Belfast

Hold on tight because Belfast was a wild ride! I'm talking seriously random events after the historical stuff.

The Quinn Business School organized a trip to Belfast for the study abroad students and I was all about a free day in Belfast so Saturday morning I was at the bus stop ready to roll. The trip with the school was only for Saturday but Brittany, Stevie, and I seized the opportunity and decided to stay the night and spend Sunday in Northern Ireland too.

After a couple of hours in the bus we stopped at a hotel right at the border for a full Irish breakfast which usually includes eggs, cereal, sausage, bacon, toast, and puddings. For those of you who don't know, black pudding is sausage made from pigs blood among other things; I didn't have any. At breakfast we shared a table with the students from Bentley and got to know them better. We also shared lunch with them.

After another small ride we got off the bus at Stormont, the Northern Irish Parliament. It was a gorgeous day in Belfast and it was upsetting that we had to spend time inside on a tour of the building. The Stormont building is rather large and the rooms inside are mostly modeled after British Parliament. One interesting thing about it is that during WWII it was a Royal Air Force command center. Because the building was big, white, and on top of a hill that all roads lead to this did not make it the optimal place for a war room so they painted the building black with tar and manure and camouflaged the roads leading there.

Entrance Hall

After the tour we ate some lunch at Stormont (sandwiches and soup) and then got back on the bus for our tour of the city of Belfast. Wendy was our guide and she was an older woman that was hysterical. My favorite part is when she told the cops that it was ok that the bus was parked in a no-parking zone. She acted like she owned the city and trust me, Belfast cops are not people you want to mess with (their cops cars look like small armored Hummers).

Our first stop was the Harland and Wolff Shipyard, where the Titanic was built. They have a lot of pride in their shipbuilding history and that they have the two biggest cranes in the world (nicknamed Goliath and Samson). Wendy said that two popular phrases about the Titanic in Belfast are "It was floating when it left here" and "It took an Irishman to build it and an Englishman to sink it."

The dry dock where the Titanic was held

Up next was the city center of Belfast. Wendy explained to us the "Troubles" of Belfast and showed us the sights, most of which had been bombed more than one time. Like Berlin, it was a very hard history to hear with a lot of innocent victims, but unlike Berlin it is such a recent history. The peace is still very new and uncertain, and crimes are still taking place. According to our tour guide the next day, a new organization called The Real IRA doesn't like the peace agreements that are in effect and continue to act like terrorists/freedom fighters, with a shooting happening a couple of weeks ago at a British military base.

Apparently the city centre itself is very safe but the area outside of it is still very divided (literally). Wendy took us up to Falls Road (Nationalist/Catholic) and Shankill Road (Unionist/Protestant) which is divided by the Peace Wall. The Peace Wall is covered in murals, as are many of the buildings. The Unionist murals tend to be more graphic but they are trying to change that. Wendy also explained to us the hunger strikes where ten Nationalists starved to death for a united Ireland.

Black cabs are a big thing here because during the Troubles the bus service had to be discontinued because people were bombing them and using them as road barriers. I didn't realize how serious things were until I heard the history. As I said before, it was a downer.

Murals on Falls Road

You can see the walls that still divide the city. It used to just be the concrete portion but they had to add the fence on top to prevent people from throwing bombs over the wall. The majority of people say that they want the walls down, just not yet. The agreement is also that once 51% of the citizens want to join the Republic of Ireland then they will but until then they are part of the UK.

Mural stating their loyalty to the Queen on Shankill Road.

After the tour we left our study abroad comrades and with directions from Wendy went in search of our hostel. We arrived at the Lagans Backpackers Hostel without much difficulty. When we arrived we met William, the hostel owner, who would eventually learn the nickname "Whiskey Willy." He gave us the key, told us we could pay tomorrow when we checked out, and gave us the low-down on what to do in Belfast along with some 10% off coupons for a local restaurant.

Our first stop was the mall that had a glass dome on the top for views of Belfast but it was unfortunately closed (everything closed super early for a Saturday) so we headed to Lavery's, the restaurant we had coupons for. The place was hoppin' because some sporting event was on and the only open table wasn't a whole but but rather a half of a table. The other half was occupied by three old men. 

And so the fun begins. And I would also like to stress that we were completely sober and all this is true.

Of course I am the one who has to sit next to the locals, probably due to my desire for living like a local as much as I can. I scoot in the booth next to this old man (turns out he is 64) and he starts making conversation with me right off the bat. Let me start by saying that I between the noise of the bar, his drunkenness, and his brogue I could only understand about 40% of what he was saying. After nodding and smiling a lot I turned to Stevie and Brittany in an attempt to phase out of the conversation. Then the old man offered us Diet Cokes. After asking Stevie and Brittany if they thought the Cokes were drugged we accepted. Victor (the old man) explained to me that he gets a free Coke with his Bacardi. Now I don't know how much Victor had to drink (I asked and he refused to say) but the three of us had three Cokes a piece (some of the Cokes might have been from Victor's friends, I don't know).

And things got crazier from there. Victor was there with his two friends, Trooper and Albert, also older men. When Trooper heard Brittany's name he honestly starting sing "Party in the USA" and "put my hands up, singing my song." This probably happened 15 times throughout the night. Albert also explained to Stevie the downsides of having a tattoo and there was a lot of other random conversation. We also gained another person at our table, an Australian-Spanish man who I will refer to as Spazzy (Spanish/Aussie) because I could not understand his name. He was very interested in the football game and cheered loudly in Espanol but we also chatted with him.

Eventually Victor, the very old and inebriated man, and I got very close. He told me that he drinks every Friday since his wife died. Very sad. After talking I told Victor that he was my best friend and I was going to send him a Christmas card he pulled out his wallet and I was hoping that he was going to give me money like a good grandfather figure but instead he pulled out something more valuable, a laminated business card with his picture on it. 

Priceless. And I'm fairly sure that picture was taken in the pub.

And notice that in his picture he is smoking a cigar. I thought this was hysterical and asked Victor if he smoked cigars and said that I had been known to smoke occasionally. This is when Victor pulled two cigars out of his coat and asked if I would smoke one with him. Smoke a cigar in Belfast with a drunk 64 year-old man? I think yes!

Worth a thousand words.

After smoking half a cigar (apparently you can only smoke half of one in a bar) Brittany, Victor, and I headed back into the bar from the smoking area. After startling the whole bar by belting "Respect" by Aretha Franklin when it can on we met Manuel, one of Spazzy's friends. He came and sat next to me and we conversed in Spanglish. I also discovered that his name was Claudio, not Manuel, and he was staying at our hostel. We danced to "Party in the USA" a couple more times and then were on our way (Victor and his buddies left a little before we did to get some Chinese food).

We went to go see The Crown, the oldest pub in Belfast. It was adorable with its stained glass and copper ceilings. We just stopped in for a look and then went back to our hostel because we had an early morning.

But the fun didn't stop there. We got back to the hostel and the girls elected me to go to the front desk and get the WiFi code. When I went down there William invited us to come drink some whiskey with him. It had been the kind of night when you just go with it so next thing you know the three of us are sitting with William and four other guests drinking Powers whiskey and Coke. We just stayed down there a little bit and when we left William had just bought a new bottle of whiskey and was drinking alone.

And that was only Day 1.