Liverpoo-el

Friday 2nd - Sunday 4th April: ROAD TRIP! After work I met up with Ally & Matt for our road trip up to Liverpool. I'm so blown away by the diversity in accents across such a small geographical area (as in the UK). The Scouse accent is so unique. A Scouser would actually say they are from "Liver-poo-el". Officially, someone from Liverpool is a Liverpudlian, however they are also known as Scousers. Why are they called Scousers? The word "scouse" is a shortened form of "lobscouse", a word for a meat stew commonly eaten by sailors in the 19th century and people who ate "scouse" became known as "scousers".
We had a pretty uneventful drive up and were all so tired that we just went to bed when we arrived. I woke up the next morning to a text message from Mum saying that baby Rose Charlotte Myles had been born! Aunty again, my 3rd niece! So chuffed! The weather was pretty miserable but I had a nice big smile on my face. We headed into town and spent a bit of time around the Merseyside docks where I went to the Beatles museum and Ally & Matt went to the Poverty Museum. There was a lot of really loud music and commotion nearby and I later discovered that X-Factor auditions were being held that day in Liverpool. Explained the craziness in the city centre. Although I think the general appearance of the locals would not have changed much from any other regular weekend. Among the fashion trends in Liverpool, the girls are known to (and I did see all of this) - go out with rollers in their hair, wear 6 pairs of false eyelashes stacked on top of each other, lather fake tan on as if they're auditioning for the role of an Oompa Loompa, and create what is now known as a 'scousebrow'... google it. I actually found all of this rather sad, the fact that women in this area (and many other areas in the UK, such as Essex) feel that they need to become so incredibly fake to look good. And the saddest part is they look like absolute clowns! I saw some girls as young as 10 dressed this way and it really upset me.
Not surprisingly, the kind of main reason for the trip was for football... Matt and I were going to see Liverpool vs Arsenal. The Liverpool fans really need anger management treatment! I don't mind Liverpool so it was pretty spine tingling being at Anfield while the fans sang "You'll Never Walk Alone". Arsenal ended up winning, although it was nice to see captain Stevie G come out with the Carling Cup, won the week before. Back in the city centre we met up with Ally again and for dinner we treated ourselves to a feast at Jamie's Italian, a chain of Italian restaurants opened by Jamie Oliver. Amazing! Absolutely loved it! Worth the hour wait for the table. It was so fresh and had such a nice raw style.
On Sunday we headed back to London via Chester, which is a pretty little medieval town. We also stopped at Warwick Castle. It was good, although we were really underdressed for the weather as it was freezing and raining. My favourite part of Warwick Castle was the peacock garden.