is a very famous mural in West Belfast of Bobby Sands. It is painted
on the side of the Sinn Fein Headquarters, they are one of the
major political groups in Northern Ireland.

I almost forgot the next part of our day--Megan, my roommate would be very upset with me. We had the taxi driver drop us off at the Titanic Quarter. It was unknown to me before arriving here that the Titanic was built here in Belfast. So, as the locals call it, we went to see the 'hole in the ground.'

This is the pump house that pumped the water out of the hole.
And in front of it is the hole...

Here it is...

Me by the pump house.

It is hard to give an adequate scale to the size of the hole.
But here you can see the little yellow dude at the bottom.

This is the view of the main part of the city on our way back.

After goofing off a bit and enjoying the Titanic Quarter, we had a nice long...walk back to the other side of the city. So we had to stop for dinner of course, and we are cheap college students so (don't tell Mervyn our Programme Director but..) we stopped at McDonalds! It was different than most American establishments in that it was completely modern/contemporary decor and more limited food choices. It was also 3 stories high. Then  we headed out for the night. First stop was to meet up with our friend Sean, he lives in Belfast but we met him during our first week stay at Corrymeela. He was our group volunteer and we got to know him quite well. So we headed off to the Crown Saloon and the craic was good. (Common Irish phrase for, very lively/good fun, prounced Crack) Then some of the group headed home and then actually the 2 other girls I'm traveling Europe with after NI, and myself stayed and went with Sean to the Nightclub/bar that he works at. It was great fun and very different than most American clubs.

On Sunday we got up and met Sean to walk around West Belfast a bit more. We had to stay on the Falls Road area for the most part because he didn't feel it was safe for him (he is a Catholic) to walk around the Protestant Shankill Road area. We also walked through one of the cemetery's:

Very cool, yet a little different than most in America today. They are very close and most are very elaborate with crosses, etc on them. Sean was telling us at the newer cemetery they actually have a 6 foot wall beneath the ground separating the Protestant and Catholics buried there...

We had a bit of time to waste before Sean had to leave and we had to catch our train home so we first stopped for yet another round of American food at Burger King. I am so over this American fast food frenzy we had...Anyway then we spent the afternoon goofing off in the shopping centers enjoying the last bit of time we had. Then we were off again on our first train ride!

This will be the common theme for our travels afterward. Becca is the blond on the left, Megan is behind me. It will be us three traveling from Rome-Venice-Germany-Paris-London for 2 weeks in December.

So as I go I will leave you with a blurred, but pretty picture of the Northern Ireland Coast from our train ride. Best wishes to all and more to come as time allows.

 Love and peace.