This past weekend 18/2/2011 I spent in the city of Belfast. Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, so you can imagine that it is a very busy place with a lot to see. On Friday, we arrived in Belfast, it is about an hour train ride from Coleraine. We checked into our hostel & meet a girl name Alice from Australia then headed on our way out to dinner to TGIF's!! It was amazing to see all the American sport stuff in there and to see a menu that I was familiar with. I ended up with wings and mozzarella sticks, yummmyyy! After that we did some shopping/looking around that the Victoria Square shopping center. At this shopping center you can take an elevator all the way to the top where there is a globe of windows and see the entire town! It was an amazing view. Since over here everything closes pretty early we went back to our hostel and got ready to go the Student Union at Queen's University in Belfast. There campus is truly a site to see. The buildings at Queen's are all brick and it was built in 1810. It is a hard university to get into.
On Saturday, we started out our morning with breakfast at the hostel and thankfully it had french toast! Delicious and cheap! Then we headed our way out the the City Hall in Belfast and got a tour. It was an amazing building to see and our tour guide was truly inspirational. There is a lot of history here and the history I find very fascinating. The history that I've been told was made more clear during this tour. It also was learning about the Mayor and the legal system here, which is different from America by far. After the tour of the city hall we did some looking around of the city itself and then headed out for SUSHI!!! I have missed this dearly! The sushi place was amazing! It was called a sushi train, so random rolls came out and you were able to pick up whichever ones you wanted and it only cost a £1.80 per plate, which is really cheap! We went back got ready and headed out for another night out.
Sunday, in my opinion was one of the best days we spent there. We got up ate breakfast, cleaned up our rooms, checked out of the hostel and thankfully they have a room where you can store your luggage for the day even if your not staying the night, and then we headed to the St. Georgie Market. This market is very similar to the farmer's markets in America. Great deals, great food, great merchandise, and great people. I felt like home when I was here. After spending a good chunk of time at the market we head to Falls Road in Belfast, this is where the peace wall is in Belfast. The peace wall splits the catholics from the protestants is my understanding of it. It was amazing to see more of the history here. Another road that the murals are on is called Sandy Row. After seeing some of the murals we headed back to the other side of Belfast down to the Ulster Museum. This museum was probably the most interesting museum I've ever been to. Wish when I was younger I loved museums. We got there an hour and a half before it closed and lets just say we will be returning because we weren't able to make it through it all before it was time to go. The history at this museum went back to the 16th century and was just intriguing to see all the history here and to get a better understanding of it.
After we left, we took a stroll in the Botanic Gardens that was right outside of the museum, it was a good nature walk. We then started heading back towards the hostel to grab our luggage to get to the train station. On our way we stopped at a couple off sales(liquor store) to see what they had, the cashiers were super friendly and told us all about different types of beer, ciders, and liquors. At the off sales I got put on a mission and found out that Guiness is also brewed in Africa because they have similar water to what Ireland does, so there able to brew it, it's the only other kind/brewery out there, so now I'm on a mission to find an off sales that has it to try. We got some KFC(which they don't have biscuits or mashed potatoes here and the coleslaw comes in a prepackaged container) and our luggage and headed off to the train station. Of course, we were cutting close to time so we got in there got our train tickets and ended on the WRONG train, which left us in the middle of no where to get a train back and then we had to wait for two hours in the train station for the next one. Overall, a good weekend with education and the city life.
After we left, we took a stroll in the Botanic Gardens that was right outside of the museum, it was a good nature walk. We then started heading back towards the hostel to grab our luggage to get to the train station. On our way we stopped at a couple off sales(liquor store) to see what they had, the cashiers were super friendly and told us all about different types of beer, ciders, and liquors. At the off sales I got put on a mission and found out that Guiness is also brewed in Africa because they have similar water to what Ireland does, so there able to brew it, it's the only other kind/brewery out there, so now I'm on a mission to find an off sales that has it to try. We got some KFC(which they don't have biscuits or mashed potatoes here and the coleslaw comes in a prepackaged container) and our luggage and headed off to the train station. Of course, we were cutting close to time so we got in there got our train tickets and ended on the WRONG train, which left us in the middle of no where to get a train back and then we had to wait for two hours in the train station for the next one. Overall, a good weekend with education and the city life.
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