(no subject)
ok so once again im doin all my postin at once. call it a vice. whatevs. ok so northern ireland craziness.
flew into belfast. ass early in the morning, like 7am style. ok thats not too early but considering it was saturday and we had all foolishly gotten drunk on friday night. we had been directed to a little coast town called portrush, and made arrangements for a hostel. 70 quid later (for the 7 of us) we were there, and no one was home. shit. we went for breakfast and all felt like men ordering pints of milk. except josh. half-pint joshua orders a small milk, which was like 4 shots worth. ok so back to the hostel. the lady had returned, and showed us to our room, which luckily contained 7 beds. she told us to check out the giant's causeway, which is this rock formation of a ton of interlocking hexagons that get pushed up when lava cools underwater. it's also the site of finn mccool's legend, which i'll explain if anyone's interested. that means commenting, people. the best way, we were told, was to hitchike, so we needed to split into smaller groups and walk along the road in 2's and 3's. if you do the math the best way is 2 groups of 2 and 1 group of 3. i know it's tricky. before long we all got picked up and it was dandy. we tried to make it to the bushmill's distillery afterwards but it was too late and we missed the last tour. on the way back we stopped at the ruins of a super old castle, david (who is a history major) was guessin it was build around 1100. but we had no real idea. that night we watched the end of a really dumb horror flick at the hostel, phantoms or some bullshit. dont waste your time. then we went to a few pubs, and at the atlantic david was showin off his tattoo and we were talkin to some guys when the karaoke started. we grabbed a booklet and were joking about doing somethin, until joshua pointed out they had boy named sue, my favorite johnny cash song. i had to do it. so i did. best part of that was, david said he would buy me a drink. which, until then, was just beers, but after i did it i made him buy me a double g-n-t. yeah i got lotsa congrats on doin that from randoms, because all anyone was doin was cheezy bullshit lovesongs and pop crap. but i brought some mothafuckin jc to the crowd and they loved every bit of it.
ok the next day we couldnt hitch a ride for the life of us, so we ended up walking a lot. back to the castle ruins in the morning, because we thought we could catch a tour and maybe learn a thing or two. but we had plans to get to belfast proper that day, and when we got to the castle we saw that tours didnt start on sundays until later. so we hopped a few fences and went exploring around. it was fucking breathtaking. unfortunately i didnt bring my camera, and joshua (who took a ton of pictures) lost his card that held most of the pictures. bastard. anyways, we got a taxi to belfast and set up shop in another hostel, and hit the town. in retrospect, maybe it wasnt the brightest idea for me to go out in my all-black cons, black dickies, black beanie, black leather gloves, and a black bomber jacket. i looked like a fuckin terrorist, and in belfast that's not always the best idea. oh well. we set out to see the murals - giant paintings made by the protestant movement regarding their desire for a british soveriegnty and their grievances regarding the shady IRA motherfuckers. we found shankill road - the main protestant section and place for murals - and even though it was 8pm and dark, and no one else was walkin the streets, we braved it without thinking. which maybe we shouldn't have done - here's a street that has shank and kill in the same friggin word. oh well. after walkin about a mile, we decided to stop in a bar, which we did. it was called the "royal bar." way to pick a nonpartisan bar that ISNT a target for catholic attacks, guys. oh well, we're in belfast, do as they do right? immediately we walk in and everyone looks at us. hard. then a few guys come up to us and are super nice - almost too nice, and ask us where we're from and other smalltalk. we end up joining two middle-aged women, their daughters, and some other random people. at one point, while we were talking to some older guy, another bloke comes up and tells the older guy - half jokingly - that if we get outta hand, just shoot us - as he taps the guy's waist, which did have a bulge in it. fuck. anyways we start talkin with these women about stuff, and they're askin us what we're studyin. she gets to joshua (the jewish canadian, in case u dint know; this is important). 'what are you studyin?' dont say religion dont say religion... 'religion.' oh man bad move joshua. we kinda clear things up and say he's mostly studying languages. 'what languages, joshua?' dont say hebrew dont say hebrew... 'hebrew mostly.' double fuck. 'why would you wanna study hebrew?' 'well, so that i can study the bible in its original text.' GOOD FRIGGIN SAVE JOSH! 'oh i didn't know it was written in hebrew originally.' 'yeah, well the old testament is, which im studying. the new testament was written in greek, but i haven't read any of it.' WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING SON? man this is not the place to fuck around; these people are not exactly open-minded. oh well, it gets the heart racing. specially when joshua says hes into eastern religion and she was like, 'well isn't that kind of idoltry?' any other place in the world i would have stepped in. not in northern ireland in the most hardcore protestant encampment, where everywhere you go you see murals and tattoos of the "Ulster Youth Militia" and "Terrae Firme" wrapped around a clenched fist. and especially since i'm wearing a dropkick murphys shirt which sports the celtic guy - damn that was stupid on my part and i put my sweatshirt back on. for those of you who may not know, the celtic is often associated with catholicism; as it is in scotland - like the celtic-rangers rivalry in football which once represented the hardcore split b/w protestants and catholics. yeah. we decided it was time to leave, and upon our exit everyone was like, 'you arent leaving without calling a taxi are you? thats fucking crazy in this neighborhood!' we later found out that a ton of people had been murdered on shankill road, including our friend's father's friend, and is also a primary spot for bombings; we saw several destroyed buildings that had suffered as much. crazy shit. but we thought we were good, and walked back. we survived. but it was eery after leavin that bar. we found another bar that was playin live irish music and we stayed there for the duration. around 10:30pm it became clear that this was superbowl sunday! we mosied into the next room and watched the first quarter of the game, before alasdair called me back into the other room...they were playin the wild rover. we (who knew the song) swung our pints in the air and belted out the words, while the others just danced. it was awesome. my only regret was that they kicked us out at midnight and i failed to see even one score on the superbowl - which apparently turned out to be quite the thriller. oh well.
so that's northern ireland in a nutshell. at least, thats our trip in a nutshell. hope u enjoyed it - if you're still reading, that is. i know this is a mammoth entry. hell i dont even know how long ago i started this.
flew into belfast. ass early in the morning, like 7am style. ok thats not too early but considering it was saturday and we had all foolishly gotten drunk on friday night. we had been directed to a little coast town called portrush, and made arrangements for a hostel. 70 quid later (for the 7 of us) we were there, and no one was home. shit. we went for breakfast and all felt like men ordering pints of milk. except josh. half-pint joshua orders a small milk, which was like 4 shots worth. ok so back to the hostel. the lady had returned, and showed us to our room, which luckily contained 7 beds. she told us to check out the giant's causeway, which is this rock formation of a ton of interlocking hexagons that get pushed up when lava cools underwater. it's also the site of finn mccool's legend, which i'll explain if anyone's interested. that means commenting, people. the best way, we were told, was to hitchike, so we needed to split into smaller groups and walk along the road in 2's and 3's. if you do the math the best way is 2 groups of 2 and 1 group of 3. i know it's tricky. before long we all got picked up and it was dandy. we tried to make it to the bushmill's distillery afterwards but it was too late and we missed the last tour. on the way back we stopped at the ruins of a super old castle, david (who is a history major) was guessin it was build around 1100. but we had no real idea. that night we watched the end of a really dumb horror flick at the hostel, phantoms or some bullshit. dont waste your time. then we went to a few pubs, and at the atlantic david was showin off his tattoo and we were talkin to some guys when the karaoke started. we grabbed a booklet and were joking about doing somethin, until joshua pointed out they had boy named sue, my favorite johnny cash song. i had to do it. so i did. best part of that was, david said he would buy me a drink. which, until then, was just beers, but after i did it i made him buy me a double g-n-t. yeah i got lotsa congrats on doin that from randoms, because all anyone was doin was cheezy bullshit lovesongs and pop crap. but i brought some mothafuckin jc to the crowd and they loved every bit of it.
ok the next day we couldnt hitch a ride for the life of us, so we ended up walking a lot. back to the castle ruins in the morning, because we thought we could catch a tour and maybe learn a thing or two. but we had plans to get to belfast proper that day, and when we got to the castle we saw that tours didnt start on sundays until later. so we hopped a few fences and went exploring around. it was fucking breathtaking. unfortunately i didnt bring my camera, and joshua (who took a ton of pictures) lost his card that held most of the pictures. bastard. anyways, we got a taxi to belfast and set up shop in another hostel, and hit the town. in retrospect, maybe it wasnt the brightest idea for me to go out in my all-black cons, black dickies, black beanie, black leather gloves, and a black bomber jacket. i looked like a fuckin terrorist, and in belfast that's not always the best idea. oh well. we set out to see the murals - giant paintings made by the protestant movement regarding their desire for a british soveriegnty and their grievances regarding the shady IRA motherfuckers. we found shankill road - the main protestant section and place for murals - and even though it was 8pm and dark, and no one else was walkin the streets, we braved it without thinking. which maybe we shouldn't have done - here's a street that has shank and kill in the same friggin word. oh well. after walkin about a mile, we decided to stop in a bar, which we did. it was called the "royal bar." way to pick a nonpartisan bar that ISNT a target for catholic attacks, guys. oh well, we're in belfast, do as they do right? immediately we walk in and everyone looks at us. hard. then a few guys come up to us and are super nice - almost too nice, and ask us where we're from and other smalltalk. we end up joining two middle-aged women, their daughters, and some other random people. at one point, while we were talking to some older guy, another bloke comes up and tells the older guy - half jokingly - that if we get outta hand, just shoot us - as he taps the guy's waist, which did have a bulge in it. fuck. anyways we start talkin with these women about stuff, and they're askin us what we're studyin. she gets to joshua (the jewish canadian, in case u dint know; this is important). 'what are you studyin?' dont say religion dont say religion... 'religion.' oh man bad move joshua. we kinda clear things up and say he's mostly studying languages. 'what languages, joshua?' dont say hebrew dont say hebrew... 'hebrew mostly.' double fuck. 'why would you wanna study hebrew?' 'well, so that i can study the bible in its original text.' GOOD FRIGGIN SAVE JOSH! 'oh i didn't know it was written in hebrew originally.' 'yeah, well the old testament is, which im studying. the new testament was written in greek, but i haven't read any of it.' WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING SON? man this is not the place to fuck around; these people are not exactly open-minded. oh well, it gets the heart racing. specially when joshua says hes into eastern religion and she was like, 'well isn't that kind of idoltry?' any other place in the world i would have stepped in. not in northern ireland in the most hardcore protestant encampment, where everywhere you go you see murals and tattoos of the "Ulster Youth Militia" and "Terrae Firme" wrapped around a clenched fist. and especially since i'm wearing a dropkick murphys shirt which sports the celtic guy - damn that was stupid on my part and i put my sweatshirt back on. for those of you who may not know, the celtic is often associated with catholicism; as it is in scotland - like the celtic-rangers rivalry in football which once represented the hardcore split b/w protestants and catholics. yeah. we decided it was time to leave, and upon our exit everyone was like, 'you arent leaving without calling a taxi are you? thats fucking crazy in this neighborhood!' we later found out that a ton of people had been murdered on shankill road, including our friend's father's friend, and is also a primary spot for bombings; we saw several destroyed buildings that had suffered as much. crazy shit. but we thought we were good, and walked back. we survived. but it was eery after leavin that bar. we found another bar that was playin live irish music and we stayed there for the duration. around 10:30pm it became clear that this was superbowl sunday! we mosied into the next room and watched the first quarter of the game, before alasdair called me back into the other room...they were playin the wild rover. we (who knew the song) swung our pints in the air and belted out the words, while the others just danced. it was awesome. my only regret was that they kicked us out at midnight and i failed to see even one score on the superbowl - which apparently turned out to be quite the thriller. oh well.
so that's northern ireland in a nutshell. at least, thats our trip in a nutshell. hope u enjoyed it - if you're still reading, that is. i know this is a mammoth entry. hell i dont even know how long ago i started this.