StumbleUpon

While living in household 3 years ago, my roommates were often on StumbleUpon a website that will help you discover great websites, videos, photos, and facts from the internet. For some of my roommates it became regular habit to "stumble" after checking her e-mail and facebook and any other form of procrastinating before starting an assignment. I never visited the website myself, but I heard lots about it as I learned fun facts.

Today I thought about the website for the first time in over a year while exploring Belfast City Centre. (I did it! I spelled City Centre as if I am from Belfast. Please note, won't spell it any other time like that except when referring to Belfast). Today, I had the whole afternoon and evening free, so I decided to explore the city centre. I needed to by a few things for Matthew's birthday which is two days before mine. Besides that I had no agenda, so I decided to walk around.

I haven't spent much time in the City Centre since moving to Belfast. My weekends have been really busy since being here, but I have reflecting a lot recently about what brings me life and restores me from the business of life. The downtown of cities just speaks to my heart in ways no other places do. It's an automatic "happiness" moment. Sometimes after hard weeks in Detroit, I would just leave work early and drive downtown and walk along the river. There were also many times I would drive around at night in awe of the massive buildings lit up. My roommate Alex knew the way to calm me down after being stressed out by student teaching and my final year of uni. She would just take me on a drive to downtown Minneapolis with music blaring, windows open, and thoughts flooding without having to say a word. For being a small town girl, I LOVE city life.

While getting my city fix today, I stumbled upon majesticness. Side note: a moment of truth. I don't do a very good job researching the cities I live in before going. Rather I allow the city to show me what it has to offer, talk to locals, and figure out the rest later. For some reason, I turned down this little alley way and I saw this massive cathedral. I can't put into words what it was like to stumble upon something that beautiful at the end of such a random alley.

St. Anne's Cathedral- also known as Belfast Cathedral is the cathedral for the Church of Ireland.

As I was walking across this open square up to the cathedral I was struck by the words written on a slab of concrete in the middle of the square.

"I was born in Belfast and brought up to believe that, like St. Paul, I am a citizen of no mean city."

I continued walking around the square and saw quotes from men who had lived, worked, and loved the city of Belfast. My favorite was finding a C.S. Lewis who was born in East Belfast. As I continued reading, I realized that I was in Writer's Square. It was brilliant because that's exactly what I wanted to do was sit down, think, write, and be creative.

I absolutely loved my time in the city centre today. Time seemed to go in slow motion as I discovered incredible shopping centers, window shopped, looked down cute alleys, and enjoyed living in a city in Europe. It was so incredible. Sorry, I don't have more pictures. My camera started dying at the beginning of the evening. There will be more to come because I have much more to explore.