Meaghan: Gordy, Savanna’s good friend from Belfast, gave us a ton of recommendations for while we’re here. We started off the day with his breakfast recommendation, Maggie May’s. We briefly considered ordering the breakfast he suggested, but we realized we are not 300 pound rugby players and decided to get a slightly more reasonably-sized and equally delicious breakfast. (Sorry Gordy guess we owe you a Guinness!)

We walked around downtown Belfast for a little bit and wound up going for a black cab tour. It was great. I knew a little bit about The Troubles before, but this tour was eye-opening. Instead of the typical interpretive tour with a script and predetermined stops, this was a much more personal tour. Our driver, Jim, took us around the Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods and spoke about the events over the years in the different areas. His stories were often those of friends of friends, or his own.

I was expecting the tour more to be historical buildings and sites. The fact that it was literally just driving around neighbourhoods and pulling over to see pictures of the local pub blown up and people carrying dead babies down their own streets was shocking.

And almost as shocking was the present day reality. There is still a giant wall separating the Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods with gates that close every single night. We spoke with Jim quite a lot about this as I couldn’t quite understand why. It seems like everything Jim told us, I wanted to ask “why??” The police station was surprising too – it looks like a prison. There are huge walls surrounding the whole thing, no windows, one door, cameras, etc. It is ridiculous.

At the end of the tour I didn’t know what to say. We sat in front of Belfast City Hall for a little while and grappled with everything we had just learned.

Sav: it certainly was a shock and we both still seem to be processing. After this we kind of walked around Belfast towards Queen’s University and talked thoughtfully and quietly about what we had learned… Once we reached the campus we set aside these thoughts and went to explore. We went into the McClay Library to find the C.S. Lewis Reading Room… Which was super cool because you enter it through a large wardrobe! I got a picture of Meaghan walking through it and it’s nothing particularly spectacular looking but I was excited all the same to see something that felt kind of magical.

Next we went to the botanical gardens and greenhouse and to the rose gardens. Meaghan was SO happy with the variety of roses (she even switched her phone background to a really pretty picture of a Nostalgia Rose). I could just picture us in the middle of summer when the roses were all in bloom, laying on opposite benches and reading books!

M: After this long day, dinner was DELICIOUS at this place called Molly’s Yard. (S: True to form I agonized over where to eat for over half an hour…) We took a few more of Gordy’s suggestions for the evening and found some fun places to hang out (shoutout Gordy thank you!!).

S: Bars. We went to bars. We are right in the heart of the university area and the places we went were super trendy! Just explored the area a bit then came back to the hostel to do super fun things like laundry. Exciting stuff planned tomorrow stay tuned!

S&M