So I’m sitting in the waiting lounge for the Steam Ferry company that’s supposed to be taking me and several hundred motorbike riders (and their bikes too) over to the island at 10:30, and they’ve just informed us that due to a late start from the Isle (probably because of some bikers coming back or whatever) they’ve been delayed by an hour and a half. So it looks like pretty much any chance of cycling round the island is pretty much shot now, due that we probably won’t be arriving until 15:00 or so.It was a good night last night though, and a new experience for me: for the first time, I was in conversation for several hours with a group of Europeans my own age. So far, every older Englishman or woman has been completely accepting and friendly to me, even downright wonderful, but I haven’t really been in contact with anyone my own age besides Nathalie, who’s been essentially Americanized from her year in Madison with us. I had a chance to chat with three UK girls – Sarah, Sarah, and Hwoo (and I probably didn’t spell that properly at all) – the first a “Scouser” as she affectionately termed herself (a Liverpudlian in the more formal term), the second a Scotswoman, and the last a Taiwanese girl who had been living in Liverpool for the past 3 years for uni(versity, for you Yankees). Hwoo had just graduated from uni and was due back to go back in a few months, but she hung out at the youth hostel a lot. The two Sarahs are employed by the Embassie Hostel, which I arrived at about 19:00 or so, and the four of us hung around the main dinner table just chatting about life and uni life, and the differences between Europeans and Americans. I found it funny that Scouser Sarah was wearing a “Vote For Pedro” Napoleon Dynamite t-shirt, and she actually surprised me several times by affecting an excellent American accent (it was kind of a southern accent, but I forgave her since I guess that’s unfortunately how we must be seen as a national group). Scottish Sarah was soft spoken and nice to me – she gave me a free laundry and dryer token so I could watch my clothes for the first time (I was starting to smell a bit rancid) in the ancient machines in the basement.

The whole hostel was completely unlike the “professionally run” YHA hostel that I had stayed at the previous night. Besides that one being almost completely empty, this one on the other hand was packed with students and a few older travellers chatting, smoking, almost all drinking beer and mourning the loss of the Liverpool football (soccer, for you Yankees) team against Athens the previous night. I was told by a fellow on the train on the way over (Sergio, another excellent Brit) that if they had won the previous night the place would be an insane party right now. What with me being a confused and disoriented tourist anyway, I figured it was actually probably better for me to not have that extra distraction! But the hostel itself was a much more “homely” sort, with rough stone walls and dingy pots hanging from the ceiling, holes everywhere, ragged old red carpet, and a bathroom that is too horrible to describe here. The beds were comfortable looking though, and the men’s dorm room was also packed with sleeping (or passed out, judging from the alcohol smell permeating the place) uni-aged men.

I was pleased. I booked my next two nights for the two nights I’d be staying in Liverpool next week on my way back south and went to bed, getting up early this morning so that I would have time to have a look around Liverpool a little bit, grab a bite to eat, and make it to the Ferry terminal by 9:50. After an amusing romp through the back alleys of the dorm flats area trying to find a post office that would sell international stamps and a stop at a ATM terminal that wouldn’t charge me £7 to use a foreign card, I grabbed myself a steak and gravy pasty for breakfast with some orange drink from a company I’d never heard of, and headed across town to the docks.

I’m beginning to discover a pattern in my planning here – it was really badly timed. The plans themselves were grand and well-done, but somehow I managed to schedule things during the May Bank Holiday and the 100th annual Motorbike races on the Isle. Now, I’m sitting in the lounge surrounded by people wearing leather chaps, sunburn, bandanas and weatherbeaten expressions. I guess the “biker look” is the same around world (which many of these folks are from).