Climbing the Liverpool Cathedral 26/5/08

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Since we were leaving for London on Tuesday, anything we were not taking with us had to be safely locked in Newman by 5 pm. Since I was going to be spending the day climbing the Liverpool Cathedral with Sam and Adam, I wanted to take my stuff over in the morning. The guys at the security lodge had no idea what I was talking about, and I spent a good amount of time waiting there. I finally had all of my stuff that I wasn't taking locked in the room by 11, and Sarah and I met Sam and Adam at Austin. It ended up being Sam, Woody, Adam, Tarloke, Sarah, and I. Jack would have come, but we didn't give him enough advance notice. It was extremely windy on Monday. It was worse than Chicago, and Chicago is really windy.
When we got to the Cathedral, we spent some time just walking around. Tarloke is so lucky that he gets to graduate there. I wish I could graduate in the Liverpool Cathedral. To get to the top of the Cathedral, it was two lifts and 108 steps. We couldn't all fit in one lift, so we had to have a discussion about how we were going to split up. It was a very important decision. It ended up being Sam, Adam, and Hannah in one group, and Tarloke, Sarah, Woody, and I in the second group. Tarloke and Woody were a little scared of the heights when we actually started going up the stairs, but I thought it was amazing. We could see the bells from where we were climbing, and it was incredible. We met Sam, Hannah, and Adam at the top of the Cathedral. It was even windier up there, though the view was amazing. After a few minutes of being up there, I was taking a picture, and the tower worker offered to take a picture of all of us. He ended up being a really nice guy. We ended up staying on top of the tower for a good 45 minutes: the view was amazing, and you could pretty much see all of Liverpool from there. I was even able to find the Metropolitian Cathedral. Even though it was windy, the sky was clear, so we could still see the view. As Sarah, Woody, and I were heading down, the tower worker, Andrew, was also heading down. As we were waiting for the lift, I could see Andrew down by the bells with another employee. A few minutes later, they came up a secret stairwell. We discovered that this secret stairwell was the fire escape, but since it was locked, it probably wouldn't do much good in case of a fire. When we finally did get on the lift, Andrew saw us on the stairs to the next lift, and he offered to take us to somewhere restricted. He took us to this forbidden balcony, which had an amazing view of the Cathedral.

After leaving the forbidden balcony, we went down to the third floor and saw all of the embroidery display. While we were on the third floor, we could see Sam and them on the ground floor waiting for us. Sam was trying to call Woody, though Woody didn't have reception. When we got downstairs, we decided to stop at the gift shop because Sarah wanted to buy some postcards. I ended up buying a book about the building of the cathedral for Joseph. All of us then ventured back out into the ridiculous wind. Hannah had her car, so she was going to drive wherever we were going to lunch, and she drove Sam and Adam as well. Tarloke, Sarah, Woody, and I walked. We ended up going to this really good Chinese buffet, though it was rather expensive. I ate more than I normally do there, but all the guys didn't seem to think it was enough, and they kept telling me to eat more. Apparently they all think I am too skinny as well. After leaving the buffet, we dropped Adam off at the train station to go back to his granny's.

The rest of us started walking toward the bus stop. On the way, Sam dropped his camera bag in the middle of the street, and didn't even notice. On the way back, Sam decided he wanted to go to the park to "watch" a footie game, and Tarloke decided to go with him. We all knew that Sam was going to end up playing though.... I would have gone, but I wanted to drop Joe's book off in Newman so I wouldn't have to take it to London with me. After dropping off the book, Woody and I just ended up hanging out and talking till around 7:30, as I wanted to go to the library and get on the computer. First, I stopped at Austin to give Sam back his camera bag, which I had completely forgotten I had. While I was there, he invited me to go to the pub with them, so I made plans to meet the guys at Austin at 9. I got to the library around 8, and other then uploading pictures from the cathedral and checking emails, I didn't do much. I tried to find Sarah to go to the pub with us before I left, but I was unsuccessful.

I met Sam outside his window at ten till, and he threw me his keys so I could get in. While we were waiting for the guys to get ready, Woody bet me that he didn't have more than a pound in change on his desk, and said I could keep it if he did. Well he had a pound twenty, and for a good four days I had all of that change in the bottom of my purse. (it was mainly pence and two pence). We left for the pub around 9:15: Sam, Woody, Tarloke, Jack, Ian, and I. I wasn't planning on drinking since I had to leave in the morning, but Woody did buy me this fruit drink that was rather good. We hung out at the Carvery until just past 11:45, as the bartenders kept asking us to finish our drinks. On the way back to Austin, Sam decided he wanted a piggyback ride from Ian. It did make for a pretty funny picture. When we got back to Austin, I gave Sam another back massage, as his back was still bothering him. After I gave Sam his massage, I went back to Angela, as we were both tired and wanted to get some sleep. I said goodbye to Woody, as he was leaving the next day for Northern Ireland. It isn't the same here with all of the guys gone. The day was a lot of fun though

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