Belfast

October 9, 2012

It’s late afternoon and we are back in our hotel in Belfast.  Bc is reorganizing the luggage.  That is not my idea of fun, so I’m writing the blog!  We travel so well together!

This morning we walked out of the hotel to see a cathedral but stopped at the War Memorial.  This was a small but touching place.  We saw items and displays commemorating World War I and II.  Belfast was an important centre for the manufacture of munitions.  In January 1942 37,000 American troops came to Belfast to practice for the landings in North Africa in late 1942.  Then 120,000 American troops came here in 1943 to prepare for the Normandy landing.  The citizens of Belfast suffered from the Blitz also.  We were glad we stopped. 

Around the corner is the Belfast Cathedral. Our brochure doesn’t say when it was built but I seem to remember it was around the late 1800s.  It is a beautiful place.  There are several alcoves dedicated to different military activities.  I’ve never seen a church combine military dedications before.  There are 2 amazingly beautiful tile ceilings as well as numerous stained glass windows.  It was a pleasant hour wandering around and reading all the dedications and art.

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We were hungry so we walked across the street to BAGEL:bagel.  Kate, this picture is for you:  It was on the window of the storefront. 

Obviously they do bagels with all sorts of stuff on and in them.  I asked about the Pizza Bagel called Margarita Bruschetta, tomatoes and cheese.  I asked if I could have half a bagel and they said “You can only have half if you take away.  For sit in you get both halves.”  I said “Can I just get half even if I sit in?”  All 3 attendants just looked at me as if I was crazy.  Fine, I’ll take both halves and sit in.  It turned out to be a bagel with salsa, green tomatoes and cheese on it.  I ate only one half.  Whatever….

We walked around and found some other places that would be good for dinner.  Then we caught a taxi and went to the Titanic exhibit.  This is quite something!  For those of you who don’t know, the Titanic was built in Belfast by Harland & Wolff.  The exhibit started with early Belfast and explained and showed how Belfast grew and became a center of ship building.  The exhibit is the type where you walk through, reading and watching displays in chronological order.  It feels as if you are really there.  There is even a “ride” through the part where they are building the ship. It is very interesting and full of facts, original memorabilia and amazing pictures.  At the end you sit in the theatre and watch the videos of the 1985 exploration of the remains of the Titanic.  I would recommend it to anyone visiting Belfast.  It took us about 2 hours to go through the entire exhibit.  Here are some pictures.

We taxied our way back and here we are getting ready to go out to eat. 

Tonight we will hopefully get our laundry back (!!). Tomorrow we will get up early and go to the airport to fly to Glasgow.  We have to have some extra time to make sure Hertz doesn’t have any problems with our already dented tin can car.  And we will turn in Annie Smythe. 

Oh!  Remember I told you about the plastic cheese for breakfast?  Here's a picture:

We know that someone is reading these blogs as blogger tells us that we have over 25 hits a day.  But I suspect it’s just my friend Sharon reading the blogs over and over as that is the only person we’ve heard from.  I take that back.  Andy checks in with us regarding the Irish Whiskey.  So we hope you are enjoying these monologues.  They are a good way for us to remember what we saw and when we saw it.

Random thoughts:

I don’t care how long you blow cold air onto my wet hands, they’ll never get dried.  Fine, I’ll just wipe my hands on my jeans.  Besides that, I’m going deaf with the VERY loud blowers.

We hope they don’t charge too much for parking here.  Somehow we are supposed to pay for the parking before you try to go to your car.  That should be fun while toting luggage around.  Does it really need to be this confusing? 

Someone was shooting wedding picture ads out front of the hotel.  We could tell it wasn’t a real bride and groom because they didn’t seem to know each other very well and there were only photographers around. 

We rode in a British taxi today.

The British X Factor show is sad. 

It’s really frustrating to try to access American websites like Google and Yahoo.  And all internet is not equal.

Well, take care;   hope you are all doing great!  Bc and gc