Law Ball

So, I promised some pictures from the Law Ball! Looking through my phone I didn't have all that many, some have been put up on facebook but here are mine!

 David's starter. Since he is gluten intolerant he got the shrimp cocktail. Fancy...

My starter! I had this idea that I would take picture of all the dishes but this is as far as I got and then I forgot. I'm not sure what I actually ate, I never saw the menu, but I heard "tarte" and well, yes... I would probably call it a quiche. It had some nice cheese in it (Camembert I think, judging by that rind you can see) and some nice veggies and mushrooms. This was probably the best of the dishes, for your information the main was a stuffed chicken breast with roast veggies, potatoes and cabbage. Very British... The dessert was a passion fruit cheesecake and a dry, tired little brownie. It didn't get photographed.

 David! This is one of two pictures I took, the first, and upon seeing this he demanded a new shot. But I like this one, so you get to see it.

All the law girls! Or, well, my ones! Emily, me, Olivia and Lottie. Note that I am the palest. Will spray tan next time.

And finally David and I again! 

The venue for the ball was the Athena in Leicester, which can be found here if anyone wants to have a look! I didn't take any pictures of that either...

Day trip to Chester

I know, I know, I don't give this blog enough attention. I might try some kind of "This has happened in my life lately" blog post later, but to be fair not much has happened so not yeah... Later!

A little while ago I went to Chester with David, and two of his team mates from uni, they are doing a masterplan for a part of Liverpool and needed inspiration. I didn't feel like staying at home alone so I tagged along.

Now, Chester is an OLD town. Very old. Information dump, it was originally founded by Romans under the more impressive name Deva Victrix in the year, now hold your horses, 79. It is surrounded by walls, with pathways on top so you can walk around. We did this, and can I just say, that was knackering. I am so not in shape anymore. I did manage to take some pictures on our way around though, so here goes!

 This is where we started. basically you climb some stairs and end up on top of the wall. By the house you can see roughly how narrow it is. It is wider at some places but that is pretty standard. The water is the Chester Canal, note how far down it is! I didn't dare to get closer and take this picture so David did it for me. Yep. Independent woman my ass.

This is a very typical Tudor black and white building, one of the things beside the city walls that Chester is very famous for. I sound like I know what I am talking about but the reality is that I just followed the others around and I am now reading up on Wikipedia.

 This is the view from the wall. The light is a bit weird but there were some pretty nice old buildings down this road, it just doesn't show... Further down you can see the tower of the Chester Town Hall, which is a very pretty building!

 No idea what this is. But it looked nice! Now it bugs me that I have NO idea what kind of building it is but I was on a wall clinging on for dear life and couldn't get down to go and find out. You will have to deal with it.

This is a park we passed on our way round that wall, further to the left is the Chester Cathedral, that i will return to.

 Again, another pretty building, who knows what it is...

And here we go, the Chester Cathedral! It used to be a Benedictine monastery and now its the seat of the Bishop of Chester. Its supposed to be very beautiful inside, but we didn't go in this time since the three architects I was with cared little for places of worship and were more intrigued by that scary wall we were walking around on... I have promised I will get to go in next time, fortunately its not too far from Liverpool.

  Cathedral and Town Hall.

Mystery Building. Possibly my future house, I would look good in that house.

King Charles Tower is along the wall, we did pass this and I did plan to take a picture, unfortunately this place was very busy and I was basically trampled by a bunch of pensioners so I gave up on that thought. You will have to make do with this little info sign.

Cathedral!

This was funny, its a bird house for pigeons, with several floors!Too bad it had a car park in the background.

Sorry for the light, the sun was being very shiny... This is another angle of the Cathedral.

Compulsory info sign!

Also the Cathedreal, there was a very beautiful green light shining through those windows, I tried to capture it and you can sort of see it, in real life it looked almost glow stick-like.

This clocktower was on tip of what used to be an original gate of the city, leading into one of the main streets that you can see below.

Notice the black and white buildings again! Here you can also see something called the Chester Rows, which are the little walkways on the first floors of the buildings. There will be more pictures of those. These were the main interest of the architects in presence. I am quite tired of Rows now... Basically they are like extra streets one floor up, and shops etc. on street level are sort of halfway below the street and you reach them by going down stairs.

This is taken on one of the rows, they sometimes have windows in the ceilings like this for light.

Look at that pretty white facade!

 The Rows are behind the rails there (note the narrow house squeezed in between the bigger ones!)

And for the Swedish potty minds, read the sign on that store on street level in the narrow house...

These sort of courtyards were found if you went into one of the narrow alleys along the main streets. Any noise from the streets on the other side of the houses were completely drowned, quite cool!

So, that's what I have!

Next time we might do pictures from the Law Ball...

M xx

Day 149, Liverpool - Random pictures from Liverpool

Hello there! Long time no see again, I know. I'm not a good blogger. So last time I wrote we were in Sweden enjoying the snow and cuddling with the cat. My cat might be one of the most spoilt creatures on earth btw, but reversed. He only eats his dried catfood. Even salmon and tuna is rejected. We have tried EVERYTHING, and all he eats is still the cheapest crap available. Stupid cat. Anyway, since then I have managed to finish 3 essays for uni, they were short but as usual I started late. Hopefully they will score alright. I've also been appointed team captain for my riding team which is very honouring and will probably end up being lots of work...

Now, back to the real topic I had on hand. In June I went to Liverpool for the first time, and actually managed to get some pictures taken. As you all know my blog is not very picture heavy, manly because I am not very good at transferring my pictures to the laptop. Now I managed to finally do that, so here are some pictures for you!

 This is Museum of Liverpool and its located by the waterfront, just by the Albert Docks. We were a bit unlucky with this, since it closed just as we came by. I am yet to actually go in there and have a look, but I had to put up this picture anyway since I like the look of the building. It is actually really long but I only captured the end of it.

 These are the Three Graces, from left to right they are the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building. These are also by the waterfront (the museum is actually to my right) and the place is also known as the Pier Head. Its an UNESCO World Heritage Site, so luckily all these three are well protected.

 

Now the pictures are coming a bit at random, which is because I uploaded them and then failed royally at rearranging them. You have to forgive me. Here we have the Liverpool Cathedral, or the Anglican cathedral, one of the most magnificent buildings I have ever seen. This cathedral belongs to the church of England, and the road you can see leads right up to the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral via Hope Street (Where 60 Hope Street is, the restaurant I got to go to for my birthday!). The Metropolitan cathedral is catholic, and holds a crypt that is supposed to be absolutely amazing. Unfortunately I have no picture of the  but its a sight to behold. We didn't get to go down into the crypt when we visited because it was closed (Of course...) but its on my list.

 

Here we have the magnificent Albert Docks, which are several buildings built around a dock, you can go in and have a look at the basin it creates, which is what we have done here. These buildings were the first to be built using only bricks, stones and cast iron in Britain. The buildings held warehouses making it possible for the ships to offload straight into them. lately the ships used are too big to fit in through the opening, but it is still used for cargo.

 

This is the River Mersey and it is an impressive 112 km long! It holds the Port of Liverpool where the infamous White Star Line were based. I was hoping that this meant that Titanic went in here down the Mersey since Port of Liverpool was the home port of Titanic. However, Titanic never actually went here, but was merely registered under this port because of the WSL base. Might be worth mentioning that the RMS Lusitania, famous from the WW1 also had her home port here.

 

Port of Liverpool building

 

This one is interesting, it used to be a church, the Church of St Luke, built 1811-1831. During the WW2 it was hit with an incendiary bomb causing the inside to burn out completely, leaving only the shell. It is now commonly known as the bombed-out church and you will even get directed to the proper wikipedia page if you type in that on Google. The shell is still standing (as seen here...) and is covered with vegetation on the inside. I desperately wanted to go inside and see what it was like but all the doors were locked. Earlier this year a man was found hanged in here. If the bombed out shell wasn't creepy enough that surely sealed the deal.

 This is the entrance to the Anglican cathedral, I was interested in catching the little chapel in the front in a picture, unfortunately that godawful banner in front ruined those plans.

 

 

I meant to write inbetween these pictures but blogger wont let me so here goes: the first picture is a big marble tile on the floor of the Anglican cathedral with the architects name on. Its so very beautiful with the beams around and the marble stone I just had to take a picture. The picture is also in a way a tribute to David since he is also an architect and I felt I really wanted that picture. The second picture is a part of the ceiling. Its blurry, I apologise for that, but look at that perfect symmetry! So impressive, I'll never get over the awe I feel when I see huge constructions like this, knwoing how old it is!

These two are really interesting! Huge as the Anglican Cathedral is, it was supposed to be even grander. This is the model that shows how it was supposed to look like. Unfortunately, the money ran out and they had to make do with what we can see now. However, just the model in itself is a work of art. Its so intricate, with the smallest details right down to the stained glass windows cut out. I was mesmerised by this, walking around it several times to look closer.

Complimentary artsy shot of David admiring the ceiling. The light really hit here, hehe.

 I tried to capture the beautiful windows but it was no use with merely a Iphone camera. You can see them a little in the first one though!

 Here I wanted to picture the beautiful rainbows the windows create when the sun hit through the coloured glass. See how it glimmers on the walls? The effect was absolutely stunning in real life,  but of course impossible to capture for me.

So, thats what I had, hopefully I can manage to take some more pictures on a sunny day!

M xx