Discovering Liverpool

It has been a week since my last post and things are moving at such a quick pace. Even without classes time has been flying by and I’ve been having a blast in Liverpool. On Monday the international students went on a bus tour of the city with a tour guide. The tour began with some of the prominent Beatles’ sites. We stopped at Strawberry Fields which was once a children’s home for the Salvation Army but now is overgrown with plant life. Then we drove past John Lennon’s childhood home which I had already discovered. Of course we stopped at the historic Penny Lane and took pictures with the signs. After that we made are way through some of the suburbs of the city like Aigburth which is the area I’m living in. Then we rode along the side of the River Mersey watching the boats and ferries in the water. Then we went through the Albert Dock area and into the city centre. We were able to get out and walk around for a bit so we got lunch at Subway and then went to shopping stores. We made it back to the bus in just enough time and then we went to the football stadiums. First we were able to see Goodison Park which is the stadium for Everton F.C. Then we went to Anfield which is the stadium of my favorite football team Liverpool F.C. At Anfield we were able to get out and take pictures. I was extremely excited. After that we drove by the Catholic Church in the city which looks like a wigwam. It is very unique. Then we went by the Anglican Cathedral which is the largest cathedral in the United Kingdom and the fifth largest in Europe. It was absolutely beautiful. That pretty much concluded the tour but here is a fun fact. The trash bins in Liverpool are purple because the Everton fans wanted blue ones and the Liverpool fans wanted red ones, so they combined the two colors. This may be useless but who knows it could turn up in a question from Fact or Crap.

Tuesday was a pretty relaxed day but that night our group went out to dinner at Lark Lane. Our group consists of Maarten, Lieke, Lisanne, Marijke who are all from the Netherlands and Aggie, Sean, Nate, and I who are from the U.S. Lark Lane is street filled with restaurants and shops that is very close to our campus. We ate dinner at Maranto’s Restaurant and most of had pizzas. After that we went to Aki’s Wine Bar to watch the Liverpool vs. Leeds match. Liverpool won 1-0 which was good but the game wasn’t that great. Wednesday we went to Hope Park for the fresher’s fayre which is when new students can sign up for different activities and sports as well as get free stuff. I signed up to play volleyball so that should be interesting. It has been a while since I played so we’ll see. That night the Americans cooked dinner. We had stir fry, rice, garlic bread, and for dessert we had tiramisu and ice cream. It was wonderful. After that a bunch of the international students went out on the town. We went to this bar/club called Baa Bar. Very lively environment. The next day a bunch of us went to the city centre for the day. There is a train station right across the road from Aigburth Park so we can take the train and it is only two stops until the city centre. We went to the Tate Liverpool which is a modern art gallery in Albert Dock. The gallery had a lot of unique and interesting exhibits. Sculptures ranged from a replica of Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” to paintings by Salvador Dali. Another exhibit was interactive and had headphones that played music while you looked at the art and even had a dance floor that people could dance on. Also there was a moving wall that moves extremely slowly and takes about an hour and a half to move across the floor. We did some shopping at some stores and then went back home. We watched Aladdin that night which is probably my second favorite Disney movie. Peter Pan is my favorite.

Friday was a pretty good day. We have this beautiful park that is right down the road from us, so a couple of us went there and ran for a while. There is so much green space here it is just so wonderful and bright. The rest of the day was pretty lazy and I watched some t.v. shows on my computer. At night we decided to go out to the Baa Bar again and we danced a lot and had a pretty good time. Saturday was a really good day and packed with lots of events. In the afternoon, we went to Aki’s wine bar again and watched the Liverpool vs. Hull City match. Liverpool won 6-1 and the game was fantastic to watch with some phenomenal goals from Torres and Gerrard. That night we went downtown to Film on the Waterfront. This is an outdoor event that shows movies and short films for the community. We were right next to the River Mersey and the movie was projected on to a huge screen in the side of a building. The movie was On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando and it was a really great movie. We were all bundled up and covered with blankets. We came back to Aigburth and played Mafia. It totally reminded me of game nights at Brett’s house but we didn’t really have enough people to play. On Sunday, we went into the city centre again. We did some grocery shopping at the Tesco Superstore which compared to our tiny Tesco at Aigburth has way too many options. That night we watched a movie and the guys chose Superbad. It was as cruel and vulgar as I knew it would be but it did have a couple funny moments.

Monday was the official start of classes but I didn’t actually have any. I got some my room cleaned and organized and got myself ready for classes. For dinner, Maarten cooked the most phenomenal lasagna ever. I’ve bought tickets for my first trip now. Emily and some other girls planned a trip to Dublin and Cork for October 16 and 17 so I jumped at the chance to go. I’ll have to miss a class but I honestly don’t care that much. Tuesday was the start of classes for me. I took the bus at 10:35 to Hope Park and arrived around 10:50. My first class was Environmental Resources and it was definitely interesting. We’ll see how it goes but it should be fun. I had my other class, War and Empire, at 2. I’ve taken a similar class but at least the first half is stuff I haven’t learned about in depth. After class, Aggie and I took the bus back to Aigburth. It was extremely packed, so I had to stand which is really hard on the body. Walking home we realized that it was our last first day of class. It was really surreal. I can’t believe that college has gone so fast. I’ve been thinking about the future a lot before I came to Liverpool but here I find myself just thinking about each day as it comes and not looking ahead as much. I honestly feel more at home here than I have ever felt at Hope. At 7:30 a large group of international students went to watch the Liverpool vs. Fiorentina match at Low Bar. Liverpool lost 2-0 and I was not very happy about it. When I came back to my room, I got to watch Hannah and Katie’s vlog. It seriously made my night. I missed seeing their facial expressions and hearing their voices. Sorry about the length of this post, I’ve been really busy. If you made it to the bottom, I’m truly impressed.