In my haste to make sure I post every day, I realize that there are many interesting or notable things we did that haven’t yet made it into the blog. So, in no particular order, here are a few nuggets that I’ve missed so far (this will also make up for the fact that the next two days will be post-free):
The Boys Buy Dinner in Ballycastle: For some reason, the boys got it into their heads one day that they wanted to buy dinner for all of us with their own money. Given that restaurants here are extremely expensive, this was a gracious offer, and we took them up on it. This happened the day we were visiting the Giants Causeway and the Antrim coast, and we didn’t know if we could find anyplace good and relatively cheap, but when we came into the town of Ballycastle, Suzie noticed a sign for an “early bird” menu, which ended at 6:30 (it was about 6:20). So we stopped and went into the restaurant, which was somewhat oddly named “The Central Wine Bar.” The restaurant was upstairs over a pub, and was decorated in a very open, nice, modern style. The early-bird prices were quite reasonable, and we each ordered a dish. Much to our surprise, the food was fabulous. Andrew and I had Cod and Chips, but unlike the usual greasy fish sticks and fries, what we got was a very large whole breaded and fried (but not greasy) fillet of cod, along with delicious large “home fry” style potatoes, a small salad, and delicious tartar sauce. Yum yum. Suzie ordered chicken cooked in some kind of sweet, creamy sauce that was terrific and unlike anything I had ever tasted. A completely satisfying experience, at a very reasonable price. The highlight of our restaurant experiences so far, and totally random and unexpected.
SSS Parallel Parks in Bushmills: Yes, it’s true, an absolutely perfect parallel parking job on the left side of the street in a car with a steering wheel on the right side.
What’s with the License Plates?: Being the main (actually, the only) driver, I notice car-related things, like license plates. Most of the license plates (but not all, and it’s unclear whether that’s of any significance) are in the form Letter-Letter-Letter [space] number-number-number-number, but for some reason it seems like 90% of the cars have as their last letter the letter “Z”. Very odd, that, certainly not random, so it must have some secret meaning, but I haven’t yet divined what it is. Also, some of them are yellow, and some of them are white, and I don’t know what that’s about either.
The Finest Coffee Drink: A latte in a small shop inside the train station in Belfast, large and perfectly hot and frothy and deep and rich. I can almost still taste it….
Appreciate the Press Democrat Everyone: Most of the newspapers, both here and in Britain, are incredibly sensational, long on stories appealing to your prurient nature, short on hard news. It’s all murders and trials and celebrities, with almost no international news, and the lay-outs are so National-Enquirer-like that it hurts my eyes to look at them. Again, there are notable exceptions (here, the Irish News seems less that way than the Belfast Telegraph), but it’s still a surprise to open up a paper and find on the second page an almost-full page picture of a topless woman. The sports page of the Telegraph is also odd. It has a lot of stories about local teams and leagues, but no league standings or statistics, and nothing telling readers where or when events are going to occur in the next few days. Suzie suggests that perhaps there is a sports-only paper, but I haven’t yet found it.
I Don’t Think I’ll be Back Anytime Soon: To London, that is. I’m glad we went there for a week, just to see it, and while it’s true that we didn’t take advantage of a lot of the things it’s famous for (e.g., plays), the city frankly underwhelmed me. It is huge and sprawling (more like LA than San Francisco, which is not what I expected), and felt oppressive to me, with little charm and few desirable walking or pedestrian areas (or perhaps we just didn’t find them). My hat is off, however, to the public transport system, which is marvelously efficient and easy to use, if somewhat pricey.
Belfast is Gritty: The city of Belfast itself, as opposed to its suburbs, is a pretty gritty place. Lots of fairly hard-looking people, lots of shaved, skin-head types. It doesn’t feel unsafe, exactly, just a little rough around the edges. Lots of young men with shaved heads; the proportion of long-hairs is much less than in the states.
Not the Friendliest: You hear a lot about how friendly the Irish are as a people, but I have to say that has not been my experience so far, with some notable exceptions. That’s not to say that people have been rude to us, but more that they’ve been mostly businesslike and somewhat brusque. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t like to open my mouth and let my American accent out, as it usually seems to invoke an odd, distancing, distrustful-seeming “what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here?” response. Yesterday I conducted an entire transaction (buying a newspaper) without having the woman look at me once (I don’t even think she looked up from her paper to count the change; she must know the coin sizes by feel). I also wouldn’t describe Irish drivers as the most accommodating lot; I’ve been honked at here more times than I care to remember (admittedly, they were times I was screwing up, but still), and drivers I’ve encountered don’t seem to be very willing to voluntarily give way (for example. to make a necessary lane change). Rationally, I recognize that the “sample size” of people I’ve interacted with is perhaps not large enough to allow conclusions to be drawn, so part of me is still withholding judgment, and I also recognize that we’ve spent a fair amount of time in and around Belfast, a fair-sized city, and city people tend be be a little less friendly than country folk in general. So we’ll see if the next 5 days changes my view any. I hope so.
Categories: Travel -- Ireland, Travel -- London