The last area to visit was Northern Ireland and Elizabeth,
Maddie, Kelsey and I were excited to go. Originally we wanted to go to these
awesome caves with a river going through it and take a boat ride, but that
didn’t work out. Instead we headed straight to Belfast and once we got there,
we found this awesome market. It was 90% locals, so that was great because it
meant that it was a more authentic market (rather than the ones only for
tourists). It had a very wide array of things, from home improvement things to
antiques and arts and crafts. I had my first savory crepe, which was actually
fantastic. I’ve always considered crepes to be only sweet things, but they are
actually very good with other things, like ham and cheese. Afterwards, we
walked over to the Titanic Museum, but found that they only let so many people
in at certain times, so it was completely booked for the next 2 hours. So we
decided to do the famous black taxi tour, a tour of Belfast city from a local
so you can get a better idea of what exactly is happening there. While the
Troubles have diminished greatly, there is not truly ‘peace’ here. There is a
massive wall dividing the city, with many factories and businesses basically in
‘neutral’ areas, like the city centre and in between the wall. The Catholics
live on one side and the Protestants on the other. [Don’t forget, the Irish
flag is green for Catholics, Orange for Protestants and white in the middle to
represent the peace between them, but Northern Ireland is under UK rule so
there’s still controversy there]. There used to be more walls, but as there is
a relatively stable level of peace right now, they’d torn them down. There are
murals on the Catholic side that are changed once a year and we happened to be
there while they were finishing up the last two. These are painted with
permission by the city and often are statements about political opinions. One
wants us, (Americans) to release the Cuban detainees from several years ago,
one wants a Catholic imprisoned leader released as she’s dying of cancer,
things like that. It was very interesting how outspoken they are. Apparently
the wall keeps peace because it separates everyone at night, which is when most
mischief occurs. The factories in between the wall (because there’s dead space
in between) have a door to each side and you would enter and exit from the side
that you were on. We visited a section of the Catholic side that’s essentially
the ‘Little India’ part of the city and learned that ten years ago, the
Protestants had set that place on fire and killed several young people. There’s
a memorial there, with a Phoenix as the symbol to show that they rebuilt
everything from the ashes there. Much of the Catholic side no longer has street
names so that, since Belfast is also a Viking city (i.e. illogical roads that
go everywhere), you would get lost if you weren’t from that side. Apparently U2
has a song about that (where the streets have no names). Then, after driving to
the outskirts of the city, we crossed the wall and there is a church right at
that neutral area. On the Protestant side, we saw more murals, but they were of
a very different nature. The others were like paintings, each in their own
little square. This was a long continuous mural almost because there had been
some world graffiti contest and they needed a place to accommodate all of the
finalists. Well, where else is there a massive, ridiculously long wall (i.e. I
think like 3 miles long)? So this was the perfect place to hold it. We got to
write a message on the wall and the only thing I could think of was Psalm 46,
so I wrote that. That was cool to leave a mark on something historic. We also
went to some neighborhoods on the Protestant side and saw some of their murals.
They were much more of the character – we belong here, you can’t kick us out –
kind of thing. They had one that is done in the same way as the Mona Lisa’s
eyes: a sniper who has his sights on you no matter where you are in the field.
If you can see him, it looks like he’s aiming at you. Obvious message and kind
of creepy. The others were famous Irishmen or battles where the English
established their rule and all. That was the end of the tour – I really enjoyed
it because we had an excellent driver/tour guide who was quite entertaining and
very knowledgeable. He was very kind and brought us by our hostel to drop our
bags before leaving us at the Titanic museum.
We
got to the museum in time to do our tour. The museum doesn’t look very large,
but it actually has a ton of stuff inside. Belfast city used to be famous for
many things, for textiles and other manufactured goods. It was most known for
its shipping industry and this is where the Titanic was built. Just before it
received the commission for the job, the city had enjoyed a ten-year booming
economy. Turns out that while White Star Liners and the other company (forgot
the name) were the companies ordering and owning the Titanic, some of the
funding came from other rich people, like J P Morgan. I thought that was
interesting because I thought it was completely British/Irish involvement, but
I’m not surprised as he was ridiculously rich back then. The Titanic was built
in just over a year, which I really can’t believe, though it took another 6
months to make it ornate and luxurious inside. They also didn’t have much
scaffolding or any kind of safety anything for the workers who put it together
and they were up probably half a mile from the ground, so that must have been
extremely nerve-racking. The working conditions just weren’t good, and even
though that seems to be the theme for things built during that time and before
it, it amazes me that they still managed to accomplish it, especially something
as large and detailed as the Titanic. There was a mini ride inside the museum
that showed us how they made some things, like the rivets (I think that’s what
they’re called, they pegs that hold the sheets of metal together). You have to
have people on either side hitting and holding it while it’s still red hot to
mold the metal. After we saw how they put it together, there was an exhibit
showing the different cabin types and what some of the rooms looked like. I
think the movie actually did a good job of portraying what most of the ship
looked like. The rooms varied greatly, with the economy class with maybe a foot
between the bunk beds and wall. Really small, but having lived on a ship, you
don’t really spend that much time in your room, so it wasn’t terrible. Also, apparently
that only cost like $1000? Still a lot of money for back then, but not as much
as I thought it would be to ride on the Titanic. Fun fact – it’s last port of
call was a little city right near Cork, so that was the last time it saw land.
Anyways, there was a room with all the transmissions that night, showing how
the Titanic was saying there were icebergs and what should they do and some of
the other ships were telling them to shut up. Then, once they’d been hit, there
was no one close enough – well there were but their intercoms weren’t manned.
It did split, like in the movie and sunk. Took much longer than the hour that
the movie makes it look like – I think it was more like 5 hours from when they
got hit to when they stopped sending out signals. The Irish like to joke that
the Irish built a feat of engineering and the ship was fine but that the
English sunk it (because they were the ones sailing the ship). Well, after
that, they had a room with the things that have come from this tragedy: SOS now
a standard, universal signal for distress; there has to be a space on a
lifeboat for every person; you have to practice going to the lifeboats so
everyone knows how; radio rooms must be manned at all times and a few more that
I can’t remember right now. Many of these things seem logical now (and I’ve
enjoyed the benefits of them), but it’s amazing that these simple changes could
easily have saved most of the people on that ship, which is tragic really. The
last area showed some of the footage of them finding it underwater and the
things that have survived. That was pretty cool. However, one thing to remember
is that what Belfast was known for and took so much pride in building then
ruined it’s reputation once it sunk. It took a long time for Belfast to bounce
back from that.
After
we finished at the museum, we went to a restaurant for dinner. Most things close
early in Belfast and by early I mean we had a hard time finding food at 730.
The place we ended up in was more of a date place, but whatever, we were
hungry. Then, we went to the city centre because they had a massive TV set up
to show the Olympics opening ceremonies. Since that didn’t start until 9, they
had some entertainment beforehand. We missed the acrobats, but they had fire
throwers and the Belfast city band. That was great because they played fun
music and everyone danced around and celebrated. Then we sat in the grass and
watched the ceremonies, which were very well done – confusing at first, then
impressive, then entertaining and very informative overall. I really enjoyed
them. Finally, we got a taxi and went back to our hostel.
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| Statue near the docks - for the Olympics? |
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| Elizabeth and Maddie |
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| Me in front of the main river |
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| Titanic Museum |
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| Some of the Catholic murals |
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| more murals |
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| Phoenix at the Little India Memorial |
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| Some of the Protestant Murals |
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| Sniper who follows you |
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| Protestant Mural about the Red Hand of Ulster |
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| Floor of Titanic Museum |
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| One of the propaganda sayings during the early 20th C |
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| course of the Titanic (well what it was supposed to do) |
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| some of the walls of the museum |
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| Second class bedroom |
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| undersea images |
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| Belfast City Centre |
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| lots of painted cows - this one features the Titanic Memorial |
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| City band performing |
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Elizabeth and I in on the lawn of the city centre, awaiting the Opening Ceremonies
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