That time we saw a Liverpool F.C game...

"You'll never walk alone...."

 

This one is long overdue, but I guess you could say I was saving the best for last.

If there is one thing that sums up our experiences in the UK, sitting in the Kop at Anfield Stadium to watch a (winning) game with Liverpool F.C has got to be it. And there's a certain Liverpool supporter on the other side of the world that we have to thank for that.

We were down to our final 5 days in the UK before we had to board that flight home, and our chances of seeing a live football match were slim to none. Then we got an email from the friendliest, most generous people we met in our trip. Andy and Sue were the people we stayed with in Oxford in around October last year, and this time they offered us to come to Liverpool to see a home game at Anfield Stadium.

A Liverpool supporter through and through, Andy was the best person to show us what a football match really was in England. So it was arranged- two final nights in Oxford, with a road trip to Liverpool to watch the home team (and sorry Sue, but I'm not  talking about Everton!) take on Swansea. It is safe to say we were a bit excited to have the experience, and Andy really made sure it was one we won't forget.

The day started with a road trip to Liverpool with one of Andy's friends. The 3 hour drive from Oxford to Liverpool made me realise just how passionate they are about their football- recounting stories from when their team took out the cup in Istanbul in 2005, they spoke like it was only yesterday that they saw their team win the European cup. I've only ever heard one person speak about football like that, one of my Dad's work friends (who coincidentally is a huge Liverpool supporter)... We have since put him in touch with Andy and now he has someone to share his love of Liverpool with.

With Andy for some pre-match talk

Before the afternoon match we joined Andy's football friends at a bar for lunch. Liverpool had been having a bit of a dry spell up until that game and so they were all expecting the worse for the match up with Swansea, and telling us not to expect a win. If only they had been a bit more optimistic, because it turned out we bought some Australian luck with us that day. Oh, and did I mention that we met this guy:

Ian St John is a bit of a Liverpool legend, we were told. He played for Liverpool for 10 years from the 60s. I don't think we quite grasped just how much of legend he is at the time, but a quick google of his name now brings up pages and pages of results. On the Liverpool FC website, it says he was responsible for one of the "single greatest moments" by scoring an extra-time goal to take out the FA Cup in 1965. Sheesh, that sure does give a player a legendary status. He signed a copy of the game day book for us, an impressive souvenir to remember the day.

Famous ex-players aside, there was one thing that we had actually prepared ourselves for that day- the game. We had Andy's membership passes (again, we can't thank him enough) and so we were seated right in the Kop. Before the match he had described what happens when the Liverpool anthem 'you'll never walk alone' plays out through the stadium. The home crowd chant the words in unison. "It gives you goosebumps," Andy had said. Well he wasn't lying.

Hearing the crowd sing along and having the Liverpool flag pass over the top us, we knew we were in for something special. Turns out that was a 5-0 win to Liverpool.

I don't think we could have gotten a better football experience if we had tried. That day easily goes down as one of the top memories of England, and was a high note to end our trip on.

Cheers for everything, Andy and Sue.

"Do you want to go to the seaside?"

BRIGHTON BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Brighton, the city known as 'London by the sea', was where had a little pre-Christmas break before we spent the festive season in London. We had been planning to see Brighton but hadn't managed to find the time yet. But when Mike realised that a band we really liked, The Xx, were playing in Brighton on the 20th of December and that we could still get tickets, we immediately jumped at the chance to make the trip.

We travelled down from Manchester to Brighton, via London, on a long 8 hour day of travel. The good thing was we managed to get cheap bus tickets with megabus and so the journey only cost us about £8 each. We arrived about half an hour late and got off the bus to pouring rain and huge sea breezes that were whipping the rain in our faces. Not exactly what we pictured when we thought of a little seaside town, but I guess when it's known as London by the Sea we should have known to expect rain. We managed to find the little b&b by the waterfront, Ainsley House, that we had booked online for a good deal and after showering and wringing out our soaking clothes our time in Brighton was a lot better.

Brighton is a unique little place known for the distinct groups of people it attracts. There's the holiday makers who hit the town in the summer time to enjoy the amusements of Brighton Pier, lay on the 'sandy' (aka little pebble) beaches and visit the quintessential ice cream stalls and milkshake stands that line the seaside. Then there's the gay community, who dominate a certain section of the town where shop windows proudly display the gay pride flag, and shops sell 'men's toys' right on display in the window. It's funny that these two things go together in the one place, but somehow Brighton is quirky enough to make it all work.

On our first day in Brighton we were met with torrential rain that really 'put a dampener' on how a seaside town should be enjoyed. Luckily we had been looking forward to seeing the Hobbit since it had been released and so we took refuge indoors at a little independent cinema to see the Hobbit in 3D. The film was awesome, and plus It goes for 3 hours so that was an easy way to fill in the day. That night we got to see the Xx perform at a place right opposite Brighton Beach, and what a performance it was. Since it was just before Christmas they even did a cool, alternative version of Wham's 'Last Christmas' that was pretty special. They are a band we have been wanting to see for a long time and they surely didn't disappoint.

By our second day the rains had cleared up a bit and we at least got to see the main sights of Brighton without getting blown away. Without a doubt the most notorious thing about Brighton is the Brighton Pier, an amusement and games area along the length of the pier on the beach. Brighton Pier is a longstanding feature of the area and is filled with rides, video games and stalls selling ice creams and fish and chips and all things summery. Since it was winter things weren't really the same, but we did still manage to get some nice photos. The best part we found in Brighton was actually the shopping and cafe district away from the main bit of town. While one side of Brighton is full of the chain stores you can find all over the UK, these few little streets were filled with alternative clothes stores (there was a shoe shop called 'Vegan Shoes' just to give an idea), cafes and lots of vegetarian food shops. It was definitely an area that had a nice feel to it, and we happily spent the day exploring the shops and tasting the foods. By afternoon it was time to catch our bus to London and so we said goodbye to the little town of Brighton. It may not have been the best time of year to be there but luckily the sun at least made an appearance for us, and we managed to see some live music that left all of our friends back home envious. It's a hard life over here, but someone's gotta do it.

All You Need is Love....And Christmas

"Don't get stabbed in the North". This was the reaction we got from someone in Oban when we told him about our plan to travel from Scotland to London, stopping at a couple of places in England along the way. He was from South London and it was pretty fair to say he'd been raised to think people up North were of a different breed altogether (I think they see Northerners in the same way Australians see Tasmanians). So with this comparison in mind and his words of advice still ringing in our ears we made our way to the Northern cities of Liverpool and Manchester. And all I can say is I'm glad we didn't get put off by the stereotypes. Over 5 days we found two very different yet welcoming cities, some very heavy northern accents, a little bit of Beatlemania and the warm fuzzy feeling of Christmas. So this is what we found in the two cities as we traveled through in the week before Christmas.

LIVERPOOL

Liverpool- the city famous for the birth of the Beatles, the most successful football team in the history of the UK, and the almost inaudible Scouse accent. We stayed in Liverpool for two nights over the weekend and got to experience the city bustling full of people. The city centre of Liverpool is basically one huge shopping mall, with shops lining all the streets and linking them altogether until it reaches the waterfront district of Albert Dock.

By day the streets were packed with people doing their Christmas shopping. By night time the bar area centered around the famous Cavern Club (where the Beatles had their first ever gig) was a different scene altogether, and we realised that Northerners of all ages must know how to party- the streets were packed with people stumbling between clubs and about half of them were middle aged people wearing Christmas costumes. We tried to convince ourselves that they are just there for work christmas parties.....

But we actually managed to find some cool little bars for a couple of drinks- a place called Leaf on Bold street that had swing style music on the Saturday night, and a bar called Heebie Jeebies on Sunday night which was really cool. As more people arrived Mike realised that big groups of girls would turn up with just one or two guys among them who were, shall we say, men with good style who liked to dance. Nonetheless the drinks were cheap and the music was good for dancing. Along with the bars we frequented a few pubs in Liverpool, lured in by their cheap pub food on offer. We had a hearty Sunday roast with free dessert for under £9 for the both of us, as well as cheap lunches where we could get 2 for the price of 1. The weather was quite rainy and terrible the second day we were there so food and a place to be dry indoors was a bit of a highlight...(definitely a sign we are traveling in the winter time!)

But food and drinks aside, the main reason we had come to Liverpool was to experience a bit of Beatlemania since this was the city where it all began. We visited the Beatles story museum which had a great exhibition about how the band started, had fame and then the fights that brought it all to an end.

It was a winters day and yet the museum was really full- it made me realise that no modern band can really compete with the legacy of the Beatles. I mean here we were, two Australians, who travelled to Liverpool just to see this stuff, and I can't say there's too many other bands who would attract people like that. Part of the Beatles story was a little 4D movie as well, with an animated film that had the music of the Beatles and fun effects like strawberry scent in the air when the song Strawberry Fields played, and bubbles blowing throughout the little cinema for Yellow Submarine. After we had finished we went to hunt down some of the sights made famous by the songs of Beatles. We caught a public bus to find the old chrildren's home that inspired the song 'Strawberry Fields'. We hopped on to ask the driver which stop would be closest to Strawberry Fields, and we were met by a less than happy Scouse man who said 'don't know where that is' in a grumpy voice. Good bus driver there. In the end we found it and then also Penny Lane, though I have to say it want quite as cheery as the song makes out because by the time we got there it was nearly 4pm, and over here that's when it's dark and cold!

MANCHESTER
It wasn't really feeling like Christmas this year- that was until we got to Manchester. The festive spirit was well and truly alive in the people of Manchester (who are known as Mancunians). The entire city was filled with Christmas decorations and said that wasn't enough to make us feel all Christmassy inside, Manchester also hosts a massive German-style Christmas markets over 8 different sights of the city. The Christmas markets are renowned as the best in the UK, and were even voted in the top 10 Christmas markets of the world. Mike and I spent the day happily wondering through all the different market areas, sampling the free cheese tasters (where we realised pesto cheese is one of the tastiest cheeses ever), being overwhelmed by all the incredible smells of cooking bratwurst and a giant roast pig, looking at all the Christmas decoration stalls, and then making the tough decision of what food we would taste. In the end we shared a homemade apple strudel with warm apple custard that was definitely a winter warmer. We were well and truly feeling the Christmas spirit- especially because I found a kitsch Christmas jumper with reindeer on it.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the Northern Quarter of Manchester, known as the up and coming district filled with quirky shops as vintage stalls, cute bars and good food. At night time we decided to go for round 2 at the Christmas markets to sample some mulled wine, and so along with a friend we had made named Holly (another Aussie of course) we went to sample some delicious gluhwein. Afterwards we went to find a bar in the Northerm Quarter and ended up at a cool little place called The Terrace, where we enjoyed some mulled ciders to warm the night up. It was definitely a lot warmer than it and been up in Scotland though!

After Manchester we visited Brighton and then headed to London, where we just spent our first Winter Christmas, complete with roast turkey and christmas movies. More on that next time though...

A Very Belated Post About London

Dear London,

I would like to start by saying I'm very sorry for neglecting you from this blog until now. It's not that I didn't like you. In fact it was exactly the opposite- we spent about two weeks with you and it was so good that I haven't been able to put into words just how amazing you are. We came to you after about 2 and a half months of travelling and it honestly felt like coming home, but it was still new and exciting at the same time. Your people speak our language, only your accents a much nicer than ours. You have all the glamour of a big city, but not too many of the massive skyscrapers that normally go with it. And since we managed to avoid travelling on your tube during peak hour, it didn't feel too crowded.  You gave us so many things to do that two weeks was not enough, and because we really fell in love with you we have decided to come back to you for Christmas. Did you hear that London, we'll be spending our first Christmas together. I hope you are as excited as we are!  We will go ice skating in Hyde Park, look for all of your Christmas trees around the place, stop by Picadilly Circus and hope to get some last minute tickets to a musical, visit Madame Tussauds and be ultimate tourists, and go shopping on Oxford Street to find the perfect little gifts for each other. But before I get too excited about our next time together, I thought I'd remember the time we first met and the things I fell for in you:

THE SIGHTS

Let's get something on the table- you are one very pretty city London. I know you probably know that already -what with all your bright red phone boxes and double decker buses roaming around the place, you know how to please a snap happy tourist. But there is just something about your streets that is so beautiful... All the houses in areas like Victoria and around Hyde Park are these little white terraces lining the street. Your parks and big green spaces are amazing. And your buildings are nothing but iconic- Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, and that little palace you call Buckingham... Wow! We were lucky enough to catch one of the changing of the guards parades at Buckingham Palace one morning. By the time we got there the crowds had already scored the best spots, but we still managed to see the beefeaters in their funny hats marching along and going through the whole procession. Though we were a tiny bit confused why the guard's brass band started playing ABBA songs for a good 10 minutes during the procession? Maybe you know better than us London, is the Queen a big ABBA fan or something? Either way, it was still great to see, and we couldn't believe that your people go to that much effort every second day.... Police shut off the streets for about 2 hours and officers on horses control the crowds, as everyone piles in to see the funny-hatted men march. You guys sure know how to put on a show!

And of course we visited King's Cross station to find Platform 9 and 3/4

Oh, and you also did me the honour of naming a street after me. You shouldn't have!

THE FREE MUSEUMS

After travelling from Paris, where everything has a price, it was a real treat to come to your museums and galleries London and find out we could get in for free. We went to the Tate Modern, a modern art gallery that was really interesting (and in some places had Mike and I scratching our heads and wondering if it REALLY counts as art- I mean a mirror on a wall? That's just being cheeky). We visited the Science Museum on a rainy day which was fun with lots of interactive displays. And we visited the British Museum which has a great collection of artefacts- most notably, the Rosetta stone that was used to interpret ancient egypt hieroglyphs, and ancient Egyptian mummies including the mummy of Cleopatra! On our trip to the British museum I also found a wallet in the bathroom. When I looked inside to see if it had a name on it I saw it had £60 pounds in it! So I handed it in to the staff in the hope that they didn't have sticky fingers and that it eventually got back to its rightful owner. And it seems my good deed paid off- later when we were in Belfast we found £10 on the ground. So thanks for the good karma London. 

Cleopatra, in mummy form

THE SHOPPING

London, I think you are tried to rob me. After spending two and a half months travelling without buying anything for myself, you tried to test my willpower with just one visit to Oxford Street. All of your shops were there stretching on for kilometers- Zara, Topshop, Bershka, Urban Outfitters... And just when I'd get past one of the stores, there would be another one 500m down the road! Sneaky London. Sadly for you I came out on top this time, and only bought a couple of cheap tops, a pair of jeans and a warm winter jacket. But I'm afraid that if I still have a little bit of money before we head back home, I might not be so lucky next time.....

But my favourite day of window shopping had to be when we visited Harrods. Luckily I knew I couldn't afford anything there, and managed to walk away with just a Christmas decoration in hand that I sent home to my family (and is now sitting proudly on our Christmas tree in Newcastle). But that place is insane- insanely expensive. This is the place that sells puppies for £2,200. (We wondered, part of the appeal of buying something from Harrods is having the Harrods logo on it.. Do these dogs come branded for the same reason?). Everything here just looks classy. Even the rats they were selling for something like £30 each looked a little more fancy. But my favourite parts were the entire floor dedicate to Disney (it would be so exciting to go there if you were a kid); and then the floor for Christmas, which even in October looked like the North Pole itself. 

THE MARKETS

London, I think this is the part of you that made me weak at the knees. I love a good market at the best of times, but you have so many different AMAZING markets that it felt like heaven visiting them. Here are the ones we fell in love with:

Borough Markets

Filled with organic foods, this was a market that we visited on an empty stomach and I'm glad we did. The smells of this place were amazing! Not only could you sample little bits of all the delicious foods, we then had the tough task of working out exactly which food to fill up on for lunch. I had a veggie burger with a pattie made from hommus, and Mike had a pulled pork sandwich. We washed it all down with a cup of mulled cider that was so warm and delicious.

Portobello Road 

We visited these markets in Notting Hill on a weekday so things weren't quite as good as they are on a weekend. But our trip had some other added bonuses, like giving us the opportunity to stop by THE bookshop from Notting Hill:

Eat a cupcake from the famous Hummingbird Bakery:

Find a cafe dedicated to Mike:

And appear on English tv with Stephen Fry (you can read about that in my other blog post). 

Brick Lane

We had heard Brick Lane markets were best visited on a Sunday and so we gladly did this on one rainy Sunday afternoon. By the time we got there some of the stalls were packing up because of the rain, but that didn't mean we missed out entirely- in fact, we managed to source out end of day specials at some of the food stalls and had some delicious food and home-baked goodies. We were joined by our friend Georgie on this day which was good because it meant I had someone to look at the clothes stores with while mike was distracted by food! 

Camden 

Out of all the places we visited while we were with you London, Camden has to be one of the best. Purely because you never know what you are going to get from a trip to Camden. This section is in zone 2 of London, so it's just that little bit further out to invite all sorts of people that you wouldn't normally get in the city. When you exit the train station and head towards Camden markets and Camden lock, you immediately feel you are in a different kind of place. All the shops sell alternative (aka goth) clothes, and the streets are buzzing with people. On a Sunday there are people busking near the markets and you can hear the music everywhere. As for the markets themselves, we have been the twice now and still haven't even covered half of the place. Although once you've seen one you've kind of seen them all, I still really enjoyed looking at the clothes/jewelry/arts stalls. We visited one day with Mike's friend Joel, and Mike and Joel had a good time touring the food stalls for food samples, passing the Asian stall selling 'bang bang chicken', and haggling the best deal for our lunch at the market. There is one stall though at Camden markets that really sums up just how different that place is- a shop called Cyber Dog. It's basically a massive multi-level store dedicated to raves and partying. Walking in there feels like you are in some dance dungeon, with techno music blaring at any time of the day. People dance on stages and in cages in the shop and they sell anything that lights up and flashes for all those hard core ravers out there. That place is actually crazy. 

THE FRIENDS

Without a doubt our time with you London wouldn't have been the same if it wasn't for the friends we met up with along the way. It seemed like every day we were there we were meeting up with someone- either friends from home who were in London as well, or friends we had made on the road. We spent a couple of days with Mike's friend Joel from home, meeting up with their friend Emily as well who they used to work with at the Dockyards and who now works in London; we crossed paths with our friend Georgie as well and saw her on two occasions; we met up with Mike's friend Todd Babic who works in London and went for a drink with him one night, and then visited the pub he works at another night where he treated us to some great mates rates; we spent time with Mike's friend Grace who he went to high school with and who happened to be working at the hostel we stayed at; we met up with two friends we had met in Granda in Spain, Nick and Dan, and went for drinks one Sunday night in Brick Lane; and we had a freak run in with a girl named Lizzie who we had met in Rome- a New Zealander who lives in London- and one night when we were waiting for a friend in the middle of Picadilly Circus she shouts out "MIKE!". It was nice being in such a big city and finding so many familiar faces, so we have you to thank for that London. 

THE HOSTEL THAT FELT LIKE HOME

During our travels through mainland Europe, the longest we had spent in one place was about five days. So coming to London and finding a place to settle in was a real treat. We had originally only booked to stay in the hostel in the suburb of Victoria for 3 nights, with the plan to find somewhere a bit more affordable if we stayed any longer. In the end we got so comfortable in the hostel, especially because we knew Grace who worked there, that we just kept continuing our stay. We were a bit on the disorganised side though and would check out every two or three days, sit in reception and think about moving somewhere else and then end up going to the front desk and asking for our room back. While it meant we did had to move around rooms a bit, the bonus was we became friends with the staff and so on some nights they let us only pay for one bed to save a bit of money- definitely a big hand since London is the most expensive city to sleep in out of all the places we have been. We did venture out to another hostel for one night though, in a suburb called Elephant and Castle just south of the River Thames. We were lured to this hostel because it offered really cheap rates on a weekend- only £8 each for the night, instead of the total of £50 we would have been paying to stay in Victoria. It turns out this was a computer glitch though, and we had to fight to get that price, and then spent a night in a suburb that I won't be rushing back to any time soon. Elephant and Castle felt a little too ghetto for our liking (and the massive big project housing places or the sirens you could hear all night didn't really help with that either). The next morning we checked out of there quick smart and came crawling back to our home in Victoria- and promised we will never try leaving again.

THE MUSIC

After all the things you offered us London, the chance to see one of our favourite Aussie bands in a sold out venue on the other side of the world was one the best experiences we had with you. A lot of good bands tour through London, but normally tickets are sold out. Luckily we were organised with this one and we managed to snag tickets to see Tame Impala at the 02 Academy- and for only £19! We went with our friend Georgie and were surprised to see a huge line out the door and a sign saying SOLD OUT when we arrived. I couldn't help but feel a little patriotic when I saw this. The gig was a great night and they were definitely a great band to see live, made even better by the fact we saw them in London!

So thank you London for all of these great experiences we have had with you so far. I can't wait for our next time together over Christmas. 

Until then, lots of love

Shelby xox