Return to the Emerald Isle - Belfast

"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.

"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."

From The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 

July has been a strange month. For the first time in nine months I had no deadline looming over me - or at least none that I had any ability to do any work towards. Knowing this and also understanding that August would be a month of stress and suffering, I decided to go on one last adventure. At first, the question was where. This was solved when I learned that not one, but two friends from back home would be in Ireland for the summer. Since my first trip to Ireland had been dominated by truly miserable weather, I figured this would be a great opportunity to let her remedy my impression of her. In addition, one friend would be in Belfast, and since I'd never traveled to Northern Ireland I thought this would be the perfect chance to do so.

No matter how hard I try, I always find myself at the Birmingham airport way earlier than is necessary.  This trip was no different.  Because I had an eTicket and no checked baggage I could have shown up thirty minutes before departure and been fine.  Guess what time I arrived?  Almost two hours before, yeah, not really sure how that happened.  I'll just say I'm efficient,  that sounds better than the alternatives, right?

The flight to Belfast was quick and since I was staying in the UK it required no stop at border control. Even though I left England around noon I still arrived at my hotel at check-in time (Europeans don't appreciate the wonder of short flights - it took less than an hour, I can't even get to Chicago in that amount of time). I then had time to wander around and get my bearings. While I did my research (as I always do before traveling) on what I wanted to see and do, my search missed one important bit of information - July 12th was a Holiday. Now, for most countries traveling there during a national holiday would only mean increased prices on travel and accommodations. Plus I wasn't even going to arrive until the 15th, so why did the presence of this holiday matter? Because it's Ireland and this holiday was a religious-political one (I think most political holidays in Ireland are religious in some way) and this year the city commission decided the holiday parade people couldn't travel on their usual route (not that I blame the government, this was a Protestant holiday and the section they were barred from was in a Catholic section of Belfast). So of course there were riots, property destruction, bombs, and a large number of injured police. The fun apparently lasted five nights - so included almost every night I was in the city. Honestly, I wasn't effected by the events at all. In many ways I was reminded of my time in Israel when our families were freaking out because there were airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. We didn't even know it was happening until that night when we read the news.  Same with Belfast,  I saw the news but it could have been taking place in a different country for all I was effected by it.

This is my theory on traveling to a new city: before you do anything else, figure out where you are, note major roads and land marks, and know which way is north. If you do that, no matter what, you'll be able to find your way if you get turned around. Belfast isn't a large city so I was able to get a feel of it and get some solid meandering done before I met my friend. The friend who was in Belfast was there doing an internship so we were only able to have dinner.  Even with limited time, however,  it was great to see her.  By the time we met I had the lay of the land so I found us a Pub - a surprisingly difficult task because the UK seems to shut down by six and if you don't know the city just 'finding a good place to eat' is harder than you'd think!  Thankfully Belfast is in the UK so I had my unlimited data at my fingertips. My friend, Jess, has traveled with me twice as a student on a YEAH Tour so she had no worries about me navigating Belfast and connecting with her.  The other intern working with her was surprised that I was just dropping by on my own.  Jess replied to this with 'she probably already knows the layout of the city better than I do!' A statement which has the potential of being true, but was neither proven nor debunked because she let me do all the nagivation.

I had intentionally gotten a hotel in the same area of town as she was living in. After dinner we walked to my hotel and as we were saying farewell I noticed something - the front of my hotel was only three stories, but my room was somehow on the sixth floor. That meant I should have seen seven floors from the front (you know Europeans and the whole 'ground floor' thing that Americans don't do, throws off the count). I mentioned this to Jess and we both couldn't handle the mystery. After exploring three sides of the building (the fourth was connected to another building) we still couldn't piece it together, we were only able to identify five floors - two short of what I knew was physical correct. As much as I hoped this was a Harry Potter style house, I highly doubted this would be the solution. We said our goodbyes after I promised to investigate the situation on the inside. I climbed into the lift and pushed the six button. As I rode upward I stared blankly at the sign that listed the room numbers for each floor. Suddenly it struck me (thankfully not literally) - the second and fourth floors had less rooms. Then I remembered the one time I took the stairs (I was motivated the first day, after that I was just tired), the flights had been too short to be full levels. Then I realized something that should have been obvious from the beginning: the hotel was built like a multi-split level house. That mystery successfully solved, I was able to relax and enjoy the luxury of cable television while happily knitting a baby blanket (yes, I'm an old woman, I've accepted it, so don't judge).

Over the next two days I did all the touristy Belfast things. I visited Titanic Belfast and the Titanic Pump House & Dry Dock (if you didn't know, Belfast is where the Titanic and her sister ships were built), churches, the Crumlin Road Gaol (that'd be a Victorian jail), City Hall, and some other random things which I stumbled upon. These are the most memorable, as would be expected. One such find was the second afternoon I was in the city. I'd finished my tour of the jail and they'd let me out for good behavior (har har, I know, bad joke), and I brought my lunch to the expansive lawn in from of city hall - as I'd done the day before. I was planning to just watch the noon news on the huge screen they had set up, but instead I found myself in the midst of a massive Chinese celebration. I learned (thanks to my smartphone) that I had stumbled across the launch of the scattering of a collection of replica terracotta warriors, which had been painted by local artists, across Northern Ireland. They had the statues on display as well as live dancing (I was there for a dancing dragon) and music. People could even help paint the last four warriors (I did not participate, in case you were wondering). While this is an attempt to help spread cultural awareness, all I could think about was Snoopy and Charlie Brown.

The other sight that was off the beaten path was a statue of C. S. Lewis as Professor Kirk opening the wardrobe door. I couldn't help myself - between my childhood love of Narnia and my current dissertation topic (which includes a study of the Narnia books) I had to go. When I checked the map I saw that it was just under a two mile walk - but it was in the direction of the train station that I had a round trip ticket from - only about a mile past it (no big deal, adding a two mile walk onto the end instead of just stopping at the station and going home). So with a little help from my GPS (the city map I had ended about where the train station was) I headed to see this statue. About the time I passed the general area of the train station I realized my mistake - I was in east Belfast. A fact that should have been obvious, but I hadn't fully thought it through. Any guess how I knew I'd hit a special area of town? It's not that the neighborhood itself had changed, the houses, shops and people were the same as everywhere else I'd been. But there was one key thing: the murals. Don't get me wrong, these weren't gang graffiti as seen in much of inner-city America. Nope, these were some of the most beautiful murals I'd ever seen, and they were on almost every available wall. What tipped me off was what they were murals of. Most had one of two things - either a red hand/fist or men with ski masks and semi-automatics. Um, what? You may ask? That was my thought also. I've never seen the likes of them before. Clearly I'd found myself in one of the loyalist neighborhoods - a place very close to the centre of the nightly conflicts. It kinda creeped me out, to be honest. But I was on a mission, one that I achieved and am glad to have completed. Yet what I will remember the most are all those insane wall paintings. The two contrasting aspects of my trip were, however, brought together as I found my way back to the train station, then home. One block from the station I found one final mural - it wasn't political or combative. Someone has done a beautiful collage on the end of an apartment building in memory of a great man born in Belfast - C. S. Lewis - and the series that made him known to children around the world. It was an amazing example of how a tradition which many use to incite conflict, can be employed for a better purpose.

During the course of my time in Belfast I saw so much, each evening returning to my room exhausted from the activities of the day (it also probably didn't help that I walked around seven miles each of the three days I was there). Between that and my academic stress which had culminated over the past nine months, I was more than ready to hop on the train and travel south, to Dublin and a childhood friend.