Ireland Day 4

Sunday, 21 July 2024

Northern Ireland has been strange. There’s no acknowledgement as you cross the border from Ireland but the road signs change to miles, currency is in pounds and there are English flags and Northern Ireland Ulster banners absolutely everywhere – some houses have 2 or 3 plus strands of red white and blue pennants. There are also heaps of banners and murals and town arches commemorating some English victory or bravery in the past.  Memories are still really fresh I guess.  

Today we went to the Belfast markets which were ok, then on to check out Jon’s mum’s university and her childhood homes. 

During the walks and drives around we got a good sense of the city and aside from a few areas in my view it’s mostly pretty bleak. It probably didn’t help that it rained most of the day but it definitely didn’t help that there was a lot of rubbish, abandoned buildings and graffiti.  People in the UK also haven't learnt how to clean up after their dogs yet, which is gross.

The botanical gardens were quite nice. 

Getting out of the city and up into the hills between Belfast and Dublin was much nicer and we found another little woods to stroll around along the way.

Crossing back into Ireland again went without fanfare but did see the end of the overt English nationalism and the return of much more flag based support for county sports teams contesting finals in the upcoming weeks.  We stopped in at Decathlon to buy a cheapo tent for our next week of camping in Sweden (paying the extra $ for a bag on the plane was going to be a lot cheaper and easier than trying to get one in Denmark or Sweden on the way), then once we made it to our little house (which backs onto a gaol) I just had to check us in for our Ryan Air flight tomorrow – which is where the day has gone downhill.  While filling in the passport details I accidentally got the month of Jon’s expiry date wrong which is not only unfixable, but also un-ignorable as part of the check in process is scanning the chip in the back of the passport which is rightly saying that the details I entered and the passport details don’t match.  I immediately joined the help queue (in spot 331) and was down to spot 78 when the office closed. Fingers crossed we can sort this out tomorrow or only 3 of us will make it to Copenhagen tomorrow night.

We are just back from a pizza place nearby which was nice and not too expensive (Ireland has been the cheapest for food and meals of anywhere so far).