I’ve been looking at skylines.  You can always tell a tourist from a native by the way that a visitor’s eyes always wander towards the sky.  People who have lived in a place all their lives don’t have a reason to look up, but when a place is new (and they are so rarely that, for places are only new once and then they are forever old) the inclination to look up, down, and spin in wild circles is overwhelming.  So I’ve been looking at skylines.  The Armagh skyline is distinctly different than anything I’ve ever seen.  It’s filled with interesting geometric shapes, stone jutting into the sky at all angles, heavenly peaks, and the most impossible, ever-changing clouds.  It constantly presents something unexpected, but never feels overwhelming.  The sky balances the stone, nature compliments man, and so on and so forth in perfect harmony with the exception, perhaps, of the brightly colored cars that disrupt the otherwise perfect quaintness of the town. After spending a good deal of time looking up, I found myself studying the ground.  I took off my shoes and walked in the rain, and felt the slippery streets of Armagh sloping beneath my calloused skin.  The walkways and roads, like so much of the city, are made of stone.  In the cool rain I worried that they would slide right out from beneath me, but the cobblestone and slate held true. It is sturdy. Stone seems to be the heart and soul of this city.  It’s built to last, to hold up against all the trauma that humans inflict on it. It is also stubborn and unyielding, so set in the way it has always been that change is a painful surgery. Then there are the walls.  I’ve never seen a city with so many walls.  Granted, I haven’t seen much of this world, but even if I had I imagine the walls here would still stand to amaze.  They are around every corner, stretching upward and around.  It is difficult to reason if these barriers serve to keep things in or out, but it is certain that division comes naturally to Armagh.   It is a quaint city and a strong city, but buried within its hills and hidden behind its plentiful walls there are secrets yet to be discovered. So hello, Armagh.  Hello to your impossible clouds and geometric skylines. Hello to your smooth streets and your towering walls. You don’t know it yet, but you’ve met your match.