Belfast

Or, Now I understand why they invented airplanes.

For my trip to Scotland I decided to go the long way and see a part of Ireland that I hadn’t on my first trip here with my family two years ago. The plan was to take the train up to Belfast, spend the night there, quickly see some of the city and then take the ferry across to Stranraer, Scotland, from which a train would whisk me to Edinburgh and my friend Megan’s outstretched arms. The trip to Belfast was painless enough, but their train station is one of those that’s a bit out of the city centre, with nothing near it and no way for a newcomer who has just stumbled off their train to figure out where to go. I had to use my parent’s big-ass Lonely Planet guide to Ireland just for a rudimentary map of the city, and wandered around with my giant backpack (because, naturally, I packed too much), getting more and more frustrated that the city lacked street signs for even major streets. Also, it was a dark afternoon and the light was fading already and I did not really fancy getting lost in Belfast at night time. A group of young chav-y mothers came out of a park with their prams, and as I was passing them my backpack got hooked on a streetlamp and I flung a bit backwards, and although I recovered quickly and acted as though nothing happened, I distinctly heard one of the women go “ha!”

I found my hostel and was put in a good mood on hearing that I had my four-person room to myself. I am a traveller at heart and no matter how tired I am, I always embrace a new city and cannot wait to explore it. I set out for the city centre with a vague plan of getting dinner and seeing a bit of the city, maybe even one of those political murals from the height of the ‘Troubles’ which I remember reading about in poli-sci at Guelph.

I did not expect Belfast to be Paris. I thought it was be a bit downtrodden and derelict, but in a picturesque way, largely based on the film ‘Odd Man Out’ with Eddie Izzard-favourite James Mason as an IRA-rebel on the run from authorities in the dark and watery old city. But it turns out much has been rebuilt and not in a good way. Giant modern buildings with no shops or restaurants at pavement level line street after street. I could find barely any restaurants, and some I did weren’t open, and I got lost frequently (street signs!!) and as evening set in I got disillusioned on discovering the ‘real’ Belfast experience, so I had Chinese food. And went to see ‘Up’. Which made me cry and miss my dog.

I went back to the hostel and ended up talking to a nice Australian girl in the common room. I didn’t meet anyone at my Amsterdam hostel, and I think this is a giant difference in the sexes; girls will try to chat with people and make new friends while travelling and boys keep their head down, awkwardly avoiding any interaction. She had been travelling for almost a year with a girlfriend and said parts of it was really hard. I told her my favourite travellers’ mantra from travel writer and transgendered-pioneer Jan Morris (which I first read while stranded in a train station on the Spanish-French border, exactly when I needed to hear it): don’t worry about the inconveniences of travelling, for the things that go wrong are the salt that give travel its flavour. “Yeah,” she replied, “but if I had known about some of the things that would happen, maybe I wouldn’t have left.” “Oh! What could have been so bad that happened to you?” “Umm, my friend and I had thousands of pounds stolen from our hotel room in Spain.” “Ah... I see...”

The next morning it was raining pretty heavily, so I thought ‘Fuck the murals. I’m just going to go early to the ferry docks and get the heck out of here.’ On my way though I stopped at a cozy little restaurant and had the traditional Ulster fry breakfast: sausage, bacon, hash brown, cornbread, pancake and, oddly, half a friend tomato. The cab driver who took me to the ferry asked how I liked the city, and not knowing what to say I mumbled something about street signs and no restaurants. “Well, it’s too bad you didn’t get to see more of it. It’s a lot better than Dublin!” To which I wisely stayed quiet.

When I checked in at the ferry port everything went smoothly until the very end when the man said, “Unfortunately, due to weather conditions, we’ve put everyone on the ‘super ferry’ which will take an extra hour to get to Stranraer.” ‘Weather conditions,’ I thought. ‘You mean like RAIN? In the Irish Sea?! How unbelievable!’ All I said was, “But I already bought my train ticket to Edinburgh.” “One of our buses will take you from Stranraer to Ayr, and there you can get the train to Glasgow and make the connection to Edinburgh.” “...Thanks.” Then when I went to board and I asked the woman about how that would all work she snapped at me, “I only deal with departures!” and then was boggled by the question of whether my standard ferry ticket determined any specific areas in the boat I was to go to. “Umm, I have never taken this boat before...” I said, pleadingly, attempting to make her feel guilty for being a bitch. But they did give us all ten percent off our next ticket with them, which is going to be SO useful for me.

Still, once we were on the SUPER FERRY I got excited and despite the wind and rain stood outside on the deck and bid farewell to Ireland. When I eventually went inside I wandered the boat a bit, which was filled with mostly non-tourists; Northern Irish and Scottish people on visits with friends and family, I assumed. I was listening in to a young mother with her two kids and was surprised to find out that I only understood every couple of words. That was my first indication that I was entering a new culture. As I walked around the boat it started to rock back and forth, back and forth. I grabbed a nearby rail to steady myself, and I started to realize why we had been switched to the bigger, if slower, SUPER FERRY. After a little bit I sat down and then all of the sudden I realized I was sea sick. Back and forth, back and forth. And I appeared to be the only one. Back and forth. And a group of rowdy men sitting across from me were actually DRINKING! How did they do that? Back and forth and back and forth and back... And I did NOT want to throw up! I was not going to arrive in Edinburgh with the distinctive acidic whiff of vomit on my breath, even if slightly disguised by Juicy Fruit. So I stared at the floor, because I had heard that was what you were supposed to do. And I begged the Celtic gods to let the ship stop rocking. And I shut my eyes, and after a little while I drifted off, sitting up right. When opened my eyes an hour had passed, the boat was rocking less and we could already see the coastline of Scotland, which looked as rolling and heather-covered as the MGM art department had taught me in ‘Brigadoon’!

But then there was the bus from Stranraer to Ayr, which, although it went along the water and was very scenic, was long and twisty enough that by the end of it I felt like I might vom all over again. At Ayr I found out that I would fortunately be able to use my same train ticket, but that the train to Glasgow would take an hour, then I would have to take a city bus to Glasgow’s other train station (a fact that annoyed me to no end at the time), from which the train to Edinburgh would take another hour, clocking my entire journey at two hours longer than I planned. And Megan had put off her Canadian-Thanksgiving-in-Scotland dinner just for me!

The next three steps of the journey were uneventful enough, but seemed to take forever mostly because I wanted them to take no time. I tried to read Ian Rankin, but his cynicism about Edinburgh and its crime problems started to really get me down. I text messaged Megan telling her to start dinner if she had to. It was definitely one of those journeys that you knew you were going to kiss the ground when it was finally over. Waiting for the bus in Glasgow that would take us to our next train, a young woman asked me something and I had to get her to repeat it three times. She was asking for a lighter, but I had no idea what she was saying, because her Scottish accent made it almost into three syllables. It was as though she pronounced the ‘g’ and the ‘h’. The Scotch accent is the only one I’ve come across that sounds difficult to get out even for native Scots.

Night had fallen by the time I caught my last train, so outside the windows was dark, but I probably just missed seeing nondescript suburbs so no big lost. When I arrived I said out loud “No more public transport today!” and splurged on a cab which took me to Megan’s flat, where the preparing of Thanksgiving dinner was running late (just like at home!). She went all out, with roasted chicken (I doubt there are turkeys here), stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, garlic bread and even cranberry jelly. We ate at a little makeshift table in her bedroom and drank a lot of wine, and I was just so happy to be there.