Day 47-49 - Liverpool

Liverpool is not touristy. It’s grey, urban, lived-in and teeming with people. To put it another way, it’s brilliant.

Our hotel was down on the docks, where quite a lot of reconstruction and redevelopment has occurred, giving it a similar feel to the Docklands area in Melbourne. Unfortunately, a large Ferris wheel was right outside our hotel window, and Rose doesn’t need much to prevent her from sleeping.

It was also almost the first time on the trip we’d endured any sort of inclement weather. It tended to rain in secret in London (at least twice when we had popped back to the hotel to grab something), but we got caught in it a little in Liverpool.

We’d walked into the centre of town and then through Mathew St, where the Cavern was (and is again), and where statues of John and Paul sit on the balconies of the surrounding buildings. Other than that, there are the new buildings, and the older ones. The famed Lewis’s Department Store was closing down, so we went in to see if they were clearing any Sylvanians, but the clearing had already taken place. The advertising posters were there, but the Sylvanians were not.

For our first dinner in Liverpool we ventured inland, past the centre of town and the train station, to partake in some genuine fish & chip shop food.

The British “Chip Shop” offers a vast array of take-away food items, from Chinese to Pizza to Kebabs to the old fashioned Pie or Fish supper. The Potato Cakes, called scallops, are massive and spurt oil when pierced, like a striking a deposit of clear vegetable oil. The chips are thick and fattening. It was a great meal, although we felt it for the next few hours as our bodies worked hard to digest perhaps the most fattening meal of our lives.

Between extended bouts of watching an Aussie march to a World Snooker Title, we filled our short time in Liverpool going to the Beatles’ Story, which was entertaining but didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. The highlight for me was in the post-Beatles exhibition, when in the area dedicated to George, they played a clip from a mid-1970s broadcast of Rutland Weekend Television. George Harrison is introduced by Eric Idle, and starts to play the memorable opening chords from “My Sweet Lord”, before breaking into a pirate song, much to Idle’s fake protestations. Oh, how we miss having a living Beatle not take himself too seriously.

Attached to the Beatles Story is a “3D Experience”, which really is just an excuse to get people wet. But I was more convinced about 3D television after this experience than I was before it.

We had to wash clothes in Liverpool, in your typical suburban laundromat. After walking past 50 men, aged between 16 and 35, riding down a hill on BMX bikes, we washed our clothes, and got called “pet” and “love” by the woman who operated the coin laundry. Rose found it off-putting; I found it endearing. It was also an excuse to have some more English crisps, which are cooked longer and taste smokier, and therefore better, than they do in Australia.

Dinner on Saturday was a little bit more of a struggle, as we couldn’t find anywhere that was satisfactory and didn’t have a minimum 30 minute wait. We finally settled on the restaurant inside our hotel, where I had a curry and lost my black Raider cap.

Our time in Liverpool had been extended by the fact that the match we had planned to attend had been moved from Saturday to Sunday. We carefully planned our Sunday to ensure a quick and speedy getaway from Liverpool to Edinburgh.

We caught the bus out to Anfield on Sunday, to experience one of the great sights and sounds in all of sports. Anfield inside is small, with no particularly poor seats. The only thing particularly poor on this day was Liverpool’s play.

Just before the game, the crowd broke into song, and the two of us, Liverpool fans from half way across the world, joined in with all our might, with our brand new scarves above our heads, adorned with perhaps the greatest motto for any sporting club in the world: YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE. It really is the one area that soccer has it over our indigenous Australian game.

After looking frisky for about 20 minutes, Gerrard tried a pass back to the keeper which was intercepted by Didier Drogba, and it was 1-0 Chelsea. The tiny enclave, draped in royal blue and surrounded by what seemed like 5,000 police officers and security guards, went into an absolute frenzy. They did the same when Frank Lampard doubled the lead.

Only when the Chelsea crowd started pointing to the Liverpool supporters, chanting “You are Ancient History”, did the crowd start to get restless, and this elicited a loud response from the home faithful. Overall the Reds looked listless, tired from a physically and emotionally draining loss only three days previous in the semi final of the Europa League.

Apparently the players come out and greet the fans after the last home game of the season, but we couldn’t hang around. Somewhere between here and the train I left behind the match program and book of posters intended for Rose’s younger brother, Deaglan.

When we got to the train station, which was not easy as Anfield is deep in suburban Liverpool and the buses weren’t getting through, we were greeted by some delicious Cornish Pasties (apparently the best Rose has ever eaten), and the news that our long train trip to Edinburgh had just become a longer train and bus trip, thanks to maintenance works on the tracks being done over the Bank Holiday long weekend. After changing at Preston (as planned), Oxenhome & Carlisle, we finally got into Edinburgh at 11:30 pm, exhausted and relieved.

On reflection, after spending time in Liverpool you will know two things: the Beatles come from here, and so does the Liverpool Football Club. Nothing else really matters. I wish the Reds had won, but just being there was great. Actually, being in the city of the Reds, John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Dave Lister, was a blast.