If I spent my first four months in Belfast doing everything I could to learn its layout, customs, and history, I’ve spent the last three attempting to translate that knowledge—admittedly still limited, but growing—to other American outsiders. In January, my partner flew from New Jersey to stay with me. At the beginning of February, two high-school friends made the trip from Washington, D.C. Later that month, the Mitchells came up from the south for an action-packed weekend. And just recently, in a bizarre and unfortunate turn of events, my college roommates found themselves in the city while I was away visiting PhD programs.
At first I thought it would be easy to put together a visitor itinerary. But as I reflected on what exactly I like to do in Belfast, I realized that the list was decidedly unsexy. Sometimes I hang out at the Linen Hall Library or the MAC; sometimes I hang out at Maddens. Occasionally I walk up the Falls to hang out at Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich or across the Lagan to hang out at PRONI. Mostly, I just hang out. To be sure, I’m something of a wet blanket, and so my routine is bound to be rather tame. But to me, there’s nothing at all mundane about this city. I’m reminded constantly of my hometown of Pittsburgh—an ocean away, politically and culturally distinct, but rhythmically similar. Both here and there, it’s as if deindustrialization slowed the tempo but left the time signature the same. Belfast, like home, is paradise for the creature of habit. It’s the sort of place where everything is always a fifteen-minute walk away, where the locals have been local their whole lives, where where the same folks turn up in the same haunts day after day.
Paradise for the creature of habit is not necessarily paradise for the tourist. Whenever people come to Pittsburgh for the first time, I make a joke of the city’s unofficial motto, “America’s most livable city.” Livable, not visit-able. It’s not that there’s a shortage of exhilarating things to do (though at times that’s the case). Rather, it’s just not a city whose essence can be grasped through a series of discrete museum tours and restaurant reservations. It needs to be lived in. I think much the same could be said of Belfast. My favorite cafés and pubs aren’t my favorites because they’re better than the others, but because they’ve grown familiar; they’re part of what it means for me to have a life here.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t visit, of course. You can learn a hell of a lot about this place from an afternoon at the Ulster Museum or the Irish Republican History Museum, the Botanic Gardens are very pretty (utterly barren rose garden notwithstanding), and Ginger Bistro is top notch (albeit on the pricier side). But it’s always a bummer when my friends have to leave here after only a few days, because I know they’re missing the intangible charm of getting to know Belfast over the long haul.
