Belfast.
Hmm. I was going through our Ireland pictures today and I laughed and cried and hated the idea of spending the next five years in Turku instead of running around the globe wanted to post some, but there are so many of them... so I just decided to dedicate this entire post to Belfast, one of my favourite cities ever.
It feels like it was a million years ago, when in fact I was in Ireland last month... Time is such a bizarre concept.
Tiina and I both lied to our parents about going to Belfast because we were sure they'd freak out. BUT, it turns out that for the last years Belfast has been a really safe city. We left just before the July 12 parade, but I read in the paper that there had only been some minor injuries during it anyway. The 'troubles' don't affect everyday lives anymore and you can't even see signs of them except in certain areas. Even though I did learn one joke about the protestants... "What's the difference between apples and oranges? There's no such thing as an apple bastard". And I must say I've never seen so much barb wire anywhere. Nor death treaths written on walls.
It's pretty horrifying to see the memorial plates all over the houses and streets, saying who was killed here and how and when. What's most disturbing is that a lot of them weren't older than 10 years... some of them even newer. Looking at Belfast and its people you'd never guess it was just some years ago that they had to live in constant fear of a new bombing. The locals I met said that nowadays it's just the people who are somehow involved that need to worry. We did see one demonstration, and those people were mostly old. The young ones don't care. Gotta love our generation for something.
Here are a few of the famous murals that we photographed at Shankill Road, which is the Protestant neighbourhood. And a bit of a ghetto. The girls wear heavy jewellery with sweatpants. And get pregnant young.
Catholics strike back...
This is one of the many memorials dedicated to the republicans who died at the 1981 hunger strike:
The people there are amazing, possibly the nicest I've ever met anywhere. Five minutes after arriving there we'd already made friends. If you think going to the pub is fun, you should try it in Belfast!
The university is beautiful, the nightlife is great, the shopping is good and it's a cheap city compared to rest of Ireland/UK. What's not to love.
For a reason I can't remember, Tiina and I took endless amounts of pictures of plants. Plants are fun... I guess?
This is our dream man. We don't know him except as The Man Who Goes to the Rose Garden And Reads His Books Sitting on the Benches. We stalked him for a good time.
I saw my first match of... I can't remember the name of this game. But I love how they all wore white. I'm really good with sports.
So that was it. There are so many stories to hear in that city, I wish I'd had more time there. I'm definitely going back. You should too.
I'll post rest of Ireland and Croatia and Hungary later.
Oh yeah and,
I was X-rayed yesterday and it turns out that I only have one frontal sinus. For twenty years I've been living with only one frontal sinus. Think about it. From now on, I will blame this for everything. No wonder I'm insane like this. As for my other maxillary sinus, you can't see it in the picture either, but the doctor said she was pretty sure it was there. It's just so full of crap that it was hard to see. I can finally say, with literal correctness, that my head is a mess.
I'm getting so sick of all this bullshit with my health that I'm pretty close to moving to the mountains and starting to follow some kind of New Age cult that heals people with cookie dough.