Aye, we made it!

Hello world. We are in Liverpool now. Once we landed on solid British soil and we were in transit at the London Heathrow Airport from one terminal to another, I looked at my favorite Kiwi and said "We're in England!" Her response was: "well, we're still in transit." I didn't quite get it until we went through Immigration in Manchester. Yikes, it was a bit scary -- the Immigration Officer was a bit suspicious as to why I might want to spend three months on travel in England while my sweetie went to school the whole time. Finally, after much interrogation and a couple phone calls by the Immigration Officer, she let us through. I had forgotten about the queries about whether we have enough money to spend while in England, so I didn't bring a bunch of bank statements or anything. But it seems that by explaining that we are a couple trying to establish interdependence for possible Australian immigration, she was finally satisfied. Whew!

So, we caught our train from Manchester to Liverpool, then a cab to our new homestay near Sefton Park. At first, we were greeted by the neighbor, Barbara, who was cleaning and helping out our landlady, Brigitte, who was out on errands. We hoisted all our luggage up three flights of stairs to our charming pink bedroom. Shortly thereafter, Brigitte showed up and we were amused to meet the somewhat funky London native. She offered to take us in the car around town and show us the way to Liverpool University and Smithdowne Street, where all of our retail needs would be met. It was a lovely sunny day and we attempted to maintain as much information as we could in her whirlwhind tour of Liverpool in our jet-lagged states. As it turned out, Brigitte was planning to go away with her husband and two daughers (all of whom we met very briefly) for the weekend and leave us to the house by ourselves.