Okay, maybe more like buzzards, but we are here in the Emerald Isle. A rather uneventful flight - some turbulence, but overall quite smooth. Unlike our experience through the airport. Landed early at 10:30 am and waited FOR-ever in the customs lineup. Fortunately there was an amusing mural of tshirts with sayings from parents to keep us somewhat entertained. Once through customs, it was another adventure to find our bags. None of the carousels had Calgary on them so everyone from that flight was wandering around trying to figure out where our bags were. Finally turned up on a carousel marked ‘Inverness’!! We didn’t leave the airport till 1:00!!
Grabbed a cab because we were too tired to bother mucking about with buses. Had a very talkative cabbie who gave us the lowdown on what to see and do in Belfast, as well as his perceptions on the current political unrest in the country, but in Northern Ireland in particular. His own father was arrested and jaiked during the Troubles, and he lost friends in the conflicts. He also talked about what effect the whole Brexit schmozzle is having and will have on Northern Ireland.
Our Air B&B is a cute little flat near Queens University. We headed out to a local pub, the Botanic (it is also near the Botanic Gardens) for a bite to eat. I tried the bangers and mash (when in Rome…) and it was quite delish. Watched a bit of the soccer match between Northern Ireland and Germany, and when we left the pub and took a little walk in the neighbourhood, we could hear the chanting of the crowd, as the stadium was fairly close to our place.
Back “home” to plan out our next couple of days in Belfast before we join up with our G Adventures tour on Wednesday evening.