Like many other cities, Belfast got its name in a rather peculiar way. It’s not as simple as old Ken Oath walking around the city ringing a bell at an incredible pace to form some sort of social order. Oh no no no. That would be too simple. No. The way Belfast – now referred to as ‘unknown’ – got its name was actually based from an Aussie telle show called Blinky Bill. The locals of unknown LOVED good ol Blinky. They loved him so much they started to worship him. Sadly to the rest of the worlds knowledge, it was actually a cartoon and koalas and ducks and kangaroos can’t talk. Because the rest of the world were good blokes, they didn’t tell the people of unknown this. Although we let them have their moment, the joke was on them that they were a bit ‘slow’ for not having picked up that Blinky Bill was not real.
Meanwhile down in Ireland’s south, a governor by the name of Richard Mercer – perhaps this is where the parents of the ‘Love God’ on MIX106.5 got the idea to name their kid – was told he immediately needed to name a new city in Ireland’s north. Due to the protestant and catholic divide and of course the formation of the IRA, the north and the south didn’t get along. This meant that it was the governors opportunity to make the citizens of unknown look like idiots. He would name the town of unknown something silly. He knew that the people of unknown loved Blinky Bill and he laughed at the way they said it. ‘Bill’ was pronounced more like ‘bell’. He laughed even more at just how slow the people of unknown were. He couldn’t of course incorporate that into the name of the city though because people would pack their bags and leave. They wouldn’t want to live in a place associated with close to zero intellectual capacity. So he decided to go opposite day on its ass.
Originally the city was called ‘Bellarefast’. Several years later, after the locals struggled to spell the city name, it was shortened to Belfast.
There’s always a story behind every name and every thing that happens. You just have to find out.
Before going up to Belfast, I was told that there was still some unsettlement in northern Ireland. So I straight away associated that with massive baracades with gun fire in the street as though I was living within a game of ‘Call Of Duty’ or ‘Gears Of War’ or ‘Modern Warefare’. This was definitely far from what my brain had made me perceive. Stupid brain.
Got to our hostel called ‘Vagabonds’. Was a really cool hostel and we knew it from the minute we walked in the door. It’s funny how you can tell whether a hostel will be good or not from the attitude and personality of the receptionist. This receptionist happened to be one of the two who ran the place and they were seasoned travelers so created a hostel to what they would have wanted when they were backpacking. So it was very well set up. The guy showed us around and a girl staying there recognised my face as I did hers. As I had to keen walking she said “I met you in Brussels!”. As I was fighting to also figure out a face with a place I said “Yes!” before realising we haven’t been to Brussels. Turns out she was friends with one of Millie’s friends in Boardeax. Her name was Lizzie and she was there with her friend Deedee and a bloke called Tim they picked up along the way.
The Battlers walked down to the bus station and bought tickets to the next place. On the way, I noticed a billboard advertising the WWE RAW wrestling. It was for the night after!
Ran home quicker than Charlie should have when he found the golden ticket, and I checked online. Told Tim about it and he was keen beans. We had bought them. The Battlers and Tim were going to watch the wrestling!
The next day Lizzie, Deedee, Tim and the Battlers went on a tour to the ‘Giants Causeway’. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I hate tours. Absolutely despise of them. You can’t do your own thing, you are always stuck to a strict schedule. And there was nothing different about this tour. We drove around to all these others places we’d never heard about, let alone cared about before we got to the causeway. Stopped off at one place the driver talked up as having a massive scary rope bridge across to an island. You had to buy tickets before you could see it and I didn’t really feel like doing it but Eddie did so he bought a ticket. Walking along the cliff edge, perfect four to six foot lefts and rights were presenting themselves. It was the first time since camping for Running of the Bulls just outside of San Sebastian in Spain that we had seen waves. Wishing real bad they had boards, the Battlers took a tonne of photos to mesmerise until they got back home to the good stuff. Waited for Eddie to cross the bridge that was no bigger or scarier looking than alone of those wooden bridges at a child’s playground – you know the ones scattered around everywhere along the peninsula. He was gone for ages and on the return I’d learnt why. He said it was boring walking on the track so he walked onto the grass to get closer to the edge of the cliff and explore some more. Problem was that because it was drizzling, the surface was wet. This caused him to slide and fall into the mud. His camera got some water in it (he put it in a bag of rice when we got home and now it’s working as good as new) and so he was understandably pretty ‘filthy’ about the whole situation. My biggest regret after hearing that was not paying to cross the crappy rip off ‘rope bridge’ to watch Eddie stack it in the mud.
When we got to the Giants Causeway, the heavens opened. It pissed down with rain and the wind was gale force. Got absolutely drenched and didn’t even get very good photos. I for one wasn’t real impressed with it. Headed back for the bus and as we reached the bus, the skies cleared and the sun came out. Was too far to go back down to the causeway. Had a bit of time before we had to be back on the bus so all of us went and tried Irish coffees in a cafe next door. I’m not much of a fan of coffee or whiskey so I don’t know what I was playing at thinking I’d enjoy a mixture of the two. And I didn’t. Eddie liked his though. Got back to the hostel where the better part of the day was to occur.
Eddie, Tim and myself got a cab to Odyssey Arena to watch the WWE. It sounds pathetic that we went and it probably is, but it was something I used to love watching and following before my balls dropped and my voice broke. There were many wrestlers I didn’t know but watching Kane and John Cena brought back memories. Didn’t realise just how fake it looks in real life though. It’s so slow. I reckon they speed it up for the telle to make it look more real. Didn’t stop me from loving it though!
The Battlers did some washing and went for a walk to try and find ‘Peace Wall’. It’s a wall to separate the prodestants from the Catholics. As we were walking down the streets just out of the city centre, some dodgy looking characters started appearing. Some of whom were congregating. Almost every business was surrounded by high fences to stop vandals from breaking in during the hours they were shut. There were security cameras on every corner to record everyone’s every move. It was a really derelict and ghetto part of Belfast. After not being able to find that stupid wall, we decided to call it quits and get to a safer area.
Yeah Belfast was alright. Not the greatest place I’ve ever been to. Mind you the Mexican place was phenomenal. Getting a twelve and a half hour bus trip to Stoke-on-Trent, UK, to visit an old school buddy, Marcus. That should be fun, except we haven’t been able to get ahold of him so fingers crossed he knows we are still coming