Belfast

How are you keeping?      I said, "beg your pardon?"    How are you keeping?   I finally got it and said, "  I am well thank you ".  Just one of their many wonderful sayings.

 This is our first view of Belfast from our room at the Hilton. We arrived late last night to discover we were being joined with atleast 20,000 people that were here for the MTV ea awards.  We were in a bit of a panic when we saw the staging and realized what was happening.  We lucked out for the last 2 rooms in the country side. The manager released them when he heard our plight. (they were no show rooms, thank god.) We headed for the bar in the hotel for our dinner.

 We hopped on the hop on/off bus that has been rerouted because of the "visitors".  The Visitors closed down all the city and like anything else, some of the business people weren't happy campers (while others had never witnessed such a boon).
This is the site of people camping out to get a glimps of Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga among some others. We were amazed at the parents waiting with their young children.

 The end of the Odssey that the singers wouldn't be entering...clear way.

 We are on our way to the Titanic tour. This is a building that has been bought by Tom Hanks for movies to be produced in. It is very active.

 Here you see the new tribute to the Titanic.  It is built in the shape of a star.  The front is representative of the bow of the ship and stands the actual height of the ship.  They installed the grand staircase (exact replica of original) on it the other day- saw it on the news. It took 200,000 lbs to build the statue. 

 This statue greets you as we started our tour walking down to the exhibits on Queens Blvd.  My first and continued thought, is that it is a horrible thought as you see the ship facing down in a sinking position.

 Asyou walk down the path that 15,000 workers walked daily, you get the feeling of being one of them.  This 1911 building was the beginning of all the ships as you will see on my tour for you.

 Workers numbering 7,000 passed through these gates in 20minutes.  The gates were then closed and you were out of work for that day. This was the biggest ship yard in the world in 1911. It  was owned by Edward Howland, Wolfe and William Perry who had started as an apprentice became the boss.
Work day started at 6:30 am and ended at 5:30pm.

 A picture of the workers. 15,000 workers worked in 1911. Today the company employs 200. The company does repair work but not building.

 My friend Wendy is walking through the front door to the offices. You can see on the glass the initials of H and W.  This building is slated to become a 5-star hotel.

The first drafting room. They had a funnction here last night for the VIPs for the MTV awards. Windows above have been covered. The designer of the Titanic was Thomas Andrews.

 The second drafting room. Here you can see more of the natural light coming through.

 Hopefully you can read this. Note at the bottom there are 20 life boats listed. The  Titanic was only required to have 16 by the law.and the original plans called for 64. This caused a big rift between the owners and one left to never return. For the number of passengers on board, more life boats were needed but the owners didn't like the look of them for the first class passengers. Of the 2201 on board only 700 survived. The ship sank in 2 hours with its 300 foot hole. The whole was too long to save the ship.

   These next few pictures show the building of the Titanic. It took 500 workers seven years to build her.

On a side note- "throwing in the board" has come from the time here when a worker came into work he was given a board. At the end of the day he threw the board in to get

recorded for the day's pay.  If you were caught throwing in more than one board, you were fined 1/2 days pay..

When they launched the ship,it was an empty shell. It took 62 seconds for it to slip into the water.  From here it gets the engines and then it lavishly outfitted with the best there is. The cost of the one way ticket was 1st class-30 lbs (15,000 lbs today) 2nd class-15 lbs and 3rd class 8 lbs.

 Examples of a 2nd class stateroom

 The exercise room.

 The shipyard was building another ship, its twin, the Olympic . In total their were 3 ships Titanic, Olympic, and the Britainic.

 Another stateroom. The first class has carved wood and fine furniture.

 Dresses the woman wore.

 Here you see the dry dock. The gate was able to expand to allow for the extra footage of the Titanic.
Over all size 882 feet long and 380 feet tall.  It takes 2-3 hours to fill the dry dock and 1 hour 40 minutes to drain.

 Here I have Wendy standing to give you a scale. The Titanic is 3x the size in height of this building.
That was pretty amazing to me.

 The pump houses.

 The pump house machinery for the dry docks.

 The tools they used in the pump house. I had all I could do to pick up the wrench and I don't consider myself weak!

 This is the proposed waterfront. In the middle of the Titanic (green with the red bow) The green on the ship is grass to give you an idea.  This is a one billion pound project.- a mini city that will house hotels, resturants, and parks on 185 acres will take another 15 years to finish.

 The shipyard is restoring the tender, Normadic. She was the one that took the waiting passengers from Shelburne to the Titanic.

 As we fnished our tour, the busses have been stopped and the streets were closed so we had to walk back to the hotel.  There were patrol boats and police everywhere as the concert people were coming in.

 The statue that is at the beginning of Queens Street on the Queens bridge which is the beginning of the Titanic shipyard.

We got out of Belfast and headed for Derry.  This is our room at the B&B at Angel House.
Our next tour is Derry.Lomdonderry.
Cheers for now :-)