Prowling my world, camera in hand

5 December 2014

Week 48: Thanksgiving and Liverpool

Filed under: — Administrator @ 20:19

Quite an eventful week: a nice Thanksgiving Day (although spent at work, since obviously US holidays are not celebrated in Spain) and at the end of the week, a trip to Liverpool and my first ever visit to Anfield Road, home of my beloved Liverpool Football Club.

48_1
But first a few pictures from Alicante. My faithful Cheeta waits for me in front of the door when I come back from bicycle rides, but she is an old dog now, so sometimes she does not notice me right away:
R000717

48_2
R000718

48_3
A walk in the centre; a little Messi plays in the new park on Plaza Seneca:
L1011911

48_4
L1011910

48_5
A woman walks towards “mushroom street” in the centre:
L1011919

48_6
Avenida Maisonnave, one of Alicante’s main shopping streets:
L1011913

48_7
On Thursday morning, our house photographer Mo Li, and Ruth from the communications service, came to interview me and some members of my team for an internal monthly newsletter. Here is Mo in action:
R000726

48_8
Mo and Ruth perform quality checks:
R000728

48_9
And this is what Mo was photographing:
IMG8739

48_10
She also did solo portraits of us, and I am really pleased with this one of me. The tie was a special request from Ruth who wanted a touch of humour to lighten up our serious conversation about economic studies and such:
IMG8756

48_11
Later on Thursday, the Americans (all dual nationals of the US and some EU country) met up for a Thanksgiving lunch at Liberty Kitchen, an American restaurant in Alicante. The guy in this picture actually has three nationalities:
DSF8986

48_12
Julia has lived in Spain for more than 20 years; I had no idea she was also American:
DSF8988

48_13
My Thanksgiving lunch, washed down with quality beer from the US, of course:
DSF8990

48_14
Here are the two people responsible for this wonderful occasion–Herbie (Spanish/American) who took the initiative to organise this, and Mike, the owner and chef of Liberty Kitchen, who prepared our special meal:
DSF8993

48_15
On Friday morning I flew to Manchester, from where I was going to take the train to Liverpool. While waiting at Alicante airport, I amused myself by photographing English travellers buying their reactionary rags with their anti-immigration headlines. I found it deliciously ironic that these “Little Englanders” rail agains foreigners at home while enjoying Spanish sunshine and lifestyle:
R000764

48_16
The main purpose of the trip to Liverpool was to attend a Liverpool FC home game. I have been an ardent Liverpool supporter since I was 12, but had only seen them play once, back in 2006 in the Netherlands. So seeing them play at their iconic stadium was something I really looked forward to. We ran into this man with an amusing sign in the immediate vicinity of the stadium:
DSF5077

48_17
As always on such occasions, there was a lot of police and security personnel, but everything was peaceful and civilised:
DSF5083

48_18
Father and son in the stands:
DSF5095

48_19
Gestures, on and off the pitch:
DSF5094

48_20
The moment I have been waiting for. We are in the dying seconds of the game, Liverpool is winning 1-0, and the faithful sing You’ll Never Walk Alone:
DSF5091

48_21
Aside from the match, we also did quite a bit of sight-seeing. Among the highlights was the International Slavery Museum (Liverpool was a major player in the trans-Atlantic slave trade until its abolition in 1807) and the Maritime Museum. In the latter, one of the more surprising and fun exhibits dealt with widespread homosexuality in the merchant fleet. At a time when it was a crime to be gay, the fleet was much more tolerant:
DSF5072

48_22
DSF5071

48_23
Saturday evening at the pub, a woman is waiting for her companion:
DSF5101

48_24
On Sunday morning, before catching the train to Manchester airport, I walked around a bit. As usual, I looked for little, quirky details, such as those in the final three images. First, the way to Santa:
DSF5140

48_25
Urgent need:
DSF5141

48_26
Daffy:
DSF5102

A proper Liverpool gallery is here.

1 Comment »

  1. Entertaining set as always Nathan.

    Comment by Geoff Hopknson — 6 December 2014 @ 20:46

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress