Arrival and Decisions in Belfast

I barely made the bus. I literally had to walk as fast as humanly possible with my bag, and just made it in time.

The journey took much longer than expected; I arrived at almost eight when I had left at one... we got stuck in traffic in Dublin and for some reason it stopped in Dublin city before the airport where I was catching the connecting bus (and of course missed). Either way I got there, but my phone wasn't working and I had an appointment with the Hostel.

An employee at the train station let me use his phone, and Arnie came and picked me up! It was awesome! He drove by the city hall as a mini tour. He was a nice man! We got to the hostel and made some tea. His other employee was also Canadian, so that was cool. In the kitchen I met a couple more people whom were staying at the hostel... turns out they were also Canadian. We were infesting the hostel! I thought it was pretty funny. We sat and chatted, then the two guests were going out to the pubs, so I thought why not see some of the city!

The three of us left and they led me to a random bar they had been in during the day, which was supposed to have live Irish music. The bar was a dive bar, and they had Irish music! The musicians were all quite young, and just sitting around in the bar really casually. Dressed very casually. It was neat. I texted Kilian from couchsurfing and he came down and met us! He told us of the bar he was at just down the street which also had live Irish music. We finished our drinks then and went to the next one.

I actually liked this one better; this one was more wood walls than painted cement/plaster type walls. More room too. Kilian introduced me to the people he was hosting that night, and a few more people! Eventually the bar was shutting though and Kilian went home (he had been out with surfers since 3 pm) so Team Canada went to find drunk food.

We found this ultra sketchy but ultra busy kebab place... it was absolute chaos in there, but it was like watching television so it was funny. We ate most of our huge kebabs and walked home, where I proceeded to down all my leftover cranberry juice from Galway (stupid bladder).

It worked because I woke up totally fine!

The next day I walked around a little, and found a coffee shop with free internet. It started to rain. I had to make a decision, and sitting there was where I made it.

Arnie (the owner of the hostel) was going away in three weeks, for two weeks. If I was to work in the hostel, it would be for five weeks. The three leading up would be less work, then while he was gone was when it was really needed. I had been in the city for less than 24 hours, so it was hard to decide whether or not I was willing to stay for that long.... but it was extremely hard to say no to income at this point, even if it meant staying somewhere for a while. I mean, it's not like I HAD to be anywhere.

Then I looked at the rain. I thought of Spain, and all the places I still wanted to see while the weather was nice. If I worked until almost-mid july, then went to the UK, THEN went to mainland Europe there would not be much of summer left.

Hmmmmm. I really wanted to get some time in somewhere consistently sunny, and I just couldn't picture staying somewhere perpetually cold all through June and part of July. So basically the answer came from the sky and that was.... no.

I went back to the hostel to tell them right away. I wanted him to have the most time possible to find someone, and that meant being prompt with an answer. I texted Kilian too, and he was find with letting me stay a couple nights. I heard back from Anthony, another host as well, who was able to host for the following two nights... Yay! Kilian actually met me at the hostel! We threw my pack in the car, and went for a walk to get some coffee :)

After that we went to get some food at Tesco, and ended up taking a drive up to Belfast Castle! This was all so pleasant and unexpected I was in a very good mood despite the hard hostel decision!

I took some photos, coming soon, and then we headed back. We watched movies then I got really tired and ended up falling asleep. I barely had made it to the end of Blue Velvet, every time it went to commercial I thought of just watching the rest the next day (he had it on DVD), but I made it! Just.