Being a Tourist in Liverpool

So, on Sunday while Gaby was at work, I decided to do the Hopon, Hopoff tour around Liverpool. It was pretty cheap too. Using my student ID (Thanks Massey) I got the bus tour and a ferry tour for £8.50, for 24 hours!

Again, there is only so much I can tell you in words. So I'll let the pics do the talking!

My bus for the day. Well, one of many at least!

Taking touristy shots from the top of the bus before a MASSIVE rainstorm hit.
That's the Liverpool Eye and the Echo Arena.

The Chinese Arch that Liverpool got from Shanghai
(their sister city) a few years back.

Lime St Station. There was something significant about it, can't remember now!
Its where I caught my train from to get to London.

So I went on the 1 hour ferry trip across the Mersey river. It was really odd cos I felt really sick! I don't usually get seasick and it wasn't overly rough, but hey. Dad said he reckons its cos I'm on the other side of the world so I was really upside down. That makes sense to me!

This building probably has some significance, but I can't remember it.
It just looks cool!

That's the Liver Building. Its got the Liver Birds on top of it. Yep.

Its quite pretty really.

See!

So after the ferry trip, I got back on a bus and went back to the Anglican Cathedral. Its so pretty! I walked in there and the organ was playing. It sounded AMAZING. The cathedral is like the 5th biggest one in the world or something, MASSIVE!

The Anglican Cathedral.

After the cathedral, I got the bus back down to the Albert Dock. And I went to the Maritime Museum. The docks at Liverpool pretty much made it into the hugemoungeous city that it is, and there is a lot of Maritime history. For example - its actually where the Titanic was built, and where White Star had their main office. A lot of the cruise liners were built there and there were a lot of offices and stuff around from that time. The maritime museum had a really interesting exhibition on about how Liverpool and the Titanic were related, so that was cool. They also had a whole lot of stuff about the wars and how the torpedo's worked and the German side of stuff too. It was really cool, but there was a lot of it!

Dadaddddaaaa

So after I got over museuming for the day, Gabie came down to pick me up. While she was on her way, I has a bit of time to kill at the Albert Dock, so I took lots of photos. Here is a selection that I hope will make my photographic family proud (I'm looking at you Dad, Sarn and Greg!).

This carousal constantly played Beatles Music. It got annoying after a while.

I figured proof that I was actcually there would be helpful!

 The next day, my last in Liverpool, I had the day to myself again. I got a ride into town and went to the World Museum. Man, that place needs a serious make over. It has some really cool bits, but at the same time some of the lables are quite obviously peeling off the walls, the exhibits SMELL so old and musty, it just needs some love. But if you look past the cosmetic side, it was quite interesting. It took me about 2.5 hours to go around, so totally doable. They had a live aquarium on the first floor too, which made me lol cos I know thats what TP wanted to do originally. And it totally worked. The kids loved it! The NZ part was ok, not very informative and the langugae was a bit all over the place. I listened to the Rangi and Papa story and they literally called it "Rangee". It was pretty gross.

This fish literally was going in and out of the coral a-la Marlon.

Carved Elephant Tusks - AMAZING!!!

After the museum, I went to have a look at the main Library. I had been told it was just done up and it was beautiful. So spacious and light and natural light and so many cool books! And the signage was funky and colourful. Ahh, neat-as library. I'd want to go there all the time if I lived there!

The book walk up to the library.

I like to think of this bit as the "Belle Library"

 I then ended up at St George's Hall, which I don't really know much about. But it was pretty. And they had lifetd up the wooden false floor that they usually use for the "Minton Tile Reveal" so that was pretty stunning to look at. Its quite a funny hall because its like a gorgeous event hall thing up top, and down the bottom are all cells and grossness. The oldschool court room is even in there. Odd to put the 2 together, but I guess it saved some money at the time!

So yeah, that was my day. I meet up with Crabbe again after that and we went shoe shopping. Then I had to go back home and pack :(. Caught the train down to London the next day with not much happening (sat next to a lovely kiwi family who are about to take their daughters back to NZ to live, so that was neat. The guy helped mewith my MASSIVE bag!). Yeah. So I guess thats it. 

One day soon I'll post again about what I'm up too here, but right now I think I'm gonna go. I have to get some potatoes from Waitrose on my way back for dinner tonight. YUM!! Jacket potatoes seem to be a real thing here, heaps of cafes serve them.....whatever floats your boat! At least they are gluten free haha. 

Catchya!

Liverpool!

SO!

After my epic journey to get here, I went to bed pretty early that night - that was the Wednesday.

On the Thursday, I eventually got up, as did Gabie, my friend from camp that I was staying with. We mooched around the house for a bit before heading down to the shops. Dangerous!

I spent a lot of time in Superdrug, a chemist type place, with the hygiene aisles of the supermarket thrown in. I got a lot of stuff there - paracetamol, shampoo, hairspray, deodorant etc. All the stuff one really needs!!

I also got a few bits and bobs from around the place. I can't really remember what I ended up with haha. A few bits and pieces from Lush - no surprises there! It wasn't a very exciting day cos I was still super exhausted and tired, so after dinner I pretty much went to bed. I had a suuuper cosy bed and pillow so it was a great place to be!

The next day was a museum day. One of my mates (Hey Herb!) had been to Liverpool earlier in the year and gone to the museums, so I wanted to see them. Gabie wasn't too into them, but I had a good time.

The first one we went to was the Museum of Liverpool. It wasn't quite what I expected, but in saying that, I don't really know what I expected in the first place. The way the museum has been designed makes it slightly awkward to navigate your way around. But its deffo an interesting place. Pretty much what I got out of it was that Liverpool was the first major city outside of London, a hell of a lot of history there!

The view outside. It was quite pretty I thought.

ME! PROOF!

 We then went to the International Slavery Museum.WOW, what a museum. Liverpool was the hub for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade early on, and so a lot of their history has to do with slaves. It was defiantly a moving experience to see all the stuff and read all their stories. It was quite emotionally draining to look around really. I guess everyone will have a different emotional experience as they look around, but it took me a while to go around as I wanted to make sure I read everything. Honsetly, craziness.

They had walls of quotes.

Example B

And me.

 That night, Gabs and I met up with Crabbe, one of the guys from camp. It was totally aweeeesome to see him again! We have chatted a lot on FB and one of his mates was in NZ, so we have been keeping in touch. We went to this place that had food from around the world. I now wish I had ordered the lamb skewers (probs got the meat from Warren....lol) instead of the prawn salad that had chili flakes all through it and was so coated with dressing you couldn't tell what was what. Yep. Hindsight!

The next day we went to this outlet mall place called Cheshire Oaks. MAN! Its like Dressmart x10000. Super cool! Epic stores, epic sales, spent too much money. But had a great time looking around. I got some thigns I needed like a new handbag (the purpleish one that i brought with me is beginning to snap and I wanted something before it did!) and some body gel from The Body Shop - like one of those huge container things for £8! Amazeballs. Anyway, I took some pictures of what I got -

This was everyones shopping - Mine, Gabies and her mums!

Les Mis book, its amazing. I'm excited to read it!

A canvas poster thing for my room. Its now above my bed.

Top. I like it. Its funky.

Oh yeah, and its from Burberry!

Said handbag

2 new pairs of jeans. One from Gap, one from Levis

Shower Gel. YUM!!

Amzaing chocolate smelling goodness!

The next day I did a whole lot of touristy stuff, so there are quite a lot of pictures. I'll do another post for them!

Travelling to the UK

So, I started to write thison the train yesterday, but its disappeared. Annoying.

So I guess I'll just start again.

Mum and I left home at 4am (ouch!) so we could get to the airport in plenty of time, should I need to repack my bags cos they were too heavy. Luckily, all my bookings had been done through Virgin, who gives you a 30kg luggage allowance. Yay! My bags were all good, thankfully, so no repacking needed. We hung out in the airport for a bit, eating and exchanging money before I headed into "The Rock". Its quite cool in there. Hung out there for a while and then boarded my Air NZ flight to Sydney. The middle seat between me and some guy was free, so could stretch out a little which was nice. Apparently my travel agent had booked me the cheapest flight available cos I got no food (totes got some Air NZ lollies though, my fave!). Managedto squeeze in a showing of Les Mis too!

Got off in Sydney and managed to get out into the city super easy. Dropped my bags off too, even better! I was meeting Matt Sime in the city,  but had some time to kill, so went to a brow bar place. The lady there was really cool, she had a ruler and everything to make sure my brows were perfect. Managed to catch Matty and we went for brunch at this pancake house, which wasnt really that good at all! We then wandered around the city, down to the Opera House and back up through the botanic gardens before I had to head back to the airport. I was checked in for my next flight so didnt have to be there early. Went through security all good and pretty much straight to my gate lounge.

My Virgin Australia flight to Abu Dhabi was amazing. I had 3 seats to myself! And I had ordered the gluten free meal, so Igot my food super quick and it was gooooood. Had an epic fish and potato meal for a late lunch/early dinner type thing. I watched "The King and I" whichI was in at PLT in 2003. Msn, it brought back some hilarious memories, and it is just an amusing film in general. I had a great time watching that and laughing. I can't really remember what happened next, but at one point, I was stretched out on the seats with lots of pillows. My blue RWC2011 volunteer jacket was a great extra blanket. I reckon I must have slept at least 6 hours, which is awesome for a 13 hour flight! I started to watch a whole bunch of films, but got bored. Ended up watching "The Croods" though which was great. I even got special snacks delivered to me. Yum! They had a little pack on the seat when you arrived so I used my little eye mask. It was great! Had a second meal, which was pretty much the same as the first, but good.

The Fishy Lunch...yum!

All gonsies

Me, all stretched out!

Finally we landed in Abu Dhabi! We had to get off the plane outside and catch a bus to the terminal. It was 35degrees and bloody hot! The bus was air conditioned, thankfully, cos I was dressed for flying so heaps of layers! Had to wait in a really long line to get my boarding pass for my connecting flight with Etihad, which ended up being delayed and no one told us anything! I still need to send in a complaint actually. I meandered around duty free for a bit but didn't buy anything,  but eventually ended up in Burger King cos I was super hungry by this stage! I was waiting in the gate lounge, so was one of the first in line to board, only t be told that cos I was waiting in the gate lounge so early and I didn't have a blue stamp on my boarding pass,  I had to go back out of the gate lounge and get the stamp. More lining up! Super annoying. Eventually got my seat though, a window seat, beside 2 kids eugh. It ended up being pretty much ok, the kid beside me ended up with his head on my shoulder at one point though hahaha. Eithad were ok on board, they had towels coming around constantly, sometimes even hot! The food was meh (there was soooo much breakfast! The gluten free buns were eh, but the mushrooms were delish). The movies were meh. All in all I was pretty gutted with their service. They had been hyped up so much!

My Eithad Breakfast. There was so much of it! Which was a good thing.

Anyway, we eventually landed in London. Thankfully the border control moved pretty quick, cos I was on a tight deadline to reach my bus on time to get me to Liverpool. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my suitcase - I hadn't seen it since Wellington, so was super glad to see it made it ok. Missioned it through the airport and onto the Heathrow Express Terminal Exchange. An epic walk awaited me to the bus station, but when I got there (in heaps of time) I managed to use my Etihad toothbrush and toothpaste and brushed my teeth which felt awesome. Annnd then, I made it to the bus. The first bus.

The first bus was ok, it was just from Heathrow to Victoria Coach Station. I had an hour wait at Victoria though, and it was the first time I had all my bags with me for such a long time. Eventually got the knack of managing those which was a relief!

After hanging round there for an hour, managed to get on my 4 hour bus trip to Liverpool. It went pretty well. I couldn't really get to sleep though which annoyed me! Eventually I must have though cos I was woken up by the bus driver saying we were gonna ave a quick rest stop. They have these cool rest stop things here with like a whole bunch of cafes and toilets and picnic tables. That was cool. So we eventually got back on the road and straight into gridlock traffic. Like, the bus driver turned the bus off we weren't moving. Naturally, we bonded as a group of young 'uns all travelling the bus together. The escape route hatch thing out the top of the bus was open cos it was so hot! Luckily the baby on the bus wasn't crying. But it added an extra 1.5 hours onto our journey. Apparently there was a chemical spill somewhere on the M6, fun times.

But after allll that I made it to Gabies in Liverpool. Made a beeline for the shower man!!

But your probably over reading by now, so I'll stop, and hope to post another blog soon about my time in Liverpool.

Catchya xx

Shoooopping

Zomg. Went shoping at an outlet store today. I'll take pics of everything I got, but Im gonna do a proper post when I have 2 hours on the train to London.

This is my favvvvvvourite thing I got.

I had an emotional connection to it.

UK....again

Yeeep. I'm back.
Currently in Liverpool staying at a mates place till Tuesday when I head back to London to start work.
Exhausted still, so will post about flights and stuffs laterrr

Flying over London