Omg I love Belfast, maybe because I spent about a month there when I was in my early twenties, and maybe because I just love the smell and look and the green of Northern Ireland, whatever it was I was no less smitten this time than the last. We only had 1.5 days there and we were going to make the most of it. We started by walking 20 minutes in the opposite direction of our hostel, which was frustrating for Joe because he had no context and I was leading the charge. We arrived at our hostel sweating from the exertion of carrying all of our stuff literally clear across the city. The guy at the front desk was so great, and even though we couldn’t check in for quite a while we chatted it up with him before hitting the streets, the city is small and so flipping beautiful, we walked through the city hall (which has some of the prettiest stained glass windows that I’ve ever seen) and wove our way through the streets of the city centre (it’s mostly shopping, which made me want new clothes and bored Joe) we walked like 5 miles, down to the famous shipyards where the Titanic was built and back.
The next day was the real Northern Ireland experience, we took a day tour, our driver was amazing and talked literally the whole way about everything we saw, right before we left the hostel our friend that we had made at reception the day before literally ran onto the bus to hand Joe and I a couple of bottles of water and say goodbye to us before we left (it was so sweet!). We stopped at a castle for a photo opp first, and then drove on til we got to the Carrickareed rope bridge, which is a tiny little rope bridge connecting a teensy little island to the mainland, they used to catch wild Atlantic salmon there in the currents between the mainland and the island, what used to be 300 fish a day is now down to 250 a year, it makes me sad to think that we have over fished, over hunted, and over consumed our oceans and forests to the point where they are no longer able to sustain themselves.
We then hopped back onto the bus and made our way to the real treat for the day, the Giants Causeway. A gift of nature and such an incredible display of God’s creation. It is absolutely breathtaking, thousands of hexagonal stones coming straight up out of the ocean, I imagine them all alive and fighting for their spaces and heights at the beginning of time, rising up, squeezing in, filling all of the cracks until there was no space left between them, creating steps up out of the ocean and onto dry land, some even fighting their way up the sides of the cliffs that are standing behind them. It’s magnificent to behold, to jump from rock to rock, climbing up and down on their heights and depths while the wind whips around you and sprays sea water and salt at you. It’s definitely a space that you need to sit in awe of for a few moments and just worship God for his creativity and the gifts that He gives us daily.
After that we stopped in at the Bushmills Distillery for lunch, I ate leftover potato bread from breakfast and Joe had leftover stirfry from the night before, and we of course drank the 12 year and the honey whiskey.
The end of the day came and we splurged because it was Valentine’s Day and went out for Indian food, something I have been craving since Vietnam, and also something that Britain is quite well know for having. It was delicious, and we had the mosts adorable little Irish waitress, I just wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home, it’s that N. Irish accent, I think it’s my favourite in the world. Joey and I both agreed that this is a place that we will come back to one day, and so after an incredible 2 days of seeing God through His creation, in each other, and in the people that we met, it’s goodbye for now and off to Scotland.
