Why I love Glasfast even more after a trip to Belslow...

So this past weekend AJ and I took the train/ferry to Belfast to see Ashleigh. We left Glasgow Central Station at 4pm on Friday, switched trains in Ayr and boarded the ferry in Stranraer and landed in Belfast port around 10pm on Friday. We headed to the hotel to check in and then joined Ashleigh and her flatmates at a local pub, called Lavery's. We had a good time visiting with Ashleigh and meeting her flatmates, but at 1am when the pub closed AJ and I were ready to go out dancing. Apparently, everything in Belfast closes at 1am, so we were forced to go back to our hotel at the unthinkable hour of 1:30am and be sad.

Glasgow Central Station

On day 2 of our trip to Belfast Ashleigh, AJ and I had scheduled a Belfast Black Taxi tour, which took us to different parts of the city that we wouldn't have seen on our own. We were taken to the protestant side of town which is Shankhill Road (AJ thinks maybe this is where the term "shank" came from) and the catholic side, which is Falls Road and got to look at the murals.

Catholic Mural

Catholic Mural

Protestant Mural

 This mural (^) was creepy. Its called the Mona Lisa of Belfast and they gun follows you wherever you walk and its kind of unnerving.

Protestant Mural

I stole the picture of the Protestant murals from Ashleigh's blog as well. It was intimidating being in that area and I didn't really want to take out my camera -so thanks to Ashleigh for the pictures.

We also stopped at the peace wall, and instead of typing out an explanation I just copy/pasted from Ashleigh's blog:

"Before all The Troubles the Protestant and Catholic areas backed against each other. However, when the troubles began they started blowing up the interior houses, not only to destroy each other’s property, but also to increase the gap of space between communities. Only recently have they started to try to redevelop this empty space, and regardless of filling the empty spaces they have left the wall up.

The wall is called the peace wall, literally keeping the two communities away from each other. There are streets that go through the wall to allow traffic to flow, however, at night these gates close so that there are no night attacks. This is still happening today, and in fact Police used to come down and shut the gates themselves, but there were often paramilitaries there to kill the policemen so now it is automated. 

The city of Belfast has gotten graffiti artists from around the world to come and paint the peace wall with all sorts of bright designs and pictures to try to liven it up, and there is one stretch of the wall where people write messages on the wall." (Hislop, 2010)

AJ signing the peace wall

Ashleigh signing the Peace wall

So after the tour we all went back to Ashleigh's for lunch and then went to a movie with more of her friends. We saw 'Easy A' which was hilarious. We then went for coffee and out for supper before heading back to Ashleigh's for a little party. She lives in a 3 (4?) floor residence hall and the top floor was hosting a party, so we all went up there to join in the festivities. Security showed up at 11:30pm to tell us we had to quiet down, or the party would be shut down. It was ridiculous, we weren't being that loud, there were only 20 people there and we were all over 21.

Sunday morning AJ and I slept in and checked out of our hotel at 12pm and headed over to Ashleigh's for breakfast. We decided we wanted Starbucks with our breakfast, so AJ and I headed into the city to get some. After we got our lattes we wandered around for 15 minutes trying to find a taxi rank, where taxi's line up waiting to be hired. We couldn't find a taxi rank or a taxi with its "for hire" light on anywhere, so we decided to call one. We waited 20 minutes for that taxi to show up, and poor Ashleigh had a cold latte. She made us pancakes and bacon and sausage. The bacon she made was the closest thing I've had to 'normal' bacon since I've been here, so it was a nice treat. Just after we had finished eating the fire alarm in Ashleigh's building went off so we all had to evacuate. The fire drill made me feel like I was in 7th grade again! After the fire drill was over AJ and I headed to the port to catch our ferry back to Glasgow.

After this weekends events we've decided that Belfast has been misnamed and should have been called Belslow. We also thought it would be more appropriate to name Glasgow Glasfast because of how quick-paced it is. After a weekend in Belslow, I really appreciate Glasgow so much more.

Oh! Something I forgot to mention... The trip home was interesting, there were cops on the train and AJ realized that it was because there was an "Old Firm" football game on Sunday afternoon. An old firm game is when the Rangers play the Celtic, which is basically protestant team vs catholic team (yet again religion  rears its ugly head and ruins something for everyone). Both AJ and I have been told by locals not to go out on an old firm night, as there is a lot of violence cause of all the rivalry. When we got back to Glasgow Central Station we walked across the street to the taxi rank where we noticed that there were many people on both sides of the street screaming at each other. One side of the street seemed to be covered with Celtic fans and the other with Rangers fans. AJ saw someone get shoved on our side of the street and 4 police officers came to break it up. It was terrifying and I was positive that if I was going to see someone get stabbed in Glasgow it would be during that 10 minutes AJ and I stood at that taxi rank. Don't worry, we made it home safe.






** Would just like to thank Ashleigh again for 'letting' me steal from her blog and because I am a scholar here is the proper citation:

Hislop, A. (2010) Belslow. Retrieved from www.ashleighrambles.blogspot.com