London one-way!

The last few weeks have been a lot of hard work, including weekends while Lija has been in Australia (three times in the last three months!!!) so I was more than ready to have last weekend off and get out of London to visit the seaside town of Liverpool, up north.

We didn’t leave till Saturday morning because Friday night was our involvement in the start of the summer festivals. We went rocking out to The Kooks and The Killers in Hyde Park for the Hard Rock Calling festival.

We went and had pizza with Aunty Inga and Uncle Steve in the square off James Street (where we took my Dad for Lebanese, off of Oxford Street) and then walked down to Hyde Park. The Kooks played a really good set, although we were in the part of the crowd which was up close to the stage but still managed to have a boom in the way. We were also in the part of the crowd that just stood and listened to the music, whereas after they finished, we did our toilet run, grabbed ice creams and pushed our way through to the other side of the crowd and even closer to the stage. From there we could see The Killers really well until we all went wild.

When they came out on stage everyone went crazy, including us. The atmosphere was out of this world and the crowd was easily over 30,000. They played songs off all of the albums, including the latest, Day and Age. When they began it was only 8.45pm and they played until 10.15pm, slowly the sun began to sink under the trees behind us before it was pitch black.

We rocked out to some of their best songs, All These Things That I’ve Done, Human, Bones, Jenny Was A Friend of Mine, Somebody Told Me and one of my favourites Mr Brightside.

By the end we were all jumping up and down, beer was flying through the air by overenthusiastic males, and a few idiots were charging forwards trying to crush everyone. Lija and I, however, are able to hold ranks, link arms and give menacing enough looks and tones that the revellers went around us rather than trying to go through us.

We both ended up smelling of beer on our clothes and leaving the arena via a sea of bottles. No really, we were rolling along wading through bottles to get to the exit. It was just a 15 minute walk to get home for me, and it wasn’t worth catching the bus because everyone was trying to.

The next morning I met Aunty Inga, Uncle Steve and Lija at Euston Station. We were going to Liverpool, and their train to Birmingham was just before ours. Both journeys were just over two hours although Liverpool is twice as far – we got the Vigin fast train. Hmm, more about that later.

The first thing we did was find our hostel, which was down by the docks, an YHA built especially for its purposes (I’ve been living in a pub/hostel for too long!) We checked in but were too early to get a key, so we just left our overnight bags and took off again. We headed down to the Albert Docks where there was an information centre.

We took off to the next port to catch the Mersey Ferry for our ‘river experience’. It travels between Pier Head, Seacombe and Woodside terminals, listening to a commentary along the way. The waterfront is a UNESCO World Heritage site, but more fun than that it reminds me of the beginning of Across the Universe, one of my favourite films based on 30 of The Beatles classics. The young man catches the ferry across the Mersey to work on the ships, he then ends up getting passage out of there to America. In earlier years it was one of the main ports where people migrated to America and Australia.

We had a bit of time to kill so we walked around the old docks, which houses a range of the latest restaurants and night clubs including the TATE Liverpool. We went in to have a look around at the ‘modern’ art, and apart from seeing a Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol exhibit – the famous can of beans, we weren’t much interested in toilet bowls, basketballs hanging from glass cases and pieces of wood on the floor, so we only made a quick round and got out of there.

From there we caught the Magical Mystery Bus, where we succumbed to the sixties and the best of the Beatles, to travel around the outskirts of Liverpool to the family homes of John, Paul, George and Ringo. We also made a stop at Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane, ending at the famous Cavern Club in the city of Liverpool where the Beatles played almost 300 times over two years.

We headed back to the hostel slowly making our way through the city streets to properly check in and grab our keys, but we both ended up sleeping for an hour before heading off to hunt gather some food. We spent the evening at ASK, and went no further than dinner for one reason.

We were SO underdressed. Honestly, Liverpool must be the place for all Hen’s Parties because we saw about 50 different themed groups of women from bunnies to goddesses and pure slutty Barbie dolls. Even the rest of the women were wearing dresses that I would only wear to a wedding! Say no more, we decided to call it an early night at midnight.

On Sunday morning we checked out after breakfast and walked up to the big Anglican Church, it’s one of the biggest churches in Europe if not the world. There was a service on so we couldn’t go up the tower until later in the day, which we did return to do after we went down to the parallel Roman Catholic Church, a very modern and futuristic creation although it was designed and built in the sixties.

We got the train to Birmingham in the afternoon, with a cheap picnic lunch on the way, and Uncle Roy came to pick us up and take us down to the canals. We walked around for a bit and met Aunty Pat, Uncle John, Aunty Inga and Uncle Steve along the way. We stopped in one of the pubs for a meal, and Pat and John’s son Steve also joined us. Lija and I were supposed to catch the 9.30pm train back to London, but every train since 4.30pm had been cancelled, including ours.

Luckily we were able to catch the one after at 10.30pm, which didn’t get us back to London until 12.30, when all tube lines had ceased for the night. Ready to complain, we sought out someone in charge who didn’t even hesitate to tell us to go to customer service around the corner. From there they sent us out to the street (oh that sounds good doesn’t it) where they had taxis waiting.

This week since has been work work work again and tomorrow I’m off to the Royal Henley Regatta and then Spain on Saturday for eight days…tune in for more soon xo

Tags: Travel

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