Mersey River, fare thee well!

 “ ‘tis not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me…”  - Leaving of Liverpool, a traditional chantey

Well, that’s it!  We’re in the homestretch now!  The countdown to NY officially began at 1400 today.   We departed Liverpool this afternoon and have started the long journey home.  In the 12 days between here and New York, students will still be finishing up a slew of quizzes, tests, and bouts of homesickness.

You’d swear everyone had to do the most rigorous PT while in Liverpool the way we’re all exhausted today - I’ve never seen the cadets so tired.  I think it has something to do with the way watches were scheduled, plus changes in times to get underway, plus now anchor watch, and, of course, spending many hours in port.

Liverpool was a wonderful host, a great walking city, and had a very similar feel to a city the size of Philadelphia.  There were lots of new buildings along the waterfront, but it’s still a “working man’s” city and an historic one at that.  The waterfront was very lovely, with lots of museums and restaurants to attract tourists.  Many of the waterfront buildings themselves were originally part of the maritime industry that helped build a bustling city out of Liverpool. 

Warehouses, pump houses, and ropewalks are now museums, eateries, and landmarks.  Also the Beatles are everywhere.  On any variety of Beatles tours I found out that the Fab Four "frequented" nearly every building in sight of the ship.  The Museum of Liverpool and the Merseyside Maritime Museum extraordinary museums to represent the enterprises of the city and a special exhibit on the TITANIC, while the Cavern Quarter just a few minutes away had many restaurants, pubs, and dance clubs in what must have been buildings which were hundreds of years old.  Just around the corner from Cavern Quarter is Liverpool ONE, the city’s best attempt at a high end, outdoor shopping district which literally stretched for miles on miles and offered pretty much any kind of clothing, sports good, book, or music you could dream of buying.

Speaking of music, it’s not just the Beatles anymore.  On any given night while we were in port, there was pub after pub of live music, from modern musicians to rock and rollers  covering the Beatles.  The Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is another famous institution, with their hall being a famous landmark. We missed their (free) open air concert on the docks by an hour when we came to dock on Friday night, but they still had performances and special events at their Hall including… a showing of “Casablanca” on Monday!  It was the perfect birthday treat.

There were Beatles references galore, and lots of shopping.  Many of the cadets took scheduled tours to London -- I heard it was a madhouse there with all the Olympics prep, but fun jus the same!  I was pleasantly surprised to hear how many of them went to Buckingham Palace, Paddington Station (just for Paddington Bear), and King’s Cross Station (for Platform 9 ¾).  I was definitely not expecting that of our guys!

On a personal note, I was especially thankful to how everyone on  wished me well on my birthday yesterday, from Captain to Chief Mate to the engineers and deck officers (as well as some of the parents and the cadets).  It was really special to have the ship community to celebrate in different ways!!  I even got birthday cards from my officer friends, and a birthday card from my Grandma!  Thank you so much as well for all of your warm wishes.  (Not to make a deal about in front of cadets since they were mainly "restricted" to Liverpool, but myself and another officer took a 20 mile bike ride along the beach from Seacombe through Wirral [sp?] to New Brighton on Monday - what a great way to see the Liverpool from the water since we had to literally take the Ferry 'cross the Mersey.  And yes, that song is now permanently stuck in my head).

One last note from the ship tonight, which comes as a shoutout from Randolph “Woody” Stephens, who says “Happy birthday Big B, from Liverpool!” to his grandfather.

Cheers,

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