A lesson in history and lunch at the Felons Club

Two of the reasons for this trip to Belfast were to see the political murals and learn more about the Troubles. We did both today on a walking tour of west Belfast, organized by a group called Coiste that supports former IRA prisoners. Advertised as a three-hour tour, we actually spent well over four hours with our guide Peadar Whelan, who put the murals and the individuals depicted on them into context. Woven through the walk were the history of the political, social and economic conditions that gave rise to armed resistance to British rule as well as Peadar's own personal history in prison. The tour is not on unbiased view of the conflict and doesn't pretend to be. It's all about the IRA's fight for a united Ireland free from British rule.

While there are dozens of murals to be seen on both sides of the conflict, we saw only a handful of them. At first I wished we'd pick up the pace and wondered if we'd run out of time before I'd seen enough. It wasn't until we were a couple hours into the walk, when Peadar told us his own story of serving 16 years of a life sentence in the Maze prison (part of that time with Bobby Sands), that it clicked for me. I thought I knew a fair amount about the Troubles but my knowledge was certainly augmented by Peadar's insights. What I had no previous exposure to was the personal narrative of imprisonment. But for this to have come earlier in the walk would have been premature. It seemed right that Peadar tell his story on his own terms at whatever time works for him. I won't retell it here, but suffice to say it gave me a new perspective on the reality of imprisonment, the brutality of the British government and the organized campaign of resistance that the IRA waged within the prisons.

The official end of the walk was at the Milltown Cemetery where many IRA members, including Bobby Sands, are buried. But the real end was just down the road at the Felons Club, a membership club like the Elks for former IRA prisoners. We were invited to the bar for a glass of Guinness and we stayed to order sandwiches for a late lunch. I wanted to take a photo of the outside after as proof positive that I was there, but it was stonking raining when we left so you'll have to take my word for it.

We hopped the bus back into town and then got another bus down towards Queen's University and the neighborhood where we are staying. Sadly, it was too late to go to the Ulster Museum. We then tried unsuccessfully to get into the Palm House and the Tropical Ravine in the Botanic Garden, but those had just closed as well. So we trudged home in the rain, dried off a bit, went out for nearby takeaway from the Thai Tanic (cheap, edible, nothing to write home about) and came back to the flat to eat and crash.

Stats:
£3 to top up bus pass
£8 for walking tour
£5.50 chicken sandwich for lunch
£6.95 Pad Thai for dinner

21,302 steps, 8.88 miles

Street art, Hobnobs and a good night's sleep

We didn't make the 10:35 bus as Roger spent a long time in the immigration queue, but caught the one an hour later. There's not much in the way of scenery to gawp at from the motorway to Belfast -- cows, hedgerows, auto junkyards and a few isolated wind turbines, but no picturesque Irish villages. The journey was fast and we hit the pavement in Belfast city centre by 2 pm. Our first stop was nearby at a tourist ticket shop that doubles as a short term luggage drop (pre-booked on Stasher.com), then to the Belfast Visitors Centre to purchase our city bus passes and to a magic money machine to get a fist full of her majesty' s currency. I learned when I purchased my return bus ticket from the driver in Dublin that the pound coins I was carrying are no longer in circulation. Some time in the last nine months they've been replaced with shiny two-tone nine-sided ones sure to defy any attempt at counterfeit. I spotted a Waterstone's, so nipped in to buy a copy of The Gospel According to Blindboy, a book of satirical and philosophical short stories by one of the Irish podcasters who has been in my ears these past months.

Our original plan had been to spend the afternoon at the Titanic Experience learning all about ship building and ship sinking, but opted to explore the streets and alleyways of the Cathedral Quarter instead. This turned out to be a grand idea as nothing warms my heart more than derelict buildings and street art. Just off the busy shopping streets we found plenty of both, as well as some proper good architecture (Georgian and art deco) and a big cathedral (early c20, Protestant and uninspiring).

After a sit down at Caffe Nero, we reclaimed our bags, boarded a bus and headed to our AirBnB. There was some confusion about the key, but we got that sorted. The place is clean and spacious with most of the mod cons we require. We explored the neighborhood eating options, ending up at Slim Kitchen, a nice bistro serving fresh, healthy and tasty eats as well as booze. Our final destination was Tesco to stock up on essentials -- cereal, milk, more wine and Hobnobs.

Stats:
€2.25 coffee at Dublin airport
€2.20 bottle of water
£22 return bus ticket for Belfast
£6 luggage stash
£3.50 one- day bus pass
£10.99 Gospel According to Blindboy paperback
£3.35 water and banana bread at caff
£24 dinner and wine
£7 bevvies and nibbles from Tesco

19,254 steps, 7.92 miles

I'm in the Emerald Isle ...

... and spending my first five hours hanging out in the arrivals hall of Terminal 1 at Dublin airport. It was an uneventful flight over, packed like a sardine in steerage. I give myself high marks for judicious packing -- my new carry on weighed in at a mere 16 pounds and I successfully hoisted it into the overhead bin unaided. Ate some crap airline food, watched Lady Bird (swearing censored) and slept about an hour and a half on the flight.

Roger just messaged me that he's on the train to Gatwick. I'm hoping he exhausted all his bad travel karma on his recent trip to D.C. If good luck holds, he'll arrive at 10:10 and we'll be on the 10:35 bus to Belfast.

As I know my loyal readership is eager for the scintillating minutia of my travel adventures, I will try to post every step taken and pence spent. Stay tuned for further developments.

Lessons Learned

Happy to say that I didn't lose anything or get lost on my trip. Before I forget them, here are the lessons I learned:

1. I must stop looking for the steps-free access to the westbound District Line platform at Paddington. Yes, it is possible to take the lift up to the ticket concourse/street level from the eastbound platform, but steps-free access back down to the westbound platform does not exist. Advice to self: Deal with it, get a lighter suitcase, or use the Circle/H&C via Hammersmith to get to Heathrow. 
2. Aer Lingus from Hartford via Dublin is the way to go. Doing immigration at Dublin saves much time and hassle over the lines at Heathrow. It was so quick and easy on the way to the UK that I hardly realized (at 4 am) that I had done it, but I have the stamp in my passport as proof. Coming back was a bit more complex, with three different segments to the pre-clearance for US-bound passengers (re-screening of all carry-on items, passport scanning and a final station where you turn in your customs declaration form and receipt from the passport scan), but at 45 minutes all told it was better than the up to 2 hours it can take now at Logan Airport in Boston. 
3. The Airbnb experience was fantastic. I was a bit wary of staying in the home of people I didn't know, but with my room a bit removed from the rest of the house (I was over the garden extension) and my own bathroom, it was extremely comfortable. Traveling on my own, it felt nice to have people to talk to for a few minutes when I came in every evening. The location was ideal -- I really like Queen's Park and it was fun, after two years away, to explore new things in the area.
4. The 2GB add-on package I purchased for £15 with the sim card from EE was more than enough data for my stay, even running Google maps and the Citymapper app every day. I switched the phone to wifi-only data when I was in the flat and used a total of about .6GB of data over nine days. I could easily have gone with the 1GB package for a tenner. 
5. Having a smartie phone with me when I was out and about was certainly convenient for maps and transport info, but time spent looking at a screen is time not spent looking at what's around you, as tempting as it may be to check Facebook when riding the bus. 
6. The 90-day Art Pass for ten quid was brilliant. I got value for money within the first day of using it. They don't advertise the 90-day pass, but I saw a promo code for it in one of the London e-mail newsletters I receive (can't remember now which it was -- possible Open House or London Transport Museum). 
7. I need to upgrade my technology. Taking the bluetooth keyboard to use with my tablet wasn't worth the bother (heavy, awkward touch), so I finger-typed my blog posts on the tablet instead most of the time. Time to think about buying a Chromebook -- possibly the new Asus Chromebook Flip C101. 
8. Many years ago, my friend Helen declared me an honorary Londoner, but at the time I didn't feel that I'd fully earned the appellation. I'm chuffed to say that, finally, I think I wear it well. 

I came home with £20 in my wallet and ~£13 on my Oyster. Time to open a new spreadsheet and start adding things for the next trip to Blighty. 

Open House: Sunday

A quick recap before I finish packing and leave for the airport. On Sunday, I set out with many more index cards in my stack than the number of places we could possibly visit. I figured that, if queues were long or took more time than I'd thought to visit, we could skip some and move on to others. The first two stops were non-starters. When we got to the Andaz Hotel, the queue for the Masonic temple inside was already 100 people long. It was supposed to open at 10 am, but the queue didn't begin to move until 10:20. By 10:30, we'd only moved a few feet, so we pushed on to St Helen's Bishopsgate, where the morning service had just begun and we weren't allowed in. After that, we were much more successful and saw seven OH venues:

• St Mary-le-Bow, a small Wren church in Cheapside
• Billingsgate Roman bath and house (archeology under a new building)
• Custom House, just across Lower Thames Street
• After a bus ride to Bermondsey and lunch at Maltby Street Market, we hopped back on the bus to Rotherhithe to see Brunel's shaft, recently fitted with a proper staircase inside. It's the 8th wonder of the world, as we were repeatedly told by the director of the museum during his talk/tout of museum shitknacks. 
• The nearby Old Mortuary, now the Time and Talents Community Centre
• A quick look at Sands Films Picture Library
• Through the tunnel to Wapping to Metropolitan Wharf, where we visited an architectural studio overlooking the river.

We walked along the Ornamental Canal up to London Docks in hopes of seeing Pennington Warehouse, but reached it too late to get in. So, we ended our trek at St Katharine Docks, where we saw the royal barge Gloriana moored. No, we didn't get to go aboard.

Making an early night of it so we both could go back to our Airbnb flats to pack, we had dinner at Mr Fish, the local chippy in Queen's Park, which was quite good. Thanks for treating,  Molly!

Speaking of my Airbnb, it was totally lovely and comfortable. And the location was perfect.

Final stats:

1 pound 85 for egg and avocado on a mini roll

4 quid for lunch

90p for water

85p for coconut macaroon

23303 steps

10.01 miles