A Day in.... Liverpool

Day 1

"Now this is how it feels like to be in a somewhat acceptable hostel. Interesting."
The Hatters Hostel close to the Lime Street train station is an ok hostel. I had a 12-bed mixed dorm, sadly it was really freezing cold and you couldn't close the door of the shower cabin. Which of course meant that a guy managed to walk in on me changing (or well, my almost naked back). Thanks for that....
The first evening we actually met a few French teenagers who had a limited English vocabulary before going out for a few drinks at a place called Hannah's bar. The most intersting part of the evening however was the little bar fight and the very long verbal fight that went on outside. Sadly we couldn't hear a thing, but the guys came back two times and worked up a rage that looked almost comical from the safety within.

The next morning, after having a nice breakfast, we decided to walk around for a bit, down a shopping street and then towards the Central Library. Right next to it are the World Museum and the Walker Art Gallery but we've seen so many museums this week that we stayed away from those.
The library is ok, it has an extremely modern feeling to it until you go into the old part that looks like straight out of Hogwarts.
I can't wait to go to University. I don't even know if my future university has this kind of old-fashioned library - I can't really imagine it - but I love the quiet that goes along with a place like that.

Speaking of which, our next stop was the University of Liverpool. At least we wanted to look at it from the outside. It's interesting how many different buildings there are, sometimes you couldn't even imagine them all belonging to one institute.
Tip: We were there on a Tursday and ran into a food market outside the Liverpool Guild of Students. Not only did I have a hotdog, but there is a stand with a fantastic cake diversity. We got one each and we had enough to save some for later.

If you are already there, you can also visit the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. The building is modern and impressive, I can't even describe it. It looks a bit like a crown from the outside and is high enough to make you feel small without even having a look at the inside.
Inside the modern theme goes on. You can walk around the circular walls and look at pictures and statues. You can sit down and pray of course. As long as you look up at some point at the coloured windows that illuminate everything in a shining light.

And while we are talking about churches: Consider visiting the Liverpool Cathedral. Apparently the building is only about a hundred years old but was built in a Gothic style. Including the 'wildlife' surrounding it it looks like s place out of a fairytale. The first time you walk in you can't help but let out a small 'Oh'.  Hell, you will get a strained neck from looking up all the time, but it's worth it! That evening there was apparently a music event since a stage and lights were all set up and the musicians where beginning to sit down. In here we also met a nice guy who painted the Lady Chapel in the back. Nice guy, even though he seemed a bit disillusioned about his fame and the way the world works.

Now that was already a lot for one day, but we decided to go to one last stop: the Wharf. A lot of interesting museums are down there. We didn't want to visit one of them just yet, a little break at the seaside is a nice thing on its own. For anyone who likes the Beatles, there is a statue and a museum about the four Liverpooler there. For everyone else there are the Slavery Museum, the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Tate Liverpool and Liverpool Pictures. You could probably spent a whole day down here at the docks.

Now, one thing we notices throughout the whole day were people in yellow and black outfits. Only someone who doesn't look up from the pavement could have missed them to be honest. And for us Germans it was more than obvious what was going on. A football game between Liverpool and Dortmund - here in Liverpool! And of course coming all the way to Liverpool for a game means that those guys are die hard fans which was obvious in their behaviour and their attire. The most interesting one was a maybe 60 years old guy in a yellow-black skirt and a Pickelhaube, a spiked helmet that is typical for German history.
And they are really nice! As soon as they notice we are German they offered to take photos for us and visa versa. A bit of small talk about the upcoming game and why we are here (since we didn't have any fan clothes on) and about how we would wreck the Liverpooler (we didn't).
Of course, that also means that the three of us looked for a sports bar to watch the game. Instead of showing some patriotism we kept down our cheers at every German goal and our conversations restricted to English. Good idea as it turned out, the guys around us - mostly middle aged a bit drunk - got angry to a point where it wasn't funny anymore. I mean, having to take out your asthma inhaler because of sports isn't exactly something you joke about. Poor guy.
In the end we lost 3:4 and made our way back to the hostel after a few minutes.

Day 2

One thing about losing a football game is that you can see who exactly lost the very next morning. Where Dortmund fans were hopeful and optimistic the day before they were only sad faces and silence left. In moments like this I'm really happy I'm not a big football fan.

For our last day of the trip we wanted to take it slower than before so we went back down to the docks to visit the Slavery Museum. In addition to our group of three a guy who is English but favers German football clubs tagged along. Apparently he was in my friends room but was so drunk that he didn't find his bed. He pretty much came with us just to leave ten minutes into looking at info panels at the museum to meet a friend or something like that. Weird...
Since we did most of what you can do as a tourist the day before, we went for a little relaxing shopping tour - especially because I still needed a birthday present for my au pair host dad! - right after a stop at Subway for dinner. On the street you could still buy football scarves, even though the ones specially for the game the day before were gone.And again you could see sad German people walking around in their Dortmund outfits.
One thing I always considered weird until I understood that it is just pure sexism is how worked up everyone gets about sports, and that riots are almost normal when your team looses, yet we make fun of teenage firls who get excited when they meet their idols who might have unknowingly saved them. Honestly, middle aged men destroying private and government property because a few guys fucked up in a game is more acceptable then a crying 15-year old?! Wow.

Anyway, we made our way back to the hostel to get our bags and walk to the coach station to get our bus. Of course, something had to go wrong; in this case, it was that the original coach station that our GPS brought us to was closed down already which means we had to walk another 15 minutes to the actual pick-up place. We basically speed walked there only to discover that our bus was an hour late. I'm not even sure if I should be happy and not.
But god, ones it was there it was awesome. Sure, coaches are not as comfortable was a train, but the feeling to be on your way back home is all I needed after this holiday.
It was good, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't perfect. Especially the sleeping places. And one week of sleeping relatively bad is enough to drain you of every ounce of excitement. Still, if you have a week of, this three cities are close to one another and worth a visit.
Thanks for reading!

A Day in... Manchester

Second stop of our little trip through the North: Manchester!

Day 1

After the shock of Leeds and totally exhausted from carrying our bags around all day we arrived at the coach station in Manchester. We all agreed to go straight to bed, only problem: Because I booked after my friends, they had a double bed in an ibis budget hotel and I was in a hostel not too far away. So we said goodbye for the night and went into different directions.

I had a bed in a mixed 28-bed dorm. And honestly, the first night was totally fine! There was only me and three other guys and we managed to spread out so I couldn't even really see them. Only negative things: the shower in the basement is freezing cold because the ventilation didn't stop and the lights in the room didn't turn off until midnight.

After a short breakfast my friends and I met up at my hostel and walked to the National Football Museum (I mean, it's Manchester, come on) which is free and explains a lot about the sports history, developments and aspects like tragedies, women's participation, LGBT+ members and famous footballers. Not only football fans will find something worth looking at in here.

Next point on our list was the second largest China Town in the UK, which was... really disappointing. When you are used to the tourist attraction that is London's China Town the normal looking part that we walked through just looks like any other. The archway was cool though!
At this point we were so hungry we went into a buffet restaurant lust opposite of the arch and made our way through everything they had including dessert. The guy at the counter was really nice and it was cheaper than a single meal in any of the other restaurants we walked by so check it out.

If you are in China Town you just have to walk a few minutes to get to the Manchester Art Gallery. If the weather is bad or you need to go somewhere where you can stretch your legs for a bit a museum is always the best option and this one actually has nice paintings. It also has an entire level dedicated to modern art which is not really something I enjoy in most cases. Like, ok, that a picture of an empty vase. Nice. Ok. Next!
One exhibition my friend was looking forward to in here, and me too when she told me about it, is the Imitation Game. Apparently it's about how an AI can 'grow' and develope by learning. You ask it a question, it learns from it... somehow. I say somehow because it didn't work when we got there. It was set up and you could tip in your question, but it just didn't react. Disappointing, but nothing we could do about it.
For all those who are still kids in there hearts, one tip I can give you is to play "If I were you..." in a museum. The possibilities are endless, there is almost always someone around who would be scandalized by the ridiculous dares you can come up with and if it gets out of hand declare it an art project! Perfect.

And because we were not finished with culture for that day we did a quick stop at the gigantic beautiful library that you can actually see from the museum. It's one of those old ones where you are afraid to breath too loudly in case a stern looking woman with glasses shushes you. I love it. Makes me really excited for university and the unavoidable question 'why am I doing this to myself, I could just start as a stripper'.

Because we still had time to kill we walked through the gigantic Arndale shopping centre and then headed towards the ibis hotel. I just wanted to take a shower in a place where I wouldn't have to freeze to death as soon as I turned out the water. And hell, the showerhead even shone in different colours! And they had a TV! I almost didn't leave.
I wish I hadn't when there was a problem with the room and who has to go into which bed until the manager, with a guest list in his hand, figured out that two guys slept in the wrong room. At this point every bed was occupied and I was still the only girl. A+ logistics, really. Good thing I was too exhausted to really care.

Day 2

Day 2 started out by going to yet another museum. This time, it the People's Museum next to the river where I met my friends. Again, it is really cool, with a temporary (?) exhibition of old photografs from the very beginning of this new technology. It shows workers and how they lived, worked,  looked like. Really interesting, to look at all those faces of people with history, families, problems and to not know anything about them and what went on in their heads. It makes you feel small and unimportant. One day, our photos and selfies will be hanging in museums and people will stare at us und try to figure out how we lived. It's easy to get lost in thoughts like this when looking at blurry,  washed out grey-and-white pictures of strangers.

On the second floor a history of wars and revolutions leads you through the centuries all the way up to the Second World War (what else?). There are several interactive computers that show you the history of several generations of one family as well as dress-up stations. Just don't get lost!


After a more or less quick lunch outside, the sun came out at last!, we went on our way again. Our original plan was to go to one of the universities, only did we figure out we were on our way to the wrong one halfway through so we turned around and gave up on that plan in favor of going to the Northern Quarter.
Or, well, I did and my two fellow au pairs went into the shopping centre once again. To be fair, we knew the Northern Quarter are supposed to be more of a hipster vintage part of  Manchester which is my style, not theirs. It actually has a really nice second hand book shop, vintage shops that sometimes wanted more money than I could offer for a skirt and a forbitten planet. There are also all kinds of coffee shops that look like the cutest little things, god I love those.
Actually, one of those coffee shops was our next destination. We made it our mission to have an actual tea time at least once and this was it. We orders tea and scones for my friends and magnificent madeleines for me. as I mentioned, it looks really cute and lovely with small details you wouldn't even think about. The cake table was hugh and the tea really good. Plus point out of luck: my madeleines didn't come in time, no idea why, so they gave me two and said I had to wait another ten minutes for my food because they were freshly made. It wasn't ideal, but whatever, at least they will be fresh. They tast like vanilla and are eaten with whipped cream by the way.
And in the end, my whole order was on the house, so I didn't even have to pay one cent! I honestly didn't expect that and would have been ok with waiting, but I also won't say no to a kind gesture like that. It's called teacup kitchen and I can definitely recommand it (because of  the food and the service, don't worry).

I felt like I couldn't eat anything anymore for the rest of my life.
From there I went to pack my back at the hostel and straight to the train station where we met up once again to get train tickets to Liverpool. That's just a lot more comfortable than a coach and faster. With the amongst of travelling we would be doing that week we sure as hell deserve some comfort.

So off we were, on to our final destination.

A Day in... Leeds

Day 1

One thing you get used to as an au pair in England, especially with kids that go to a private school, is that they have a lot of school breaks. Since the kids have two to three weeks of holiday again, two friends and I decided to go on a little trip around the North of England. Well, they pretty much planned it and I was too chicken to admit I had the week off, too, until almost a month later. Ups...

Anyway, the first stop on our tour was Leeds. The bus trip was almost 4,5h long that I spent reading Game of Thrones, maybe one day I'll even finish it. Once we arrived we still had a few hours until the check-in which we spent sitting in a park eating lunch. The weather was nice for a change and we knew it wouldn't last for long - another thing you learn quickly here. When we gathered our luggage to find our hostel we didn't know we were on our way to hell.

The place we were supposed to stay at is called Russell Scott Backpackers, is outside the city centre and privately owned. We joked around that the picture on the internet looks like a small, old lady will open the door and fuss around. Instead we had to call the reception to even get into the building in the first place. While waiting there we also figured out that I booked the next bus at the wrong time which means I had to cancel and rebook. The woman that came to open the door for us let me use her PC and then we were off on our way our rooms.
We lived in another building down the street. Not only were we not able to lok the front door or the door to the first room we were let into but the whole place was dirty and unsave - the fire alarms were not activated, anybody could have walked into the house and our room, the floor was loose in some places and the whole thing smelled like nobody opened the windows in ten years.
We were brought to a new room which had a double bed on the first floor. My room didn't have a key, so I decided to go into a 4-bed room were another girl was in apparently. We wanted to meet up with an ex-au pair so we left our things behind and left.

Since we still had an hour we went into the Leeds City Museum at the Millenium Square which has a nice exhibition about the LGBT+ community and past in the city as well as a short overview of the history. When we meet our friend in front of the building we decided to get a drink since the three of us really needed it at this point. SHe showed us a little pub in a side street with cheap drink and nice looking locals and we catched up on how we were and what we did. After that we went to another bar that was more 'public' and then went for a burger at Five Guys. It's weird to see how laid back the city is after living in the rather hectic London and looking after kids most of the time. All of us were exhausted and it was obvious we just wanted to sleep, so we said goodbye and left rather quickly.

However, going back to our hostel wasn't exactly relaxing. A guy that lived in our house as well was turning weirder and made us more uncomfortable with every minute we talked to him to the point were I actually took a knife with me upstairs cause I wasn't sure he wouldn't be dangerous - he made enough jokes about it anyway.
Needless to say I didn't get a good night's sleep.

Day 2

After an aweful night and a unsatisfying breakfast my friends and I packed our bags and left for the reception to give back the key.... and complain about the state of the building. We had to wait a few minutes for the owner to come to the house, but once she did and we told her evrything that was wrong, including the meeting with the gay and how unsafe we felt, we managed to get a refund. In better spirits, we took our luggage into the city only to find out we had to carry them with us because the lockers were way too expensive.

We spent most of the day strolling through shops (where I actually found two jackets I could use for my Harley Quinn cosplay for comic con next month - yeah!), avery cool modern shopping centre and getting something to eat. We walked through the Corn Exchange and Kirkgate Market but we weren't able to find something we all wanted.

In the end we went to a place called "Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen" that was recommanded to us by our friend and where they sell cheap but amazing pizza (first two pieces half-price!) and that had a hipster vibe going on. Apparently they do music and movie events, too, you should really check it out! I think I could spent our there.

Anyway, the only museum we were really interested in was across the river so we headed that way. The Royal Armouries Museum is big and more interesting than you would think when you hear the name. They even had lockers were we could leave our bags for a little while. We came just in time

for a little tour by a guy in costume who explained different weapons and how they were used at the time. Great thing, the only problem is that is closes at 5pm already. Later we went straight to the coach station to wait for our bus to Manchester without having to carry all of our bags around again. It hurts your back after a while.

All in all, the hostel and the bus dilemma put a strain on the whole Leeds-experience, but thanks to our friend Megan (it was nice seeming you again!) it wasn' totally aweful. I think the laid-back mentality and the little bars and secrets in every corner actually put it pretty high on my list of 'possible semester abroad places'. If you are more of a tide-up person you won't find it very endearing, but for me it sends a don't-give-a-fuck vibe that's very appealing when you are used to stress about everything.

Windsor Castle

Most people know Windsor Castle because it's the resistance of the Queen for, according to the audio guide, most weekends. It's actually rather easy to get to Windsor. There is a train from Waterloo passing Clapham Junction as well that goes straight to a lovely little train station from where you can see the castle when you look left.

Just a walk up the hill brings you to the entrance. It's 18 pounds for students – my run-out student card from school still works since no one really takes a closer look once they see it's German. If you get a signature in the end you can come back for free for a whole year though, so it's definitely worth it if you don't have enough time or want to see a section that not open all year long. And the prize includes audio guides!

The castle is hugh, just to warn you. At the end it's actually hard to pay attention or care about whose portrait it is or how old the china is. You can see the guard change if you arrive on time (and only on Sundays I think), visit the state appartments, Queen Mary's Dolls' House which is probably worth more than my future university education as well as the St. George's Chapel unless it's a Sunday. There is also a little part where you can learn more about Shakespeare and why Windsor is an important place for the historic play writer.

It's really nice, especially the garden you can see around the Round Tower, including a little waterfall, don't cease to amaze. Just watch out for Guards shouting when you get in there way as we had to find out ourselves.

Luckily the grounds are so big that you don't feel cornered. And if you are lucky and the sun is out, you can get some really good looking photos.

After a few hours we left and went to get lunch at the Nando's across the street. The Guy taking my order was red-haired and called Harry, I don't even wanna know how many jokes he has to endure. Also, who the hell manages to eat an entire chicken, I only had 1/4 with hot sauce, spicy rice and sweetcorn and I was full.

The rest of the afternoon we spent making our way through the shopping street and having a little walk along the Thames. We would have probably spent more time there, but it was getting cloudy and we could feel the first raindrops falling. I'm sure it would have been lovely if the sun had shone though, it all looked very peaceful.

The train ride back was rather uneventful apart from my very first ticket inspection in the UK so far. So there are actually keeping track of illegal passengers.