Liverpool and History!

January 14^th 2010

Banes of our Existence:

- Scheduling

- The UK’s alcohol percentages

- Weird times things are open

- Wet snow

- Outlets

- Sarah’s phone

- Morgan’s Computer

- Money

- Boys

- Dickens

- Textbooks

- Laundry

Things that Brighten our days:

- Strongbow

- Bookstores

- Harry Potter

- Tea Time

- Digestible

- Nap Time

- The Radiator and electric blankets

- Yorkshire pudding

- Pubs

- Pub food

- Chester

- New friends

- Old friends

- New Places

- Old places

- Really old places

- Museums

- Fish People

- Chocolate

- History

January 16^th:

Tomorrow I will write about:

- Poo vs. pew

- Charlie

- The museum

- Liverpool.

January 17^th

Well in response to yesterday’s short post:

1. I had a tutor this week, while in the chapel tell us all to do things like “watch out for that pew” or “careful, that pew has a nasty history of catching people off guard.” Of course, her accent made pew sound like “poo”.

2. To all you internet nerds out there, I was with some guys a couple days ago (that’s not the joke), and at one point in the evening, one of them said “ouch that really hurt!” It is now definite. Charlie-bit-my-finger brother is British.

3. Morgan and I went on our own historic tour where we walked a lot and eventually ended up at the Grosvenor museum in Chester. There we saw Roman artifacts, which blew my mind, and lots of Victorian paintings. It was really cool to learn about the continuous history of Chester. People have inhabited this spot in form or another for over two thousand years. Mostly to keep out the Welsh and the Scots, but also because of the river and microclimate. It really is strange to know that my flat is above a Roman cemetery. I still can’t process the history here. I read a sign a couple days ago that talked about a recent remodel of a building…by which the sign writer meant 1868.

4. Liverpool.

Which leads us to today! I had the greatest day I think I’ve had of yet today.

We took the train for uber cheap from Chester to Liverpool today, and it was the single greatest 10 hour stretch of time of yet I’ve had over here. So we boarded the train bright eyed and bushy tailed at 11:00 this morning and began our adventure into the great wide wonder that is Northern England.

I love trains. I think it’s because they’re like a hybrid between car trips and airplanes.

We got there and walked down this giant pedestrian street, lined with every giant stores in giant buildings that made me feel like Liverpool was one giant outdoor upscale mall. Which it kind of is, BUT! it also has a fabulously rich history and contains vibrant displays of life. We walked for a while until we found The Cavern, the place where The Beatles played for the first time, as well as where a ton of other fabulous bands have performed. It’s been a good year for music, with a choir tour to South America and talking with composers and performers down there, with my family’s various stops in the south like Beale St., Graceland, the Grand Ol’ Opry, a really nice Christmas tour, choir here and yesterday’s Beatles homage. I feel very musically enriched.

After that walk and lunch, we walked down to Albert Dock. Wow, so interesting! The dock in itself is cool, there are all these old churches and buildings around it, a new city center, but also TONS of museums. We briefly walked into the Maritime Museum, and we walked by the Slave Trade museum, and then we went to the Liverpool branch of the Tate Museum. I love love love love art museums. I think if I had a choice of what my house would be someday, it would be part aquarium/zoo, part my house in Phoenix, part library, and mostly an art museum. The first floor was a collection Mark Rothko’s The Seagram Murals, which consisted of a large room full of giant canvases progressing from black on burgundy to burgundy on black. He was inspired by a cityscape at dusk, and there were a lot of people talking quietly and using expressions that could be applied to drinking wine or making furniture, things like “I’m intrigued and feel suddenly introspective by his use of layers sublimated through a surrealist lens, over construed of course with his use of media and space against light. There’s a deep sensual and organic nature to this piece with an oaken finish. I’m interested to hear what Renée thought.” Although I respect that Rothko’s work is both unique and very influential to a lot of people, I couldn’t help but feeling like the kid in the Emperor’s New Clothes. They just seemed like purple squares to me. But they were nice purple squares? After that there were various galleries full of super interesting pieces, ranging from sculptures and paintings to mixed media, photographs, and videos. Some of my favorite pieces were R. Mutt’s “Fountain”, Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Can”, Pablo Picasso’s “Seated Woman in a Chemise” and “Weeping Women”, Salvador Dali’s “Autumnal Cannibalism”, Arman’s “Condition of Woman”, Piet Mondrian’s “Composition B (Noll) with Red”, and Edgar Degas’ “Little Dancer Age 14”.

After that, we went to the other extreme of experiences and fought everyone and their mom at the IKEA of women’s clothing Primark. Primark is like a zoo. People say that, and they mean a place is really crowded and blah blah. No. Primark is just like a zoo. There is display after display of clothes, shoes, household things, jewelry, hair bands, hosiery, EVERYTHING. And there is every type of person on every floor; fat, skinny, tall short, young looking too old, old dressed too young, men looking for clothes, men looking for women, women looking for shoes, women looking for purpose, women looking for any way out of that store. And a hyper organized line system that tells you where and how to stand and where to go to pay, to buy more, or to find meaning in life. I was really overwhelmed, so naturally I bought things.

Then in our final stop, we ate dinner at this Irish pub, (Irish stew good, Irish beer not my fave) and watched the football game. It was the best game ever. Everton actually score two points in the first half! And! there were yellow cards, lots of them. I miss sports where things happen on a regular basis, so this was a nice change. After some discussion, we decided to come back next Saturday and actually go to the Everton game, which, when we got back, found out was a discount game. Yeah cheap seats!!!

The train ride back was lovely, I felt less ill, or I was so happy and full of food and memories that I didn’t care. Sigh. I love Liverpool.