Belfast: Where everything is "wear beautiful"
November 16, 2005
This lady over here, who just came back from running a marathon in Ireland, seems to think that her readers want to hear about Irish men, etc�and not a travel log. I don�t know what you all want to hear, so I�m just sharing the memories as they come. A little bit of men, a little bit of travel. (I know, I know, it�s my diary and I should write what I want to, but it�s my fundamental flaw that I aim to please.)
Anyway�
So, on the tour up the Antrim coast I was �adopted� by a couple from Georgia (USA). The tour bus� first stop was at our hostel, then we picked up two couples from another hotel in Belfast�one of them being this embarrassingly loud American couple from Georgia, who were by far the two oldest people on the tour that day. In any case, they ended up sitting in front of me, and I was the only other American-looking person on the tour, so of course they started talking to me. They ended up being really sweet�if not a little quirky�and they decided that they would adopt me for the day. They couldn�t believe that Arab parents would let their daughter travel by herself for a couple of weeks (which really is not typical), and started asking parenty questions about how secure my hostel was, etc. When we stopped for lunch they insisted I sit at their table as long as I didn�t �mind sitting with two old folks.� John is second-generation Irish, a teacher, and also a public toilets activist. At least, that�s how I can best describe it. He and his wife, Lynne�who is Jewish, and works as a translator for some government agency and also makes documentaries�were in Belfast for this international public toilets conference. I shit you not. (Eh, sorry for the pun.) Apparently, John and his colleagues take a serious interest in the state of public toilets around the world. This interest has taken him from Addis Ababa (where they basically DON�T have public toilets) to Belfast (where they have some of the best public toilets). Everywhere we stopped John would go check out the toilets, make notes, and Lynne would sometimes take pictures.
I told you they were quirky, but they were also really sweet, and when my camera started running out of batteries at the Giant�s Causeway they took pictures of me and promised to email them to me.
The Antrim coast tour (pictures in previous post) ran from 9am to 5pm, and when I got back to the hostel I found Neville sitting in the lobby, checking his email. (We had, by the way, met for a very hurried breakfast in the morning.) In any case, he said he was hungry. I said I was craving Chinese, and thus began our 30 minute walk in the rain to satisfy my craving. We had just about given up on finding a greasy spoon Chinese place, when Neville remembered he had seen one on his way to practice (he�s in Belfast hoping to play for their basketball team), and sure enough we found it. I swear to God, I think that place was an IRA meeting place. We were the only two people in there who weren�t either wearing uniforms or sporting tattoos and muscle tees. But the food was yummy and cheap, and Neville and I had one of those getting to know you conversations, where we talked about love and relationships, and growing up, and school, and how he was raised by his artist mother, how he has a father and half brother somewhere in the US�
We wanted to wait until the rain let up, but after an hour or so it didn�t seem like that was going to happen so we ran back out into the rain, and just as we were getting cranky from being so wet we spotted a movie theater. So we ducked in and decided to see Four Brothers (it was alright). The rain had finally stopped by the time we got out of the movie. We decided to try and hit a club, but the only one we found wouldn�t let us in�they said�because Neville was wearing trainers. But the way the bouncer looked him up and down we both got the sense that they didn�t want a black man in their club, and we got into a conversation about how white Belfast is. We lingered a bit once we got back to the hostel, and Neville again mentioned how he was the only one staying in his dorm room�but�I just wasn�t biting. I don�t know why.
I escaped to the basement (where Neville didn�t like to hang out on account of how smoky it got), and stayed up until 3am playing table tennis and table football. The previously mentioned loud Canadians busted out some Canadian whiskey, and a good time was had by all. At one point in the night Adrian, the gorgeous Australian who had just arrived at the hostel, and who was my two-time football partner, pulled up his shirt to show me his tattoos. I nearly drowned in saliva. Caspers, the 20-year-old Latvian who looked like he was 16 but acted like he was 80, got good and sloshed after beating us all in table tennis. I played a few rounds with him and he offered to give me some �tips�. As the night wore on Caspers started getting drunk and stopped being so serious. After demonstrating how they do push-ups in the Latvian army (don�t ask), he finally plopped himself on the couch between me and Adrian just as we were getting�cozy. He asked me where I was from, and was surprised when I told him Egypt. He said, �Oh, I don�t know many Egyptians, but I wouldn�t have thought you were Egyptian.� (All of this, of course, in an adorable, heavy Latvian accent.) I told him, �Yeah, I guess I don�t look typically Egyptian.� At which point he slurred, �Oh, but you are wear (�very�, in Latvian-speak?) beautiful.� [This line later became a catchphrase between Mr. Inkwell, Col, and me when I told them about it in Galway.] I blushed and thanked him.
Pretty soon after Adrian and I decided to call it a night, and went upstairs together�we had one of those awkward pauses at the door to his room, but I just said goodnight and went on up to my room.