Mischief in Europe: Come Together

I arrived in Liverpool. It was a nice day out, it was not to last. I checked in chilly. It was about 5 in the evening when I checked in so I was in a sort of lull zone between things to do. I decided to just go out and explore. I came across half the city waiting around for what can only be described as the coolest art exhibit ever! It was an enormous 60 foot marionette! Through my powers of observation I deduced he would be walking soon. There was a band to accompany him. He also had a lady friend and a dog. He "walked" by having two guys grab a rope and jump from a platform to lift one leg. So cool! One of my roommates at the hostel was a retired Frenchman who talked in his sleep and had violent fits of snoring. He didn't rhythmically snore with the rhythm of his breathing. Oh no dear reader, it would be all quiet on the western front when all of a sudden a great crashing of howling and phlegm rattling would burst through the air. He would then mutter something in French. This was punctuated with regular wakings to go to the water closet. I tried so hard to fall asleep in those few minutes to no avail. It was comical, the later it got, the harder I tried, the harder I tried the more I pressured myself to fall asleep, the more I pressured myself the harder it was to do and repeat the vicious circle. I can only assume this nice man has no wife or he would have long been smothered with a pillow by now.

Liverpool is known for having a couple spectacular cathedrals. They were. I climbed the bell tower at the Anglican Cathedral for the best views of the city. It was staggeringly high and on the way up I got to see what the top side of a vaulted ceiling looks like. It was pretty neat to see the less glamorous side of it. The Anglican Cathedral was huge. But not nearly as huge as the Metropolitan Cathedral would have been if WWII hadn't interrupted it's construction. If the Metropolitan Cathedral would have gone on as planned it would have dwarfed Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in London.

It also wouldn't have been totally completed until 2008! 75 years and over $1.6 billion in today's money (roughly adjusted for GBP-USD conversion). Construction of the second largest cathedral in the world was halted due to a need for materials and manpower to fight WWII. When building recommenced a striking modern design was chosen. Because it was using new and relatively unconventional materials they failed after a few years. The caption of this picture of a picture sums up nicely what is going on. I found it amusing.

That's enough Liverpool Met Cat history lesson. The Tate Modern in London has a museum in Liverpool as well. You know it's a modern art museum when there is a sign advising you that the following piece has...

Yep, 4 televisions set 2x2 showing 4 different people hurling simultaneously. I physically lol'd. It was a wonderful museum though. They had many works by Dali, Picasso, and Warhol. All it needed was a Lichtenstein to complete it and I would have moved in.

I ate at couple Beatles themed places and went to the Beatles museum there. It was cool, no exciting stories from there. But it was nice. It was the last place I was seeing before my bus left and as I went to leave to go to the hostel to pick up my bag so I could walk to the bus stop it was pouring rain. I waited. It poured harder. "Patience is a virtue" I told myself. It flipped me the proverbial bird and rained harder. Not wanting to walk 15 minutes to the hostel and 10 to the bus station and ride a bus to Manchester soaking wet I cracked and bought an expensive umbrella from the gift shop. I am now the proud owner of a bright pink $30 Beatles umbrella haha. Speaking of the bus ride, I sat a couple rows behind a group of students from all over (Germany, Spain, Korea, and Switzerland) who were all classmates. So in America we say a dog says "Woof! Woof!" In Korean it's "Mung! Mung!" and frogs go "Gecko Gecko". Laughter from everyone who overheard. Ok, Pics and then off to explore Edinburgh. Hopefully do the West Highland Way post tonight.