30Jan2009: Day 249: Liverpool Cathedral, York

Makenna and I took a trip up to Millbrook to pick up Chris, which is about an hour and a half away. We then continued up to Liverpool, another three hours North. Besides Makenna being antsy, the trip was thankfully uneventful.

We got to Liverpool and found our hotel on the “Albert Docks” which is considered a World Heritage Site because of the enormous cast-iron columns and five-storey warehouses that are protected. There are several museums and restaurants in this area. Not sure if we’ll be able to go out and see anything here tomorrow or not. We’re right near the “Beatles Story” Museum which is about the Beatles obviously.

We then headed out to the Liverpool Cathedral which is the largest church in Britain and the largest Anglican Cathedral in the world. The bell is the third world largest but does boast to have the highest and heaviest peal. It also has an organ 9765 pipes which is believed to be the world’s largest operational model.

We ended up parking in the back of the cathedral and had to walk around it which was pretty interesting. It had headstones every where but they were memorial stones and not tombstones – at least most were not tombstones that we know of. The memorial stones were actually lining the wall as if it was a stone wall along an embankment.

This place was massive! It was very big and incredible to look at but there was not much to look at if that makes sense. There weren’t many tombs or statues and we unfortunately couldn’t see all of the cathedral as even song was about to happen (not sure what that means – you’ll have to ask Chris). This meant that they roped off this whole area that would lead us back to the rest of the church. It also meant that we didn’t see the bell or the organ. Depending on our plans for tomorrow, we may try and see this place again before we head out.

We then drove around and found a Chinese buffet. I’m actually quite sick of the Chinese buffets over here as they really don’t have any good food in my opinion and you pay and arm and a leg. But I didn’t want fast food and we knew a sit down restaurant would be too much for Makenna to handle as she only had an hour nap all day. She enjoyed the restaurant at least, up until the last five minutes, then she started to break down.

One thing that she did do that amazed me happened shortly after we first left the house this morning. I took her away from watching Teletubbies as it was time for us to go. About ten minutes into the car ride I heard her saying, “say sorry, say sorry.” I said, “say sorry?” She said “for Tubbies.” I said, “I’m sorry that mommy had to have you stop watching Teletubbies so that we could go pick up daddy.” Boy, it’s getting scary and astounding at the same time what she can mimic back to me.

Unfortunately, as I was typing this we just had an accident that scared me half to death. She went into the bathroom and I went to get her out. I turned off the light and was closing the door and she had her fingers in the door frame as I was closing it and they got pretty crushed. I feel absolutely horrible but she’s getting over it pretty quickly. Luckily she’ll forget before I will.