LIVERPOOL!

I feel the need to profusely apologize for not updating this sooner. SO, seeing as my parents were delayed for a week, it seems that God has given me a whole week with nothing planned in order that I might finally get up to date on this thing. Also, I have been thinking lately that I haven't been spending enough time writing about how my time abroad has been influencing my thoughts and attitudes about the world and the people in it. So, sometime this week, I am going to devote a post to describing some of that. But in the meantime, I need to get up to date on my recent activities. So in this post I will try to get through Liverpool and the following week, which I can't really remember now anyway...oops :)

Ok, so I left off right before we left for Liverpool. So you know by now that Liverpool was a pretty spontaneous trip...I decided to go about three days before we actually left. I decided to go because, and don't judge, because I think that British accents are like the sexiest thing on the whole planet (right up there with Australian and Irish accents). So, it was like impossible for me to pass up this trip. For those of you who, like me, might not know much about Liverpool, I will give you a couple of historical nuggets of knowledge that you can pass along to your friends. Liverpool is the original home of the Beatles, it was a major port used in slave trade routes, and it is located in the Northwest corner of the UK, really close to Ireland. That about sums up Liverpool. However, what made Liverpool one of the craziest weekends ever was the nightlife...but we will get to that later. First I want to tell you about what we saw there, so you will know that we did do some legitimate touring while we were there.

So, we left the dorm at 4:30 a.m. the Saturday of Easter weekend. We took a taxi to the airport, since nothing else on wheels runs that early in the morning. And the funs starts here. Most of the traveling outside of what AIFS already had planned for us is cheapest if you fly. There are several intercontinental airlines that will fly you anywhere in Europe for around $90 roundtrip...it is a great deal. However, for $90, you don't check your bags, it is first come first serve seating, and nothing is complementary. My personal favorite is an airline called WizzAir...whose company colors are pink and purple...even at 5:30 in the morning that cracks me up! The first sign that this was going to be an interesting trip happened going through security. It slipped my mind that I wasn't going to be checking my bag, so I brought all of my liquids. The young man working on the line asked me to open my bag...so I did. He pulled out my liquids traveling case, and with it all of my "unmentionables." There were my underwear and bras all over the conveyor belt. It gets better. The young man goes in to pick them up and put them back in my bag, realizes what actually fell out, and at this point must have had a mental conversation in his head about what to do next, because he like froze for 5 seconds just staring at them. My friends are laughing hysterically in the background...good. So, only having been awake for like an hour and still not fully aware of how embarrassing this situation actually is, I just scooped up all my clothes and said, "Well, this is kind of awkward." At which point the security man turns bright red. He then proceeds to confiscate almost everything I brought with me...shampoo, conditioner, face wash, etc. He did leave me with much more than 3 ounces though. I got all of my lotion and contact solution returned, but I think that was just because he felt really embarrassed. A great start to any trip if you ask me. We then had to walk to the farthest gate in the farthest terminal because WizzAir is like the "special" airline that they only let fly early in the morning before all the legitimate airlines arrive. Anyway, since it is first come first serve seating, there is usually kinda a subtle "fight to the death" mentality among passengers. There is a shuttle that takes you out to the plane (you board using stairs out on the tarmac), and if you are in the advantageous position of being closest to the doors of the shuttle so that you be the first to exit, then you very quickly become aware of your lack of a personal space bubble. On this particular trip I was somewhere in the middle of the shuttle, so I didn't have to worry about being "accidentally" tripped. I was instead in the very center of the shuttle where there is nothing to grab onto as our driver tries to break the sound barrier on our way to our plane. Being the charismatic charmer that I am, I quickly made friends with a group of native Liverpoolers (??) talking about how funny it was that we all didn't have anything to hold on to, and then asserting it wouldn't be that big of a deal...we could just pretend that we were surfing. You can see where this is going. Our driver revs the engine like he is in some sort of sunrise derby, and before I knew it, my friendship with the Liverpoolers became a lot more intimate in a matter of seconds. We all fell on top of each other (not my travelling companions however, they managed to just laugh hysterically...again... while all of this was going on) in the middle of the bus. So recap...underwear on the conveyor belt, embarrassed security guard, and then in the middle of a pile of bodies on the floor of the airport shuttle. All before six in the morning on the first day of the trip...awesome.

So, we got on the plane and flew to Liverpool uneventfully, I mean I slept through most of the flight, so it was uneventful for me. When we arrived in Liverpool, we immediately wanted to find our hotel for the first night, because we wanted a nap. So we found one of those information booths at the...wait for it...John Lennon Airport, and got ourselves a free taxi to the hotel (the first of many free things in Liverpool) However, we could not find the pick-up point. We had to go back to that information desk like three times to get it right. We finally reached our hotel around 10:30 a.m. We stayed in the hotel the first night because the hostel was full, but we stayed in a hostel for the other two nights. The first thing we did in the hotel was eat breakfast. They had a really awesome continental breakfast, and we took full advantage of it. Then we walked to a nearby supermarket and got some drinks for later that night. While we were over there, we spotted a Pizza Hut and by unanimous vote came back after our nap for dinner. I enjoyed that meal more than I have enjoyed a meal in a long time for one reason...FREE REFILLS!!!! If I could go back in time, I would personally thank the man who decided that free refills should be implemented. I miss them so much!! I will never take free refills for granted again. After dinner and a little drinking we tried to figure out how to get downtown to check out the local nightlife. We found a nearby bus stop and when the next bus came by we asked which bus we should get on to find this street we were looking for, and how much the bus ticket would be. He told we could get on his bus and he would drop us off where we wanted to go, and he only charged us like 1/3 of the cost of a real ticket cause he said we should save our money for drinks downtown...lol. So, on our double-decker bus ride we saw that Liverpool is kinda like a rundown and older version of London...kinda like the ghetto in London. We were a little concerned. But it turned out not to be a big deal at all. It just simply looked creep at night. Our bus driver pulls up to a non-sanctioned stop and calls back to us telling us that this is where we should get off if we want to see the nightlife of Liverpool. We were like...well ok. So we got off and the next 10 minutes we spent going, "did you see that..." "what the..." "oh my gosh..." "where exactly are we again..." This place was unlike anything I have ever seen. It was just flat out ridiculous. Long story short, it was a pretty crazy night.

The next morning, we woke up around 10 a.m. and headed out for a little sightseeing. First though we transferred all of our stuff to the hostel. We saw the largest Anglican cathedral in the world, with the coolest cemetery ever attached to it, as well as a really modern Catholic church that has the largest stained glass window in the world. Then we walked down to Albert Dock, which was the major dock that was a part of the slave trade routes. Now it has souvenir shops and such. We did a little shopping and then headed back to the hostel for a nap. After the nap we went out again that night. Since the next day was a holiday we were told that everyone would be out and about that night, and sure enough they were. Our second night out was even more insane than the first night. We met up with some British guys from our hostel when we were out, and we hung out with them for a good portion of the night. When we got back to the hostel later that night I passed out I was so tired. I didn't wake up until our Chinese roommate started snoring at full volume. Several hours passed like this, with me counting off reasons in my head why it would not be ok to suffocate him with his own pillow. They left early the next morning though, and for the rest of the trip we had the room to ourselves. Monday, we hit up the World Museum they had there, and it was actually a really lame museum. It was a lot more like hands-on stuff for kids, and less actual exhibits to go through and glean knowledge from. From there we went to Albert Dock again to go on a Beatles tour, but we decided to pass on that because none of us were huge Beatles fans and it was like a $20 tour. We found Drury Lane, the infamous home of the Muffin Man...and don't worry, this spectacular event was indeed documented. We had some fish and chips for dinner, and then headed back to the hostel to nap and pack up our things for our early flight the next morning. That night, we went out to the Cavern Club for a sober night of good music. The Cavern Club is a popular establishment where the Beatles played a lot...it was where they were first discovered I believe. There was a guy there playing some really good music, and it was probably my favorite night out. This guy was a regular there, and he was really good. We did meet some locals on our way back that night who apparently think that Americans are the greatest thing since sliced bread, cause they were making a scene. They just couldn't believe that they would have the good fortune of finding Americans on holiday in Liverpool. It was really kinda awesome actually...you don't meet to many people over here who think that Americans are that cool.

The next morning we woke up early again and got on our flight back to Prague. Nothing too exciting happened this time. Although I did meet a British man in the row in front of us who was a Christian counselor. He studied at some seminary in Colorado for four years, and then lived there for a couple more years after that. He decided after being a pastor there for a couple of years that he wanted to invest more in counseling than pastoring. So he was moving back to England to be a trauma counselor. We talked for a bit and then I was so tired I had to excuse myself to sleep for the rest of the flight. We got back to our dorm in Prague with 8 minutes to spare before we had to turn around and head out to go to class (my class on Monday was cancelled because of Easter). I slept the rest of the day after I got back from class. :) So that pretty much sums up...leaving out some stories from our time downtown, my exciting weekend in Liverpool. I will say this though...as fun as that weekend was, I have not gone out since, and I don't think that I will go out for the rest of my time in Prague. Now that I know you are so curious about what happened that you are about to explode, I am going to sign off because this stupid post took me like two and a half hours to write. Tomorrow I am going to go to another cafe and update again, so stay tuned for real this time... :)