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We had a late start today breakfast was at 8:30 and of course it was a full Irish breakfast J. Poodles is falling in love with the bacon here. Allison wanted to go to Saint George's Market in Belfast and since it closed at noon I wasn't able to go to Cooley's Distiillery nearby. The drive up to belvast was rather uneventful. We took the main motor road which is similar to our freeways. Belfast is an interesting city to say the least because when you think of this city normally it is associated with the bombings and the IRA ordeals. Present day Belfast reminds me of those prewar cities who are recovering and just starting to get their feet on the ground again. The city center has buildings going up, buness is booming and there is more of a peaceful aura around town. Our first stop was Saint George's market so we found a place to park our car with the back end next to the wall so that no one will steal our stuff. Now since Belfast is in Northern Ireland which is part of the United Kingdom our Euros here wouldn't work and we had to stop by the ATM machines.
Saint George's Market is a red brick and stone building built in the 1860. They are open on Friday-Sunday in the morning and close at noon. Inside you find stalls of food from fish, meats (I saw a Haggis sausage thereJ), spices, vegetables, fruits, plants, art work, jewelry and baked goods are all sold under one roof. It wasn't as pre-set stalls like you find in the La Boqueria in Barcelona. It reminded me of your typical European market where the stall are tables or just a self created space where you display yoru goods> I found this guy who sold art work that he did and bought these small prints from him and the nice thing was he gave me 5 of his larger prints that he made but is old now so he lowered the price but gave it to me for free. I'm telling you the kindness of the irish people and their hospitality really amazes me sometimes. They are always curious to know where you are from, what you are doing visiting and they will chat with you for a bit too. I really enjoy the interaction with the artist and local people. We had lunch at the City Hall after getting our lunch which was mostly dessertincluding these home baked lavender cupcakes and crepe with nutella with strawberries. So yummy!
After the market we took a tour on the hop-on/hop-off bus in Belfast since apparently there was no garage for the black taxi tours. These days you needed to call up a taxi company to get the tour. It is amazing how much things change in Belfast! The red bus was the best option because you can get a great overview of the city and they took you through the main regions where the division between the Protestants and Catholic. We passed along this main square where 70% most of the shootings took place within a 4 mile radius and there. The barb wires on the peace wall still there and so were some of the murals but they took down a lot of the evidence of war between the two sections. We would pass by stores and the people were waving us. Belfast is a young up and coming city and you can tell by the way buildings are going up, tourist are coming and there is this aura around of change but in a good way.
Getting to our B&B was another adventure thanks to goggle maps. The map pointed us to go south to Lisburn but come to find out that the B&B was further up north like 2 hours away. Man I panicked cause this wasn't how the day was planned and we needed to make it to our B&B by 1900hrs. I ate one of the lavender cupcakes left to calm me down and kept my mouth shut for the rest of the drive unless to give out directions. Our B&B is located in Bushmill which is way up north about 6 kilometers away from Giant's Causeway which we plan to go to tomorrow.
Finding a place for dinner was harder than we thought for such a small town like Bushmill, all the good places to eat you had make a reservation. After going up one hill to this place that our B&B hostess recommended they told us they didn't have roomfor us until 2100hrs and it was only 1900hrs I was really frustrated. A hungry Jica isn't a very happy Jica and so I hot footed it back down the hill hoping to go back to the hotel restaurant that was recommended to see if they had room when Bob yells out my name. I guess the guy at Tartine Bushmill Restaurant took pity on us and moved some tables around so that there was room for us. OMW who ever said there isn't anything other than beef and potatoes in Ireland wasn't here recently. Because so far for the past three nights we've had so much good food it is crazy! So let me tell you about my fabulous dinner for starters I had this smoked salmon with a cucumber dill sauce that reminded me of tatziki but lighter. Then for my entrée I had seared scallops with Ballycastle crab risotto and arugula with pine nuts salad. I don't know what the sauce was that went with the scallops but it was perfect, so light that it didn't take away from the flavor of the scallops and the riosotto. Then as if that wasn't enough we all ordered dessert and I had a strawberry and kiwi pavalova with raspberry and mango sauce. My tongue and eyes were in foodie heaven I tell you! The plate presentation of the food in Europe is fantastic. We were all so full that you could've just rolled us all down the hill back to the parking lot.
Our B&B is located way out in the farmlands and there was this one house we passed on our way that reminded me of one fo my favourite books. This house is exactly what I would've pictured the characters to live in that book "a Summer to Die" by Lois Lowry. Yeah not the most cheerful title but the book was about these two sisters and one of them got leukemia during the 60's when there wasn't a cure and the word cancer is your death sentence. When we got out of our car at the B&B the temperature read8.4 celcius on the dash for the temperature and you can see smoke as you blow your breath into the air. The stars are out in the sky too and you can see clearly which is amazing considering we haven't seen any stars since getting here. But then again we've been going home by 2000hrs and tonight was the latest we came back to our lodging which was 2100hrs.
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