Another day, another tour =)
This day, our day began with another hotel breakfast that was quite enjoyable. Again with the ham/bacon, but this time they did also have like oatmeal, eggs, fruit, all sorts of juices, yogurt...coffee, of course. Good stuff!
We then got on a bus to take a driving tour of Belfast. This was quite an interesting contrast, as the tour guide this time was a non-religious atheist, who really sort of skimmed over the Troubles and stuff that had happened. She showed us the murals, but sort of rolled her eyes and thought the talking about the religious fanaticism was a lot of bother that, but her actions, seemed silly to her. She seemed slightly, however, to lean towards British Loyalism. Just a feeling, there...
From there, we drove over near the Titanic memorial. We were able to get off the bus, see the dry dock, which I believe is still the largest in the world, and see where they built the Titanic. The quote of the day for this portion of the trip was the bus driver said "You know what we say here in Belfast, don'tcha lass?" "No, please share..." "Well, we say 'she was afloat when she left Belfast'", said with a brogue and a chuckle. The sheer scale of what occurred there, like a hundred years ago is incredibly impressive. I wanted to take a picture of the picture that represents the ship inside the dry dock, because I don't really think you can get a sense of it otherwise...
At any rate, it was a super fun thing to visit and say that I've seen. I bought a 100 year anniversary post card, enjoyed the view, read about the pump house, saw the new museum that's being erected and resembles a giant iceburg, which I find incredibly ironic. Apparently from the air, it's supposed to look like the WHITE STAR from the WHITE STAR LINE that built the Titanic, but it's all silver and shiny. Here's the most current pic I could find on the Interwebs. There's one in my pics, as well. I guess the big celebration for the 100 year thing happens next year in 2012.
As we were driving around, we stopped at this house that reminded me of the US White House that's set back down this looong drive. It's closed behind iron gates, and the gates say "NO PARKING: GATE TO BE KEPT CLEAR AT ALL TIME". Apparently, such signs are merely a suggestion, as our tour bus backed up right to the sign, actually, and then allowed us all to go out and look at the house =) Irony, that =)
As we were driving back to the hotel, we passed this, COMPOUND is the only work I can think to express it, of the Police Headquarters of Northern Ireland. This looked like military bases look in the US. It was...interesting to see a police force like that...
After we got back to the hotel, we had some time to kill before eating a group dinner that night, so we decided to walk down the street and see if we could find a market or something interesting to see. We found St. George's market, an indoor market that was pretty amazing! There was lots of cool stuff in there! Everything from pastries, cheeses and amazing Indian food to textiles, beautiful knitted and crafted scarves, wood work items, Irish memorabilia and history stuff, used and new books, toys, jams and jellies, you name it, it was there and it was incredible! I managed to purchase a beautiful scarf that I cannot wait to make a part of some belly dance costume! We shopped....man, this was seriously one of the few times I wish I had had unlimited funds! One of my favorite things was a tabletop trebuchet! I wanted to buy it for my honey so badly, but it would have been bulky and hard to transport back home and was also pricey for a girl in a severe budget. I got his card, though, and might still absolutely need to own something like that!
For dinner this night, we went to the Opera House, which was next to our hotel, maybe ten steps away. The food was okay, the dessert was funky looking and odd, with freeze dried meringue, or something like that, but it was an adventure! After dinner, some of us went to the Crown Pub and Bar. We had heard about this bar, and actually went in the day before, but it was SO packed that we couldn't find a place to sit, so we went to the pub across the street. They have these little cubby holes, with closed doors to give those inside a measure of privacy. These were used for noble and nefarious practices in the past, to be sure =) We were also told a story about how the builder of the original building was for Irish independence, and his wife was a loyalist. She agreed to let him build the bar if he paid homage to England's king. So, there is a Crown at the threshold where folks can wipe their feet as they enter =) I LIKE this Irish humor! The grand total? I think we fit 11 people in one of the cubbies and managed a group picture. Good times!
We had to leave SUPER early for the airport the next morning, so it was an early night, lots of relaxation, repacking, for me a tad bit of laundry, and appreciating the fact that I got to room by myself. It caused a huge amount of stress when it was happening, but there were many times during the trip that I would not have asked for a roomie. =) Thank you, Universe, for knowing what I needed even when I didn't =)
~Peace.
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