Friday: Rachel and I got into Liverpool Friday around 2:30 hungry and lunchless. We started our hour-long trek to our hostel outside of the city in which we got lost at least five times since Liverpool collectively decided to not put up any street signs. We finally made it to our cozy and cute little run down hostel just outside of the main city action, put our bags down, used the “Lou” and decided to get a day bus pass and head to find a place for lunch in the downtown area. Yet again, we got a little lost when we got on the bus headed for the wrong direction headed for the suburbs. We were the last two people on the bus when the bus driver stopped and asked us if we had any clue where we wanted to go. We stared up at him with our starving, poor little eyes and said “we just want to go downtown sir”. He said he was headed back that way and we could just stay on the bus. An hour after getting on the bus we finally got off in Queen’s Square downtown. We ate DINNER (which means we saved money by completely, unintentionally missing lunch) at a place called Ask where we got wine (makes the walking go faster and our feet hurt less) calamari and a chicken pizza. Delicious. Then we headed toward the river where all the touristy stuff is located stopping in some stores for some light shopping but we both wound up with nothing. We finally made it to the dock and we saw a huge ferris wheel.
Priced at 5 pounds 50 for a ride we got on just as it started to rain and saw the city from above with an informative voice over to tell us all about the 25 million pound ferris wheel. When we got off, it was raining pretty hard so we started to look for a bus station and guess what? We got lost again and wound up in the club and bar district. The place you least want to be when your too tired to be interested in clubs and bars. When we finally found a bus station we found that our bus had stopped running at the late hour of 21:00 so we reluctantly took a cab with empty pockets but the total was only 4 pounds. We got back to our hostel and found we were sharing a room with an adorable Spanish couple who are looking around Liverpool for a flat so the woman could go to school in Liverpool. All in all, it was a great day! There’s no better way to see all a city has to offer than to get lost in it. After writing this I hit the hay.
Saturday: Rachel and I started off the day with an awkward, free breakfast with everyone else in the hostel. First we got some retail therapy when I went back to buy a sweater that had haunted me the night before. Then, we started walking towards Albert Dock where the museum called “The Beatles’ Story” is located on Albert Dock. 
We walked along and listened to our audio books about John, Paul, George, Richard (Ringo) and the rest of the Beatles gang. We laughed, we cried, we felt like we were on an acid trip and overall the exhibit was awesome! Then we got on a “hop-on, hop-off” tour bus that only cost 4 pounds! We learned all about the cities’ history and architecture and hopped off to grab lunch and soak in some art at a small modern art museum. Lunch was delicious! I had quiche and Rachel had a brie and grape sandwich. The art was very interesting and had an fun interactive element. We then got asked to take a survey about the museum and met a cute little British woman who was giving the survey. I’m pretty sure she’s my new best friend. Then, we hopped on again and headed to the cathedral area. In Liverpool there is a Catholic Cathedral constructed by an Protestant and a Protestant Cathedral constructed by a Catholic on the same street. The Catholic one is in-the-round and looked really cool from the outside, but we didn’t go in it, because we didn’t know how to get to it. The Protestant Cathedral was beautiful inside and out! We spent about an hour in there lighting prayer candles and listening to the live choir sing. We hopped back on the bus one more time and drove past China town on the way back east to Albert Dock. From there we bought some present for our families and wondered around the Dock area. We found a house that had been made into a museum that said “tour a war-time household”. It was a short, but cute little 40’s-style house. Then Rachel and I took a leisurely stroll along side the river bank. We stopped at a bench to soak in the Liverpool sky and the smell of the salty sea. Then, we found a Pizza Express (a chain throughout Europe that is pretty much like a California Pizza Kitchen). We split a pizza and had a glass a wine. Livin’ the fabulous life. However, things then took a turn for the worse when I started to feel a little off. About halfway back into town I turned to Rachel and informed her that we should find the restroom (forgo any attempt on fitting in with the culture and saying WC or lou since this was dyer) because I was going to puke. I ended up puking in Costa Coffee on the floor and in the bathroom which the polite man informed me was out of order as my head was in the toilet. After that Rachel and I just walked and people watched for a while. We found ourselves exhausted and with our pub-hoping plans dashed by the puke incident. We decided to own up to our lame selves and walked back to our hostel to shower and do free laundry. However, laundry proved to be a much harder endeavor on the UK washing machined than anticipated and I ended up rinsing my clothes by hand. We were also greeted by another surprise when we got back and the spanish couple was gone and a snooty med-student from london had taken their place. Rachel Zupp said it best when she declared “he would be on the bad side in Harry Potter”.
Sunday Sunday in Liverpool, we got up, showered, ate breakfast and checked out of our hostel. We finally got the bus system figured out and took it directly downtown. First, we went to the Tate Liverpool which had a really awesome sculpture exhibit with some really famous work by Dali (Krista!), Picasso and Degas. And a really cool room where you were given headphones and walked into a room with disco balls and a dance floor labeled “dance here” surrounded by artwork. We also at lunch in the Tate Cafe. Then, we moved on to the Merseyside Maritime Museum. If you didn’t know, the company that owned the Titanic and all of the other big ship-liners at that time was based in Liverpool. They had a temporary exhibit called “Seized” about customs, imports and taxation at that time. Then we went to the main part of the museum which was pretty cool as well. There was also a free piece of theatre about a fictional survivor of the Titanic. A one woman show in which the actress controlled to light cues herself by “subtly” reaching her hand to the button on the other side of the trunk she was sitting on. Truly an inspirational masterpiece. Or not. Anyway, after that we were very tired and we had pretty much been through everything there is to do in Liverpool so we went to the train station, got some dinner and waited for our 2 1/2 hour train ride. We had scheduled a train to Grantham, but since the track was being cleaned at that point, the rail station got a replacement bus from Nottingham to Grantham for us to take. However, did not communicate to us that it was parked in the tram station as opposed to the bus station in Nottingham. So, to finish off our trip, Rachel Zupp and I spent 20 minutes at 8pm running as fast as we could around the street off Nottingham. We finally found our bus, and 45 minutes later we were back in the carriage house comparing travel stories with our friends. Here is a picture of my and my Zupp on Albert Dock (I stole this from her as my camera died on saturday and I did not bring along the charger):
Coming to a webpage near you soon: Lincoln: A British Studies Field Trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment