Chester & Liverpool: Part I

I really don't like taking planes. So I took a 7-hour ferry from Dublin to Liverpool, which basically flew by because I made a friend to play cards with, hangout and have some afternoon beers with. Here's the thing, when you take a plane it ends up not actually being much shorter. Why? Because you always have to get to the airport (+1 hour), you have to get there early (+2 hours for within the EU), take the flight (+1 hour in this case) and then you have to get from the airport to town (+1 hour). That's a total of 5 hours and my ferry was only 7 and a lot less trouble. Plus it was only 45 euro as a foot passenger with unlimited baggage. If you're ever going from Dublin to Liverpool, I recommend the Norfolk Line Ferries (http://www.norfolkline.com). P&O Ferries goes the same route, but you can only go with a car.

The funny part is, the first thing I thought when I saw this play area was "nap". But apparently enough people had the same idea that they actually had to make that sign. Oops.

After an epic walk to the Hamilton Square train station with a random drunk man, I finally got on the train to Chester and was greeted by Gulli at the station. Once there I was fed well and treated to wine and some sweet home style dining. This is Ollie, Laura and Gulli bein' all cute at the dinner table. Gulli's interpretation of cute is a bit different from theirs, it seems.

Of course, Gulli and Ollie force fed us lots of wine. Here is Laura being a "victim". Thus, the whole time I was there I mostly just giggled and drunk Skyped. And ate more.

This is the face he makes when he likes you.

Chester is pretty! The canal we walked along to get to the train station.

Chester apparently has the only fully intact medieval walls in England. But it also has a designated pidgeon feeding area.

Our trip to Liverpool was right before Easter and I found this sign particularly hilarious. Easter EGGsperience. Bwahahaha.

There's all these really interesting/kinda cute messages around Liverpool about being close to your neighbors and stuff that I really like. This one says, "6.8 million people live alone in England. Do you feel lonely?"



And this one, "There are 3951 people for every km2 in this city. Do you like your neighbors?"

While the China Town of Liverpool is not very impressive, this gate is. I did go into a pretty epic Asian food store though where I became obsessed with peanut mochi and further fed into my instant noodles habit. That's literally what I'm been living on (and hummus) since I'm getting really low on that money thing. I really like instant noodles though, so I guess it's okay.

Action shot! I'm really good at taking attractive photos of people.

Liverpool! Near the Tate Modern, which was free! My favorite was the 2nd floor where they gave you headphones blasting techno and you got to dance while looking at the art. Art is SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING while dancing.

At the very top you can sort of see the Liva bird. This tower has two of them facing away from each other that are both chained to the building. The story is that if the chains are released they'll turn around, fall in love and fly away and then Liverpool will cease to exist. Aww.