FIGJAM'S Epic Adventure: Doing Bel-Fast!

25/11/09

1752 (local time)

Ill start this next blog where I left off... I was hung over, tired and just sick of sitting on a bus for 10 hours... But when I finally made it to Belfast it was a relief. I had hooked up a couch surfing host in Belfast called Killian, so this was my first destination. On arrival I dumped my bags, and was then told that himself and another couch surfer at the time were heading out to a salsa night and I was invited to come along... to be honest I would have loved to have just chilled out for a while, but I thought why not... So off we went, to salsa it up.

I was starving, so I got some lovely fish and chips and then headed into the pub. I really wasn’t in the mood for ripping it up on the salsa floor I was more in the mood for a chat, I ended up just chatting to a whole bunch of people and then we headed home. Even though I slept on the floor that night, it was still a good nights sleep. The next day we woke fairly early because one of the main couch surfing hosts in Belfast was taking a bunch of couch surfers on a walking tour of all the murals of Belfast.

Even though it was bucketing down with rain, and I was absolutely freezing to death because it was blowing a gale and everyone umbrellas were getting blown to bits it was extremely interesting and I'm glad that I did it.

That night I was planning on heading to a preppie club but instead I was taken to the girl that did the walking tour, as she was having a get together so that they could go to a funk night that was just down the road at the local pub.

On arrival was I little bit drunk a I had smashed all my beers and then was onto someone else’s cider, when we got there, no one was there so I sat at the bar drinking. By 11.30 there was still no body around so went exploring down stairs and listened to a rock band play for 20 minutes until I then headed back upstarts again to the funk night. When I got back upstairs the place had filled up and was starting to get good.

I was getting a bit sick of hanging with the local guys, so instead I started chatting to some girls, the night went on, beers were drunk, shots were had until eventually the funk band ended... I was still up for a party and so were a few others. One of the girls that I had been dancing with was heading too an Art Gallery where there were some live bands playing, I was in for that, so we all jumped in a cab, left half the dudes I was with back at the place and headed to the closest illegal bottle o. I was smashed already, but I was sure that I needed more beers, so we got some more drinks and headed to the art gallery. I had mixed feelings about this idea, but on my way up to the stairs they were playing a Ramones track, so I cracked open another beer and waited for the band to start up.

When they did I was rocking out, giving the band members drinks and telling them that Fosters was the shittest drink in history. So the singer pulled me out on stage and announced that I was Australian and everyone cheered, and then proceeded to dedicate a song to me! I was stoked!

Anyway, the rest of the night was history, my last photo was taken at 5.52am so it was a pretty late night.

The next morning, I went out to brunch with the girls from last night who were super cool and I ended up hanging out with one of them named Becky, for most of my time in Belfast. Who is an absolute legend of a chick! We had some good chat and funny times! ANYWAY!

That day I took really easy as I was nursing another hang over.

The next day it was again time to do something touristy (gah I'm so sick of it) so myself and an Australian girl called Wendy who was also couch surfing in the same house took a trip out to the Giant’s Causeway. It was really quite nice looking at all the beautiful scenery, but too be honest, I'm pretty sick and tired of doing all the touristy stuff that you ‘have to do’ whist in a city.

That night, went to a nice little pub with Becky where we listened to some awesome music and I ended up being given one of the DJ’s cd’s!

The next day I really wanted to head too Derry to look at some more murals and to get a bit more of an idea about the Catholics and the Protestants or the people fighting for a Republic and the peopled wanting Ireland to be a part of the United Kingdom .

Well, I saw some amazing murals and realised that the people in Derry were very angry with everything that has happened over the past 100 years but more importantly what occurred on the day of Bloody Sunday!

Wendy and I went to a museum that painted a pretty horrific picture about what occurred on that day... I'm glad I did it though, because otherwise I would have not known anything about it.

It was a really good day apart for the rain, as I came away with a lot more knowledge that I went there with.

Unfortunately this was my last day in the beautiful town of Belfast as the next day (today 25^th) I was enduring a 10 hour slog of travelling from Belfast to Stranraer via Ferry and then from Stranraer to Iverness via several busses, so I can look for the Loch Ness.

That’s it for me!

But thanks to everyone that made my time in Ireland, The Republic and Northern Ireland a fantastic time!

Belfast Murals

The biggest Mural for the Protestants!

The International Murals!

My favorite Mural!

Some amazing stencil graffiti!

More amazing Graffiti! "Singing Songs of Freedom"

The big fence on the right goes around the most of the city, separating to two party's!
Also note the fence on the back yard of the house! This stops people throwing bottles at the house to hurt people!