Liverpool

"We drove to Liverpool arriving just in time for our 10:00 tour of Andrew’s beloved Anfield.  It wasn’t quite the same as attending a game there, but in some ways it was more intimate and insightful than watching the game at Old Trafford. There was a fire alarm midtour and everyone had to exit the stadium that was in the midst of a massive expansion and renovation that meant enormous cranes were on the pitch and the grass was dying. The hasty exit was more than made up for by the rare chance we had to tour the board room where VIP’s and ownership watch the games from ultimate luxury. Mack utterly refused to be in pictures or acknowledge his United fandom to the tour host. You can see Everton’s Goodison Park just across the park.  It won’t be quite as cool when Everton moves to their new stadium on the Mersey. Outside the stadium a moving memorial remembered the 97 who lost their lives in a tragic stampede of fans back in the 80’s. Andrew has never been so interested in a museum."

Notice how Mack conveniently stayed out of this picture?

"We drove down to the historic docks and were thrilled to find two convenient parking spots.  The app to pay for parking however wouldn’t work without a European phone number so we rolled the dice and parked anyway. Lisa lucked out, but I came back to my car with a ticket to pay. "

"We took pictures with a statue of the Beattles and a more poignant one of a family honoring the thousands of early Latter-Day Saint converts who emigrated to the US through Liverpool."

Before the trip I had looked up all my ancestors that had left England for the US from Liverpool - at least 9 families.

The kids enjoyed exploring the docks and looking for restrooms and food.

"In the primary recurring nightmare from family vacations we had to pick where to eat lunch—we ended up getting food from 4 different food trucks and restaurants at the docks—I think everyone was close to happy."  

Emily found sticky toffee pudding and was very happy about that.

Kate and Natali had fish and chips and the rest of us were grateful we didn't have to.

From the docks we said goodbye to Liverpool and headed to the Manchester airport.  Let the travel drama begin.

"The map said the drive was 10 minute longer than when I had looked earlier so I began the drive to the Manchester airport under a bit of stress. We got Apple mapped again on the one-way streets at the port which delayed us nearly another 10 minutes.  I tried to eat a banana while driving and stalled my car at a turn signal in 4^th rather than 2^nd gear which prompted angry honking from the car behind me.  I was ready to not be driving in England! We had to fuel up the rental cars before returning them—we managed to get them both to register ½ tank and proceeded to the car return.  After 3.9 miles Lisa’s car had dropped one notch so we had to pay 25 pounds!  (MY BAD) As we waited for the shuttle my stress level continued to rise—we finally reached the airport about 1:20 before our Ryan Air flight. "

"We had a few Ryan Air lessons to learn.  Their app wouldn’t let me check in online so I knew we would have to wait in line somewhere.  When booking the tickets 5 months earlier I had done a bit of analysis and guessing to try and optimize the luggage checking options.  In hindsight I really needed to reread all that in the moment and to have more time at the airport.  I asked around and eventually resolved that we had to wait in the extremely long line and the clock was ticking.  It moved so slow.  We used Natali’s portable luggage scale to weigh everything while we were in line and redistributed things until we had all bags under 10kg. When we finally got to the front the guy kind of just laughed at me and said you can try to still make the flight but it is too late to check bags even though I had paid to check them.  I didn’t want to risk having bags not show up anyways at that point.  It was probably 30-35 minutes before departure at that point.  We couldn’t even learn the gate until we got the boarding passes so had no idea where we would be running to.  I sent Lisa ahead with the littles as soon as we had their boarding passes. When we got to security we learned that the British are very serious about their plastic bags and liquids on flights, much more so than back at home.  We had to unload and redistribute from all the bags to get liquids isolated to proceed through security.  Our flight was scheduled to depart in 10-15 minutes so I figured the door was closed at that point and I still had to find the gate.  As we sped away we saw Lisa in line at the other security checkpoint. We ran through the duty free shops as I imagined all of the nightmare costs and logistics of spending another night in England and missing a day in Spain.  And then I saw a looong line at our gate and I exhaled. Panting, I got in line and then checked in with Lisa.  They had bag trauma at security and were waiting for Kate and Emily’s bags to be checked by hand.  Seriously?  I told her to hurry but thought they would be ok.  The boarding line was moving and still no sign of them. Emily showed up. We called on Facebook messenger—she had gone to the wrong gate, 58 instead of 53 and had to backtrack. Ultimately they made it as we approached the gate in line. The agent scanned our boarding passes but said Lisa’s bag was too big.  He wanted to charge us about $50. Some of our tickets allowed big bags and some didn’t. There were so many of us I’m sure no one knew exactly what was supposed to happen and the plane was supposed to have left already. Ultimately he said we could have the bigger bag because some of the tickets were priority but still wanted to charge us. I protested in vain but resolved at that point I should just be grateful and get on the plane—we were going to Spain! Moral of the story with Ryan Air is you can either pay a lot of money at booking to take carry-ons or check baggage or pay a lot more later with extra stress.  And I was just beginning to learn!"