Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland which is its own country, which means I am on country number two of my trip. Located on the north eastern edge of the island, Belfast serves as a hub for us to fly over to Glasgow, Scotland. Crossing into this new country did not require any border checkpoints or customs.
Besides being a hub for our travels, Belfast is also full of history. Home to one of the bloodiest feuds ever, Belfast has many historical places such as the second most bombed hotel in the world. Besides grabbing a claim from violence, Belfast is also home to the world's second and third largest crane (#1 is Dubai), the shipyard that built that world's largest ship (the Titanic), and the oldest News Paper.
After changing our Euros to Pounds, we found the Linen Hostel. Dropping off our bags we headed to the town center to explore the city. The main capital building seems like a central location of the town. There are various historical buildings surrounding it. There was also a Ferris Wheel right next to the capital building which seemed very out of place. That day we explored Belfast and found some tickets for a Northern Ireland tour the following day; the tour included Giant's Causeway which was one of my top destinations on this trip and also to my surprise the tour was ranked #2 in Europe.
We met some French fine arts students at the hostel that night. They could speak limited English and it was extremely difficult at times to establish a clear channel of communication. At some point Nathan was speaking French, I was speaking Spanish (not because I was confused, but one of the girls knew some Spanish), and they were speaking English. This is one situation that I have yet to run into. Thus far, we have been blessed with the fact that everyone was on the same language channel. I guess this serves as a reminder to the difficult times ahead when we venture into a country with a foreign language.
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