I get the message

Seriously, this is starting to creep me out... it's as if the universe is watching!

From this week's batch of PostSecrets

Highlights from Belfast!

Hey everybody - Dave here -

Loving Belfast!

Highlights -

The Titanic Walking Tour. In it's heyday Belfast docks and the Harland and Wolff shipyards were the biggest in the world. There are two still standing giant cranes that welcome you to the city and have been classified as licensed buildings - so nothing can be done to them without government permission. The Titanic (as well as her two sister ships - the Olympic and the Britannic) were built in Belfast & as the Irish say - "The Titanic: She was okay when she left here!"


Pubs... love it. Saturday I spent 6+ hours at Kelly's Cellers sitting in with some local musicians on a jam session. I played some harmonica and later played some tunes on guitar - Van Morrison was born in Belfast, so I did a couple Van Morrison tunes that they all knew - and remembered all the words to a couple irish tunes I've played so did those as well. So much fun.


West Belfast murals: Really interesting to go through West Belfast and hear about the Troubles. They've built a "peace wall" which is a massive steel wall that runs between Shankhill Road and Falls Road the two hardcore Protestant/Catholic streets & last week there was a poll taken and 60% of the people said they still want to keep it up and wouldn't feel safe if it was taken down. That being said, Belfast is now the second safest city in the world following Tokyo, so they've come quite a ways from 15 years ago.


Northern Ireland coast: Giant's Causeway is incredible and is the only World Heritage site in Ireland. If you haven't heard about it you should check it out.




Tomorrow I head to Dublin! Hope all is well with all of you!

Cheers!

wza out.

Beers and bikes: do they really mix?

As if the Guardian was reading our minds...

Beers and bikes: do they really mix?

I suppose it depends on order, but I'll conceed the point. Wonder what the laws are in Belgium.

Sunny day in Northern Ireland!

Hey folks - Dave here -

Currently sitting in an internet cafe waiting for the Public Enemies showtime at 6:00 (yeah I know, who sees movies when they're abroad? - but the live music/pub scene starts a little later here, and I've already had dinner) and then heading out to a cool pub I saw on a historical walking tour I did today that might have a jam session later tonight.

It's kind of a low tech internet cafe - so now picture posts, but imagine a picture of a perfectly poured Guinness on a well worn wooden bar table with a smily face in the foam drawn from my finger (apparently as I was told by Kim, the head on Guinness over here is thick enough that you can poke your finger in it and it will come up in a little cone shape and actually stay like that - it's true. And it's delicious)

Just wanted to do a quick post to let everyone know I've arrived on the scene okay and no worse for wear. My plan for tomorrow is to see the murals over on Shankhill, and all the exhibits and stops around town having to do with the Titanic. It was built here.

wza out.

And so it begins! (for me...)

So the last couple days have been fairly crazy for me...

-Friday: Full day of work, then gig at Lucky Joe's staying up watching "Backdraft" until the ridiculous hours of the morning.

-Saturday: Many hours at American Furniture Warehouse picking out new furniture for new house.

-Sunday: Pouring (and consuming) beer at the Twentieth Annual Fort Collins Brewfest!

-Monday: Full day of work, then getting keys to new house, and packing everything up to move.

-Tuesday: Full day of work, then moving into new house!

-Wednesday: Last full day of work - making sure everything there is "good to go" status, then checking out new place to see the furniture delivered and all the work that my family did to help get things organized.


And this brings us up to the current minute - spending some time away from packing to write to all you folks :)

So now I've got laundry to do, ipod mix to download, camera to charge, packing to do, "The Darjeeling Limited" to watch, and some sleep to get...

And then I leave for the airport at 6:30 in the morning to fly to Newark! Yea, New Jersey! And after a couple hours there, I start my biking/beer experience in Belfast Northern Ireland!

Totally excited & I'll keep the posts coming!

wza out.

Translating the Dutch cycling map

Belgium is a country well-endowed with paths for bikes...or at least that's what I'm understanding from the maps in Dutch. It seems that you can pretty easily get from any point A to any point B with minimal need to travel on roads. Then again, I may be misinterpreting the map. What is clear...none of these paths seem to be very straight! Unlike Fort Collins, Belgium doesn't seem to have been designed on a grid.

Belgian Underwater Hockey

As some of you may know I participate in the little known but exciting sport of Underwater Hockey. See YouTube clip HERE. Despite it's obscurity Underwater Hockey is an international sport. With a little bit of research and the help of the Underwater Hockey tourist website I found some clubs in Belgium. Including this one in Brussels:
From their website:

"You can discover this incredible sport with the BUWH every Tuesday evening 9PM-10PM at the VUB swimming pool.There’s no need to contact us in advance, just turn up at 8.30pm. We look forward to meeting you!"

Although we will be in Brugge on Tuesday Brussels is only an hour away by van (hurray for small countries!) I'm hoping to go and I thought some of you might be interested as well.