Belfast

Belfast is all a bit of a blur. I guess it’s partly due to only being there for two nights. But I think it’s also because we didn’t have to think or do much. We were picked up from the station, driven around, cooked for and entertained. What more could we ask for?

Sonia (our Mums’ cousin’s daughter… to keep it simple I’ll refer to them all as cousins from now on) picked us up from the train station and even managed to fit all of our luggage into her car. She deposited us at our great aunt Kathleen’s place where we we drank tea and ate a second lunch. Kathleen is renowned for making the best tea. I’m sure the only contestants in this award are members of our family, but it is a pretty huge family over there. Sonia puts the great tea down to the water.

As soon as we’d finished the last drops of tea we headed over to see our Papa’s sister Irene (Kathleen is our Grandma’s sister). We ordered a cab but cabs in Belfast can be a bit funny. Most of the ones that service the Catholic area don’t have signs or even meters. A car pulled up out the front and Kathleen told us it was our cab. It seems a bit dodgy, but the cab driver was actually quite friendly and harmless enough. Once in the door at Irene’s place we were given more tea. Maybe from now on you can just assume we drank tea every time a new character enters unless I say otherwise.

Anyway, after catching up with Irene and her husband Kevin we walked around the corner to the home of Papa’s other sister Kathleen. *Note: tea was not served here… but I’m sure it was offered. She certainly is a feisty old lady, although she tried to make us believe otherwise. For the next hour or so she regaled us with tales of her neighbourhood prowess and even did a little Irish jig for us.

We said our goodbyes because Sonia and her sister Karen were on their way to pick us up and show us some of Belfast’s finer drinking establishments. I can’t remember the names of all the pubs, but we did go to three within five minutes, our final destination being Belfast’s oldest pub, The Crown. Because of the way the pubs are laid out, we were able to walk through two pubs to get to the third. Bizarre. Cider and gin was drunk as we sat in a old wooden booth with high walls and a swinging door.

Determined to make the night into a real pub crawl we headed onto our fourth bar (but only our second drink). I can’t remember the name of this one but it was a funny pretentious bar around the corner. This place had music which was too loud to have a conversation over, but at the same time there wasn’t anything to do but talk because there was no dance floor. Oh those silly Irish. Karen and I braved a Guiness here and she gave me some words of wisdom about the foam in my glass. Apparently the foam sticking to the side of the glass means that the glass is dirty, but somehow this is the way it should be. I don’t know why, but that’s what she said and if anyone’s the authority on these things then Karen is.

From one Irish tradition to another. We left the pretentious pub and headed up the road for some curry chip. The curry chip is a bit of a Belfast institution in the same way that kebabs are in Australia. Great at 3am. It’s sort of like having chips and gravy, only it’s curry instead. I was introduced to the stuff years ago when I first went to Belfast (it was actually a vegetable curry chip, very posh), but hadn’t had it since. What made this meal even funnier was that we got TWO types of carbohydrates. Curry chip and rice, or curry chip and noodles. Absolutely crazy.

Sonia drove us back to Kathleen’s with full belly’s, but of course not too full for more tea before falling asleep, leaving Kathleen and her son Stephen to finish watching a movie.

On Saturday morning we woke up to a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, various other fried things and most importantly, potato bread. Must be good stuff because Kathleen is full of energy and seems to never need to sleep. Once we were able to move we made the short trip to the city centre in a cab. The cab driver seemed to be interested in the fact that we were tourists from Australia. I guess Belfast isn’t the tourish hub of the world. We did a spot of shopping before heading back to Kathleen’s for more fried food. I’d never had onions which tasted so good… well, they tasted good until I found out they were cooked in lard! Ugh. What I don’t know won’t hurt me.

Sonia had planned for us to meet up with all (well, lots but never all) of the relatives at a pub on the other side of town near where she lives. To make a long story short, we got there really, really late because we were dealing with the less than hospitable people at the Belfast post office. Grrr.

But what a great pub they’d arranged for us to meet up at that afternoon. Once we sat down we hardly got up again, one drink arriving not long after the first one had been started. I also learnt that when one is asked if they want a “wee Guiness” the “wee” shouldn’t make one think they’re getting a small drink. One size only around here. But I thought I should have one because I’d just received an sms from my brother in Australia asking me to have one for him.

I was surprised about how much my Irish relatives hear about what goes on in Australia… and not in a good way. The Four Corners program on the suspicious death of TJ Hickey in Redfern had been shown the previous night in Belfast and everyone was a little shocked at what was going on there. Add this to the reputation Australia earned with the Tampa debarcle and I had to say it was all true, and it was all due to our current government.

After we’d finished our political discussions about Australia (as well as a discussion with a little boy cousin – can’t remember his name – where he told me that, ‘There are sharks in Australia. There are spiders in Australia,’ and so it went on), we headed down to Sonia’s family’s house.

Impromtu gatherings seem to be the way things are done with our family in Belfast. Til the early hours of the morning tea was constantly brewed, the football was thrown around the backyard (and inevitably over the fence), sandwiches were made, chocolate was passed around (with Kathryn exclaiming, “It’s organic!” hoping that would make it healthy), twenty year old brandy was opened (and rejected by most), cigars were smoked by men in the backyard while the women laughed at how silly they were from inside, and of course, being Belfast, there was a conversation about religion.

And boy did that conversation go on.

I won’t go into too many details, but basically most of the room were of the more leftist, liberal Catholics, while the other (and it was really just one person) was into the whole pomp and circumstance of the Catholic church. She loved her Catholicism and so she kept telling me.

I can’t remember what time it was when Gerard drove Justine and I home, but I’m pretty sure 2am was approaching. And it all started a good 12 hours earlier in a nice pub. They sure know how to have a good time in Belfast.

I was due to fly out of Dublin on Sunday evening and I’ve even bought a train ticket to get me there from Belfast. Kathryn and Gerard most kindly offered to drive me there because a football game happening in Dublin would mean a packed train, possible bomb threats and traffic jams in Dublin.

Sonia helpfully suggested that her parents could get me on their way to church so I could see the area where my Mum grew up and also visit the church which was down the road. Joy. Little did they know that I hadn’t been to church in probably 5 years, and it’d been even more than that since I’d really participated because I was always up the back with the musos. So to the Clonard we went. Religion is so popular in Belfast that they even have their own website. It’s a gorgeous old church and the service didn’t go for nearly as long as I thought it would (last time I was there was for the 3 hour late night Easter mass. Tough.), and I even remembered (or faked) most of the sitting/standing/responding/singing. The funniest bit was when Verity (sister of Sonia and Karen) and I went to light a candle afterwards. No longer do you get a wax candle and light it from another nearby one. No, no. These days you put your 20p into a box and press a button where a light appears in a globe. I guess if they’ve made use of the net, it’s understandable that they’ve made use of electricity too.

Anyway. Mass finishes and we’re about to head to Dublin when Verity decides that she needs to get another Harry Potter book to re-read so that she can reach her goal of re-reading the entire series in a week (or was it a weekend?). Gerard is worried about having enough time and so tells Verity to be really quick. But they also realise that they haven’t had breakfast so he just whips up a quick bit of French toast for the whole family. He’s so efficient. And we’re on the road again.

I was really tired in the car heading to the airport and thought I’d find it hard to be social, but Gerard’s informed musings on everything from Australian politics to Irish history kept me awake most of the way.

We stopped at an old cemetry just outside of Dublin to look at what I *think* is the oldest celtic stone cross in Ireland. I can’t even remember the name of the place at the moment but I’m working on it. And of course Gerard knew all of the history of each stone in the place, and of course Kathryn and Verity had seen it all before so were more keen to get a photo and then leave.

My luggage weight was fine because I was on an Aer Lingus flight, but boy did I wish I wasn’t on an Aer Lingus flight. For the first time in my life I got to the airport more than the recommended time before, and then the flight was a good four hours late! I went through customs almost straight away because there didn’t seem to be much outside the airport but then I wasn’t able to get back out! Out to the land of free net cafes, baggage minding and food that wasn’t overpriced pre-packaged sandwiches!