Belfast is just that…fast.

Cars zip past you and people are constantly hustling around trying to get to their next destination as fast as possible. I wouldn’t call it as fast as New York but Chicago is a pretty similar comparison. Two things stuck out to me today. The tour we had with Neil around the Protestant and Catholic peace wall area and the music I experienced while here.

There was a troupe singing near the city circle today and it was nothing like i had ever heard, some kind of foreign chanting with drums and a tambourine etc. There were about six people all participating in the music, it was eerie yet fast paced. Almost like the chanting of a spell, it was fascinating.

This evening the whole group went to the Belfast Barge to experience some local poetry and guitar playing and it was beautiful as well, very dreary and depressing but filled with underlying inspiration. That seems to be the theme here in Belfast, struggling through hard times but seeing hope on the horizon and gradually working toward it.

An image that I couldn’t get out of my head today was the calm after the storm, that’s how I describe Belfast.

(Picture project will be completed when I am reunited with my computer on Monday)