Day 37

Today we had the morning until 1 to look around Liverpool. With our limited transportation and knowledge of the city most people just decided to go to Albert Dock, which was really close to our hostel. The four of us got there just after 9, and then realized that nothing opened until 10. We found a place to sit for a little bit, and found these weird creature statues that looked like some kind of dog with a really long tail. It turns out Liverpool is doing something similar to what Bath is doing with the weird decorated animals all around the city. But instead of pigs, these are actually “superlambananas”, no joke. So they look like sheep, but their tails look like bananas. Psycho Liverpudlians (yes that is what they are called!). Also, the impression I got of Liverpool was that it is a very bleak place. I guess the fact that it was rainy and hazy didn’t help. But seriously, it hardly has any green anywhere and it seemed to be very industrial or something. Finally at 10 we went over to the place where they sold tickets for duck tours (a tour where you go in a boat that can also drive around), but they were all sold out. So instead we went to the Maritime Museum and looked around for a while. I was a little worried because the last maritime museum we went to in Greenwich was super lame-o and I didn’t enjoy myself at all. But this one was cool because it had more exhibitions on emigration and things like that because Liverpool was a huge emigration point- almost all the church members who came to America from England and some parts of Europe went through Liverpool. At 11 we went on this little tour through one of the exhibitions with one of the museum workers. Probably my favorite part of said tour was when the guide was talking about the plague and how people had to wear masks to protect them from the bad air. And while doing so she proceeded to put one of these extremely attractive masks right on Robyn’s confused face. Amazing. After the tour we walked around the dock and got lunch, then went in some shops at looked at the Beatles memorabilia. Then it was back to the hostel to meet up and once again get on the coach for another few hours.
We drove to where our hostel was in Ambleside, which is a town at the top of Lake Windermere. Lake Windermere is a lake in the Lakes District of England- beautiful! Instead of going straight to the hostel we went to the little town of Hawkshead just a few miles past Ambleside. It is famous because William Wordsworth went to school there and Beatrix Potter lived nearby. On the drive it was really funny because we were in this huge coach driving through a really narrow road so when the cars would see us they would just cower against the other side of the road and wait for us to pass. We were trying to get there in time to go to the Beatrix Potter gallery, but alas, we didn’t get there in time. And her hill top house was also closed. But we did go into some cute shops and I bought The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which I thought was really appropriate. We drove back to our hostel and got all situated and checked in. On the drive back on the narrow road we caused a little traffic jam because there was a city bus driving the opposite direction. It was a big ordeal for us to let all the cars pass, then they had to back up, then we barely got past. I went and sat up at the very front of the bus so I would have a good view and it was very entertaining. Once at the hostel we went into the cute town and got some food for dinner, then came back and ate. At 9 we had a little celebration for Andy Chapman, son of Dr. Chapman, because it was his 18th birthday. There have been tons of birthdays in our group in the past few weeks. It was fun and then we ended the night relaxing and reading.