England Day 3: Here Comes the Sun

We woke very early to a cold and rainy day as we had an 8:30a train to catch for our journey to Liverpool. Debs made us bacon sandwiches with HP sauce (or brown sauce as it's called in England). The bacon is much different than in the US, it's in round pieces, not strips, and is more like ham than what we know as bacon. I love HP sauce, however, and eat it now at home on many things. Scott delayed going to work so that he could ride into London with us on the train. He drove us to the train station in Wivenhoe and we caught the train to London Liverpool St. Once we arrived there a little over an hour later, we changed from the train to the underground tube and rode to Euston Station. Scott got off at the stop before us and continued on to work. At Euston Station, we had to climb the stairs to street level, walk around the block, and transfer again to the train station.

We had a few minutes to kill before the train left so we had a drink at the station. I needed to use the bathroom and got a big surprise - it cost me 30 pence to use it! I had to put money into a turnstile to even get in the door. Inside the stall, there was an advertisement printed on the wall, "Jack and Jill went up the hill to have a bit of fun. Sadly Jill forgot the pill and now they have a son." I could not stop laughing at that. Way to go liberal England! No wonder they have a lower pregnancy rate than the US. We found our train and our reserved seats which, unfortunately for Mike, I had inadvertently booked in the "quiet car". I didn't know what that meant but we quickly found out and he was none too happy. We arrived in Liverpool about two hours later where it was still cold but sunny and beautiful. We grabbed one of their black cabs to our hotel for the next two nights, Heywood House.

There was a souvenir rubber ducky in the shower.

And a balcony with a view of the building next door.

We didn't stay at the hotel long because we wanted to make it down to the docks for a ferry ride before dark. We were only a couple of blocks away from the seafront.

Down at the waterfront, we saw a diabetic alert dog getting a drink.

Around 3p, it was time to board the ferry. Normally the ferry makes several stops where you can get off and tour a German U-boat, a space museum, and some other attractions but since it was the last ferry of the day, this one would not be making any stops. Instead, we would spend about 50 minutes making a large circle in the bay in front of the Liverpool waterfront.

We started out on the open deck but holy crap it was cold!

The view of the waterfont and the contrast between the old and new buildings was striking.

What the hell is this weird box on top of this building?

We thought this yellow thing on top was a helicopter but upon closer inspection it was actually a crane.

We had to take a break inside to warm up.

When we returned to the docks, we took a look around "The Beatles Story," a collection of black and white photos taken by Paul Berriff in 1963 and 1964. We bought several souvenirs including a miniature version of George Harrison's Gretsch guitar. It was already getting dark so we made our way down the waterfront towards the Albert Docks area and on to a little brewpub I wanted to visit called the Baltic Fleet. The Baltic Fleet has been around since the 1600s and I don't think it's been cleaned in all that time. It was filthy but it did have character. We met an older couple from Yorkshire there and struck up a conversation about their/our world travels. After a couple of drinks, we headed out into the cold, dark night again to walk over to Salt House Tapas for dinner. There we shared a jug of sangria and tapas of sardines with orange, fennel, and almonds, steamed mussels, and Korean ribs. Sitting next to us at dinner were two strapping men who were oil workers from London. We chatted with them about American and English politics for a couple of rounds after dinner then caught a taxi back to our hotel to call it a night.