February 23, 2011

We woke up at 8:30 am as planned to head for the U.K. My host dad surprised us by coming along, he drove the entire time. It did take us two and a half hours as planned to reach Belfast. Our first stop was Victoria Square it's a humongous mall about five or six stories like Dundrum but this one has this huge glass globe about eight or nine stories high. To get to the glass globe you must take the escalators all the way up to the highest floor in the mall and then either take the lift or three or so stories of flights of spiraling granite stairs. At the end top of the stairs there is just this little walnut looking landing that you stand on. When you're standing on the landing it feels like your byself in a giant snowglobe with a 360 degree view of Belfast. Opposite of where the stairs are is the H&W shipyard where the Titanic was built and a view of the bay. There are many old brick buildings with bright green tops that dont really show up in photos surrounding this modern mall. The people of Belfast have a different accent than the Dublineers I have been used to. Their accent is kind of British like, mixed with a tad of Scottish, and the rest is Irish. This mall contains the only Hollister in Ireland, well on the island of Ireland. It is still a touchy subject here, the Protestant Catholic IRA business even though there claims to of have been a peace treaty. But anyways Belfast has the only Hollister which is the reason we came to this mall. Belfast has a completely different feel than Dublin, it feels more built up and older. Like a more cityish city centre. It's difficult to explain. Once the shopping in Hollister was done we headed off to New Grange.
New Grange is absolutely fascinating! It is the biggest man made of rock mounds in it's area. That's not just the big whoop though, this man made mound of dirt and stone is huge! New Grange was built in 3200 B.C. which means it's 5,000 years old! It is much like Stonehenge, or I should say Stonehenge is much like this because New Grange is 1,000 years older than Stonehenge. But New Grange was thought to of have been built as a place to store cremated bodies and the only window inside the mound lets in full light only for a couple of hours on the winter solstice. So when we went in today it was pitch black inside with all the lights off except for a little line of dim light on the floor. The graffitti inside dates all the way back to the 1600's and has many many names listed with the years in the 1800's. Unfortunatley pictures arent allowed inside and is really difficult to explain in words it's much easier and makes a lot more sense to draw it out and explain. But it was very enjoyable and I cant wait to explain when I get back. I am posting pictures of the outside.