July 24, On the Mend

Belfast feels like a skeleton of a city. It looks like its been beat up, mugged, had all its money, its cell phone and ID stolen, gutted, and left to crawl home. It feels like we are walking into a war-torn town. I imagine each building has seen a better life at some point. Nothing looks new. And the grey sky leaves a somber taste in my mouth.

But the people are the most interesting people I’ve been exposed to in Ireland, and make an interesting contrast to the dismal physicality of the city. Their kindness, liveliness, friendliness and talkativeness hint at a deeper culture, a community, bubbling up just beneath the cracked surface.

For example, there is a group of 6 middle-aged men sitting in the couches next to me in the lobby of our hotel in Belfast right now. They are wearing red cowboy hats with white stitching, some have brown cow-spotted pants, and they are all sporting a white t-shirt with an oval vignetted picture of a smiling boy in glasses. It crosses my mind that these men are here for the gay pride parade that we stayed an extra 2 hours for. A few minutes later I realized they were more probably part of a bachelor’s party. Since we’ve been here everyone has been a surprise, and kind of an adventure.

In each new city we venture to, one of the initiating experiences is finding good (and well-priced) food. Usually we have our professors to guide us a little when we first arrive in a city, pointing out basics and suggesting restaurants they’ve already scoped out. In Belfast, we didn’t have any of this. So it was up to us to navigate the streets and guess what would be good and what we could afford. Clearly looking like a lost pack of puppies, torn between which way to look for food next, a young woman drinking coffee at an outdoor part of a restaurant in front of us jumps in, ”Excuse me,” she offered. “If you are looking for good food Queen’s Bar is just in the next building.” We hesitated for a couple seconds. “Its cheap too,” she added with a smile. “I promise I wouldn’t send you there if it wasn’t good.”

We were sold.

And so was I.

Our waiter that night, our bus driver to the Giant’s Causeway, the people staying in the International Youth Hostel, the cashier at the Off-License liquor store, the man who made our Turkish kebabs, the young lady and the nice man with septum piercing who shared their hand-rolled cigarettes with us at the Laverty were all the most friendly and kind natured people I’ve encountered in Ireland so far.

I know Belfast has an intense history of political struggle. Believe me, you could feel it in the air. But despite how nervous I wanted to be, and how sad the surrounding city looks, it feels like Belfast is on the mend. And I can only hope I can embrace that emerging feeling of persevering spirit when I leave.