Our next stop was only a short bus ride away, and although it wasn’t quite as big and exciting as Manchester, it was
definitely a favourite in the UK for me – Liverpool. Being a huge supporter of Liverpool Football Club, I was overjoyed
when we discovered the accommodation we had booked was only 50 metres from Anfield Stadium, so naturally the
first thing we did was the stadium tour there too. Anfield is nowhere near the size of Old Trafford, but the tour was
every bit as informative. The guides told us stories about the history of the ground and the greats who had played
for Liverpool there, and even letting us in on some design secrets, such as making the home change rooms sound
proofed and air conditioned but not the away teams, and making the exit on the Liverpool side a lot smaller so as to
make the players appear bigger to the opposition when they walked out.
Bar the stadium tour most of our time in Liverpool was spent resting in our hotel, partly because of the miserable
English weather outside, but also because we had somehow managed to get ourselves beds in a sort of hotel place
who usually accommodated fans in need of a place to stay each weekend there was a home game. This meant that
while we were there, the place was completely empty with even the owner leaving for the week after a brief
welcome. We couldn’t believe it when she said we had access to whatever food we wanted, a fully stocked catering
kitchen, two massive flat screen TVs with cable channels, a choice of any of about 40 chairs in the dining room and
even a fully stocked bar, though we decided to leave that one be as neither of us were really in the mood for
drinking at this point. My one regret from Liverpool was definitely not having seen a game at Anfield. We had tried,
but tickets had sold out within days of being released during a time period were we had no access to internet, and
even if we had got them it would have meant readjusting our travel plans, so maybe it was for the better.
Leaving Liverpool for London meant that we now had about two weeks to spend in the capital, as a lack of funds
meant that we had had to abandon plans to visit a few places along the way, such as York, Oxford and Cambridge.
Although we were a bit disappointed by this, we knew there was plenty to do in London, and we had a few friends
there we could catch up with anyway so
all was not lost.
We spent our first few days staying with
Anna, our friend from Sydney who kindly
gave us beds during our first visit to
London. We ended up going to a second
division soccer game with her one day,
which was insane – the stadium was
completely full, despite not even being
the top division.
After staying a few days with Anna we decided to move to a more central hostel so as to not overstay our welcome,
and chose a place right in the centre of the city which was great, as it meant apart from anything else we saved a
fortune on tube fares. The rest of our stay in London was pretty quiet, with me getting ready to go home and Chris
getting ready for the second part of his trip; Africa.
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