Hostel was very clean and quiet with plenty of common space (room with pool table, tv, books to read etc). Kitchen wasn’t quite as clean, but they provided free toast, tea and coffee. All rooms had private bathrooms and hostel was very secure (with electronic keycards).
The hostel was very close to center of town (about a five-minute walk), and there are lots of take-away shops and pubs close by. Great location to position yourself for a few nights in Liverpool.
We’ve been on holidays these past few days – decided it was time to take some time off (… being a tourist in Edinburgh…) to be a tourist in Liverpool, home of the Beatles. Elysha is a huge fan, so off we jetted. Liverpool is an interesting town, used to be one of the bigger ports for England. Nowadays the port doesn’t get as much business, and you can tell. The town has a lot of deserted and run down buildings. On the other hand, Liverpool boasts a University with 70,000 students – pubs everywhere! Stayed in a fantastic hostel, after walking in, Tash pointed out the smell. ‘What smell’, I asked, immediently worried. Turns out she was happy about the lack of smell… Elysha was a bit disappointed over the lack of Beatles memorabilia (we brought all our souvenirs at the airport, better and cheaper!), but Tash and I thought it was tacky and great fun! Went on the Magical Mystery Tour – a tour bus that stops at all the houses where each of the Beatles were born, everyone troops out of the bus and takes photos of the houses and then troops back onto the bus. The poor people that now live in these houses – I feel sorry for the people who will eventually buy our house back in Toomuc Valley. Imagine all those people that will stop to look at the house because the famous Bobbi once lived there… hehe
Magical Mystery Tour Bus
Apart from that, we’ve just been doing the same old same old. Elysha and I ventured out the other night to find some-where new to eat, ended up at a quaint little Italian restaurant, very cute, although the waiter left us a little perplexed. An Italian accent is hard enough to decipher on its own – try throwing a bit of Scottish into the equation as well, absolutely impossible! After dinner I tried a fried mars bar – didn’t need any vodka that night – I was well and truly high after the layers of sugar and fat. Not bad though 🙂
Totally used to life at the hostel now. Spend most evenings with the crowd in at reception, listening to music and talking general rubbish. The other night, one of the girls commented that when we all get home, we are going to wake up in the middle of the night and want to have a conversation about nothing – and have no-one to talk to. At the hostel, there is ALWAYS some-one awake, always some-one to talk to. Have mildly been discussing setting up a phone-club, so once we’re home we always have some-one to call in the middle of the night, to talk about nothing at all. Dealing with everyday things can be tough, I constantly dream about being back home, in my own kitchen, when finding a bowl for cereal is not an ordeal. Was eating brekky the other day, when one of my friends came in, and sat down. Placed his pint glass of tea on the table (no mugs left), and proceeded to take a handful of cornflakes from the box, followed by a swig of milk from the carton. “No bowls” he grumbled as he grabbed the paper…
Elysha & I at the hostel
I’m nearly on the move again – I booked flights over to Ireland for the week after next, so excited. I’ll be flying over there, traveling for two weeks, then back to pick up the girls, then onto Paris. Woohoo!! Am madly planning out an itinerary for Ireland, will be flying into Dublin and out of Shannon. Must try and get to a good Irish pub and grab a pint of Guiness, yum yum. Wonder if there is a brewery tour for the Guiness brewery, or even the Kilkenny one? Must find out. If you know of anything I must do whilst in Ireland, let me know!
xo Bobs
This was a decent hostel, everyone was friendly It was definitely more of a “long-termer’s” hostel rather than a tourist’s. Loads of Australian’s, Kiwi’s and South African’s working or looking for work in London. Regardless, the hostel was lots of fun, everyone was ready to accommodate others. It’s close to city, and to supermarkets, Internet cafes, etc. There was a large kitchen stocked with plenty of utensils to allow us to cook our own meals, as well as a well used tv lounge and barbeque area. Overall a fun place to stay.
So long Asia, now we’re back to the land of English – or rather the Motherland… Arrival was full on, we got into the airport and lined up for immigration. We haven’t had any problems in any other countries getting through, but after 12 hours on a flight from Hong Kong, they decided to be difficult. After getting through the line (took about 2 hours), we got to the front, only to be questioned and then sent off for a health check!!! Turns out that as we had travelled through ‘tropical’ countries (Thailand and India), there was a possibility we had TB, so they had to check us out. In the end we didnt need to get X-rays or the like, as the nurses decided it wasnt worth it!
Our hostel is in Earl’s Court, nicknamed ‘Kangaroo Court’, due to the abundance of Aussies who have made it their home. The hostel is full of Aussies, Kiwi’s and South Africans. Most people are friendly, but there are a lot of politics flying around the hostel – such as who gets the kitchen first and so forth. We’re at the very top of the stairs – five flights up, everyone else complains about the climb, but we reckon its nothing – compared to Huang Shan!!! We’re sharing a room with a South African guy and an Aussie guy. Both are long termers and the room is decidedly male – from the sign on the door (‘MEN!!!’), to their choice in posters. All day they have a fan going, pointed at their shoe collection… But they’re nice enough, and the room is alot cleaner than some of the ones we’ve been in.
On our first day we caught a train (‘the tube’, hehe) down to Westminster, to wander around. Imagine us, we’ve just stepped off a plane from Hong Kong, tired and jetlagged, and we’re wandering around London, seeing famous sights such us Big Ben and chasing pigeons through Trafalgar Square. I feel as if I’m trapped on a Monopoly board!!! After wandering around the National Gallery for a couple of hours we set off back home to plan our next day. Ended up teaming up with a pair of Kiwi girls and a pair of South African girls and made plans to go out the next day. We sat on the steps of our hostel drinking the local drinks – we like to think that we looked like the old guys on Sesame Street…
2nd day was spent SHOPPING on Oxford Circus, and then we toodled off to the Tower of London, to see the sights. The Tower of London has a 900 year history as a Royal Palace and fortress, prison and place of execution, mint and jewel house. Lucky us got to see the crown jewels, and even sit on a royal gardenrobe (read: loo!)
Since then we’re been to many wonderful and amazing places – and of course done our fair share of shopping. By shopping I of course mean browsing, as the prices over here are so so so expensive that we can only afford to look! We went to Westminster Abbey to see all the famous graves – such as Queen Elizabeth I, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, Henry VIII, Oliver Cromwell, and Thomas Parr, a guy who lived to age 152 (?!). Also went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard, lots of red guards with fluffy black hats running around. The London Dungeon was a bit different, bit like a horrorhouse, we got to see the more spooky history of London, from the black plague to Jack the Ripper. King’s Cross Station was worthwhile, we all got our pics taken standing in front of ‘Platform 9 3/4’, pushing a trolly through to the platform where Harry Potter caught his train to Hogwarts.
Shopping has been fun, we’ve wandered around the main shopping districts – Picadilly Circus, Oxford Circus (All have ‘circus’ attatched, any ideas?), and even Camden Town. Camden Town was interesting, magic mushrooms and marujana lollypops are sold everywhere. The mushrooms come in many different types (flavours?!) – from Cuban ones to good ol’ Tassie ones!
Apart from the sightseeing and shopping we’ve just been chilling in the hostel, and partying with our fellow backpackers. Nightlife is great, and everyone is so friendly. Only trouble I’m having is wrestling the remote control off the Aussie boys on the weekends – no-one here seems to care how much I HATE watching sports – oh well, they’ll learn quick enough. Take care all, am about to jetset off to the U.S., so if you’ve over there, watch out for me!!!