Belfast

After intermediate stops in Galway and Dublin, I took a bus to Belfast, Northern Ireland.  I began the afternoon with a fairly indirect route to my hostel, observing the sights along the way.

I spent the evening getting to know the staff of my hostel, most of whom were from Spain.  They were kind enough to let me fumble through a bit of Spanish with them.  Learning a second language seems terribly difficult.

The next consisted of a trip to Northern Ireland’s best known geological destination, the Giant’s Causeway.  Cooling lava flows resulted in the formation of crystalline shaped chunks of basalt rock, now left in surreal column-like formations.  The “causeway” came from a legend that a giant had once built a land path to Scotland using these rocks.  We had a lovely tour guide who told us of this folklore and of various cultural and historical elements of the causeway’s past.  We also stopped at a castle and various lookouts through the course of the day.  The driver had planned for a quick stop at Bushmills, Northern Ireland’s most prestigious whiskey distillery, but we were caught behind a traffic accident and had to forfeit that part of the trip.

After a long day of touring, I met a new friend at my hostel and we went for some Guinness and traditional Irish music.  We were surprised to find that “trad music” actually meant cotton-eye joe and wagon wheel, but we were not to be deterred in having a good time.

While the city is an excellent destination for drinking, museums, and architecture, it is best known as the epicenter of Irish republican and English loyalist conflict on the island of Ireland.  The premier tour experience of this conflict is called the Black Taxi.  On this tour, my friends and I were taken through significant sites of the conflict by a former IRA member in his cab (which was white, LOL).  This included various walls of murals and both loyalist and republican neighborhoods.  On both sides, significant blood had been spilled and either sides fighters (labelled terrorists by the opposition) were immortalized on neighborhood buildings.

After the tour, we headed to a local market for lunch.  I was greeted with an unexpectedly delicious cubano sandwhich.  One of my new friends was nice enough to give me her bus ticket, which I used to tour a bit of the city on the way to the Titanic museum.

During the industrial revolution, Belfast became a center of textile manufacturing and ship building.  The influx of laborers brought together a particularly large number of skilled workers, providing an opportunity to push the limits of commercial manufacturing.  Many tremendous ships were built in Belfast, but the Titanic is undoubtedly its most famous.  The Titanic museum is excellent, but quite expensive.  It features historical context, a thorough detailing of the ships design and construction, which was truly a feat for its time.  This leads into the description of the ship’s living quarters and stories of those who were on board.  Every detail is explored, with a beautiful depiction of the ship’s last moments, immortalized in the telegraph messages sent to the surrounding ships.  Finally, the exhibit ends with the rediscovery of the ship.  I particularly enjoyed seeing the unmanned submarine that is the preferred mode of underwater exploration these days.

I then enjoyed a long walk home, taking in the sights along the way.  Belfast’s architecture certainly did not disappoint.

I spent my final day in Belfast on a trip to the Ulster museum and the park nearby.  The museum was excellent, and I must say that my drawing skills are better than I expected.  Shout out to my fifth-grade art teacher.

Now off to Glasgow, Scotland.