At the Liverpool Pod
22. November 2023
I arrive at Liverpool in the midst of pouring rain. I've been warned, though. Not just metaphorically – the TV screens were telling me for two days now: "Babet" is still storming over the British island.
Liverpool in Pouring Rain
My train arrives more or less on time, though – I find a bus that's taking me straight to my hostel: "The Liverpool Pod."¹ This is where I'll stay over the Merseyside derby weekend: on Saturday, LFC will play Everton at home. After the London experience, I'm deeply unsure of my hostel travel style. I can't fully see the upside anymore. I wonder whether Liverpool might change it all.
Colin: "Yeah, Liverpool is more easy-goin' than, let's say, a place like London – where everybody has always got to run somewhere. People here are more relaxed. I mean, they mostly don't have a job anyway. And they all drink – so, you know why."
My cheap pocket umbrella is barely holding up against the wind as I make my way over the street to the entrance. Just as I'm grabbing my phone for the instructions on how to enter and check in, Mark (the owner) appears next to me: "You're Philipp, ey? Don't worry, I'll sort you out. What a shit weather! What are you doing here in this shit weather? You here for the football, are you?" We make our way inside.
Mark's Pod
Sitting down, I find that there's something within his verbal bombardment which makes me feel at ease with the world and humanity again. It's not the questions themselves (I couldn't answer them fully, if I tried) – rather, the basic friendliness that is lurking behind them. His way of making me feel welcome. I'm warming up – so rapidly that I can't even begin to edit or refuse his offer of "tea with milk and sugar?", instead I happily say yes to both glucose and dairy.
A Liverpool street illustrating the colorful coexistence of two rival local football clubs.
He sits me down at a booth with a large cup (my first English "cuppa tea") and offers me more questions to pick and answer from. I'm doing the best I can – we debate shortly whether there's any point in Liverpool inhabitants hating Manchester inhabitants because of football – and we end up with an acknowledgment of fucking geopolitics again. It's on everyone's mind all the time. Sign of the time.
While I'm sipping from the cup and shaking off the drops from my umbrella, he introduces me to his wife and one of his children. Then, after I'm finished, he shows me my bed and room: it's a cozy, comfortable place. Warm (literally), with new bathrooms and a clean kitchen next door. My faith is restored. I'm more than happy to share this space with people and talk to them. After I'm all set up, he leaves me next to my bed – on the way out the room, I see him bend down and pick up a speck of dirt (or some dust) from the ground.
I'll be alright, I guess.
I'll be alright, I guess.
Liverpool Pod Kitchen Banter
The Liverpool Pod hours go by a little too fast. Two times I find myself at breakfast with Colin, the Irish man with tattoos all over his head and a past in Cambodian Muai Thai boxing. Saturday he explains his new YouTube passion to me: a practice called "auditing:" YouTube videos that basically revolve around a civilian cameraman standing in front of police buildings and filming. As far as Colin explains it to me, there's no law prohibiting a civilian from filming public buildings.
Colin: "I find it just so funny, though. These guys they don't know the law themselves. This cameraman, he's already made 15.000 quid in court."
On Sunday, I ask him about his time in Cambodia. He enjoyed it – in fact, he's saving money right now to eventually go back. Slowly, exponentially, he's getting truly excited. Soon, I find myself munching away on my omelet with my right eye and observing Colin's charismatic theater with my left. He stages the 1 sqm in front of the TV with long steps.
Ticket from a Liverpool bus. The whole service is provided by German subsidiary Arriva.
Demonstrating Cambodian traffic to me, reenacting child labor practices at the local shops, bars and construction sites – and explaining the sight of inconsolable poverty and deformity² you see on the edges of society. I like his basic human decency, the affection with which he describes his everyday life in Southeast Asia. His language and demeanor display real respect for many of the people he met there – particularly the many orphans whose studiousness and competent English made a lasting impression on him.
The Korean Regular
Later that day, I'm all packed up and sitting down for a final "cuppa" with Mark, his daughter, the long-timer Tom, and an American fellow traveler (who lost his padlock key – and whose locker Mark had to force open just an hour ago). We talk about travelling, his guests, and hostels.
Mark: "Yeah. We've had some mad (mad) people here, ey. Some you just remember."
Mark, who's actually on his way out to reclaim his phone from the pub he lost it in yesterday evening³, can't help but reenact some of his more *legendary* guests. The story of a Korean regular gets us particularly clapping and shouting. Apparently, this man was the son of wealthy Korean steel factory owners – arriving in a limo driven by a chauffeur, with a rack of suits in all colors in his one hand and a "solid gold Rolex, I'm telling ya" dangling from the other.
A tie is lost to the grounds of Liverpool's Anfield Park.
As Mark introduces him to his Pod, the man takes out his phone and video phone calls his parents in Korea. Their faces are visibly scrunching up. Feeling a little uncomfortable, Mark is compelled to explain to him: "Mate, this is a hostel, you know. You have to share a bathroom – and I can only give you a bunk bed. We've got the Marriott and the Hilton down at the center. Maybe that's more your thing."
He switches into the role of the Korean man now – verbalizing his accented English and mannerism with great joy:
The Korean Regular: "No Mark, I used stay at the Hilton and I would be alone in my room and cry. I want to spend time with poor people. Tell me, where's a good pub? I want to socialize."
"It was offensive, you know," Mark explains to us, "but he didn't mean it that way. He just wanted to spend time with people."
The Korean Regular: "I'm buying pizza! Do you want a pizza? You want a pizza?"
Soon, Mark would order 18 pizzas for the whole hostel, all on the Korean's expense. Whoever the man interacted with, he would hand out enormously generous tips – prompting the local pub waitresses to take turns servicing him. His chauffeur would get up late at night to drive him home from the cinema.
On My Way out of Liverpool
Turns out, Mark doesn't care about football or the LFC, respectively. He admits that he's a curiosity in a city of football fanatics.
Mark: "My carpenter's depressed when Everton lose. He's at work mumbling: 'we're gonna get relegated. I hope we're not gonna get relegated.' On Monday I check the match results, so that I know whether he's actually gonna get any work for me done."
The Korean Regular does care about football, though. With a last big gesture, Mark reenacts the one time he told his wealthy guest that his (immensely expensive) hospitality tickets hadn't arrived beforehand (as was usual by this point). He pantomimes a heart attack: "No, Mark! It's impossible! I have to see LFC play. You can't do this to me. Please!" A pose of great relief, then, when it was declared a joke – the hospitality tickets were, as always, waiting for him.
"You know, whatever floats your boat is fine with me, ey." – Mark's words come from experience and channel the connections he's made over the years – there's no cynical derision detectable in his speech.
That's what I came here for.
That's what I came here for.
A late evening look at the Mersey river stays in my mind.
My train to Manchester Victoria is supposed to leave somewhere around 2 PM on Sunday. I make my way out the hostel and to the city center: there, I return to a good cup of coffee with pastel de nata⁴ – while I smile over the shenanigans of the weekend.
¹ I stayed at the Liverpool Pod for two nights. Despite a fully-booked weekend and platform fees I paid about 40 Pounds per night.. ↑
² The Red Khmer and the results of their Killing Fields visible everywhere. ↑
³ Mark's not a drinker, he says. There's just this armchair at a pub he likes – in a quiet room on the side. His phone must've just slipped out of his pocket, while he was sitting there. ↑
⁴ I chose a little store called Coffi, which has a beautiful setup over two floors – and lies in a quiet little street off the center. ↑
² The Red Khmer and the results of their Killing Fields visible everywhere. ↑
³ Mark's not a drinker, he says. There's just this armchair at a pub he likes – in a quiet room on the side. His phone must've just slipped out of his pocket, while he was sitting there. ↑
⁴ I chose a little store called Coffi, which has a beautiful setup over two floors – and lies in a quiet little street off the center. ↑