Belfast hostel takeover

              I am in Northern Ireland for the first time, arriving a few hours ago in Belfast on a train from Dublin. Makayla says we maybe should have let the people with fewer and smaller bags load the train ahead of us, because, there we were, a gaggle of Americans gumming it up as we waited one by one to haul our big American bags and stuffed packs into the passenger car and lift forty to fifty pounds airborne into the overhead shelf above our heads while conductors whistled helplessly outside behind us. I joined three students on the floor at the back when there weren’t enough seats.

              We had flown overnight and chased the sun to a very early sunrise, though some of us slept. I was grumpy for a while because I felt like someone kept jabbing my seat. When I was able to turn around, I said, Hello! I just wanted to tell you that solitaire might not be as solitary as you think! I did sleep for a couple hours myself.

              The two blocks walk from the train to the hostel was dark and rainy. I sat at a table with four of our girls at dinner a few minutes later, our bags stowed in a luggage room until we finished, then given pizza squares and the smallest salad you ever saw. And then we were surprised when another course came out, huge burgers in loaves of their own and a bin of chips for each of us—and yet another one of those microscopic salads.

              We had two hours at the train station in Dublin. I played guitar by our bags while students wandered and I made sure to keep my case shut so police and guards would know I wasn’t busking but just busy being American. The walk from where the airport shuttle dropped us and the train station put us almost at the door of the hotel I’d stayed with Frankie, Kent, and Emily almost a dozen years ago, and a 15 minute walk from the station took me to the Spire and the General Post Office, famously occupied in 1916 by Republicans in what would soon lead to the independence of Ireland and the Troubles after that. But first, we had our first real encounter with Ireland when Janine forlornly faced a broken escalator at Dublin’s train depot: men took the suitcases from Janine and Barbara and carried them up the steps for them with a “No worries” fare-thee-well.

              It is now 2:18 pm in Seattle, and almost time for bed checks here in Belfast. We'd hoped to be knocked out by the not sleeping, and so, to quickly adjust, but I feel ready to go.

A link to an album of this trip is attached here.