Long busy weekend 2 - Housewarming and Belfast

Friday night in Dublin, you have got a visitor from Germany - what can you do? Have a housewarming party. It was about time. Although the trip to IKEA my flat needs is still to come, I could not wait any longer to invite my dear co-workers and all the other lovely people I have met so far for a nice evening at my place. And it was actually very nice, and definitely very long for someone who had already booked tickets for the early train to Belfast the next morning. I definitely had fun!

Sure, the next morning came earlier than I thought, but I managed to get up, somehow drag myself to the DART and afterwards to the train and - surprisingly enough - by the time we reached the Northern Irish border, I was up and running an prepared for adding another country and capital to my list, because I had never been to Belfast before.

First positive impression: There is a free bus from the train station to the city center (although within walking distance). Second positive impression, there are many old an beautiful buildings in Belfast, as well as a state-of-the-art shopping center we visited first because we hadn't had any breakfast and it was already past noon. The prostpect of a nice steak at T.G.I.F.s was just too alluring to miss.

Wide awake and full we were ready to take a city tour. Fun fact I learned:
The Titanic was build in Belfast along with her sistership the Olympic in 1912. And at the moment, Belfast is building a huge museum and entertainment center to use the fame of the ship for touristic purposes.

Going on a shopping tour afterwards, I learned another interesting thing: Although Northern Ireland uses the Pound Sterling, they have good interesting banknotes of their own. Apart from the Bank-of-England-ones four or five banks are allowed to issue banknotes. And they all look differengt! So when I withdrew money from the ATM I thought I was a victim of some fraudster (see pictures).

We finished our trip with supposedly the best Fish n' Chips I have ever had and I knew I would come back to Belfast soon - and not just because of IKEA and the good exchange rates. ;-)

Speech balloons for the pictures:

1) Evening in Belfast 1
2) Well and you think the Euro doesn't simplify things?
3) Part of the "International Wall"
4) Branding is substantial!
5) Can I issue my own banknotes as well? ;-)
6) Evening in Belfast 2