I was walking home at dusk the other day on an unseasonably warm night and a few bright lights in the sky caught my eye. I heard through the grapevine that some planets were getting ready to line up, but I wasn't sure which, though I was pretty sure that's what I was looking at. The night sky was a deep blue color and you could still see the fringes of daylight setting behind a thick front of clouds moving toward the city.
My friend, Sara, who lives in Saskatoon, has been taking a lot of awesome nighttime photos in northern Canada and inspired me to grab my camera as soon as I got home and try to take some good photos of the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus (as I later learned that's what I was looking at).
Around the block from my flat is a little park that I thought would be a perfect place to take some photos. It was, except for the fact that even this late in the evening lots of kids were playing on the playground equipment and I'm sure some of the parents were wondering what this guy (me) was doing with a nice camera at a childrens' playground was doing. A little self-conscious about my photos and not wanting to draw undue attention to myself, I made sure to be focusing my lens up at the sky!
Anyway, here are the few photos that actually turned out somewhat nice. I definitely need to invest in a tripod, though, as the rest of the photos I took were pretty much just a bunch of squiggles in the sky. I'm hoping that we'll get another solar storm in the near future, in which case, I will try and get to northern Scotland and maybe glimpse some aurora borealis!
Monday, March 26, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
The Biggest Pizza in Belfast
Trip Date: 18 March 2012
Considering the day we had the day before, it's no wonder Rebecca and I didn't crawl out of our rooms until very very late in the morning. But up we were and shortly after or before noon, we packed up all of our things, picked up our trash from her relatives' flat, and headed out to meet her friends, Lydia and Daniel. It was a beautiful day, and we recalled some of the fun things that happened on St. Pat's Day, but we both agreed that the little pizza we had the night before was not enough. We walked down Lisburne Road and Lydia met us to take us back to her place.
On the way, however, Lydia pointed out one of her favorite places to eat that had the best pizza, Little Wing Pizzeria. Rebecca and I both kind of stopped and looked at the sign which read, "Biggest pizza in Belfast." In the window was a rack of pies two feet in diameter! Both of us hung over a bit, Rebecca and I decided (with some persuading from Lydia) to invest in the biggest pizza in town. I've been told pizza is kind of a newer food item over here in the UK and a lot of people are still pretty wary of it. But places like Little Wing are gaining good traction. A lot of restaurants in Ireland are also becoming very into locally produced foods and advertise it very well - kind of harkening back to my days in Vermont.
We toted the pizza back to Lydia and Daniel's where we (Rebecca and I) devoured the entire pie. It took a bit of effort, but we did it! Amy and Katie came over and met up with us as well and we all just enjoyed the morning over coffee and photos. Daniel and I, being the two Americans there, chatted it up for a while and the girls did their catching up before both Lydia and Amy move out of Belfast. It was soon time to go and Lydia drove Rebecca and me back to the ferry docks so we didn't have to hire a cab, which was very nice. I can't say enough how awesome my hosts were for the weekend, Rebecca, Amy, and Lydia. Fantastic people!
The ferry ride back to Scotland was much less crowded and much more quiet than on the way to Belfast. I'm sure that the majority of rowdy kids took the morning ferry back. Whatever the case, the sun was out and it was so warm that I spend much of my time out on the smoking decks taking photos of the scenery. Northern Ireland and western Scotland really don't get such beautiful weather that often, so it really was a treat. Rebecca found me on the decks and we just walked around as the ship made it's way back into Loch Ryan. Thanks to the weather, we also got a really good view of an old volcanic plug (a nickname for the solidified conduit through which magma reaches Earth's surface) that is out in the middle of the water, kind of like a focal point for the entire area around it. Back on land, Scotrail was doing work on the train line from Ayr to Glasgow, so our coach drove us all the way back into downtown Glasgow and we then split a cab back to our own flats.
It was just a beautiful, sunny, warm, relaxing, and great day to cap off a perfect St. Paddy's Day weekend! Thanks for sticking through all the way. I hope you've at least enjoyed the photos if you didn't get through all my writing. Here are some more!
Considering the day we had the day before, it's no wonder Rebecca and I didn't crawl out of our rooms until very very late in the morning. But up we were and shortly after or before noon, we packed up all of our things, picked up our trash from her relatives' flat, and headed out to meet her friends, Lydia and Daniel. It was a beautiful day, and we recalled some of the fun things that happened on St. Pat's Day, but we both agreed that the little pizza we had the night before was not enough. We walked down Lisburne Road and Lydia met us to take us back to her place.
On the way, however, Lydia pointed out one of her favorite places to eat that had the best pizza, Little Wing Pizzeria. Rebecca and I both kind of stopped and looked at the sign which read, "Biggest pizza in Belfast." In the window was a rack of pies two feet in diameter! Both of us hung over a bit, Rebecca and I decided (with some persuading from Lydia) to invest in the biggest pizza in town. I've been told pizza is kind of a newer food item over here in the UK and a lot of people are still pretty wary of it. But places like Little Wing are gaining good traction. A lot of restaurants in Ireland are also becoming very into locally produced foods and advertise it very well - kind of harkening back to my days in Vermont.
We toted the pizza back to Lydia and Daniel's where we (Rebecca and I) devoured the entire pie. It took a bit of effort, but we did it! Amy and Katie came over and met up with us as well and we all just enjoyed the morning over coffee and photos. Daniel and I, being the two Americans there, chatted it up for a while and the girls did their catching up before both Lydia and Amy move out of Belfast. It was soon time to go and Lydia drove Rebecca and me back to the ferry docks so we didn't have to hire a cab, which was very nice. I can't say enough how awesome my hosts were for the weekend, Rebecca, Amy, and Lydia. Fantastic people!
The ferry ride back to Scotland was much less crowded and much more quiet than on the way to Belfast. I'm sure that the majority of rowdy kids took the morning ferry back. Whatever the case, the sun was out and it was so warm that I spend much of my time out on the smoking decks taking photos of the scenery. Northern Ireland and western Scotland really don't get such beautiful weather that often, so it really was a treat. Rebecca found me on the decks and we just walked around as the ship made it's way back into Loch Ryan. Thanks to the weather, we also got a really good view of an old volcanic plug (a nickname for the solidified conduit through which magma reaches Earth's surface) that is out in the middle of the water, kind of like a focal point for the entire area around it. Back on land, Scotrail was doing work on the train line from Ayr to Glasgow, so our coach drove us all the way back into downtown Glasgow and we then split a cab back to our own flats.
It was just a beautiful, sunny, warm, relaxing, and great day to cap off a perfect St. Paddy's Day weekend! Thanks for sticking through all the way. I hope you've at least enjoyed the photos if you didn't get through all my writing. Here are some more!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
St. Patrick's Day in Belfast
Trip Date: 17 March 2012
A year ago, I was updating my blog from my friend's, Ruth, apartment in Singapore after flying in on St. Patrick's Day from Sydney! I can't believe that I've been able to keep up this blog for so long (a posting rate of 1 entry every 5.2 days!).
Well, back in Belfast, Rebecca and I woke up in the late morning and I grabbed us some coffee and muffins from Starbucks before we headed off to meet with her friend, Amy, and Amy's friend Katie for a day of St. Paddy's Day food, drinks, and festivities. Amy and Rebecca went to secondary school (that's high school, for you American folks) and now lives in Belfast, so she was our primary tour guide for the day. Since we were running a little late, we took a cab to the City Center and kicked off our morning right by wandering around the St. George's Market. The history of marketplaces in Belfast goes back to the mid 1600s, but the current St. George's Market's history goes back to the early industrial 1800s Belfast. This part of town had all sorts of marketplaces where merchants and farmers would come to sell their items. The May family started the modern marketplace, and after acquiring land next to their open-air market, they decided to build the current sandstone, iron, and glass structure you see today. The structure, completed in 1890, was built because farmers "are submitted to sufficient hardships already, without being compelled to stand in the open air in torrents of rain before they can sell their goods." It didn't take long for St. George's Market to become the place to buy your butter and eggs, as the market's motto goes.
Things changed a wee bit during the second World War. The marketplace was still the best place to do your shopping because everything you needed was found, somewhat bountifully, and in close proximity, whereas folks who lived outside of town a bit would have to wait in lines for limited items at their local grocers. It wasn't long though before the Irish were struck by the Germans during the Belfast Blitz of 1941 (Easter Tuesday). After parts of the city were decimated, St. George's Market was turned into a makeshift mortuary for 255 bodies that were brought there for identification. More recently, however, the Market remained open throughout the Troubles which wreaked havoc on other parts of Belfast and has been renovated and restored such that producers of all sorts - farmers, artists, fishermen, and more - still utilize the space a few days each week to see their merchandise.
The four of us wandered around the market for a good while, sampling local cheeses, salsas, curries, vegetables, and even got ourselves some Guinness-soaked Irish Sausages on a bun with egg (called a bap). Super super delicious! It was just after noon when we left the market and headed closer to the City Center to get a good spot along the street to watch Belfast's St. Paddy's Day Parade pass by. The parade was fantastic: not too long, but lots of people were out and those who were in it definitely were having a good time. Belfast has a lot to celebrate this year. All over town there were posters touting that 2012 is "Belfast's Year" as the world remembers the fate of the Titanic on its centennial anniversary (Titanic was built in Belfast - and it was fine when it left the docks, they say!) and they are celebrating the United Kingdom's opportunity to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. Even though they are in London, all UK cities are opening their arms to any visitors that may be coming their way as part of the Olympics. Belfast is even opening up a brand new Titanic Museum in the harbor this year to commemorate the ship-building history of Belfast and the history of that ill-fated voyage.
The tail end of the parade passed by and we followed it a little bit, back past Bittles, the pub Rebecca and I started at the night before, and down to the Albert Memorial Clock. The clock tower was built as a memorial to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, and was finished in 1869. Like so many other famous towers, the tower was built on swampy ground and has taken on a generous lean (4 feet) to one side! But the tower is stunning and the city is paying millions of pounds to try and halt the continuing lean.
While the throngs of people hustled into Custom House Square for some free live music, we meandered through some back alleyways until we got to a little pub called The Duke of York, a pub our restaurant server the night before suggested to us but apparently could not give us directions to. And so it started, the drinking that is. The pub was decked out with any and all sorts of vintage posters of Irish beers and whiskeys, advertisement trays, stickers, and tins. And in true Irish pub fashion, the tables were what looked like refurbished church pews and other benches and stools, and the table were hand crafted out of wood or recycled sewing machine benches.
We had a drink or two and watched as people from the US, Australia, Europe, and Ireland came in and out of the pub, but then it was time to move on because rugby was going to be starting soon, so we marched over to another bar, 21 Social (not a pub as it was much trendier). They had a big screen with rugby on (Scotland v. Italy - Scotland lost...again) but were not playing the commentary and few people were there, so we left our front seat table to find a better setting to watch the Wales v. France and England v. Ireland games.
First we went across the street to a pub, The Cloth Ear, where young Irish dancers were prancing about throughout the pub and you literally had to watch where you were walking or else you'd get a foot in your face. These girls were not joking around. If you were in their way, they were not going to stop for you, but you wouldn't realize it until you came to, sprawled out on the floor - a direct K-O from their dancing shoes. Needless to say, we moved on. It seemed like none of the other pubs people were suggesting worked out. We tried The Garrick, which looked great and they had the game on, but it was small and way too packed for us. And then we tried McCrackens and The Morning Star before finally going back to The Cloth Ear where the dancing had stopped and the Wales-France game was back on in full swing with commentary and everything. Everything but seats. We stood around and shared some stools and drinks for a little while, before I was sent on a reconnaissance mission back to 21 Social to see if our table was still open.
Our table had been taken by a group of guys we saw waiting around before we left that bar earlier in the day, but decided to head back there anyway since their screen was much bigger and the crowd was much more into the game. Drinks were passed and laughs were shared as Wales beat France to win the Six Nations tourney. We didn't have too long to figure out a game plan to find seats to watch the game (as we were standing behind the crowded table of guys). But then one of them suggested two empty stools they had open, so Katie and Amy took those, while Rebecca and I parked it on the floor. So much roomier and right in front of the action. Unfortunately, the action was all England, and they beat Ireland pretty well. And unfortunately for Katie, from England, she was unable to cheer for England as she was totally surrounded by rowdy, drunken, Irish folk. But she'd smile a bit when England did something good or Ireland messed up.
By this time it was quite late in the day, or actually, well into the evening...it's hard to remember at this point, but we needed food. The only open place was McDonald's (eyes are rolling, I know) but it was what we needed, something greasy and salty. When we were finished, we headed toward Filthy McNasty's, the pub that Rebecca and I ended at the night before. We were rendezvousing with another of Rebecca's friends from secondary school, Lydia, her husband, Daniel (a SoCal guy), and some of their friends. It was a bit chilly out, but Filthy's back courtyard was jam packed full of people and had lots of little alcoves where small fires were lit (which is a thing here in lots of pubs - real open fires!). The music was playing, the drinks were flowing, and flowing, and flowing. We met some locals by one of the fires and ended up chatting the rest of the night with them and eventually moved to one of the inside rooms where we could enjoy our drinks without worrying about the cold.
Suffice it to say that we closed out the pub and before we knew it, Rebecca and I walked to a taxi stand with Amy and Katie to see them back home, but we kept walking back to our place, only stopping to pick up a pizza. Once back at Rebecca's aunt's flat, we ate our pizza, enjoyed another beer brewed in Rebecca's hometown, and watched YouTube videos for a while before calling it quits and going to bed. Even with its past history of St. Patrick's Day riots and considering their loss to England in rugby, it was a fun, friendly, and successful SPD - the only kind I assume you can have in Ireland :)
Now we just had to get through the next morning...
A year ago, I was updating my blog from my friend's, Ruth, apartment in Singapore after flying in on St. Patrick's Day from Sydney! I can't believe that I've been able to keep up this blog for so long (a posting rate of 1 entry every 5.2 days!).
Well, back in Belfast, Rebecca and I woke up in the late morning and I grabbed us some coffee and muffins from Starbucks before we headed off to meet with her friend, Amy, and Amy's friend Katie for a day of St. Paddy's Day food, drinks, and festivities. Amy and Rebecca went to secondary school (that's high school, for you American folks) and now lives in Belfast, so she was our primary tour guide for the day. Since we were running a little late, we took a cab to the City Center and kicked off our morning right by wandering around the St. George's Market. The history of marketplaces in Belfast goes back to the mid 1600s, but the current St. George's Market's history goes back to the early industrial 1800s Belfast. This part of town had all sorts of marketplaces where merchants and farmers would come to sell their items. The May family started the modern marketplace, and after acquiring land next to their open-air market, they decided to build the current sandstone, iron, and glass structure you see today. The structure, completed in 1890, was built because farmers "are submitted to sufficient hardships already, without being compelled to stand in the open air in torrents of rain before they can sell their goods." It didn't take long for St. George's Market to become the place to buy your butter and eggs, as the market's motto goes.
Things changed a wee bit during the second World War. The marketplace was still the best place to do your shopping because everything you needed was found, somewhat bountifully, and in close proximity, whereas folks who lived outside of town a bit would have to wait in lines for limited items at their local grocers. It wasn't long though before the Irish were struck by the Germans during the Belfast Blitz of 1941 (Easter Tuesday). After parts of the city were decimated, St. George's Market was turned into a makeshift mortuary for 255 bodies that were brought there for identification. More recently, however, the Market remained open throughout the Troubles which wreaked havoc on other parts of Belfast and has been renovated and restored such that producers of all sorts - farmers, artists, fishermen, and more - still utilize the space a few days each week to see their merchandise.
The four of us wandered around the market for a good while, sampling local cheeses, salsas, curries, vegetables, and even got ourselves some Guinness-soaked Irish Sausages on a bun with egg (called a bap). Super super delicious! It was just after noon when we left the market and headed closer to the City Center to get a good spot along the street to watch Belfast's St. Paddy's Day Parade pass by. The parade was fantastic: not too long, but lots of people were out and those who were in it definitely were having a good time. Belfast has a lot to celebrate this year. All over town there were posters touting that 2012 is "Belfast's Year" as the world remembers the fate of the Titanic on its centennial anniversary (Titanic was built in Belfast - and it was fine when it left the docks, they say!) and they are celebrating the United Kingdom's opportunity to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. Even though they are in London, all UK cities are opening their arms to any visitors that may be coming their way as part of the Olympics. Belfast is even opening up a brand new Titanic Museum in the harbor this year to commemorate the ship-building history of Belfast and the history of that ill-fated voyage.
The tail end of the parade passed by and we followed it a little bit, back past Bittles, the pub Rebecca and I started at the night before, and down to the Albert Memorial Clock. The clock tower was built as a memorial to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, and was finished in 1869. Like so many other famous towers, the tower was built on swampy ground and has taken on a generous lean (4 feet) to one side! But the tower is stunning and the city is paying millions of pounds to try and halt the continuing lean.
While the throngs of people hustled into Custom House Square for some free live music, we meandered through some back alleyways until we got to a little pub called The Duke of York, a pub our restaurant server the night before suggested to us but apparently could not give us directions to. And so it started, the drinking that is. The pub was decked out with any and all sorts of vintage posters of Irish beers and whiskeys, advertisement trays, stickers, and tins. And in true Irish pub fashion, the tables were what looked like refurbished church pews and other benches and stools, and the table were hand crafted out of wood or recycled sewing machine benches.
We had a drink or two and watched as people from the US, Australia, Europe, and Ireland came in and out of the pub, but then it was time to move on because rugby was going to be starting soon, so we marched over to another bar, 21 Social (not a pub as it was much trendier). They had a big screen with rugby on (Scotland v. Italy - Scotland lost...again) but were not playing the commentary and few people were there, so we left our front seat table to find a better setting to watch the Wales v. France and England v. Ireland games.
First we went across the street to a pub, The Cloth Ear, where young Irish dancers were prancing about throughout the pub and you literally had to watch where you were walking or else you'd get a foot in your face. These girls were not joking around. If you were in their way, they were not going to stop for you, but you wouldn't realize it until you came to, sprawled out on the floor - a direct K-O from their dancing shoes. Needless to say, we moved on. It seemed like none of the other pubs people were suggesting worked out. We tried The Garrick, which looked great and they had the game on, but it was small and way too packed for us. And then we tried McCrackens and The Morning Star before finally going back to The Cloth Ear where the dancing had stopped and the Wales-France game was back on in full swing with commentary and everything. Everything but seats. We stood around and shared some stools and drinks for a little while, before I was sent on a reconnaissance mission back to 21 Social to see if our table was still open.
Our table had been taken by a group of guys we saw waiting around before we left that bar earlier in the day, but decided to head back there anyway since their screen was much bigger and the crowd was much more into the game. Drinks were passed and laughs were shared as Wales beat France to win the Six Nations tourney. We didn't have too long to figure out a game plan to find seats to watch the game (as we were standing behind the crowded table of guys). But then one of them suggested two empty stools they had open, so Katie and Amy took those, while Rebecca and I parked it on the floor. So much roomier and right in front of the action. Unfortunately, the action was all England, and they beat Ireland pretty well. And unfortunately for Katie, from England, she was unable to cheer for England as she was totally surrounded by rowdy, drunken, Irish folk. But she'd smile a bit when England did something good or Ireland messed up.
By this time it was quite late in the day, or actually, well into the evening...it's hard to remember at this point, but we needed food. The only open place was McDonald's (eyes are rolling, I know) but it was what we needed, something greasy and salty. When we were finished, we headed toward Filthy McNasty's, the pub that Rebecca and I ended at the night before. We were rendezvousing with another of Rebecca's friends from secondary school, Lydia, her husband, Daniel (a SoCal guy), and some of their friends. It was a bit chilly out, but Filthy's back courtyard was jam packed full of people and had lots of little alcoves where small fires were lit (which is a thing here in lots of pubs - real open fires!). The music was playing, the drinks were flowing, and flowing, and flowing. We met some locals by one of the fires and ended up chatting the rest of the night with them and eventually moved to one of the inside rooms where we could enjoy our drinks without worrying about the cold.
Suffice it to say that we closed out the pub and before we knew it, Rebecca and I walked to a taxi stand with Amy and Katie to see them back home, but we kept walking back to our place, only stopping to pick up a pizza. Once back at Rebecca's aunt's flat, we ate our pizza, enjoyed another beer brewed in Rebecca's hometown, and watched YouTube videos for a while before calling it quits and going to bed. Even with its past history of St. Patrick's Day riots and considering their loss to England in rugby, it was a fun, friendly, and successful SPD - the only kind I assume you can have in Ireland :)
Now we just had to get through the next morning...
Monday, March 19, 2012
Rail and Sail to Belfast
Trip Date: March 16, 2012
**Photos are at the bottom. There will be many more from this weekend. Just haven't gotten that far yet!
Wow! What a whirlwind weekend! A few weeks ago one of my classmates, Rebecca, told us she was going home to Northern Ireland and any of us who wanted could join her in Belfast while she was there visiting some of her friends before they moved elsewhere. But that's besides the point. The important thing is that after some careful consideration decided it was in my best interest to celebrate St. Paddy's (not Patty's) in Belfast because, really, when would I have the chance to do that again. Certainly not next year when I'm in Australia.
Rebecca left on Thursday for Northern Ireland to visit her family a few hours out of Belfast and that night I went to see Monty Python's Spamalot with some friends at the beautiful King's Theatre in the Glasgow City Center. It's a hilarious musical with awesome music, though I have to admit that many of the jokes were totally lost on me. Nevertheless, I've been wanting to see it for a while and finally got the chance. We grabbed a few drinks after the show, but what I thought was going to be a sort-of late night, ended up being a very very late night and I ended up crawling home at 3am and climbed into bed.
It was important to get up early the next morning because I had to get to the city center to catch a train, which would take me to a bus, which would take me to a car/passenger ferry, which would take me to Belfast. It's a great package deal called the Rail and Sail: for £54 you get a return foot passenger ticket right from Glasgow to Belfast!
Since I didn't get a whole lot of sleep and still had to pack, I was in a fluster when I woke up. I made myself breakfast and packed what I thought I needed and was planning on heading to school quickly to pick up some papers to read on the train and ferry. I hate mornings and can never get going and before I knew it, I was turning the corner to the Partick Train Station with 20 minutes to spare before my train left. The trouble is that my train was leaving from the Central Station in the city center, which was definitely more than 20 minutes away, even if the subway got to Partick right on time. Luckily, there was a whole stand of taxis ready to go, so I climbed in the first one and told him to book it to Central Station. He was in no such hurry, and I kept looking at my phone, watching the minutes count down.
We finally pulled up to Central Station and the station clocks read 11:38 when I walked in (my train was supposed to leave at 11:42). There were too many monitors for me to make sense of anything with such little time left, but I couldn't find a station agent anywhere, so I walked around the waiting area a few times before I found someone and asked from which platform the Rail and Sail train was leaving. The lady frowned and said the direct train already left. My heart sank, but I wasn't giving up. My recollection from getting my tickets was that I needed to catch a bus at some point, so I asked about the 11:42 train. Something clicked in the agent's mind and she realized that my ticket was not the direct ticket and told me I should just be able to catch the train from Platform 10 to Ayr. I thanked her and booked it for the platform, and just as I sat down on the train, I felt it lurch forward. The luck of the Irish was truly on my side that morning.
The journey from Glasgow to the small town of Ayr was not too spectacular, and neither was the bus ride from Ayr to Stranraer. It was raining and since I was still fairly sleep-deprived, I just plugged into my iPod and dozed off. The bus did start following a road right along the ocean once we got to Girvan and if the sun had been out, the views of the Northern Irish Sea would have been amazing! But even in the rain, the town of Girvan looked idyllic, with seaside cottages built right up to the edge of the water! It wasn't much longer until the pulled into the Stena Line ferry docks on Loch Ryan and I easily passed through security (airport style), got a mocha for my caffeine fix, found an outlet to plug my iPod in, and connected to the free wifi so I could download a few of the papers I didn't have time to retrieve that morning.
Soon enough they called everyone onto the boat and let me tell you, it was a ZOO! I'm not sure how many people can fit in the boat, but it was packed to the gills. There were tons of people heading to Belfast; lots of young people heading to Belfast for St. Paddy's Day, including some unforgivingly stereotypical American backpackers, and even a group of young teenage boys wearing pink bunny suits (I'm still lost on that one!). Belfast was going to be an exciting weekend, not only because of St. Paddy's Day, but also because it was the final weekend of the Six Nations Rugby Tournament and Ireland (that's both Northern and the Republic) was playing England in the final match. BIG GAME! But the boat was beautiful and new. There was a typical food-court style room and seating area filling the main deck and on the deck above there were more refined and quieter seating areas with iPads, news casts, a cinema, and a trucker's club. What's more is that the ship also has a fully functional hotel and day spa you can treat yourself to for a few extra quid!
I was fortunate enough to find a big comfy seat in front of a large window and it didn't take long before the massive ship was pulling away from the docks. Sleep deprivation finally caught up to me and I passed out, sleeping most of the way across the water. I did wake up in time, though, to take my camera and head outside to the smoking decks as we were pulling into Belfast harbor. It was still drizzly, but I managed to snap a few (hundred) photos of the harbor, including the famed cranes with the monikers, Samson and Goliath, of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company. In the corner of the harbor is a beautiful new building that will house the Titanic Museum, slated to open this year, celebrating the centennial of the ship's inaugural, final, and infamous voyage (which is interestingly enough in the news recently as a new hypothesis was put forward suggesting an unusually strong gravitational pull from the sun and moon caused super high tides three months earlier, allowing for a massive iceberg to float so far south).
The ferry's captain effortlessly steered the boat into it's slip along the harbor and everyone disembarked rather quickly. I phoned Rebecca to let her know I was safely in Belfast and we arranged plans to meet up in the city center, so I caught a city bus from the ferry terminal to City Hall - a very, very easy connection to make (and cheap, too).
Belfast has a reputation for being dangerous, rowdy, and riotous and the fears are not totally unfounded what with the Troubles, severe border control, and the recent St. Patrick's Day riots of 2009. The last decade, though, has seen a sharp decrease in the amount of violence between the Protestant and Catholic Irish factions within the city, though in many places and in certain pubs you'd best not talk about the wrong sports team, political party, or religion, because in Belfast, they are often all one-in-the-same. While my family was in [the Republic of] Ireland this summer, my brother and his fiance were in Belfast, and though I may not remember what they said exactly, I seem to think they were glad they didn't stay too long. As soon as I got off the bus in the city center, I wondered why.
Downtown Belfast is beautiful! Especially at night when everything is lit up. I took a few photos of the City Hall while Rebecca came to find me. We grabbed dinner at a very fancy little restaurant called, Deane's, for some upscale seafood (who knew that fish pie could be so good? oh, and they have a desert or salad and dinner for £14 sometimes) and then got some suggestions on pubs from our server who directed to a place called the Duke of York. Well, we did not find the Duke of York, but instead came across the Bittles Bar. Bittles is incredibly tiny, occupying the corner of a very narrow triangular building, and no more than 10 tables inside with one bartender running the whole show. But there were paintings of historic Irish athletes (George Best, Barry McGuigan) and politicians including one of an embrace between the leaders of the Protestant and Catholic political factions. Rebecca and I chatted away in the corner underneath a painting of the Titanic, but we didn't stay for too long as some very drunk fellows at the next table over were getting to be a little too unpredictable.
With our Guinnesses finished, we walked back across town to the Crown Bar Liquor Saloon, which is where many laborers would stop in for a wee pint after a day's work. It's famous for being opened by an Irish man and his English wife - which is odd to begin with - but the story goes, or so I'm told, that the woman desperately wanted to name the bar the Crown Bar in honor of the British crown. Her husband agreed, surprisingly, and offered to have a crown beautifully displayed....in mosaiced tiles on the floor when you walk in so you step on the crown every time you walk in for a drink. Again, that's the way the story goes and I can't confirm it right now. But the Crown Bar is a masterpiece of tiled mosaics, carved wood, tin ceiling tiles, stained glass, and metal work. The main bar area has no tables, though there are 10 fully-enclosed booths in the bar for private discussions between patrons. Above the bar is a board with 10 circular holes each assigned a letter A-J that corresponded to a specific booth. If you needed something from the bartender, you would just hit a button in your booth and the corresponding light turned on, and you would soon get service without losing privacy. Awesome place and definitely work a peek when you're in Belfast!
The night was getting on and we started heading back to Rebecca's aunt and uncle's flat where we were staying while they were out of town. On the way, though, we stopped in one more pub called Filthy McNasty's where we topped off with another few pints of Guinness before calling it a night. We hailed a cab to take us the rest of the way. Rebecca asked me, on the way back to Glasgow on Sunday, if I noticed that the cabbies wanted to know where you wanted to before you got in because many cab drivers will not drive into certain parts of town as they can just be too volatile. But where we were going was fine and we soon crashed into bed without alarms set so we could just sleep.
(Either I've been itching to write for a while or my memory of last weekend is just still so clear that I have a lot to write about! More coming soon, but I've got to go to bed!)
**Photos are at the bottom. There will be many more from this weekend. Just haven't gotten that far yet!
Wow! What a whirlwind weekend! A few weeks ago one of my classmates, Rebecca, told us she was going home to Northern Ireland and any of us who wanted could join her in Belfast while she was there visiting some of her friends before they moved elsewhere. But that's besides the point. The important thing is that after some careful consideration decided it was in my best interest to celebrate St. Paddy's (not Patty's) in Belfast because, really, when would I have the chance to do that again. Certainly not next year when I'm in Australia.
Rebecca left on Thursday for Northern Ireland to visit her family a few hours out of Belfast and that night I went to see Monty Python's Spamalot with some friends at the beautiful King's Theatre in the Glasgow City Center. It's a hilarious musical with awesome music, though I have to admit that many of the jokes were totally lost on me. Nevertheless, I've been wanting to see it for a while and finally got the chance. We grabbed a few drinks after the show, but what I thought was going to be a sort-of late night, ended up being a very very late night and I ended up crawling home at 3am and climbed into bed.
It was important to get up early the next morning because I had to get to the city center to catch a train, which would take me to a bus, which would take me to a car/passenger ferry, which would take me to Belfast. It's a great package deal called the Rail and Sail: for £54 you get a return foot passenger ticket right from Glasgow to Belfast!
Since I didn't get a whole lot of sleep and still had to pack, I was in a fluster when I woke up. I made myself breakfast and packed what I thought I needed and was planning on heading to school quickly to pick up some papers to read on the train and ferry. I hate mornings and can never get going and before I knew it, I was turning the corner to the Partick Train Station with 20 minutes to spare before my train left. The trouble is that my train was leaving from the Central Station in the city center, which was definitely more than 20 minutes away, even if the subway got to Partick right on time. Luckily, there was a whole stand of taxis ready to go, so I climbed in the first one and told him to book it to Central Station. He was in no such hurry, and I kept looking at my phone, watching the minutes count down.
We finally pulled up to Central Station and the station clocks read 11:38 when I walked in (my train was supposed to leave at 11:42). There were too many monitors for me to make sense of anything with such little time left, but I couldn't find a station agent anywhere, so I walked around the waiting area a few times before I found someone and asked from which platform the Rail and Sail train was leaving. The lady frowned and said the direct train already left. My heart sank, but I wasn't giving up. My recollection from getting my tickets was that I needed to catch a bus at some point, so I asked about the 11:42 train. Something clicked in the agent's mind and she realized that my ticket was not the direct ticket and told me I should just be able to catch the train from Platform 10 to Ayr. I thanked her and booked it for the platform, and just as I sat down on the train, I felt it lurch forward. The luck of the Irish was truly on my side that morning.
The journey from Glasgow to the small town of Ayr was not too spectacular, and neither was the bus ride from Ayr to Stranraer. It was raining and since I was still fairly sleep-deprived, I just plugged into my iPod and dozed off. The bus did start following a road right along the ocean once we got to Girvan and if the sun had been out, the views of the Northern Irish Sea would have been amazing! But even in the rain, the town of Girvan looked idyllic, with seaside cottages built right up to the edge of the water! It wasn't much longer until the pulled into the Stena Line ferry docks on Loch Ryan and I easily passed through security (airport style), got a mocha for my caffeine fix, found an outlet to plug my iPod in, and connected to the free wifi so I could download a few of the papers I didn't have time to retrieve that morning.
Soon enough they called everyone onto the boat and let me tell you, it was a ZOO! I'm not sure how many people can fit in the boat, but it was packed to the gills. There were tons of people heading to Belfast; lots of young people heading to Belfast for St. Paddy's Day, including some unforgivingly stereotypical American backpackers, and even a group of young teenage boys wearing pink bunny suits (I'm still lost on that one!). Belfast was going to be an exciting weekend, not only because of St. Paddy's Day, but also because it was the final weekend of the Six Nations Rugby Tournament and Ireland (that's both Northern and the Republic) was playing England in the final match. BIG GAME! But the boat was beautiful and new. There was a typical food-court style room and seating area filling the main deck and on the deck above there were more refined and quieter seating areas with iPads, news casts, a cinema, and a trucker's club. What's more is that the ship also has a fully functional hotel and day spa you can treat yourself to for a few extra quid!
I was fortunate enough to find a big comfy seat in front of a large window and it didn't take long before the massive ship was pulling away from the docks. Sleep deprivation finally caught up to me and I passed out, sleeping most of the way across the water. I did wake up in time, though, to take my camera and head outside to the smoking decks as we were pulling into Belfast harbor. It was still drizzly, but I managed to snap a few (hundred) photos of the harbor, including the famed cranes with the monikers, Samson and Goliath, of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company. In the corner of the harbor is a beautiful new building that will house the Titanic Museum, slated to open this year, celebrating the centennial of the ship's inaugural, final, and infamous voyage (which is interestingly enough in the news recently as a new hypothesis was put forward suggesting an unusually strong gravitational pull from the sun and moon caused super high tides three months earlier, allowing for a massive iceberg to float so far south).
The ferry's captain effortlessly steered the boat into it's slip along the harbor and everyone disembarked rather quickly. I phoned Rebecca to let her know I was safely in Belfast and we arranged plans to meet up in the city center, so I caught a city bus from the ferry terminal to City Hall - a very, very easy connection to make (and cheap, too).
Belfast has a reputation for being dangerous, rowdy, and riotous and the fears are not totally unfounded what with the Troubles, severe border control, and the recent St. Patrick's Day riots of 2009. The last decade, though, has seen a sharp decrease in the amount of violence between the Protestant and Catholic Irish factions within the city, though in many places and in certain pubs you'd best not talk about the wrong sports team, political party, or religion, because in Belfast, they are often all one-in-the-same. While my family was in [the Republic of] Ireland this summer, my brother and his fiance were in Belfast, and though I may not remember what they said exactly, I seem to think they were glad they didn't stay too long. As soon as I got off the bus in the city center, I wondered why.
Downtown Belfast is beautiful! Especially at night when everything is lit up. I took a few photos of the City Hall while Rebecca came to find me. We grabbed dinner at a very fancy little restaurant called, Deane's, for some upscale seafood (who knew that fish pie could be so good? oh, and they have a desert or salad and dinner for £14 sometimes) and then got some suggestions on pubs from our server who directed to a place called the Duke of York. Well, we did not find the Duke of York, but instead came across the Bittles Bar. Bittles is incredibly tiny, occupying the corner of a very narrow triangular building, and no more than 10 tables inside with one bartender running the whole show. But there were paintings of historic Irish athletes (George Best, Barry McGuigan) and politicians including one of an embrace between the leaders of the Protestant and Catholic political factions. Rebecca and I chatted away in the corner underneath a painting of the Titanic, but we didn't stay for too long as some very drunk fellows at the next table over were getting to be a little too unpredictable.
With our Guinnesses finished, we walked back across town to the Crown Bar Liquor Saloon, which is where many laborers would stop in for a wee pint after a day's work. It's famous for being opened by an Irish man and his English wife - which is odd to begin with - but the story goes, or so I'm told, that the woman desperately wanted to name the bar the Crown Bar in honor of the British crown. Her husband agreed, surprisingly, and offered to have a crown beautifully displayed....in mosaiced tiles on the floor when you walk in so you step on the crown every time you walk in for a drink. Again, that's the way the story goes and I can't confirm it right now. But the Crown Bar is a masterpiece of tiled mosaics, carved wood, tin ceiling tiles, stained glass, and metal work. The main bar area has no tables, though there are 10 fully-enclosed booths in the bar for private discussions between patrons. Above the bar is a board with 10 circular holes each assigned a letter A-J that corresponded to a specific booth. If you needed something from the bartender, you would just hit a button in your booth and the corresponding light turned on, and you would soon get service without losing privacy. Awesome place and definitely work a peek when you're in Belfast!
The night was getting on and we started heading back to Rebecca's aunt and uncle's flat where we were staying while they were out of town. On the way, though, we stopped in one more pub called Filthy McNasty's where we topped off with another few pints of Guinness before calling it a night. We hailed a cab to take us the rest of the way. Rebecca asked me, on the way back to Glasgow on Sunday, if I noticed that the cabbies wanted to know where you wanted to before you got in because many cab drivers will not drive into certain parts of town as they can just be too volatile. But where we were going was fine and we soon crashed into bed without alarms set so we could just sleep.
(Either I've been itching to write for a while or my memory of last weekend is just still so clear that I have a lot to write about! More coming soon, but I've got to go to bed!)
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