Beautiful Belfast

Wohoo, I've made it to Belfast!! I caught the bus from Dublin on Monday afternoon, and arrived here 2 1/2 hours later, which was grand, but I realised with a small sinking feeling on the bus that I hadn't managed to print out either the name of the hostel I was booked into, or the directions on how to get there. All I could recall was that it was about a 10 minute walk, which, if multiplied by Mariella-directions, could turn into a great big tour of the city with a weighty suitcase in tow.

Thank you BT, who have funny little internet post things along with their phone booths in the Europa station. They're impossible to type on, and the mouse takes an entire hand to operate, and they cost £1 for 15 minutes (which I'm discovering is about the norm! It's a bit of a shock, after Dublin's €1 for an hour), but I found the necessary information to get me to a bed and a shower.

On Tuesday I got hold of a map and went walking. So glad I had the map, even though this is the most tourist-friendly city I've ever been in: they have great big posts with maps, including big red "You are here" things, and little signposts all over the place, but I keep going in absolutely the opposite direction. I blame the moon.

On one of my forays I discovered a wee place called something like "Jobless Resource Centre". I was having problems finding recruiters who were interested in someone with my "skills", so I wandered in, to see if they would have a list of job agencies, or somesuch. There were two lovely old ladies there, who had problems understanding my accent for starters, and then didn't seem to do anything like what the Centre implied. I forbore from asking what they did do. They kind of pointed me in the direction of City Hall, after saying they weren't very good with maps... I found one recruiter near there, who gave me a bit of paper with a map, and directions to go to the 9^th floor in a completely different building, where I had an interview with a lovely man called John, who took my cv, and has a possible job he's putting me in for. I've since worked out it's for about 3/4 of what I was working for in NZ...

I'm having massive problems with my bank at the moment. When I was living in Stirling I joined (after blood, sweat and tears - all mine, natch) the Royal Bank of Scotland. I transferred all my money into this account before I left NZ, hoping that it went through all right. I got to Dublin, where I found an Ulster Bank branch, and thought that I would just check that the money was there (who me, paranoid?); and I found to my horror that my card had become unregistered, or something. Eeeeep. No worries, I though, I'll sort it out when I get to Belfast, they'll have a branch. Except that they don't... So now I have to phone them - only this is a little more complicated than it appears, because they have all my money, and Belfast doesn't seem to do internet/cheap calling places like Dublin. However, at least I have the branch number, courtesy of a lovely man at the Ulster Bank, which is bound to save about five minutes on the phone.

Randomly just received a phone call from another recruiter who wants to put me forward for a techical writer role. Must go and fill in some forms for him now.