As promised, Laura Ostler (4n4 09, among other summers), picked me up at the Belfast City Airport, in what she called "the teeniest car you'll ever see." It was a pretty small car by American standards, but, it still had 4 doors and 3 seats in the back, and a small "boot" or trunk. I assured her it wasn't the teensiest.
She showed me her apartment very briefly, which, I have to say, is beautiful. It's really a house, right on main road in Belfast, and she has 3 housemates. The first floor is absolutely huge, with the living room/den area, and the kitchen. When I popped in, all of her housemates were there, so I introduced myself, and told them that their kitchen is basically the size of my ENTIRE NYC apartment. Oh the joys of living in an overcrowded city. Anyways, she gave me the tour of the rest of the house before we went out for dinner in downtown Belfast. She previously made a reservation at the lovely restaurant "Made in Belfast." It features food grown and produced locally (as opposed to abroad or from far away) which I really enjoy because of its environmental impact, as well as supposed of local foods. The ambience was very calm, the color scheme inside the restaurant very soothing. None of the furniture matched anything else. It had a really unique flavor inside. The meal I ordered was delicious as well. Butternut squash topped with couscous, goats cheese, cranberries, and even more (that I can't remember). Laura got the fish and chips, and we swapped about halfway through our meals. I think both of us were very pleased with our meal selection. Night one in Belfast - done.
The next morning we woke up, and it was St. Patrick's Day! I figured in Belfast, this holiday must make people go nuts. We knew the parade started downtown around 12pm so we met up with Gareth Stitt (CEL 09, 2010) who was already there. We watched the environmental themed children's style parade, which included bagpipes, floats pushed by manpower (no fuel used, they're being environmental!), some awesome puppets, and some lame dancers. Once it was finished, we walked around the downtown area for a bit, went into a few pubs, saw part of an outdoor concert, had lunch at a diner (man they fry EVERYTHING here, fried fried fried!), and finally became so exhausted that Gareth went his own way home for the evening, and Laura and I went back to her apartment. Despite the cold temperatures in her apartment, we snuggled under blankets in the living room to watch a movie - "My Sister's Keeper" which is a book I had read recently but hadn't seen the movie. That passed a few hours of time for us until we were planning to go out to continue celebrating the holiday!
Lo and behold, Gareth ended up with plans, and Laura's friends said that the St. Patty's Day celebrations were actually kind of lame. So...we decided to go to dinner, sit there instead of do take out (because I was still so cold in her house!) and come back home for a relaxing and quiet night. We went to a place called "Thai-tanic." Clever name, with Thai food being popular in Belfast, and the Titanic being built there. Don't you think? Well, the food was delicious - I ordered something with ginger, basically because it had ginger, and it's not something I have often, but it is something I love! Laura got the chicken pad thai as per her housemate's recommendation, and was also pleased. Back in the car we went, back to the cold apartment, and we went to bed.
Laura had work the next day so I planned on getting up whenever my body decided to wake up, and head into town for one of those open bus tours - hop on hop off. I started to make my way into town toward the information center to inquire about bus times and prices. In the meantime, Gareth got off of work early so he changed the plan and we ended up meeting up in the center of town instead of me doing the bus ride. I really was just going to do that to kill time until I could spend time with Gareth or Laura again. So this was bonus! Skip the bus ride, hang out with a friend. I had a little bit of time to kill so I went into the City Hall as recommended by Gareth (nice architecture inside he said) which was lovely! I did a little bit of walking around in there to kill the time, and some shops nearby to see what was around. He met up with me outside of the City Hall and we walked around some different parts of town from what I had seen the last 2 days. We went to get some lunch, met up with his girlfriend Laura Corrigan (who was also at camp, in 2009) so I had another reunion! We walked through a bit of Queen's University right in the center of town, and finished off our day with a warm drink from Starbucks. That's where we said our goodbyes and I went back to Laura's apartment to pack up my bags. I managed to pack everything up, and even squeeze in a couple of Skype calls, before Laura got back. She cooked a lovely mushroom risotto (from a packet!) for both of us to eat before my flight.
Well that was it for my Belfast visit; Laura took me to the airport for my departing flight. She even walked me in to see me off. Any extra time with Laura is treasured so I was happy she came in with me! What a doll. Flight to Liverpool is up next - here we come!
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