This day dawned, and it was time to say good-bye to beautiful Dublin, Ireland. You were good to me, Dublin. You showed me Bullmer's Cider, the Guiness plant, Malahide Castle, and so very many other things. I was serenaded, got to be drunk while my nephew was celebrating his birthday in another part of the world, and walk home at 3am with a gallant gentleman! I hope that I can return and visit you again some day!
We got on the bus and got to enjoy the gorgeous green countryside of Ireland in the Summer. It rained off and on, but all we saw was beautiful and worthy of appreciation. About half way there, we stopped at this very cool "applegreen" store. It was part play area for small children, had a Burger King inside, and what looked like a gourmet deli and food store too! I got some drinks, took a picture of the "you are here" sign, and got back on the bus. It was a short excursion, but good to stretch the legs...
We arrived in Belfast, and pulled up to our hotel, the Europa! We later found out that our hotel was in the Guiness Book of World Records....as the most BOMBED hotel in the world! There's a whole lot of story behind that, but suffice to say, I am relieved that I didn't know that until our last night there =) I would have been a bit more nervous...
The Europa, though, was pretty cool. I was almost immediately surprised that things seemed very formal in Belfast. Of course, we were in a fancy hotel with lots of weddings and other things happening in and around it, but lots of people were dressed up. We live in Reno. We don't dress up, really. We had to wait awhile for our rooms, and they left our luggage in the lobby. Sure, the concierge was right there, but it still made me nervous to leave my stuff there...
We walked across the street and ate lunch at a pub. It was the only time, the entire time I was there, that I ate a burger and it was pretty disappointing. I might live in the cheap food capitol of the world, but I also appreciate good food. Should have had the salad....that will teach me to eat poorly =) The cider was good, though, as was the company =)
We walked down and immediately encountered great buildings and it turned out there was a festival and parade happening at one of the city's center buildings that day! It couldn't have been more perfect! It was the Lord Mayor's Parade, and it's theme was "One World, One Future, One Vision". I can't tell you how much this appealed to me! We saw a pink, colorful dog or large animal thingie, a metallic robot, and lots of colorful costumes, dancing, vendors....looked like a great time with lots of people! The atmosphere was very festive! Since returning home, I've discovered that Belfast has its youngest mayor ever, and he's doing pretty cool things. I wish him luck, there is a lot of healing that needs to take place in this community!
We were trying to find a place to exchange money and we asked these young men who were selling the tour bus tickets. They fought about it for a bit, resulting in one of my favorite moments from Belfast, that was luckily caught on film. The ending comment between them was "feck ye". The people in Belfast were nothing if not genuine!
We made it back to the hotel and finally got to get our stuff into our rooms. My room was nice, very classy looking with glass doors in the bathroom. My immediate view wasn't great, but looking out and up, I got a gorgeous mountain view!
Riding the elevator down to go to dinner, I ended up in the elevator with a very amusig bridal side of a wedding party, where the dad was teasing the daughter about farting in the elevator and leaving it for everyone else to stew in. She was mortified, and I spent the ride down chuckling...and holding my breath =)
We had some time to explore more before dinner, so we decided to walk up and head for the museum and Botanical Gardens. Along the way we passed the Queen's University, which was a beautiful place to snap pictures and they had a gorgeous garden right out front. Along this walk, I took a pretty major spill and fell hard! You will see in my pics, a golden colored mandala that was hanging on the wall. I saw it from outside the small park where it was, and rushed inside to take a picture of it. Along the way, the stones on the walk were very slick from rain and moss and I slid across the stones and ate shit hard! I scraped my elbow and knee and took quite a bit of a tumble, but was mostly okay. I WAS sore for several days, but was glad the injuries weren't more extensive. I did NOT need to end up with crutches or stitches during my trip! There was a little blood, but I didn't tear any of my clothing, and dirt washes off =)
The gardens were lovely. We saw many gorgeous trees, including one poor tree that looked as though it were in jail! I don't know what a poor little tree has to do to have a cage built around it, but maybe someone thought they were protecting the tree, or there's a reason not immediately clear why this happened, but it was quite a site! We came across this amazing giant green house that was called the Palm House. It reminds me of stories I've read of great manors that have huge green houses on their grounds, or perhaps solarium's or private inside gardens where rich people have gardeners that create wonderlands of plants and flowers to delight all those passing through. This was certainly that! Everything from plants that actually looked like huge, hairy spiders, reaching down to spin you inside their webs, to beautiful palm trees, and gorgeous flowers and grapes, it was a green wonderland! The beds outside the Palm House were bare, and we wondered if the greenery inside moved outside later in the year, but we never found out the answer to that...
We passed a mural, a fairy glenn or entrance to a fairy kingdom, surely, then we made our way to the arbor and rose gardens, which were also amazing, beautiful, and odiferously enchanting. We passed many awesome and ancient tree friends along the way, too. I saw one tree that looked like a Treant to me, from Tolkien. Gorgeous! It was interesting to me, in the rose garden, that the yellow and white roses smelled the best. Even if there was a hint of yellow, or mostly yellow with red rims, they smelled very much stronger than the red or purple or other colors of roses. Another grand adventure, and we met up with some others of our group here and chatted for a minute.
We walked to the museum, and got there just in time to be told that it was closing at 5pm and it was like, 5 minutes til. We thought we would come back later, but we never made it back. I am okay with this. We did see an amazing piece of metal sculpture outside that you will see in my pictures. I took the pic because it reminded me of my welding teacher John Septien and what he taught us about perspective and making sure a piece is interesting from all sides. This was certainly that, and I tipped my umbrella to John for being my teacher many times on my trip, and teaching me how to appreciate such things...
We walked back down on our free day in Belfast, and had seen or read something while on our travels that said if we wanted to know the "true story" of the history and troubles that have plagued Belfast, to find a black cab and ask the driver if he'd take us on a tour of the murals. We decided this sounded like a pretty nifty idea, and everyone else was shy, so I approached a cab driver. The first one we approached said he was a little young, but to go to cabs up and talk to that guy, he could help us...
We approached, and he was a rough looking guy, kinda, an obvious facial scar, gray hair, and it's interesting to understand the accents in this part of Ireland. We discussed what we wanted, and he said he could do that and we negotiated a price that seemed very reasonable to us and entered the cab. The cabs themselves are somewhat a wonder because I expected to be very cramped in the small space, but they are actually quite roomy for how small they are, and have forward and back facing seating as well as allowing a passenger to sit beside the driver. Then there's the whole driving on the wrong side of the road thing and having the drivers side of the vehicle on the opposite side...but we won't go there...
Our guides name was Stevie, and he started out by showing us a large, black plastic bullet that was an example of those shot by British troops at civilians during the times of unrest in Northern Ireland, also called "The Troubles". This issue is huge and there are many sides to it. We saw the Catholic side, and I admit that the view we were presented by the guide was colored by his experiences, but it was fascinating, nonetheless. To read generally about the Troubles, check out the Wikipedia explanation for an overview, or the BBC for more detail.
One of the first photos that Stevie showed us was of himself as a young man, lobbing an anti-tank explosive device into a British tank. At first we were somewhat timid, and I regret I don't have a picture of that particular picture, but one of my travel mates does, and I hope to be able to add it at some point. As a result of that, he spent ten years in prison as a terrorist. He took us to the main mural that is at least a block long, there are many pictures of it in my stuff. We got out and he talked to us about what it was like to live during that time. In the pictures of the mural, notice the barbed wire that is still across the top of the wall. It was very disconcerting to see that everywhere, or to see the signs near people's homes that said "NOTICE: CCTV in use"...there, 'Big Brother' is truly watching. He says people weren't really scared because it was just the way it was. There was really no choice but to keep living and carrying on with day to day life. They were under curfew 22 hours a day. Anything they needed to obtain outside their homes had to be accomplished in two hours a day or you risked getting shot. In response to how he got involved with the IRA, he said everyone was involved, it's just what you did if you were young and male.
He then showed us a piece of barbed wire. He said he dug that piece of wire out from the cell where he lived for those ten years and he looks at it every day to remember where he's been, how far he's come and where he is now. It's a reminder. He said it's important for people like us to visit Belfast and see how things were when stuff happened. He showed us many pictures where there were tanks and burned out buses, but we saw the current, nice and clean, civilized street. It was very, very striking, and very sobering. We saw memorials dedicated to those who've been killed in these conflicts, some going back to the early 1900's, up to very recent. There was one very poignant display where there were pictures along the entire wall and large red lettered words MURDERED and what date and general circumstances the individuals were killed under. Women, children, men, this violence was non-discriminatory. This was a very emotionally heavy tour, but it's sort of like visiting Auschwitz. It's our obligation as humans to know about stuff like this so it can't happen again.
At one point, because we had been in the cab for awhile, one of our members had to use the restroom. Stevie was nice enough to call his mum and ask if we could use her facilities, as we were near her home when we told him we needed to stop. He was a lovely man, his mum was very sweet, and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience of getting to meet him and experience a few hours of him, having him share his memories with us.
We saw different sections of the "Freedom Wall", erected to "protect" the Protestant loyalists from the scourge of the Catholics. One of the memorials we saw was very near the edge of the wall. Stevie showed us that although everyone talks peacefully and like everything is better now, people are still afraid. They build cages around their porches facing the all, so no one gets hurt of killed if someone hefts a bomb over the wall. I CANNOT imagine living like that! I've never been more happy, or felt more ashamed to live in the safety and ease of the US. Stevie says he'd love to see that wall come down, but he doesn't think it will happen during his lifetime. He says as long as people like him, who remember everything that happened and lived through it, are alive, he doesn't think it will happen. I hope that isn't true. One of the final thoughts Stevie left us with was surprising and very thought-provoking...
He shared that the world cried with America after 9-11. Everyone mourned with us and for us, and the horrible loss of life that occurred on that day. We are now very near the 10th Anniversary of what occurred. He said no one would have wished that horrible act or loss of life on anyone, in any country. However, in a strange way, that event occurring helped the people of Northern Ireland. It helped them because it brought a global focus and spotlight onto terrorism, what terrorism is and was, and it began a global lack of tolerance for such things to continue to take place. Things got better for those in Northern Ireland after 9-11. I don't think one could ever put a "positive" spin on that horrible event, but it is good to know that perhaps, elsewhere in the world, the backlash from the event did some positive things.
As we finished up with Stevie, we asked him to take us to a good place for dinner. He dropped us at the Morning Star, where we had an excellent meal and tried to process everything from our tour. This seemed like one of the longest days we spent during the entire trip. I'd say we packed enough into this day that it seemed like at least three days! We walked back to the hotel, saw interesting stuff along the way that was mostly closed by the time we walked back, and it was time to fall exhausted into bed that night!
~Peace
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