Real Life
|
I went to Northern Ireland in September 2006, kept a
diary
and took lots of photos. Here is my diary with a selection of photos -
the page might take a while to load. Click on any of the photos for a
bigger one.
All of my Northern Ireland photos, including the ones
here,
can
be found at flickr
Saturday 16th September
|
Albert Clock - it tilts
The Fish of Knowledge
|
I remember now why I don't like
flying. Because it was only a 50 minute flight, most of it consisted of
taking off and landing. There was only a short bit in the middle where
I managed to get a free orange juice due to the one I bought coming
with a plastic cup with a hole in the bottom. It doesn't seem like a
plane flight without orange juice, somehow. And since my drink was in
my suitcase, I was really thirsty by this point.
Bristol airport was quite nice though - it had the biggest branch of
Claires I've seen - or perhaps that was just because it wasn't full of
little girls. Although they were asking people for their liquids before
they got x-rayed they didn't seem to care about my inhaler or the pin
I'd accidentally left on my jacket.
We definitely flew over Wales to get there - it suddenly got all hilly!
There did seem to be an awful lot of turning going on too, which wasn't
good.
I actually managed to find the hostel quite well from the bus station.
The room's nice enough although could do with some hooks to hang things
up. And the shower consists of a shower and a drain. Nothing else -
including no towel rail or anything to hang your towel on.
Belfast pretty much looks like any other city, although reminds me a
bit of Melbourne with its wide roads an very narrow ones coming off it. |
Sunday 17th September
|
I didn't rush to get up, which was just as well because it turned out
nothing opened until 12/1pm on a Sunday. The open-top bus tour started
before then, though. Walking there there was hardly any traffic and not
many people about, it was really weird.
The bus tour showed some interesting bits of the city. Most interesting
were the Protestant and Catholic communities. You could tell which were
which by whether there were Union Jack's flying everywhere or the Irish
flag on every lamppost. Not so many years ago Belfast was one of those
places I thought I would never be able to visit (or want to). We drove
down Shankhill Road, which back then was somewhere you wouldn't walk
down. There were all these murals around - just like you used to see on
TV when someone had been shot or the IRA had bombed somewhere, except
this was for real.
In the afternoon I went to W5, where you get to play with lots of
scientific-like things. That didn't take long but pretty much
everywhere else was closed or not doing tours that day.
Sleeping was interesting because it sounded like Top Banana was going
on just outside until, appropriately, 12.30 and then it sounded like
they were doing roadworks at 6.19am. Great. |
Belfast street with Union Jacks
Mural
Belfast street with Irish flags
|
Monday 18th September
|
Carrick-a-rede rope bridge
Dunluce Castle
Giants Causeway
|
Today I took a coach trip to the
Giants Causeway. We went the long, coastal route to get to it, which
reminded me of the Great Ocean Road. I think because of the small size
of the towns we passed.
Back in the 18th century the people carved their houses out of the
mountains and we could see the remains of them. Although they had
square doors and windows cut out they still looked like caves inside.
We did distantly see land out to sea, apparently it was Scotland.
We stopped off at the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. At which point it
started raining, of course. The walk down to it was along the cliff
tops so the view was quite good. The rope bridge itseld is 100 feet
above sea level and had wooden boards across to step on. It did swing
quite a bit in the wind, though, which was a bit scary.
We got to see Dunluce Castle, whose kitchens dramatically fell into the
sea one day.
They trip to the down to the Giants Causeway was a 3km walk along the
cliff tops, which would have been nice, had it not been really windy
and chucking it down with rain (horizontally). You could walk over the
actual causeway, which would have been quite fun in the dry. The rain
made them slippery though, and the wind nearly knocked me over at least
once. Of course, once I got back up to the top the sun came out. By
then I was completely soaked, including my waterproof walking boots.
Although somehow I still managed to get my face sunburnt, quite how I
don't know. |
Tuesday 19th September
Today's been one of those days.
First, I discovered my bread had gone furry. Eventually I got on a bus
to Cave Hill Country Park. A nice friendly dog called Penny was hanging
around at the entrance. I loved her for a bit but there was no-one
around and I got worried, so called her owner, who turned out to live
just around the corner and the dog was pretty much allowed to do her
own thing.
I walked up a few hills to go all around the castle and eventually
found the entrance. There wasn't much in there as it was mostly used
for weddings and conferences as far as I could see. There was a really
short history of Cave Hill and the castle. Afterwards I tried to find
the Milennium Maze but it was really badly signposted (ie there weren't
any) and I ended up back at the road. After walking for ages I caught a
bus to the other end of the place where the zoo was.
Getting up there required more steep hills and the whole place was on a
hill. The monkeys and apes weren't as impressive as what you see at
Monkey World. The other animals were quite interesting though. The sea
lions were the noisiest.
When I eventually made it out of there I stopped off at a big Tescos
the bus went past. Which turned out to be smaller than it looked and
had no Free From section.
I also stopped off in the Oxfam bookshop I walked past a few times and
found some books.
It chucked it down while I was in the youth hostel trying to work out
if I had enough time to go to the Ulster Museum (I didn't). So I went
to the nearby big cinema, which had a special offer on Tuesdays for
£2.50 for all films. |
View of Belfast Lough
View of Belfast Lough
|
Wednesday 20th September
|
Womens Foil DE
Womens Foil Final
|
I planned to spend the morning at
the fencing, watching the poules and DE. Except they were running late,
so I left mid-afternoon while they were finishing off the round of 32.
It all seemed a lot like any other competition, at least until it got
to the round of 32, when the fencers got announced. The fencing
certainly seemed just scrappy at times.
I went to the Ulster Museum after, intedning to come back if I didn't
get round, as it was free. But there wasn't actually that much there.
There was some stuff specific to Irish history but not much and not in
detail. Some other parts, like the stuffed animals and gems I'd seen
fairly recently anyway in other museums.
I ended up having a nice Italian meal and going back for the finals,
which were late. The referee said everything in french, which was
disconcerting, so I wasn't sure what was going on. The sabre fights
went much quicker than the foil, although they did seem to consist
mostly of the two men going up to each other, bashing each other, then
trying to convince the referee they'd got the point. It only got
interesting in the final when it went to 14-all and they english bloke
was told if he didn't shut up complaining about who got the point he
was going to get a red card! |
Thursday 21st September
Day trip to Dublin. The train only
takes two hours to get there, which isn't bad. There was forecast to be
a hurricane in Ireland and in Belfast it was windy and raining but that
was nothing new. Dublin was warm and sunny! There was a bit of rain
later but not much.
It was only when I was walking through Dublin, trying to find somewhere
to eat that I remembered they had no smoking in pubs, which is
excellent, so I had a pub lunch.
Then I went on an open-top bus tour. There seemed to be two and I
couldn't quite work out if they were the same company or not, so I got
on the first bus that turned up. Which I think turned out to be the
wrong one as it was a recorded commentary, which wasn't always in time
to where the bus was.
After that I headed towards an exhibition of Dublin and Dublin Castle.
The tourist information there was bigger than the first one I went to
but just as useless. I completely failed to find where I was headed
for, thanks to the uselessness of the maps I had. I ended up seeing all
sorts of bits of Dublin as I got more and more lost. And my legs ached.
Eventually, though, I thought I ought to head for the station and got a
tram, for the novelty (since by that point I only needed to go two
stops). Dublin's really like another country - the speed limits are in
metric, the traffic lights don't have amber, the pelican crossings had
an amber man instead of a flashing green one and they click, like in
Australia. And all the car registration plates are white. |
Ha'penny Bridge
General Post Office
|
Friday 22nd September
|
Belfast City Hall Council Chamber
Womens Epee semi-final
|
I made it to the City Hall just at
the right time to join a tour (they only do 3 a day). That was really
interesting to see the pretiiness, the oldness and to sit in the room
where the councillors do. The tour guide wasn't allowed to mention
politics! Then I went to St Anne's Cathedral, which was pretty much
just like any other cathedral really. Except there were no gravestones
to look at, just architecture.
For the afternoon I went back to the fencing to see the end of the
men's foil DE and the women's epee.
I ended up leaving after the semi-finals to get dinner and pack. I
tried to go to a Chinese place that was listed in the brochure but it
was a bit weird and didn't actually have anything I could eat. So I
went to another one. After I finished they sliced up an orange when I
thought I was going to get a bill, which annoyed me because that was a
waste of an orange. It annoys me in restaurants as well that they never
seem keen to give you the bill - it's almost as if they don't want you
to pay. |
|
