Hey there, Hi there, Ho there! Welcome back. Time is flying by. To think that by the time you read this, I'll be a third of the way done with the semester and have only 8 weeks left. Even though I've been here almost four weeks, I'm still not used to the English life. I still have trouble crossing the streets. They drive so fast and I get confused on which direction they are coming, even when the road below my feet reads " Look this way ---->." I feel like Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade when he has to cross the invisible bridge. It's a leap of faith!
In the past week or so, I have been strolling through the various parks that are in Liverpool. Where I live in Aigburth, there are two parks within a 10 minute walk in opposite directions. The first park is called the "Festival Gardens." It's designed to honor the many of immigrants that have come to or have passed through Liverpool. There are several gardens that are themed including a Chinese, Irish, and Japanese one. The Irish one is pretty much woods. The Chinese and Japanese gardens,however, have structures including a moon wall, pagodas, and statues. With it being October, the gardens aren't as pretty, but interesting nonetheless. They have some wooded trails where you can see old remnants of buildings, roads and walls.
In the past week or so, I have been strolling through the various parks that are in Liverpool. Where I live in Aigburth, there are two parks within a 10 minute walk in opposite directions. The first park is called the "Festival Gardens." It's designed to honor the many of immigrants that have come to or have passed through Liverpool. There are several gardens that are themed including a Chinese, Irish, and Japanese one. The Irish one is pretty much woods. The Chinese and Japanese gardens,however, have structures including a moon wall, pagodas, and statues. With it being October, the gardens aren't as pretty, but interesting nonetheless. They have some wooded trails where you can see old remnants of buildings, roads and walls.
Having the luxury of the Metroparks in Fairview Park, I'm not used to city parks and their size. That being said, Sefton Park, to me, is quite huge. It's about 250 acres of dedicated parkland that is open 24 hours. The feel of the park reminds me Central Park in New York. They have many open fields, wooded trails, paths, ponds, recreational spots, restaurants, and woodland creatures. On Saturday, I spent my whole day wandering around Sefton Park and snapping pictures. Now when I say the whole day, I mean from around 10:30-3ish. By 3, the clouds come in, the wind picks up, and the heavy rain starts. This is pretty much everyday weather in Liverpool. Some days it rains sun-up to sun-down, and we experience heavy winds and cold temperatures. Tuesday, we were experiencing the tail end of the hurricane that hit Bermuda. I was downtown and the wind was outrageous. I had to hold onto street lamps because it was blowing me over. Luckily, I wore my glasses because my face was attacked by leaves, twigs, newspapers, people's hats, scarves, you name it!
Anyways, there are two distinct styles of Sefton Park. There is the modern end where it's very open, has plenty of woodland creatures (including mice), and people picnicking. What blows my mind is that no one puts their dogs on a leash. Even walking down the street, the owner will be walking about 7 feet ahead of their dog who's putzing around. The dog never wanders in the streets or goes their own way. In the park, they let the dogs run free! I watched a guy through a ball in a field and saw about 9 or 10 dogs come bustling out of the shrubs in various directions to fetch the ball.
Apart from the modern side, there is a Victorian end, where the trees are close together giving a lot of shade, lots of slippery pathways, old rusty gates. And it's very dark. It is in the Victorian end that one can see ghosts! Yes, ghosts! There is a bridge located in Sefton Park that many young couples used for courting during Victorian times. One young man from the high, rich class fell deeply in love with a girl from the middle class. They met one St. Valentines night when he broke the news that his family arranged a marriage with a woman from the same high class. He was in love with the middle class woman and promised to meet her at this bridge in exactly one year, at 11 PM. He asked for one year to arrange plans, and settle some money for them to runaway. True to his word, he showed up at the bridge ready to runaway with his true love. He waited...11 chimed...then 5 past...10 past... she did not show. Distraught, he agreed to wait 10 more minutes before giving up hope. At 11:15, she appeared at the other end of the bridge. He approached to embrace. As he reached his arms out, he went right through her. He turned around and saw the girl smiled, wave, and disappeared. The next day, he made inquiries with the girl's family as to where she was. He found out that the girl had past away the previous night due to cholera. Her final words were "I must meet my love, at the bridge in Sefton Park!" She past away at 11:15, the moment he saw her on the bridge. He soon took his own life in despair. Legend has it, you can see the ghosts of the young couple at exactly 11:15 PM on St. Valentines night. You can see the couple at both ends walking to meet in the middle. They embrace, and walk towards the nearby train station holding hands. Cue Twilight Zone music.
Below are a selection of pictures of Sefton Park.
Anyways, there are two distinct styles of Sefton Park. There is the modern end where it's very open, has plenty of woodland creatures (including mice), and people picnicking. What blows my mind is that no one puts their dogs on a leash. Even walking down the street, the owner will be walking about 7 feet ahead of their dog who's putzing around. The dog never wanders in the streets or goes their own way. In the park, they let the dogs run free! I watched a guy through a ball in a field and saw about 9 or 10 dogs come bustling out of the shrubs in various directions to fetch the ball.
Apart from the modern side, there is a Victorian end, where the trees are close together giving a lot of shade, lots of slippery pathways, old rusty gates. And it's very dark. It is in the Victorian end that one can see ghosts! Yes, ghosts! There is a bridge located in Sefton Park that many young couples used for courting during Victorian times. One young man from the high, rich class fell deeply in love with a girl from the middle class. They met one St. Valentines night when he broke the news that his family arranged a marriage with a woman from the same high class. He was in love with the middle class woman and promised to meet her at this bridge in exactly one year, at 11 PM. He asked for one year to arrange plans, and settle some money for them to runaway. True to his word, he showed up at the bridge ready to runaway with his true love. He waited...11 chimed...then 5 past...10 past... she did not show. Distraught, he agreed to wait 10 more minutes before giving up hope. At 11:15, she appeared at the other end of the bridge. He approached to embrace. As he reached his arms out, he went right through her. He turned around and saw the girl smiled, wave, and disappeared. The next day, he made inquiries with the girl's family as to where she was. He found out that the girl had past away the previous night due to cholera. Her final words were "I must meet my love, at the bridge in Sefton Park!" She past away at 11:15, the moment he saw her on the bridge. He soon took his own life in despair. Legend has it, you can see the ghosts of the young couple at exactly 11:15 PM on St. Valentines night. You can see the couple at both ends walking to meet in the middle. They embrace, and walk towards the nearby train station holding hands. Cue Twilight Zone music.
Below are a selection of pictures of Sefton Park.
On Sunday, I went to The Beatles Story, the main museum dedicated to all things John, Paul, George and Ringo. It was a nice day, so I walked along the river to downtown. The exhibition is housed in the basement of some old brick factory buildings by the docks. The museum was nice and I really like how it is set up. Rather than a building with a bunch of artifacts, it takes you through the story of The Beatles from The Quarrymen to their solo careers. The really interesting parts were before The Beatles made it big. Because it was in Liverpool, many artifacts in the museum were from locals who received the items first hand from The Beatles themselves. One of the coolest artifacts was a copy of the first ever Beatles record which only 6 copies are known to survive. Another artifact of interest was half a letter written by Brian Epstein (Beatles Manager) to the four lads weeks before he was found dead. The letter addresses how they have grown to do his job and that he feels out of place and useless. He stressed how he had no worth to them anymore after they quit touring. This is interesting because there is still debate as to whether he accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills or committed suicide.
Overall, it is a good exhibit. The audio tour, included with the ticket, was great. I will say that if you really know The Beatles and their history, most of the information in the exhibit is stuff you know. The other exhibit at the museum, focusing on the British Invasion, was neat but very small. They had a drum set there where you could play drums with Ringo teaching you on the TV. It's definitely worth a trip through. If you come to visit, I'll give you my own tour of the exhibit with much more information. And that's free of charge!
The pictures below are a select few because I took over 100 photographs at least. I was stuck between two huge 25 person tourist groups. Ahead of me was an Asian group where each person wanted an individual picture with everything. And I mean everything. Behind was a group of red hat society ladies who couldn't work the audio tour walkman and shouted at each other. I don't know how many times I heard the words " Damn thing doesn't work. It keeps repeating the same track" to which someone would reply " That's because you put it on repeat, dearie" throughout the exhibit.
Overall, it is a good exhibit. The audio tour, included with the ticket, was great. I will say that if you really know The Beatles and their history, most of the information in the exhibit is stuff you know. The other exhibit at the museum, focusing on the British Invasion, was neat but very small. They had a drum set there where you could play drums with Ringo teaching you on the TV. It's definitely worth a trip through. If you come to visit, I'll give you my own tour of the exhibit with much more information. And that's free of charge!
The pictures below are a select few because I took over 100 photographs at least. I was stuck between two huge 25 person tourist groups. Ahead of me was an Asian group where each person wanted an individual picture with everything. And I mean everything. Behind was a group of red hat society ladies who couldn't work the audio tour walkman and shouted at each other. I don't know how many times I heard the words " Damn thing doesn't work. It keeps repeating the same track" to which someone would reply " That's because you put it on repeat, dearie" throughout the exhibit.
Wednesday, two students and I took a drive around the area with our tutor. He offered to drive us around the surrounding areas to get a sense of Liverpool as well as it's history. It was really fun and a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. He drove us North to Bootle and Crosby. Here, he showed us the house where the Captain of Titanic lived. As you may know, he didn't live there very long. Also, we saw "Another Place", a piece of art that consists of cast iron "men" standing sporadically in the river. When the river is full, the bodies are underwater and you can only see their heads. When it recedes, their whole bodies emerge. From there he showed us West Derby (pronounced Darby) where he grew up. The Beatles first club is located here. The Casbah Club was owned by the original drummer's, Pete Best, mum. He took us under the Mersey river to Brighton, Moreton and Hoylake. We saw the Irish sea, the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, and Millionaire Row. The golf club is where this year's British Open was held. From there, we stopped in Wales and made our way back through from Chester. We saw the club where Stuart Sutcliffe was beaten up by Teddy Boys. This incident is what many scholars believe led to the brain aneurysm that killed him. We conversed about Liverpool, History, Music and plenty of other stuff. I don't have many picture because we drove and I had a small window to work with.
Trivia! 9 voted and 2 were right. Survey says: 1940's! A German spy was executed on August 15th, 1941. This weeks trivia is in honor of Halloween!
It's time to put this Stephen King sized blog to rest. I'll end by wishing everyone a very Happy Halloween. The next blog should be a good one: a trip to Manchester, An evening with Chris O'Dowd, a visit to Penny Lane. So be sure to tune in!
Peace & Love,
Mark
Peace & Love,
Mark