Northern Ireland

It’s been already 2 weeks since my trip, but hopefully I still remember what I wanted to write 😊.

Well, I wanted to visit Northern Ireland, and the best time seemed to be before Brexit, whenever that shit happens. I knew the weather would not be that great, but still it was bloody freezing cold sometimes! I had 4,5 days (Thursday noon til Sunday evening), I stayed 2 nights in Derry, and 2 nights in Belfast. First, I took the bus to Derry, via Dublin airport was the best route at that time, and I think it took about 7 hours. I’d heard that over there it is very important if you say Derry or Londonderry, but actually I didn’t hear anyone say Londonderry, and only in ONE sign I saw it written Londonderry. Otherwise it was Derry everywhere. Derry is the Irish name, and Londonderry is UK name. If you know anything about Northern Ireland, you know why it might matter a lot to some people.

I stayed in Phoenix Bed and Breakfast, what a lovely place in a good location! A short walk from the city centre (and one very steep hill), and the owner was SO nice. He was even singing when he was making my breakfast 😊. The price was also very reasonable, if I remember correctly, it was 79 £ for 2 nights. I arrived on Thursday evening, so then I just got something to eat and went to sleep early. Friday I was out all day exploring the place. In Derry you can feel the history everywhere. Not just The Troubles, but all history with the walls in the city centre. I went to the Tower Museum, the tour takes you through the history of Derry and it was very interesting, and well-presented in chronological order. I highly recommend that place. Otherwise I walked around, took pictures etc. typical stuff. I picked a random place for lunch, but as it happens, since it was Women’s Day, they offered complementary glass of sparkling wine for women that day. Oh well 😊. I really enjoyed the atmosphere in Derry, it is a small town, and the people seemed really friendly. Where ever I went, people just started talking to me! Shocking.

Here's the pictures of Derry. As you can see, the history is very much present!

On Saturday I took the bus to Belfast. Had a little incident in that too… Of course, it is me. My Facebook friends already know this story. Well. Went to the bus station, saw a bus “Belfast”, so I put my bag down and went to the bus. The driver told me there is a faster bus leaving from the next platform, so I should take that bus instead. I had checked the timetable and there were 2 busses, leaving at the same time but arriving at different times. Ok, so I am in the slower bus, no problem. Went to get the bus ticket because I still had 15 mins, thought I would just move my bag to the next bus, why bother going around with my bag when I don’t need to. Right. Good plan. Except there was a third bus leaving 10 mins before, and that’s exactly where my bag was :D. I went out with my ticket to see the bus leaving… Took the faster bus, and arrived to Belfast one hour before my bag. Luckily it was lunch time and I was hungry, so I had lunch and collected my bag when that bus arrived. Why these things keep happening to me? You would think I’ve learned something about travelling already? That night it was snowing a little bit! Haven’t seen that stuff in a while, so here’s a couple of pics of that 😊.

In Belfast I had booked a big studio with a kitchenette in the heart of Belfast, and that was very nice! Did a lot of walking of course, and also took the hop on hop off bus. By walking you can only cover the city centre in a short time, so this kind of tour is good when you have limited time. The tour was quite nice and we had a good guide. In Belfast city centre you don’t see the history the same way than in Derry, and there I didn’t FEEL the history that much. But outside the centre it is very visible. Both in Derry and Belfast I saw a lot more support signs for nationalists and republicans, than for unionists and loyalists. If you are interested  in reading a bit more about The Troubles, here’s a link to Wikipedia for that article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles. In the end a lot of people were killed, mostly civilians, and a lot more injured. Belfast is still very much segregated city, with areas of 100% protestant or 100% catholic inhabitants. There’s a peace wall in Belfast, and most people want to keep it, it is separating those 2 sides. Even though it has been pretty peaceful for years, there are still violent incidents sometimes. I am guessing Brexit doesn’t help with the possible tension, since the nationalists and republicans want to stay in EU (and unite Ireland). Most people in the Republic want to see united Ireland as well. Naturally, the unionists and loyalist want Brexit and staying in UK. Interesting to see what happens there, and what happens with the border. At the moment there really is no border,  I noticed the border crossing when I got a text message “welcome to UK”, and then I noticed the street signs were only in English. I asked some Irish (in the Republic) how they see what might happen up there, and the worry is not the violence starting again, but more economical.

Ok, that’s enough politics, here’s the pics of Belfast!

This was Belfast bus station, ladies toilet. I laughed so hard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

On Monday I took the bus to Dublin, I had an appointment in the Finnish embassy for renewing my passport. Now I have a passport issued by the embassy in Dublin, and I have an ID issued by the embassy in Lisbon. A friend of mine, former colleague from Lisbon, has just moved to Dublin, so I met her after that for a snack and a couple of drinks 😊. Then I took the bus to Limerick, and that was the end of my mini holiday.

Just last weekend I did a day trip to Killarney, but I will do a separate little post about that. Otherwise this post would be just freaking long! Hopefully it won’t take 2 weeks to do that.