From the Emerald City to The Emerald Isle: Trip to Belfast on the Train

We have planned on seeing Belfast since we arrived but travel is harder and more expensive than we had anticipated. This weekend, though, we finally decided to take the train to Belfast. It's a two hour train ride from our house to Belfast City. So, since it was a bank holiday weekend, we went up Sunday morning and came back Monday afternoon. Easy enough and well worth it.

The milltown of Drogheda (about 30 minutes north of Dublin)

Ooo, a carnival on the docks.

Our first look at Belfast from the train - seeing this miles and miles away on the hillside.

It reads: Hungerstrikers ABU. The H which stood for the H-block in the prison where the hungerstrikes took place. In 1981, during this strike, 10 prisoners died. Their hunger strikes lasted between 46 and 73 days, before each of them died.

This Grand Opera house was very near our hotel. It was bombed several times in "The Troubles" and was refurbished.

Oh, "Landmark Building For Sale", great, what's the square footage on that? 100,000 square feet. Perfect, I'll take it." Who exactly buys an historic building the size of a University?

The best street performer outfit we had ever seen. This guy was amazing! He was copying a toddler boy who stood in front of him hopping. So he would try to hop and then cock his head sideways, then try again. And the boy kept going.

A genius cafe/bar for lunch where they showed an old-timey cartoon on the brick wall (Black & White and silent). They even mixed drinks in teapots and brought them to customers! It was so hipster I thought I was in Portland or Capitol Hill in Seattle!

Then they brought us the check in a box lined with comic book paper, a magnifying class, a calculator and retro candies! Ohhhh hipsters! It's all in the details.

Walking out to the Titanic Museum

And yes, that silver monstrosity (that looks like a 50 theatre "leisureplex") is the Titanic Museum. We were a little disappointed at how tacky looking it was. It certainly did not conjure up thoughts of how grand that ship was or the tragedy that it became (both for victims/families) but also for Belfast workers who, literally, slaved and lost their lives, building the thing.

Built to look like a plastic model toy that pops out of the plastic holder. Remember those?

You can't quite tell the scale but this was the largest piece of machinery I have ever seen. (Maybe there are larger cranes in the Panama Canal?) They call these cranes (there are 2), Goliath and Samson. They're easily 15-20 stories high - unreal - they absolutely dwarfed the cranes in Seattle.

One of the tour guides told us that workers had 7 minutes break for the entire 12 (or more) hour work day. If they wanted to use the restroom, a warden would write their name on the chalkboard outside the bathroom with how many minutes they had left for the day. Not to mention they worked up on 250 feet of scaffolding with no elevators so I imagine that took a chunk out of their break time.

The job most described was that of the riveters. They had to heat the metal rivets in fire, then hammer them through tiny holes, half their size, until they fit and cooled there. It took two men, one on either side of the metal walls, to bang in ONE rivet. They said men would climb over the yard walls in the middle of the night to light their fires (to heat the rivets) so they wouldn't have to wait for the fires to start in the morning. That way they could get a few more rivets done in their work shift, since they were paid, PER rivet.

Unreal. What made me so sad about the whole tragedy - and I hadn't thought of this before touring how the ship was built - was how these workers must have felt after it sunk. Some died working here, some were gravely injured and all worked under horrid conditions and then, bam!, on its first sailing, it ended up at the bottom of the ocean. All that work just completely erased, because of an iceberg?

On a funny note - Norah was so cute - when we got to her school on Tuesday, she immediately went into a rant to her teachers about "the Titanic museum in Belfast" and how "it hit an iceberg" and "it sanked".

8 Fatalities? I'm guessing that number was far higher. Apparently many of these men went completely deaf because of the noise inside the ship and on the yard.

An example of a first class cabin

And then a 'regular' cabin - Second Class

Reminds me of Uncle Dan's house

Here's looking out to the slip where the ship first hit the water and took off to England. (prior to it's first sailing with passengers)

Loved this.

City Hall in the background

Monday morning happened to be the Belfast Marathon (I had no idea), so I was like a kid in a candy shop from the moment I woke up. I kept looking out the window and finally took my camera and walked to the start line (only 3 blocks away). Norah wasn't awake yet so Wayne stayed with her while I gawked and smiled awkwardly at all the marathon runners (wishing I was running it with them).

A Man who prefers to stretch alone.

Game faces, fellas. (these are the sub-3 hour marathoners, aka superhuman)

This man came over for a chat while he was stretching. He's from Malta, 65 years old. He holds every single record for his age group, in every single race distance in Malta - from 5K up to the marathon. He's run 50 marathons! He asked me to take his picture and email it to him.

Duhh duhh duhhh! (is that the way to type that?) And then the Kenyans walked out. I was so giddy!

These are my celebrities. I'm not a great runner. I'm not even a GOOD runner. I'm just dedicated and I love it. What I lack in natural talent and speed, I guess I make for in passion. I'm obsessed with running. So to see these runners line up was so exciting for me. I could care less about Hollywood celebrites, or American sports stars. Ok, now, if Matt Damon shows up at our house for dinner, I'm not going to RUDE. :) I'd let him in.... but honestly I'd prefer to meet an elite marathoner or ultra-marathoner, any day o' the week.