Joe & Peter

My friend Joe, who will be visiting at Christmas with his partner Carlos, swung through town today with his dad, Peter. I consider Joe the brother I never had so now I have met my fantasy dad as well. He’s absolutely adorable. He gave me hugs and said “God bless you.” He wore a tweed cap and a tweed jacket and looked like he belonged in County Mayo with his cousins, whom he had just visited. He reminded me of my grandfather.

Joe is an architect and Peter is an electrician and I managed to give them the perfect tour--in the four hours we had. We started at the Harbour Commissioners building, where the wealth of Belfast is on show. Peter chatted up the manager and we got a tour of the second floor (not open to the public) as he told the story of his parents' emigration to America from Belfast and she told of her parents' emigration to Australia from Belfast. Joe and Peter ended up geeking out over the manifest of ships leaving from Belfast port. Here’s the ballroom, which has stain glass windows all the way around the ceiling of the countries Belfast traded with in the 1800s, for example Cape Colony (better known as South Africa).

Then we went to the Crown Bar, where we sat in a snug and had a pint--except Peter had a glass of Bushmill’s whiskey.

The lighting is made to look like gas, however it had been converted to electric. Peter talked about converting gas lamps in Boston. He also pointed out that a copper tube that entered the snug and disappeared would be the wire to the button on the window-side of the snug, which is used to summon a waiter. Joe and Peter were having a ball discussing ceilings, history, metal match strike plates, etc. Then I gave them a quick tour of Queen’s, a few of my favourite spots. We had lunch and then they headed for Dublin.
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