10 Questions About…

After the Ulster Folk Museum, everyone else had a rest and I walked in horribly rainy-sleety weather to the Queen’s Quarter towards Queen’s College. There were a few nice secondhand shops and I enjoyed shopping – but I have to say the weather was ugly. It was fun to get a chance to walk around a bit. Belfast really is a lot more like London to me than like Dublin. The shops are shops I used to see in London, there’s less grass, and it just feels more like London.

Saturday evening we all went to eat at Deanes. It is a very nice restaurant and I have say that the wait staff was really nice about us showing up with 3 kids. In fairness we did phone ahead and we did come in early – 6:00. So we were leaving as most folks were arriving. ALso I have the say that aside from a lot of giggling the girls were very well behaved.

The food was amazing. It was the best fois gras I have ever had. And much to the delight of the girls I tried wood pigeon, which was good. (Not as good as fois gras, however.)

Saturday afternoon we headed about 10 miles out of Belfast to Cultra and the Ulster Folk Museum. It was cold. There was still a good amount of snow on the ground outside of the city center. We went through some nice parts of Belfast (Holywood) to get to the Folk Museum.

The Museum is like Fort Snelling back home in that it’s a reenactment of a town from 1900. You walk around the village and can walk through the various homes, businesses, churches, and public buildings. Apparently this place is packed in the summer. I can tell you it’s not packed on a cold, snowy Saturday in January – but we still enjoyed it.

While Patrick’s mom was clearly not a young girl in 1900, the girls were thrilled to hear that she had used many of the things that we saw in the cottages. She had made tea in a fireplace and she had used the lantern-type lamps.

There were chamber pots in the rooms of the poorer cottages and the girls though this was the funniest thing ever. (They took several pictures, which I will add below, for their cousins in Chicago.) The girls were sorely disappointed to hear that their Irish Grandma did not have a chamber pot as a kid.I nearly forgot about our fun conversation with the woman who worked at the shop in the Museum. She thought Dublin was the best place to visit. (Of course we thought Belfast was much more fun – proving that the grass is always greener.)

She grew up in Belfast and it was interesting to hear her talk about growing up in such a turbulent time. She said she was about 15 when the troubles really started (again) and so she had missed doing the stuff that most teenagers do – like going to the mall or dances or just hanging out. It kind of makes you think about the kids all over the world who have stilted childhoods because of turbulent times.

On Saturday morning we went to St George’s Market, which is very similar to the farmers market in St. Paul. There are lots of booths with food and various products. St George’s market is indoors – well not really indoors, but covered anyways. I think I saw a sign that said it was the largest covered marketing Europe. There was a band playing.

We each seemed to buy something but the real treat was our treats. We got chocolate marshmallow crepes. They were excellent! Aine got just marshmallow crepe, which isn’t that good.