Scouse Central. Calm down, calm down, etc.

I’m just a small town girl (living in a lonely world), so when I decided to go to university, I opted for a city, and my city of choice was Liverpool.

I didn’t really know a lot about Liverpool when I went there. I hadn’t really seen much of it. I was naïve to it’s unfortunate reputation and unaware of the negative stigma which has been connected with it in the past.

I went to an open day in Liverpool after I got my conditional offer after applying through UCAS extra. Despite all of the hell I’ve gone through over the past two years, I’ve always had one positive thing to take from my university experience – I love Liverpool.

As a city, it hasn’t really got a great reputation. It’s not particularly big and it’s not particularly flashy, but there is a bizarre kind of charisma that it has, which to me, makes it one of the most fantastic and beautiful places I have ever visited.

The most jaw-dropping features are, without doubt, the cathedrals. The Metropolitan Cathedral and The Anglican Cathedral sit at either end of the only road in the world that links two cathedrals, Hope Street.

The two are a complete contrast of one another; The Metropolitan is modern, and looks a bit more like a temple than a church, whereas The Anglican is everything you would expect a cathedral to be, old, ornate and decorated with intricate details.

It is these, combined with the 450 foot tall tower which is home to Radio City, that gives you the first impression as you approach the city on the train which I catch from home, and every time, still now, two years on, it takes my breath away.

Crowned Capital of Culture in 2008, Liverpool got a lot of stick for the title, and despite the drama connected with it, and the doubts of thousands of critics world wide, it stood up to the job, turned itself around and produced the goods.

Everywhere you go in Liverpool, there is always something going on. Always something to see, always something to listen to, always something new to do.

At Christmas, I found myself stood watching one of the primary schools singing Christmas carols by the city centre Christmas tree. During the Biennial celebrations I found myself watching live music in the outdoors with the sun shining on me. On Valentine’s Day, I could have sat in the bombed out church with a cup of hot chocolate and my loved one watching a movie from the 1940’s.

So despite all of the negativity that surrounds Liverpool (including the recent terror raids on my University library; all very exciting, very disappointed I wasn’t there) I would encourage anyone to go to university in Liverpool.

For me, it was and still is a different way of life and a completely different experience for me to take in. (And chances are, no matter how much you might not like it now, you will come to love the scouse accent too.)

Related posts:

1. Student life in London
2. The joy of junk food
3. Not quite Sex and the City: Life in Paris

Tags: Alice-May Purkiss, Capital of Culture, City Guide, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores, University in Liverpool, University of Liverpool

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.