England, September 18, 2000
Sunday, Boring Sunday in Belfast
Belfast does not party on Sunday
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How the hell do I get myself into these situations? You would think by
now, that after a few thousand miles of traveling under my belt, I would
not be caught short as I have today.
I should be practicing my bartop to mouth arm curl with a fresh Guinness in Belfast, but instead I am standing by the side of a random Northern Ireland road, with a little cardboard sign, doing the hitch-dance to the same caravan that I passed twice already today. Yesterday I crawled out of Jingmei's warm bed in Oxford and bussed, trained, and planed from Southern England to Northern Ireland to meet with the founders of the-cake.com about my involvement with their site and a few other projects they have going. Not experienced with this funny set of islands above France, I decided to spend an extra day rather than flying back to London last night. At first, it was a good idea. I relaxed in Port Stewart, the home of one of the founders, and breathed in fresh Atlantic Ocean air for the first time in a few years. Come Saturday night, I even went so far as to get on the bus to Belfast, but after a few minutes, the pull of the beautiful sunset and an odd desire for a swim dragged me off, and back into town. I did manage that swim, though not after the pub, which I'd expected, but early in the morning. Okay, early in the morning for me, since after my swim and a shower, somehow it was already noon and I'd missed the bus to the train station. Not wanting to wait until 5pm, I decided to hitch to the train station. I was not waiting a minute before I got a nice lift to the station, in the next town. There I found that no buses ran to Belfast on a Sunday, and the next train was 5:30pm. Again, wanting to see a bit of Belfast living while in the neighborhood, I struck out for the road again. This time I walked a few kilometers before finding the way, for road construction created a series of annoying detours that confused traffic and prevented a decent hitching opportunity. Finally on the right road, it took me three hours to get to my present position, on the turn-off for the highway to Belfast from the main road leading from Port Stewart. What I don't know now, and later I will wish I did, is that Belfast on a Sunday is very boring. People here actually go to church, which might explain some of their problems and sure does kill a good Sunday afternoon boozer. Instead of spending the afternoon reading in bars, I should've walked a few meters to the turn-off for the airport and just flown straight home. Well, towards home anyway, for the airline I took, easyJet was dirt-cheap but lands at Luton/London airport. Luton/London is a London airport in the way that Dulles is a DC airport: you could theoretically get there on one tank of gas. It took one hour to get from Belfast to Luton/London and two hours from Luton/London to Brixton. Nice if it wasn't a midnight flight to begin with. |
