bow to your lord mayor

Happy Thursday! I know times are still weird right now. Are you taking time to check-in with yourself and give yourself the care, love, and attention you need? If not, it’s perfectly okay to set aside time for yourself to do whatever you want/need to do during ‘me time.’ Maybe it’s yoga, meditation, running, reading, tending to a pallet garden you built, sewing some pillowcases for your home decor, making a dress to match your homemade mask, or even playing animal crossing with family and friends (or, a new favorite of mine since my boyfriend and I got our new couch - taking a nap!). Whatever you want to do during your assigned ‘me time,’ make sure you’re doing it and giving yourself a break.

If you didn’t get a chance to read yesterday’s post - “conflict, bias, and propaganda in belfast” - you can click here to read all about my visit to the Peace Walls in Belfast. Also, if you didn’t get the chance to cast your free daily vote for me to be the next #MaximCoverGirl, you can click here to vote or click here to read about why it’s important to me (and then vote!). You can vote once every twenty-four hours for free, and I am so grateful for your support! Voting for round 5 ends TONIGHT, Thursday July 2nd, and I need to be in first place in order to advance to the quarterfinals, so I’d love your support to make it through to the next round! Thank you for everything so far!! If you’re all caught up on the adventures thus far and Maxim Cover Girl voting, then buckle up! Let’s continue our adventures in Belfast, Northern Ireland!

The solo trip/tour I took to Belfast was the first time I visited Northern Ireland, but it was definitely not the last. When my dad came to visit, we also got to do the black taxi tour, as well as go sightseeing at some other places of interest! One of my favorite things I did with my dad in Belfast was visit Belfast City Hall. I originally visited it on my own just before Christmas, so there was a beautiful tree in the lobby, but when I went back with my dad, it was just as beautiful an architectural feat even without the tree. When Belfast City Hall was originally built, it was built with the idea in mind that the city would be home to a couple million residents. The city of Belfast, however, is home to only about 200,000 and change, so City Hall looks massive in comparison to the buildings and architecture around it.

Taking a free walking tour through City Hall offers multiple rooms of the history of the city of Belfast, how it’s changed over the years, its political officers, as well as a room filled with blurbs about the famous people who have come from Northern Ireland, including that wanker Van Morrison, Rory McIlroy, and Liam Neeson - to name just a few off the top of my head. One of my favorite photo ops, however, came while we were looking through the rooms about the various Lord Mayors of the city where you can take your very own picture in the chair as the Lord Mayor. Interesting side note: there was a female Lord Mayor before there was a 'Catholic' Lord Mayor. (Read yesterday's post for clarity).

Have you come across silly photo opportunities you just couldn’t pass up? There will be many more of mine in blog posts to come! Let me know! Subscribe in the e-mail submission box below and reach out, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and reach out to me on the “contact” page. I’m so happy you're here and that I’ve been receiving a lot of really incredible stories, questions, and feedback from a community all over the globe! Other people’s stories that I’ve gotten to read via e-mail, text, tweet, DM, etc. recently bring me such smiles, and I am so grateful for all of it! I hope I get to hear all about whatever stories you’ve been thinking about as we’ve been on this virtual journey together! Also, I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you have any restaurants/eateries/pubs/coffee shops/ice cream joints/theatres you would recommend in other countries or even in your current home town or city, I'm absolutely 100% all ears!! I couldn’t do this without you! So THANK YOU! From the bottom of my heart, truly, thank you.

And please, if you have 10-15 seconds to spare, I would really appreciate your daily vote for me to be Maxim Cover Girl 2020. Click here to vote! Voting for round five ends TONIGHT, Thursday July 2nd, and I need to be in first place by the time voting is over in order to advance to the quarterfinals!! I would really appreciate your help and support as I continue to try and become the next #MaximCoverGirl by moving ahead into round 6/the quarterfinals of the competition! Thanks for your support! Click here or on the photo above to vote!

Sincerely,

Johny

P.S. - If you want to catch up from the beginning on this series of adventures, here's a cheat sheet to the posts (in order in which they were published):

1. Won't you join me?

2. grateful for starbucks and sandymount strand

3. Once Upon a December in the National Gallery

4. plant a smooch for that gift of gab

5. may the 4th be with you: Dingle style

6. cinco de mayo: the best Mexican food in Dublin

7. pizza in roma

8. mussolini’s window and the philosophers’ metro stop

9. father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife

10. it's the vatican, not the vatican't

11. spoiler alert: i did not lose my hand

12. more pizza and gelato and Neptune, oh my