I'm Coming Back

When I woke up this morning, I had no idea that in two hours I would be scrambling up a muddy mountain and dodging cyclists. Nothing went as planned today, but unexpected as it was, today was definitely the second best day I have had in Belfast, and a brilliant birthday weekend.

Today we were supposed to go down to Dublin for some Christmas shopping with the Weekenders Club, which is the only club I go to weekly. I attend the Weekenders Club on an almost religious basis, because it means that every Friday night I can wind down watching a brilliant movie with my two American friends here, Hannah and Victoria, and three amazing British girls, Jennifer, Sophie, and Rebekah. Sophie and I just celebrated our 20^th birthdays on November 22, and Rebekah and I—if you haven’t already guessed—share the same name. I don’t get to see them often enough, because with Queen’s being as big as it is, sometimes I only see the people I like most once a week. This is an absolute travesty, and so when I heard we were all going to Dublin today, I was bloody excited. I got up at the unheard of hour of eight in the morning (don’t judge me, I’m a uni student), dressed in my favourite top, scarf, and the necklace Hannah gave me for my birthday, and went off to meet Hannah, Sophie, and Rebekah to pack Oreo cupcakes. In the interests of money—as in, we all have pounds, but not euros—we had decided to pack a lunch and charge all of our presents to our credit cards, and therefore, we would have a picnic lunch.

We arrived in the Treehouse right on time. Victoria was already there, and we chatted for a bit, worrying about where Jennifer was. Jennifer is the only one of us who does not live in Elms, but by the Chaplaincies across the street from the Lanyon Building, and so instead of walking thirty seconds to the Treehouse, she had to walk ten minutes. But she made it, albeit a little bit late, but this was not unduly concerning, because the rest of the Treehouse was just lounging. Waiting. Nicola, the RA in charge of this operation, kept popping in and out and making sure we were all for Dublin, and then popping off again. The RAs are brilliant at this. So the six of us gossiped in the corner, and I kept sneaking peeks at the British boy from our last major outing, to the Zoo.

After the time for our departure had come and gone, Nicola finally gathered us all around and said, “I’m very sorry, but today’s trip has been cancelled, because I can’t find a bus driver.”

The RAs here seem to have a huge problem with this. You would think that when fifty people sign up for a bus trip to Dublin you would find a bus driver to get them there in one piece. Apparently not.

“But we will reschedule. How about next Saturday?”

There were calls of dissent. Apparently next Saturday was full.

“Then the Saturday after next?” cries of assent. “All right. It’s settled. But I will personally drive any of you who want to do something today anywhere in Belfast—for free. So have a think. Maybe the Continental Market? Saint George’s? Have a natter.”

We six of us sat down, slightly surprised, and thought. I didn’t want to go to City Centre, as I’ve been to the Continental Market twice now, and because my cheque still has not cleared. (The bank said it would come in on Friday. The bank lied. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR BANK MERGES WITH A SWEEDISH BANK, AMERICA.) The others were vaguely in agreement about this.

“Well, we don’t want to do nothing,” everyone said.

“I walked all the way here,” Jennifer said.

“Titanic Museum?” someone said.

“We’ve already been,” Hannah and I said.

“I’m going with a friend next week,” Rebekah said.

“I’m going with my parents,” Victoria said.

We sat there, thinking. And then I had an idea.

I do not get ideas often—not social ideas, anyway—but when I do get an idea, I will run with it to the ends of the Earth and back (which is why I’m in Northern Ireland right now). And when I have an idea…it tends to be rather unconventional.

Lately I have been thinking that I have three weeks left of my stay here in Belfast, and so I think back on when I first arrived, and the things that stood out to me the most. I’m happy to say I’ve done almost everything I’ve wanted to do, except visit Downpatrick and Cork, and walk across the obligatory Rope Bridge of Northern Ireland. But there was one thing I hadn’t done yet, something that I had wanted to do since I had first arrived in Northern Ireland and travelled across the countryside in a bus, tired and sore and amazed: I wanted to climb Cave Hill, the mountain that I have taken so many pictures of with my camera, the one I threatened to climb when I was at the Zoo, the one I have thought about again and again in my thoughts.

So I said, “What about Belfast Castle?”

Lo and behold, I’d had a good idea, because everyone agreed with me—and two others, Maltese boys named Manuel and Mark, thought it was such a good idea they went with us.

Nicola was a good tour guide, because she stopped and explained what was going on honestly. Every single time we reached an interface she would point it out. An interface here is where Catholic territory faces Protestant territory, and this is where most of the skirmishes occur. Catholic territory had spray-painted FREE SO-AND-SO signs put up in strange places, and Nicola explained that we were in North Belfast, where the treaty lines are uneven. Education is poor in North Belfast. Girls tend to get pregnant and drop out early. International students are fine, but GB students would do well to stay away. I suddenly had the odd sensation of feeling rather safe and rather uncomfortable—I was a Catholic, but I was American, which negated my religion, and I was travelling with three British girls, whom I did not want to be in any danger because I’d had the fool idea to travel through. Jennifer distracted me though by saying, “My parents got married here, but I can’t find the church,” and we started trying to find it.

Anyway, we were soon dropped off at Belfast Castle, and started taking pictures. This is probably the best time to describe the layout of Belfast Castle for you.

One of the first things you will see upon arriving in Belfast is the Zoo, and Cave Hill, and then the harbour. The Zoo is built beneath Cave Hill, and Belfast Castle is sort of built a little higher than the Zoo, but still on sea level. What I am trying to say here is that the harbour is visible from certain parts of the Castle, which is directly underneath Cave Hill, which is near to the Zoo. I suppose that’s all rather confusing, but it must be explained. 

 At the Castle, we dove into the gardens, which had a feline theme. There were nine cats hidden in the garden, and we ran around looking for them all. Once we had found them we went inside of the Castle and climbed up a spiral staircase to look through three rooms open to the public. We had good craic there, using a spy camera to watch people wandering through the gardens, and we picked up a map. The map told us that there was a playground, which as mature 20 and 21 year olds sounded like fun, and also a maze, which we wanted to visit too. So we went down to the playground, and I was amazed to see that the entire thing was gated, the top bits covered with barbed wire, and that the inside was large, and decorated like a miniature castle.

“Why is there barbed wire?” One of us—probably me—asked.

Manuel laughed. “So the kids can get used to their future!”

I figure, if I’m going to be a jailbird I might as well associate good memories with barbed wire, and followed an energetic Jennifer to the doors of the playground, only to learn that you have to be 14 or younger to play there, and besides the insurmountable age difference, you had to cough up £2.50 to be allowed inside.

Thus we started following Rebekah, who was looking at the map, to the maze. The woman at the playground had no idea where it was at, but the map gave a pretty clear picture. We went through some very scenic hiking trails by a little stream, and were almost there when a man in a yellow fluorescent jacket stopped us because we were on a bike trail, and there was to be a mountain biking event on that day, which meant if we proceeded any further we might get run over by a bike and die.

The man explained to Rebekah how to turn around and try a different trail, whilst the rest of us—Jennifer and myself, at any rate—seriously considered leaping a fallen tree to get to where we wanted to go. Eventually the reason of Rebekah and Hannah turned us around, and quite by accident we found the maze.

Which stunk.

For one thing, the maze was built so that the walls were easily jumped, and we could see where we were going; and if you simply follow the maze it will lead you out. You make no choices. There is no game of wits with the creator of the game, no skill involved. It was a meditational maze, Jennifer said, who is familiar with mazes of all sorts and told me about some of them as we walked. For a maze like this, you simply meditate, and by following the path, it will lead you to the center, and then out. It was a strange experience, and we felt rather flat afterward; we had been expecting something, as Mark said, out of “Alice in Wonderland.”

At this point, Jennifer wanted to go to the Zoo and see the Malaysian Tapirs (what is with the British and the Tapir?) but I wanted to climb Cave Hill, and so did most of the others. We kept trying to find trails up the mountain, but there was invariably a man in a fluorescent jacket saying, This path is reserved for the cyclists. Please try another path.

Eventually we did find a path, and it was rather muddy. We had barely gone five minutes when we had to do a vote, do we go to the Zoo, or do we continue on, and the vote was in my favour, so we continued to climb.

Just after the vote, we had to climb up a steep, narrow, muddy pathway that bikers kept flying down. Trees grew closer on either side. This was rather dangerous, and if we weren’t careful we would slip and fall. In the end Rebekah and Sophie wanted us to go one by one, so that it would be both safer and easier on the narrow path, and I shouted back, “Everyone: Duck formation!”

To my credit, most of them understood and went into single file. Jennifer started to hum what would be the third nursery rhyme I’d learnt that day:

Oh, wasn’t it a bit of luck

That I was born a baby duck

With yellow socks and yellow shoes

So I may go wherever I choose

Quack, quack, quack, quack…

“Rebekah,” Hannah panted from behind, “I am going to kill you.”

We got to the top of that little hill without any damage, although our trainers were rather muddy. Then it was a bit more level, and when the call “Bike!” came, we could dive to the side of the road, onto the grass.

The bikes would roll by, usually in twos or threes, and the forerunner was usually kind enough to say “Cheers!” or “There’s three others behind me,” so we’d be on the lookout. Some said nothing, but splashed mud at us as we went by. One tried to show off by riding along on one wheel for a few seconds.

It was all rather dangerous, and Hannah confessed there was one call of “Bike!” that she didn’t think she’d make. Most of us would trip, some would fall, and there were several complicated maneouvers that we enacted. I started to pretend that we were in World War I.

About halfway up the mountain we were in the clear, and were able to cross a flat patch of grass, and then head up on a wide, flat road made of stones with a lot less mud. This made it easier to talk, and we started talking a bit about Malta, where Manuel and Mark are from, and they asked us questions about America in return. I made a comment about the American education system, a rather negative one, and Mark looked surprised.

“I have never heard an American speak ill of their country,” he said.

Immediately I thought I had made a boo-boo, and Hannah and I were quick to explain. We love America, of course we do, how could we not? But there were problems with America, and we weren’t going to deny them. Was it unusual?

“Unusual,” Mark said, “but honest.”

He seemed rather surprised, and spent a few minutes thinking about this.

While the path was nice and even, and there were no longer any cyclists, tractors kept passing us by with loads of cyclists and their bikes on the back. “The race starts at 2,” some warned us. It was half past. We were almost up the mountain.

The last half of the trek up was the easiest, and within twenty minutes I was standing at the top of Cave Hill with all of the rest, feeling invincible.

The view from the top was incredible. We could see the bay, a Stena Liner ferry safe in the dock, Samson and Goliath, resting in retirement, and the rest of Belfast laid out before us. Jennifer thought she could see Queen’s.

From left to right, Hannah, Sophie, Rebekah, Victoria, Manuel, Mark, and Rebekah

We broke for lunch at the top. A huge group of cyclists were gathered at one end of the cliff, and we stayed by ourselves, eating our packed lunch. Everyone donated something. Rebekah had her cupcakes, Jennifer had made sandwiches, Hannah brought carrots, Sophie hard boiled eggs, and Mark gave us some chocolate things flavoured with orange. As we ate, a little yellow dog came up and ate our eggshells and let us pet him.

I got bored sitting there, and entertained myself by edging down the cliff and then chasing puppies. “Stay where we can see you!” Hannah called.

“Okay, mum!” I yelled back.

After we had eaten and restored our spirits by listening to Queen’s Greatest Hits Album, we went down a steep path I had found going down the mountain that would A) Get us out of the way of the bikers, as it was really steep and really narrow, and too dangerous even for cyclists, and B) it would be faster. The light would start to fade soon, at about four, and it would be best to get down the mountain as soon as we could.

Getting down was just as dangerous as going up. Hannah slipped three times, and Jennifer decided to go on a dangerous slope that she basically had to slide down. At one point I got trapped on gravel that slid under my feet, and I almost fell down an incline. 

Jennifer scrambling down the hill

 And then Sophie and Rebekah, who were travelling in front, called: “There’s a cave on Cave Hill!”

We dashed over, as soon as we could—it is best, as I learned on the Mountains of Mourne, not to run down a mountain, no matter how sorely you are tempted—and stood in front of the cave. It was about eight feet off of the ground, on a little rock face, and Sophie, Rebekah, and I decided we were going to climb it. With the help of people on the ground telling me where footholds were, I scrambled up the rock face. 

Me!

The two Rebekahs in the cave

Climbing was actually the highlight of the cave, for once I had gotten inside I found it was rather small and damp and graffitied. It was probably the size of my living room, and not at all what I had been hoping for, which was an epic spelunking adventure. But I had climbed the side of a rock that was taller than I was, which is something I have always wanted to do. The Mountains of Mourne had made me worry that I was not cut out to climb mountains. Cave Hill changed my mind.

Sophie and Rebekah climbed up as well, and Manuel joined us. Just as we climbed up so had a boy, who was someone who, I thought, climbed rocks fairly regularly. He was joined with the little yellow dog from before—Sparky, I learned his name was. 

On the way down the dad of another group helped us figure out how to get down. This was handy, as not everyone had as long legs as I did—I was the tallest of our group who climbed—and as Sophie had fallen about four feet up the rock face. We didn’t want anyone else to fall. The entire adventure was made more difficult because Sparky kept climbing over me as I was going down. But we all made it down safe, and then got to the bottom relatively easily. 

Jennifer helps me down

By the time we were on level ground we had started to sing The Twelve Days of Christmas in a high soprano. We were singing this just as we passed a group of bikers, and they all of them looked at us as if we were mad.

“How many days of Christmas are there?” Mark complained to Manuel.

“Only twelve,” Manuel said.

But that one song sent us on a Christmas singing spree, and we sang carols through Belfast Castle and for the twenty minutes we waited for Nicola to come and pick us up. We would have sung them in the car as well, if Mark hadn’t turned the music in the car up to drown us out.

“They talked all day,” he complained to Nicola. “They didn’t stop. And then they started to sing—”

We fell silent then, exhausted. I watched the red sky. Red sky in morning, sailors, take warning. Red sky in evening, sailor’s delight. I said this out loud, and Jennifer corrected me: “It’s shepherds.”

“It’s Lord of the Rings,” Victoria said. “The sun is red. Blood has been spilt this night. Legolas said it.”

Then Jennifer tried to get us to sing Christmas carols again, and we tried to sing, “O Little Town of  Bethlehem,” but they sing it differently than we do in America, and that fizzled out quickly.

When we let the boys and Jennifer off at the Chaplaincy, Mark ran off, and Jennifer, tired, left. But Manuel held the door open for a moment and said, “Don’t let anybody stop you from singing. You’ve got me in the Christmas spirit already. I wasn’t before. Don’t let anyone stop you!”

We then went back to Elms, and I went to pick up post, and saw that my lovely Aunt Diane sent me a beautiful black scarf, which is wonderful because I’ve wanted more scarves, and the one she sent me is actually really popular over here right now. I was very surprised, because I hadn’t expected any presents from home at all.

It was dark when I made it back to Holly 4. I had my scarf in my hands. Patrick was waiting for me in the room. I slipped my shoes off before entering, and laughed—because I have done everything I wanted to do in Belfast, and now I am ready to come home gracefully. Besides, as I told Sophie in the car, “Don’t worry [about us leaving]; I’m coming back.”

I am coming back. I’m not quite sure how to explain it, but I love the United Kingdom. I love Northern Ireland, and I love Scotland, and I’m looking forward to exploring more of England than just London Heathrow. I’ve learned so much here, and it’s so hard to believe I go home in three weeks. I am so excited to go home, because I have all of these ideas of what I want to do when I return, ideas that I didn’t have before. I have a clearer idea of who I am and what I want out of life, and I know that I will come back to the U.K. in the near future.

But for now, I am content to be going back to the States.

Songs Jennifer and Sophie taught me today:

The sun has got his hat on
Hip-hip-hip-hooray!
The sun has got his hat on,
He's coming out to play!

Johnny was a Paratrooper in the RAF,
Johnny was a Paratrooper in the RAF,
Johnny was a Paratrooper in the RAF,
And he ain't gonna jump no more!

Glory, glory what a terrible way to die

Trapped inside your braces in the middle of the sky
Glory, Glory, what a terrible way to die,
And he ain't gonna jump no more!

He landed on the runway like a blob of strawberry jam

He landed on the runway like a blob of strawberry jam

He landed on the runway like a blob of strawberry jam,
And he ain't gonna jump no more!

Glory, glory what a terrible way to die

Trapped inside your braces in the middle of the sky
Glory, Glory, what a terrible way to die,
And he ain't gonna jump no more!

They put him in a matchbox and they sent him home to mum

They put him in a matchbox and they sent him home to mum

They put him in a matchbox and they sent him home to mum

And he ain't gonna jump no more!

Glory, glory what a terrible way to die

Trapped inside your braces in the middle of the sky
Glory, Glory, what a terrible way to die,
And he ain't gonna jump no more!

She put him on the mantlepiece for everyone to see,
She put him on the mantlepiece for everyone to see,
She put him on the mantlepiece for everyone to see,
And he ain't gonna jump no more!

Glory, glory what a terrible way to die

Trapped inside your braces in the middle of the sky
Glory, Glory, what a terrible way to die,
And he ain't gonna jump no more!

And now they all have strawberry jam with their Sunday tea

And now they all have strawberry jam with their Sunday tea

And now they all have strawberry jam with their Sunday tea

And he ain't gonna jump no more!