And it is overcast, windy and chilly. I’ve had to put on my zip-up sweater from last night, still smoky but at least warm. It’s just too cold. I have a long sleeve shirt on and my leather jacket, which keeps the top half of me warm. The legs are a bit colder. I got up this morning later than I had intended with a smidgen of a strong wine/beer headache. This is not classified as a hangover since no barfing took place. The wine was free, so who could pass that up? Although, I would have preferred just Guinness all night. At the club I only had Guinness, to drown out that awful music! So, I’m up and headed out to find Ms. Kitty at Ten Square Hotel as she finished up with some more lawyering stuff. Today is cooler weather, but I think nicer than at home where there seems to be an ice storm hitting the east coast. I got to the hotel a few minutes early so I stood in the lobby area, out of the wind. A bellhop was sitting there too. After a while we began chatting. His name was Phillip and he asked me, “where is your accent from? I answered “the US.” He replied, “Oh, I wasn’t sure if it was US or Canada and if you ask a Canadian if they’re from the US, they get very angry with you.” Funny, but he continued on this theme. “But it’s not as bad as the Aussies and the Kiwis. If you ask an Aussie if they’re from New Zealand, he’s not too offended. But if you ask a Kiwi if he’s from Australia, they’re libel to lop your head off!” It was a nice conversation, and shortly thereafter Ms. Kitty showed up, looking stunning in her black cape and heels.
We headed off down the street, around the City Hall and to the parade route. I had the Super Duper camera ready to go and Ms. Kitty had her little digital camera ready. It was a nice parade, mostly kids, a few floats, but nothing huge and only 1 bagpiper. There were also paper maché snakes, which took me a while to figure out why snakes were in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, doh! As told, the parade was short, only ~1/2 hour and nothing close to the grandeur of NYC’s parade. But lovely. After the parade was over, we went into the Welcome Center to look around some more and check email, as computer junkies are prone to do. Unfortunately the computers were swamped with people waiting so we never got the chance to get our cyber fix. So, shopping time! We did a bit of gift shopping in the store, I hope everyone liked their presents!
After that, we headed off to find St. Anne’s church, but got drawn into a few shoe stores along the way….. I couldn’t resist a pair of black leather boots. They were perfect and I decided I MUST have them! Hence, I bought them. Yay! Hey, a girl has needs and I have a shoe addiction to feed. Deal. With shoes in tow, we finally head off, again, in search of this church. The first one we saw had a sign out front that said “Belfast Church” and was locked up. Hence we moved on, it should be nearby. We kept walking, found St. Patrick’s Church, the catholic one. There
was a really nice mural of Mary inside that Ms. Kitty found intriguing. I did my candle lighting for Gramma & Grampa and Sweet Baby as I always do in
churches, cathedrals and basilicas and off again we were to find this darn church. Finally, we realize after we have been walking for quite some time, and over a freeway and find a very dilapidated church which is STILL not St. Anne’s that we are…… Lost. Damn. So out comes the guidebook, and according to the book we passed it along the way. So we turn around and head back in search of this elusive building, carefully looking at all of the churches. We finally find it. Recall above where the first church we saw said “Belfast Church” out front? Well, there was another sign on the other side of the door that read “Belfast Church of St. Anne” Doh! By this time we’re tired and hungry. We walk a bit more, past some interesting sites like the Kremlin gay bar and the direct graffiti. We find a “traditional Belfast restaurant” called Blinkies as the sign proclaims. We order, I of course get the fish and chips and Ms. Kitty gets some kind of sausage/potato patty thing. It was okay, but man, I really miss food that isn’t so freaken bland (or anything other than potatoes and fish). We finished our meal at the diner and headed back to the hotel as Ms. Kitty posed for a quick photo of an honest pack of cigarettes and a funny poster. On the 
way, we heard yelling down the street causing quite a ruckus. When we got closer we were able to see that it was coming from a man standing on the street sidewalk with a microphone and speaker attached to him. He was an overtly religious zealot screaming to the masses that we were all going to hell for such sins as sex (damn) and cursing (double damn). It felt like the US South or the Wells Hall preacher at Michigan State University who always was good enough to have a sandwich board beside him as he listed all the sins I could possibly commit to go to hell. How nice of him. Only now, it was with an Irish accent. Lovely. Alas we finally make it back to the hotel without being cast into hell where I promptly fall into my bed to write this. We have a formal dinner to go to tonight still, so I’ll rest for a bit before I have to get all gussied up!Tonight we dressed up in fine dresses, grabbed our little velvet purses, covered our shoulders with beautiful silk wraps and began our walk to the formal dinner. We walked out the front door of the hotel and promptly walked back in. Its too cold and the wind just did a Marilyn Monroe with my dress, woot!, while Ms. Kitty’s expensive umbrella turned inside out within two seconds. We called for a taxi. On the phone, I could barely understand the guy, his accent was way stronger than any other I had heard. I was very confused as to why he didn’t want to send a taxi until 9:00, it was 7:00. Finally, I realized, it wasn’t “nine” he was saying, it was “now.” Oy. So yes, we called for the taxi to take us 6 blocks down the street. But really, it was doing a fierce misty rain, cold, icky and very windy. Ms. Kitty had silk shoes on too. So we paid the 3 Pounds to ride down the street and got there in time and dry (and me with my dress not over the top of my head!). We walked past the lad I had spoken with earlier, Phillip, but he failed to recognize me in my makeup and dress. Ms. Kitty did tell me that I clean up rather nicely. Right back at ya sister! We grabbed some green coloured drinks from the bar, by the way they tasted worse than breakfast! And then we found our table. Ms. Kitty had a few words with the wait staff when they insisted she didn’t order me a veggie meal. I learned that you do not try to tell her she is wrong when she KNOWS she is right, cool! You go girl. Finally, they relented and brought me veggie food. Gee thanx. The meal was actually quite good, a tomato soup for appetizer, Portobello mushroom with feta cheese surrounded by cherry tomatoes on asparagus for the entrée (by the way the asparagus was actually cooked correctly!) and dessert was crème brulee. Unfortunately it hadn’t been flamed enough, so it wasn’t a crisp tap on the top. By 10:30 or 11:30 (sorry, can’t recall) we left to return to the hotel, of course by taxi again. We promptly jumped into our pajamas and fell fast asleep right after we talked until 1:30 am about life and the world and all that other stuff girls talk about. But finally we fell asleep, good thing too. We had to get up at 7:00 am to leave for our bus tour to the northern coast in the morning. Should be an exciting day tomorrow, yes, quite!!
