Through 4 Years: An SU Student's Experience: Belfast: Part 2

The Writer's Square

In the previous post, I mentioned my orientation in Belfast and how I didn’t exactly get the best taste of the city that I could have. Thankfully, I made another trip to Belfast fairly early on in the semester. Something really great about my schedule last semester was that I designed it so I had Fridays off to make traveling easier. My two flat mates from Hong Kong, Tiffany and Vicki, and my American friend, Zoe, also didn’t have class that Friday. We walked to the bus station in downtown Coleraine and bought tickets for the bus from Coleraine to Belfast.

On the bus, we looked through one of the pamphlets I had taken about Belfast from my first trip there, but we mostly went without any concrete plan. We were just going to see where the day took us! We weren’t even sure where to get off on the bus. I think one of my friends asked the driver who recommended a stop for us. We got out at what looked like a busy street for shopping.

Delicious lunch!

We wandered around for a while in search of someplace to eat lunch. I was so hungry after the long, slightly nauseating bus ride! I’ve come to realize, though, that finding a place everyone wants to eat is one of the most difficult parts of traveling with others. Eventually, we found a café that was appealing to all of us. I got a delicious baked potato with cheese and bacon. In the U.K., a baked potato is often a meal in itself, at least for lunch, whereas here I think it’s generally regarded as a side dish.

St. Anne's Cathedral

We spent a lot of time milling about stores in the big shopping area of Belfast, but we also visited some sights as well, my favorite being St. Anne’s Cathedral (also known as the Belfast Cathedral). Though I went into other cathedrals during my time abroad, I think this one was my favorite. Other cathedrals were very beautiful, but as my friends and I separated, wandering alone to look at these high ceilings, stained glass, crosses, etc., I had a sense of the profound at this one that is very hard to describe without being hokey. . I could have stayed there much longer, and I would have loved to have gone to a service there.

Pedestrian shopping area in Belfast

We kept seeing signs for the Writer’s Square, so we decided we wanted to check that out, especially because I’m a Creative Writing major and my friend Zoe is a poet. The Writer’s Square turned out to be a bit anti-climactic. It was just across from St. Anne’s Cathedral and was basically a square with quotes from writers on the ground. Most of the quotes were describing Belfast. All in all, not particularly exciting—but we were able to get a group picture there, which is probably one of my favorite photographs of the semester! We had a little bit of a funny moment there, as well, when we asked an older gentleman to take the picture. Someone first handed him their iPhone for the photograph. He handed it back asking if the photograph was good. None of our heads were in the picture. It was all from the shoulders down! He helped us out by taking another one for us, though.

Another underwhelming attraction was one of Belfast’s libraries. I had read about it in my Belfast brochure, which was designed for tourists, so we figured it might be interesting to visit. It just seemed like a very ordinary library. While we were there, though, we stopped at the café on the lower level for some drinks to quench our thirst. I got an apple juice box.

I think we may have had one more tourist destination in mind when we happened upon a wonderful used bookstore. The place was overstuffed! It was a bit difficult to go through the books, even, because on each shelf, there would be books behind the first row of books. Nonetheless, I bought two books of poetry there, one an anthology of female poets writing about faith and the other a collection by Lucille Clifton.

Used bookstore called "The Bookstore"

After scrambling to find a bathroom (generally, it seems much more difficult to find bathrooms in the U.K.; a lot of stores that I’d assume would have their own bathrooms don’t, and some you have to pay to use), we made our way back to the bus station and headed back to Coleraine. I was able to read all of the Lucille Clifton collection during that bus ride. Overall, the day served as a much more leisurely (and awake!) taste of Belfast. We hadn’t crammed in a bunch of activities (there are still plenty of things to do in Belfast, following this semester, that I would love to do), but we had been able to walk around and explore the city to some extent. And maybe more importantly, I got to have this adventure with the new friends I was making that semester.