The plan was to take a ferry back to England after Belfast, but after
receiving a message from a friend that I had worked with while I was
in Edinburgh I decided to head that way for a few days instead. I had
forgotten how much I enjoy the city of Edinburgh, it has so much charm
and history. And it is really nice to go somewhere that you already
know your way around.
After visiting Edinburgh I did a bit of jumping around England going
from Birmingham to Liverpool and back to Birmingham again before
heading to London. In Birmingham I visited another friend that I had
met while in Australia. The first round there we wandered about the
city and I saw that despite everyones jokes about Birmingham, its got
its charms. We also got a view from above when we hiked up a hill in
the snow (yup, thats right, snow. Weather has not been as co-operative
since I arrived back in the UK from Northern Ireland, lots of rain and
even a bit of snow!) to check out Birmingham and surrounding towns, and
of course we had to end with a pint up on the hill at the pub :) The
second round in Birmingham was a bit of a sports weekend watching my
friend Matt's rugby team play then watched England vs Ireland in the
club house. The next day it was the football (soccer) team Matt
supports playing Manchester United, a big deal I guess, so we went to
the local pub to watch the game, and I must say it was hard not to get
into it. It was absolutely jam packed, reeked of beer and sweat from
mass amount of people there (I am sure they would have been well over
the legal limit of people if it were in Canada). Even when the screen
was blocked by some big burly bloke you could still know what was going
on just by the reaction of all the people around you, it was really
fantastic! There were a few kids running around and sitting at the bar
with pint glasses lined in front of them. The kids were not drinking of
course but it still makes me look twice when I see a kid wander by in a
mass of drinking adults. But it is really neat to see how the kids are
taken care of. When they are trying to push through the crow of adults
towering over them, its just a matter of them getting the attention of
the first person they need to pass and then a path is clear for them
from there with everyone tapping the next person on the shoulder to let
them know a little one is passing through, quite cute to watch. And for a fantastic end to the evening around midnight UK time we were at friends of Matt's when they happened to flip the tv on to the olympics and I got to watch the end of the gold medal match for men's hockey US vs Canada, it was brilliant!
While in Liverpool I got to meet up with Mandy whom most of you know is
one of my bosses from my job at Pivotal Events the event planning
company. When Mandy wasn't getting some work done we had fun touring
around Liverpool and even managed a half day trip to Chester a city
with its city center enclosed by a wall built back in the day that they
never took down. In Liverpool we of course check out the Beatles museum
and some of the streets associated with them. We also climbed up the
tower in the Old Cathedral, which was Mandy's first time despite
growing up in Liverpool so that was fun. While at the top as windy as
it was we got a good 360 view of the city. It was great to have Mandy
there to point everything out as I would have just stared blankly out
over the city had I been on my own. I had a quick stop over in
Manchester and from there popped over to York which is like Chester
with a wall surrounding the city but it is even older. It was just a
quick wander through Chester most of the time spent in shops trying to
get out of the rain/snow.
So its back to London for me then I will be heading down to Lille,
France for a few days to visit another friend met in Oz, and hopefully
we'll take a trip over to Bruges, Belgium as well before heading back
to London to wait for a few days until Zack arrives to join me for
Morocco!
