Today was a great day! Woke up early to go to Ireland! We had to catch the 10am Ferry across to Belfast, which meant we had to be at Stranraer just after 9am, which in turn meant we had to leave the house by 8am. So after the rather long drive to Stranraer, it was an even longer boat ride across to Ireland. It was an enormous boat though, with two lower decks for carrying cars and trucks, and the upper deck for carrying passengers. Inside the passenger deck, there's bars and movies and poker machines and cafés - many more things than I would think nessecary to entertain you for the 1½ hour boat ride. But it was an experience, that's for sure!
But once we got to Ireland, it got rather interesting. We got off the boat, and out the front of the terminal were all these taxis waiting to
pick up passengers. Now, I've been to India, and I know what pushy taxi drivers can be like, but my parents are a little more trusting than I
am, so when the taxi drivers came up to us and told us that they'll take us where we need to go to meet the bus tour we'd booked, they just took
it as the truth. So we all piled into this taxi and we noted that it was £1.75 per person. So he drove us in, and we asked, "So where is it
that we catch the buses?"
"Oh, you don't catch the bus, it's better in a taxi," he told us.
"But we've already paid for the bus, so we'd prefer to just go with that," we said.
So he immediatly pulls the taxi over, gets out and, comes around to our door, opens it and says, "this is where you get off."
"Well, where do we catch the bus?" we asked.
"Oh, over there," he told us, waving his arm in the general direction of one of the roads.
We were all a bit flustered at this point, since we'd just be hussled off this taxi rather preemptorally, so after we'd given him his £8.75, he asked us "Are you Australians?", and when we answered in the affermative, he mumbled something inaudible, and my mum asked him to repeat it (we just thought he had said something with a strong accent), and his reply was "You Australian's never tip!" and he walked off back to his cab.
Well, needless to say, we weren't too happy with our treatment there. After all, while we don't give a tip for someone who just does their job, we're more than happy to give you a tip if you go "beyond the call of duty," a friend smile, a nice "hello", etc. We certainly won't give you a tip for unceremoniously dumping us on the sidewalk, 250 metres (as we found) from where we actually wanted to go!
But he was really our only bad experience in Belfast - if you're ever in Northern Ireland, don't catch a taxi with the driver with the bad
Parkinson's Disease (which was a bit of a worry watching him change gears anyway...). The bus tour was really fantastic - though slightly
worrying, because a lot of the buildings in Belfast are still just shells and a lot of the fences in the Protestant area has very tall fences
with razor wire around the top! It's also a worry seeing the British flag flying on one end of a street, and a Republic of Ireland flag on the
other end.
But it was very interesting, and as the tour guide would say "the peace process and cease fires are making a big difference", and they haven't really had many problems in the recent past (well, except that incident a couple of weeks ago...). It was funny when we asked people, "Now, who's staying in this hotel?" (indicating one of the hotels), when a couple of people raised their hands, he told them, "that hotel has been bombed 36 times in the past! Though not for a long while now... I guess it's due for another one!"
One odd thing about Belfast is the fact that they all seem to be so proud of the fact that the Titanic had been built there. I mean, after
all, the thing sunk on it's maiden vouyage! After telling the world it was "unsinkable"! And the tour guide kept telling us, "and this
is where the smoke stacks were put on the Titanic," "and here's where the dry docks are that it was built on," "and here is where the Titanic
was first floated," and the number of Titanic and Titanic-related souveniers you could buy, it was amazing! I wouldn't be proud of the fact
that the biggest blunder of last century was built in my home-town...
We went to the tourist office after the tour, and bought a few souveniers. There were people trying to do survey's of the tourists opinions of Belfast. My uncle did one, and he was sure to mention the incident with the taxi driver (not that there's much they could have done! We later learned that a lot of taxi drivers in Belfast actually belong to the I.R.A!), but I thought it odd that they'd ask you about your stay in the tourist office - after all, wouldn't that be your first stop in Ireland, rather than your last, implying that you really don't know all that much about your trip? Wouldn't it be better to ask you ask you're leaving, not just after you arrive?
After that, we decided to have lunch in the famous Crown Hotel in Belfast, which we did. What an amazing pub! It was all carved wooden walls and pillars, and the actual tables were in these little booths - very classsy! The food was delicious: I had a Beef & Guiness pie (what else would I have in Ireland?) and a pint of Guiness (heh). Yum!
Once we'd had lunch, it was pretty much a matter of hopping back on the curtesy bus (yes, there was a coutesy bus from the boat to the tour buses - the taxi drivers lied to us!), and back on the boat. By the time we got home, it was after 6 o'clock, so we just had a very quick dinner, and straight to bed - I was very tired!!