Cheers Love!

We are now on day 14 of our trip and the past two weeks have managed to fly by while going equally as slow. We have ventured from London to Nottingham, Notthingham to Liverpool and Liverpool to Manchester. We did the first trek of our trip by bus and a small piece of advice: NEVER TRAVEL BY BUS IN THE UK. We went to the bus station about two hours earlier than necessary due to the sheer fact that we had to check out of our hotel. We got there to a ridiculously crowded bus station, two heavy packs in a room with limited seating and little ventilation made me one very annoyed Canadian. The Brits have no concept on what it means to probably line up or to listen to instructions. Our bus was delayed for an extra hour and to make matters worse there were people standing in line for the entire time making it almost impossible to navigate to see the screen. The National Express Busline made Greyhound Stations look like The Buckingham Palace of all bus services and that is nearly impossible.

 We arrived in Nottingham two hours later than our estimated arrival time and the bus had actually given me motion sickness. This amused me slightly only because I am not the Thompson that succumbs to motion sickness that title goes to my younger brother who would shamelessly use it to always get shut gun. The speeding up and slowing down of the bus was enough to put my stomach on edge and burn my leg as the radiator by our feet was turned up to unncessary heats. Needless to say I will not be growing leg hair on my right lower leg for awhile, I could almost smell the burning skin/leg hairs. Traveling out of packs is by no way the worst way to travel but everytime I see someone with those massive wheely bags I am almost desperate to try and pay them to trade me. I find when I am moving the pack seems to sit nicely on my back and all is in good working order but my travel partner has taken up needing to go pee whenever I have a good thing going making me stand for periods of time, this has undoubtely resulted in death glares and sharp tones. Nottingham was a cute enough English town with ties to the great Robin Hood. Now the Robin Hood I was exposed to as a child was a fox from the great classic Disney movie. It was really exciting therefore to be in the very town where the cartoon took place.

 The people of Nottingham do love their Robin Hood and I was able to learn more about the man who stole from rich to give to the needy. We were unable to make our way out to Sherwood Forrest mostly due to the fact that my travel partner was more eager to relax encouraging a more than 15 hour long stint in our room. He discovered the room had wifi and all hopes of outside socialization was thrown out the window. Nottingham was small and we could navigate the entire city in a couple hours. The highlight were the caves that are all man made that all lie below the city and Nottingham Castle. We went on a tour of the ones underneath Nottingham Castle and they were the ones that were not as commercialized and contained the most interesting history. My favourite story is of the King who was dethroned and thrown down one the cave holes. A morbid favourite but oh well.

 We moved on from Notthingham to Liverpool and the smooth train ride was so relaxing that I had myself question why I ever chose the bus. (The reason being my inherent need to be cheap.) Liverpool was probably my favourite place after London in the UK. They love their Beatles and football as previously stated and also they love their shopping. There were huge sections of the city dedicated to just to shopping. Now I have never been the one keen on shopping and if you ever have to shop with my sister Jenny you would understand. All the shops were great but not wanting to spend money, avoid adding anything extra to the bags and the undeniable fact that I am much to wide for the fashion in Britan were all factors contributing to the fact that the exctiement was lost on me. We did go on a great free walking tour that gave us a little history of the city which was funny and informative. The fun fact from the tour was that even though it had never been to Liverpool the company that owned the Titanic came from Liverpool with their offices held within a building that looks like bacon. Mmm bacon. 

                                           

                              My travel partner with John Lennon -- Liverpool 

It was a forty minute train ride from Liverpool to Manchester and the night before our departure we spent a couple hours scrambling for a better hostel. I made the mistake of looking up our intended hostel for my travel partner and the low scores made it so he wanted nothing to do with the place and so as a result we looked for a new reasonably priced/good score place. Luckily the Hatters Hostel in Liverpool had a sister hostel in Manchester and that was where we decided to lay our head for a couple of days. I tried to point out my 12% deposit on the other hostel in hopes of staying but alas like other things it was ignored and I was out 25 Canadian dollars. Men. Manchester sadly did not live up to my expectations and was kind of a flop of a city. It did house the National Football Museum which I LOVED even though my travel partner reminded me bitterly that he hated soccer (just cause of his lack of talent if I had a guess) and the most beautiful Library I could have ever seen. The John Rylands Library was well worth the visit here. Tomorrow we depart off to Dublin where my travel partner thinks he has ties to with no actual confirmation from his parents. I have been having to listen to his constant need to remind me that is where his ancestors come from and it has gotten as old as his "mayor son jokes". I am most excited to be out of the UK just solely for the fact that our dollar fares better there.

Reading in the worlds most beautiful library. 

 Goodbye UK, Hello Ireland! Let's see if this little(ish) Eskimo can get her travel partner to partake in some Irish Jigging lessons.