what just happened in the last week//part I: God Forgive Liverpool
Excuse the length of this post - it will cover a lot of time/miles!
So last week eight of us got on a train to head to the lovely city of Liverpool, as I mentioned previously, the Home of the Beatles. Now I know it was the home of loads of slave trade, announcements of the sinking of the Titanic and an annual Pirate reenactment festival (Pirate Coachella).
So we’re on the train and it takes about an hour. Naturally the night before I did NOT get a good nights sleep because hell I’m in Europe, what is sleep? So I’m dragging, but ready to see it! I feel like since I got here, I knew I would be more interested in the lesser cities and not the London/Paris/Berlin thing. I’ll talk about that later though. So we get to Liverpool and trek to our hostel that we cannot check in to until 14:00. But they let us drop our backpacks off and we go to find breakfast (it’s like 10:00).
We find an Italian place that is basically not serving breakfast anymore, but we walk in and say “party of 8″. The waitress smiles and then seats us knowing she will regret this one. We all order drinks (me a Stella, hello it’s 5 o’clock somewhere and it’s the same price as water, easy choice). Then we order our meals and it’s a blur from there. We’re talking about the sites we are going to see and what the whole plan is for the rest of the day and the next. One note of the English - it’s not starkingly different from the States. There are some differences, like accent/currency/some cultural cues, but for the most part I don’t feel like I’m totally confused all the time. Though to an Englishman, I’ve been told I look like an Exchange student, but I’m not sure if it’s because he already knew.
We head toward Albert Docks where the Tate Museum/Maritime Museum/International Slavery Museum are located and we split up. I wanted to go to the Tate and everyone else the Slavery museum, so we planned to meet in two hours at a certain spot and off we went. I have since been coined the nickname “mom” as I’m always counting our people to make sure we’re all together and have a plan. My dad would be so proud.
So I go into the Tate - there was a Jackson Pollock exhibit and I was so excited. I put my headphones in and just walked through the rooms. I guess I just haven’t been to museums in a long time, but I had a greater appreciation for the work on the wall. Some I understood, some I was wildly confused about, but then I started to see pieces I learned about in my Art History class at UK. It all became very exciting that I was seeing the actual pieces I had only seen on a projector. And that was just the Tate in Liverpool, not London/Paris/Rome. I highly enjoyed the pieces and even better I WAS ALONE. I love the people I have been traveling with, but there is a time where you just want to sit alone and be in your own head. I was in a high need for that time. So I looked through all of the art having a conversation with myself about how we see others and ourselves in terms of the pieces I was seeing. Then I went to the gift shop and purchased some post cards and realized I still have about 45 minutes until I was supposed to meet the group. I had wifi and I headed to the cafe for something to eat/drink. I settled on a Liverpool original IPA and went outside to look out onto the dock. (So posh I know ha). Still managed to have wifi so I called my parents and had a comical conversation with continuous interruptions from cannons going off during this Vegas worthy Pirate reenactment. Children were crying and it was just SO LOUD. Thankfully my parents could laugh about this. I sat there very picturesque (or so I thought) drinking my craft beer on this cafe sidewalk talking to mom and dad.
After some time I met back up with my mates and we explored the docks and eventually headed back to our hostel. We checked in and took a bit to nap/got acquainted to our 24 person room with lots of dust and ew. I will spare crazy details, but it was not as nice as the lobby/pub of the hostel.
We relaxed and then went to lose our fish & chip virginity. Let’s just say we all regretted our first option and quickly decided we hadn’t actually experienced the English tradition.
We had purchased tickets for a pub crawl and so we waited around and then went to go participate in that. I am NOT a shots person, so while I was very excited to do this, I quickly realized that I would be buying myself beers all night. I made it to about two pubs and then decided to go home. I was exhausted as I hadn’t slept for like over a day. Some of the others were over it too, so we turned back and went to sleep.
The next day was a new day and I was ready for our Beatles Walking Tour. We trekked back to the docks and met our Liverpool native tour guide. He not only gave us a history of the Beatles, but of Liverpool too. It was very informative and I was thankful for that, as I wasn’t familiar with either histories. I felt like I was back with my dad at a museum or car show and he was telling me about every inch of the map/car/etc. It was one of the first moments I felt homesick, more bittersweet than sad. While thankful for this opportunity and the time alone to discover this world, I wanted to share this with the people I love the most (mom & dad).
At the end of the tour, our tour guide asks us to pray tonight to “forgive Liverpool” and that he would pray for us to live happy lives with love/children/long lives. The others saw it as a bit odd, but I was feeling the feels so I was so into him saying that. England can be a very unemotional place, but then there are times where it’s so emotional that you’re like ‘wait’ what’s happening. A very pleasant surprise for me.
Liverpool was very good to me, I’m ready to go back and find the boat with the dog on it.
Side note: at this point I’d been in England for about a week and no rain....
Side note Part II: I have not met many Americans while traveling, maybe like one or two and they usually live there full time and are like super far removed from the states/.
Side note Part III: I have always romanticized the moment where I’m wearing this super posh outfit and I’m getting a coffee (Takeaway Filtered Black Coffee - you have to say all of that if you want just plain coffee, it’s all espresso/I MISS COFFEE) and in this like dimmed light moment they ask me where I’m from and then we just fall in love or something. Well, that happens very often and it’s not as romantic as you would think, or maybe just what I was thinking.
I have lots left to say, but this is Liverpool & I will update LONDON soon!
Cheers
Abbey
