Chasing the Sun: To Kingdom Come

Friday 10 June to Friday 1 July

PART ONE

With our departure from New York came the end of our original planned trip and sometime in the days before we boarded the British Airways flight home we had reached the decision that we'd return to Sydney early. Conveniently, Dan and Jen (who were taking care of the rent in the Manly apartment) had wussed out on the daily commute to the city (being 'a thousand miles from care' is the hint on that one); and Jono's company were ready to welcome Jono home with open arms.

As such, we decked out our remaining days in the northern hemisphere with as many visits to family and friends as possible.

This being the case, it was an obvious choice to head to the local Thai takeout, Thai Rice Thai Rice, for dinner as soon as we got off the tube.

Saturday and Sunday (11 & 12th)

We had two days of lazing about in Maida Vale, with a garden party in Notting Hill, as intermission.

Recovery from said garden party, included a return to Thai Rice and a midnight Jennifer Anniston movie in Roz's bed... not sure many of us made it past the opening credits before dozing off.

garden party dance floor antics.... I think this one was a Michael Jackson number.

Monday through Friday (13th to 17th)

Every wary that we were taking over the girls' lounge room with every visit and with the decision having been made to head back to Oz, we spent the week planning our final month and making some house visits.

Monday we stopped by Russel Square for a coffee with a Can Too running buddy, Tori and caught up on each other's travel goss (she's still there, just did Portugal, off to Turkey later this week, living the life!). We finished off the day with a walk around the city, fitting a bit of culture in on the way.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we headed off to Cheltenham on the megabus (approx ₤4 for the both of us) for another visit to cousin Jess's. It was rainier this weekend, but we love staying with Jess! The tapas lunch on our last day also went down a treat!

Getting caught in a summer rain shower

Friday, we finalised some trip plans. We'd organised eight days of WWOOFING at a berry farm near Chester for the following week; were headed to Liverpool the next day; and needed to buy our flights back to Oz. AKA Trip Admin day.

Saturday and Sunday (18th and 19th)

We made a quick getaway from Maida Vale to the train station to catch the train north to Liverpool for a couple of nights. Except for Cheltenham, we'd really not been outside of London on any of our trips and had only the typical preconceptions for the city.

Hooray for the fast train and free wifi, but boo for having backward facing seats and two hours of motion sickness.

As the train pulled in to Liverpool through the suburbs we got our first idea of the city, but it was nothing like what we had expected once we rolled into town. Sharp edged glass buildings juxtaposed against ancient buildings, statues and 70s architecture.

Jono had booked us in to the Days Inn, which we'd assumed would be something like a Formula 1. Our great mistake! After an upgrade after a mixup over the booking, we'd scored a huge room with lovely white sheets, a tv and modern bathroom! We had no problem settling into this new found luxury, especially given the accommodation we were in for later in the week.

Our first few hours in Liverpool were spent wandering around the juxtaposed architecture and checking out all the statues we could find. Before locating a John Lennon statue on Mathew St we stumbled across a free natural history museum and spent a couple of hours wandering the exhibitions.

Something to make you feel old!

Later on, back at the hotel, there was a miscommunication between Jono and I over our use of the ice machine on our floor. I'd assumed I was on a mission to collect a cup of ice for Jono's strained ankle, until I returned and the duty free bottle of gin we'd procured in the States had made its way out of the bottom of a bag.

So that was the end of that day.

The following day, in a style perfected at our uni days at Bruce, we made a dash downstairs for the hot breakfast just before the kitchen closed and then skulked back upstairs for a little lie down. Later on, behind dark sunglasses, we emerged with enough energy to explore the water front. More statues, more Beatles museums and one hellishly bad coffee and scaldingly hot coffee (yes, Rolo and Ella - possibly worse than the Kamloops attempt, but we didn't have the energy to order another).

To Jono's delight, there was an international cheerleading competition taking place on the waterfront. To my amusement, it was co-ed.

Ok, enough sunshine, enough wind, enough people, enough movement. It's time to find some yum cha to fortify our stomachs.

Easier said than done.

China Town, a good 40 minutes walk away, turned out to be China Ghost Town. So excited were we that we had finally heard voices and seen movement behind what we thought was a restaurant door that we nearly walked in on a private family lunch.

Eventually, at the end of the street we found a place serving up hot chow and we hadn't missed the yum cha service. Weak at the knees we quietly ordered our cokes and settled in and waited for the trolley.

And waited.

This clearly wasn't Marigolds.