This past weekend was our first full weekend in Belfast. It’s seriously crazy to think that we’ve now been here only a little over a week. It’s becoming more and more natural to walk everywhere we go (and I mean everywhere). I wish I could say this means I’m going to come home in better shape than I left, when in reality it just means I can eat more potatoes. I mean I am in Ireland…they don’t call it the potato famine for nothing.
Since we were feeling more comfortable and at home with Stranmillis and the surrounding area, on Saturday several of us decided to venture to the Titanic quarter. Our weekends are going to start disappearing quickly once we start doing more traveling so we wanted to go see what put Belfast on the map, the Titanic.
Yes, the thing that put Belfast on the map is a ship that crashed and killed hundreds of people. Fortunately the ship was only built here and the construction of the boat had nothing to do with it sinking. Instead it was the idiotic captain that ignored the warnings from other ships and ran into an iceberg. Having never seen Titanic (yes, I know..how dare I? Well, sorry I have the attention span of a goldfish and it’s a really, really long movie) I didn’t truly know how much I was going to get out of it or how interesting the museum was going to be.
I was actually pleasantly surprised. The museum was jam-packed with information. Every wall, movie, and display had more information than I could possibly commit to memory. I, as usual, started out very ambitious. It reminded me of the beginning of a new semester where I begin with doing all the reading, but as the semester progresses I begin to skim the readings before I start solely looking at the pictures. There were 9 galleries within the museum. It started with some background history on Belfast and their shipbuilding industry and progressed past the sinking of the ship to myths of the titanic, and where Belfast is today.
We spent over 2.5 hours making our way through the museum, ride and all, and after were ready to relax for a little bit. Fortunately we were the water where there were several different shops. We made our way to The Dock, a coffee shop that is run solely on donations. There are no prices on anything. You simply order what you’d like and make a donation in the honesty box. I seriously think I’m going to turn in to tea and scones at this rate considering we have a break at least once a day for such indulgences. In fact, Sunday we spent the majority of our day at a local cafe to catch up on our portfolio’s for Drake, blogging, and e-mails.
This week includes more time at Dundonald Primary school, preparations for half-term in Prague and Berlin, and a few campus events in between!
Stay tuned!
Cheers,
Mary
Titanic Museum shaped as the ship
Over the Shipyard
Friends at The Dock Cafe
Luck of the Traveling Teacher 