Amelia's Outrageous Adventures: Belfast Part 2

City Hall in daytime

Ginger Snips - What a name for a hair salon!

Saturday morning we got up early to see Belfast. We walked to St. George’s Market, which was really awesome. I could have stayed there all day. There were so many awesome looking baked goods that I didn’t know what to choose. I finally settled on a bacon and egg sandwich and a lemon poppyseed muffin.

Musicians at the market

After the Market, we took a walk along the water. The morning was crisp, and everything was quiet. I guess most of the Belfast residents were sleeping in.

Then we did some shopping. Note that TJMaxx is TKMaxx here. Weird, huh? It kind of makes you feel like you're in an alternate universe, where everything is almost the same, but then little things are different.

Then, because it had been a couple of hours since I had all that food at the market, we stopped at this awesome cupcake shop!

Sometimes I wish I'd just given up on law school and opened a cupcake shop instead. I'd be fatter, probably, but I think I might be happier. I used to love baking, and I haven't done any baking for ages.

After the cupcakes, we headed to the Botanic Garden and the Ulster Museum. On the way we passed Queen's University and a cool sculpture.

The Greenhouse in the Botanic Gardens

The Ulster Museum seemed really cool, but my feet were tired, so I just explored the part of the museum which dealt with the history of Belfast. I didn't realize quite how war-torn Belfast's history was. I knew about the things that had happened in my lifetime, but I didn't realize that people have been fighting over Northern Ireland for hundreds of years.

Exhausted, we returned to our hostel. Even though our hostel was pretty plain and not particularly clean, it was cheap, and we met a cool girl named Wendy from Perth (Australia). We had decided to go out in search of traditional music in a pub, and we invited Wendy to come along. It was really fun. I guess most of the foreigners in Belfast were also looking for traditional music, because the place was pretty crowded, but we got to meet some really friendly students. The most funny by far were two French boys and a Brazilian boy. The Brazilian was very outrageous, flirting with everyone. He kissed our hands before he left for another pub. The French boy was pretty outrageous in his own way. When we introduced ourselves, we discovered that Wendy had never heard of the fast food restaurant Wendy’s. I was trying to explain Wendy’s, so I described it as similar to McDonalds, but with better salads. The French boy replied, “Asking for a salad at McDonald’s is like asking a whore for a hug.”