This past weekend, the wonderful people at IFSA-Butler took us north of the border to Belfast for Thanksgiving and loads of good craic. I was in a pretty good mood to start this trip, mainly because it was the final week of lectures, meaning that I don’t need to listen to boring PhDs go on about their subject matters in a dry, uninteresting manner anymore. However, my Thanksgiving started going downhill pretty early into the seven-hour bus ride, when I even got sick of playing Pokémon (blasphemy)! We finally got to Belfast (map: http://bit.ly/giXlMt) around 6pm, where Thanksgiving dinner was waiting for us.
Now, I would like to preface my next few thoughts by saying that I certainly appreciate everything IFSA-Butler has done for us study-abroad students in Ireland; they have helped make our transition into another country a smooth one and have been very generous in the trips and free food they have provided us. However, they unfortunately have no idea what Thanksgiving dinner is. They took us to what seemed like a five-star restaurant, which was nice, but those places always seem to jip you on the amount of food you actually get, and thus was the case here: we got three slivers of turkey, drenched in a raspberry sauce which overwhelmed the flavor of the turkey itself! I wish I took a picture of this, because the skimpiness of the meal may make a true-blooded American weep tears of sorrow. A friend sitting across from me got it right when he said, “If they just gave us a gift card to Supermac’s worth the same amount as they spent here, that would have been a much better Thanksgiving dinner.”
Alright, enough of the complaining; lots of good things happened around Belfast too! The next day, we got on that same bus (ugh!) and headed further north in County Antrim. Our first stop was the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, which is exactly what it sounds like:
Oh yeah, that looks stable. It’s actually quite safe, just a little wobbly when it’s windy (or when the jerk in front of you is jumping up and down the entire time across). But it led us to an island with some pretty good views of where the Irish Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean:
That last one actually has Scotland visible in the background (hey, I think I’ve been there!). Then, after lasagna for lunch (which was way more filling than Thanksgiving dinner), we checked out nearby Dunluce Castle, a 13th fort has been slowly decaying since its abandonment in 1690:
Legend has it that it was abandoned after a party when the kitchen crumbled all the way down into the sea, taking all of the kitchen staff down with it. Sounds like a typical Irish party! Anyway, the main focus of this trip was to check out the weird natural phenomenon that is the Giant’s Causeway (map: http://bit.ly/gkknCJ):
These hexagonal rocks (technically called basalt columns) are the result of volcanic eruptions fifty million years ago, where lava cooled and contracted against the nearby cliffs. As you can see, you’re allowed to walk and climb all over the rocks as you please, which is pretty cool. Also, for you Led Zep fans, you may recognize this place from the cover of the Houses of the Holy album:
That’s exactly what I was doing all over those rocks (with my blonde wig and nakedness). Anyway, when we returned to the city there was a festival going on that night in front of Belfast City Hall:
I was a happy panda after I got my hands on a legit French crepe (from a legit French lady) with warm Nutella dripping out the sides. Best £3 I’ve ever spent. Possibly the worst £5 I’ve ever spent, however, was on this monstrosity at T.G.I. Fridays for lunch the next day:
The Jack Daniel’s Ultimate Bacon Burger. It looks good until you’re about three bites in, and then you start feeling really bad for yourself and your past decisions. I only went for it because I had a £10 gift card (courtesy of IFSA-Butler), and I was still trying to make up for the lackluster Thanksgiving dinner. I think I have learned my lesson about getting food with the word “ultimate” in the title. Much cooler than that (at least for me) was the Black Taxi tour of Belfast, which focuses on the landmarks and events of the Troubles. We checked out a lot of the murals, which, unlike the ones in Derry that were more Catholic/Nationalist based, I found more Protestant/Loyalist ones in the dominantly-Protestant neighborhood of the Shankill:
That last one is particularly creepy, since the barrel of the gun is pointing at you, no matter where you’re standing to look at it. Many are dedicated to the Ulster Defense Association (UDA), a Loyalist paramilitary group who often battled with the IRA throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Because of this, Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast are divided by a wall, which has become the longest wall in Europe since the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989:
Much of the wall has been painted on, and it is customary for visitors to sign the wall and leave a message for peace between the two communities. Past signers have included Bill Clinton and Bono, and now Brian Schmidt of Tannersville, Pennsylvania has a message for the people of Northern Ireland, and in turn people around the world:
I think that gets the point across. Anyway, me and a few friends wanted to turn away from destructive violence and check out some controlled, exciting violence, so we went to a hockey game between the Belfast Giants and the Sheffield Steelers:
British hockey! Now, most of the players are Canadians and Americans that couldn’t quite cut it in the NHL (or the AHL or any of the many other leagues in North America), so it wasn’t exactly the sharpest game of hockey in the world, but it was still a great atmosphere to be around (especially since the Giants are the defending champs and are 17-3 so far this season). We mostly picked on this one Sheffield guy by the last name of Campbell (mainly because he body checked the Belfast goalie early in the game), saying things like, “Hey, Campbell’s Chunky Soup!” or “That’s why you couldn’t make it in the big leagues!” or even, “Even your mom’s embarrassed by you right now!” It was even better when he picked a fight with one of Belfast’s largest players and got knocked down to the ice after fifteen seconds:
Anyway, the G-Men won 4-2, including an empty netter and a strange one-timer that ricocheted off the Sheffield goalie’s own stick and went right through his five-hole. The British have a thing or two to learn about good hockey (even the zamboni driver missed a few spots between periods), but it was still a lot of great craic. I hope it will be just as much fun during the football (soccer) match I’ll be at when I’m in Leeds, England next weekend. Anyway, that’s what I have left for me here: an adventure in England, then five exams in two weeks, then my flight back home. I guess that means I have just a couple more blog entries left in me, so keep on reading!
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