In which I go to Belfast to visit Laura

Alright, I'm going to not be quite as longwinded as I usually am (or try not to be, anyway) in the interest of getting caught up with my blog, which has fallen sadly out of date. My friend Laura from Pitt, with whom I will be living next year, is studying at Queen's in Belfast this semester after having spent last semester in Dublin, so I haven't seen her in forever, so when we both had a free weekend I decided to head up and crash at her place for a few days. I left on Friday (27 Feb.) later than I probably should have (it's a 7 or 8 hour trip), but I wanted to go to my classes (lame, I know). The trip involves changing buses in Dublin, and I got to the station literally 3 minutes after my other bus left, so I hung out for an hour at the Dublin station before catching the next one. I got into Belfast at 12:30, and the bus let us out in a dark alley, no lie. So I called Laura, who was waiting in the nearby hotel, and she came to get me, but she had a new haircut that I was unaware of, so this small, short-haired, bespectacled person is coming towards me down the dark alley... but it was her, so that was lovely. Her housing is dorm-style, and her floor was having a pirate party, which was enthusiastically attended by what looked like the whole building and then some. We retired to her room to chat and relax until about 2 am, when the fire alarm went off, so we went for a walk and got food.

The next day we took a bus tour to the Giants Causeway, which is an incredible section of the Antrim coast formed by volcanos 60 million years ago (or by dueling giants... hence the name. Long story.). On the way we saw lots of stunning coast and countryside. Taking a bus tour in the North had distinct differences from tours in the Republic: as we drove through Belfast on our way out, our guide pointed out which buildings had been damaged by bombs during the Troubles, and as we drove along he pointed out the highly fortified police stations and gave us a short history of the military movements in the area during the Troubles up to the present day. It was surreal the following week, when those soldiers, pizza boys, and policemen were shot, to know that I had seen similar fortifications only a week earlier, had heard the guide talking about how much better it was now that the violence had stopped after the Good Friday agreement. Crazy.

Our first stop was the castle at Carrickfergus, and yes, I sang the song. It's very pretty and right on the water. There's a statue of William of Orange (I shook a righteous fist) next to the car park and a statue of a guard along the battlements, which made me laugh a little. Laura and I scaled the wall a little way up and had general climbing merriment (the guard continued to point his gun in the opposite direction... he had no idea...). When we walked over to the water, there were tourist children in little grated openings in the walls, looking like they were imprisoned, and that was sort of funny too (don't worry, they were eventually released after a short spell in the stocks). The countryside continued to be gorgeous as we traveled along, seeing more of the coast and mountains, driving inland a bit through the glens, and through villages. According to our driver, the smaller villages are pretty much either exclusively Catholic or Protestant, and you can tell by the presence of the Union Jack (or lack thereof). Also, we saw some murals, which I was really interested in, in one of the Protestant villages, which was cool. They also paint the stones along the sidewalks red, white, and blue.

We stopped off at the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which was so cool. It's really for fishermen crossing over to the little connecting islands, but it's also a stellar tourist spot (come pay to walk across our bridge!). Anyway, we had a good time, touristy or not. It's sort of cliffy, and there were cool little caves at the bases that you could see while on the bridge. We went from there to Giants Causeway, and the rocks there are just incredible: perfect hexagons, and pillars, and piles of them to climb around on, and crashing waves. We took pictures standing in the Giant's Boot (a rock that looks like a boot) and climbed the paths up the mountain to more cool pillared stones amid the grass and plantlife. We did much exploring and scrambling on rocks and being queen of the elements and/or mountain, and just soaking in how incredible of a place it was. Such an unpicturesque island I chose to come to... The visitor's center and car park are at the top of a pretty steep hill that you walk down to get to the Causeway, and there's a shuttle bus that runs up and down regularly, so we decided to catch it on the way up. We waited. And waited. And waited. Our own tour bus was going to be leaving soon, so we headed off at a quick pace and ultimately sprinted up the hill (I hate physical exertion. So much.) to get back to the bus, which was starting to leave without us. We had to endure the walk of shame as we walked down the aisle to our seats, red and sweaty and windblown from our trek up the cliff. We stopped again to see a huge sprawling castle ruin on the edge of the sea, which was really lovely. A little way out from the castle you can see something pointing up out of the water, which is the spire of a church. There was a town there on an island that is now submerged. This happened relatively recently, our driver told us. It was so weird! Knowing there was a village out there. It's terribly sad, but I really want to take a little boat out and see it, you know? Our final stop was the Bushmills Distillery to pick up some whiskey and observe the making-process. We were cutting it close to closing time, but we had just enough time to get in and get out, but as we started to go in we were shunted back by a security guard... apparently THAT day they were closing a little early. Lame. Our fault? I think not. The driver told some lame jokes on our drive back into Belfast while we alternately dozed and appreciated the lovely scenery. We went out for pizza that night (delicious!) and got some snacks to settle in to her room for an evening in. Turns out I was still longwinded, so I'll continue the Belfast tale soon.