I finally have something else to write about on this trip! For context, I'm now in Liverpool for four days - an inane decision considering there is naught much to do, but I digress - and I decided to cut my losses and head back to the AirBnB early today after the rest of the party decided it was a great time for their third (!!!) Primark trip. We're right next to Anfield, which meant I had around a 30 min bus ride from where we had a late lunch, and I planned to spend it mostly looking around or listening to the dulcet tones of my favourite ASOIAF youtuber when I looked over and saw a dude playing Ace Attorney on his Switch.
Now for further context, my notification sound has been the Ace Attorney Realisation sound effect for nigh on two years; in a vain attempt to possibly make a friend, I immediately took my earphones out and turned my phone off silent. The rough hopeful plan was that the notification sound would go off and my dear Ace Attorney playing busmate would notice and we would have a Scouse-accented conversation with one another. Alas, it's currently 3am where most of my notification sources (read: my friends) are, so this Did Not Work.
However, I believe and always have that the universe favours me (or everyone?), just in weird ways - though my plan did not bear fruit, I did end up having that conversation when one of the two men in front of me turned around and tapped me on my shoulder while I was resolutely looking out the window waiting for a notification to arrive. Sean (for that was his name) pointed to the self-same guy who was playing AA next to him and started going on about how the la was glued to his switch instead of talking. I noticed the man next to him, also an elderly dude, seemed slightly exhausted at this line of conversation, and I'm pretty sure I just encountered a fabled Liverpool Uncle - I have had a million conversations on public transport with older folks like these who delight in laughing in the face of our learned social proprietry and engaging whoever will give them the time of day in conversation.
Unfortunately Ace Attorney Guy is not one of those people - Sean cracked a couple jokes in his direction but he very expeditiously put his headphones back on and went back to the game before I could make my daring introduction to him. I was reaching my stop, unfortunately, but I managed to have a few minutes of talk with Sean and his mildly put-out seatmate about how glued to social media and our devices we all are these days. I was regretfully unable to flex my sub 2 hour average screen time on Sean in the little time I had before I got off at Blessington Road, but I still feel blessed (HA!) that the Liverpool leg of my trip did not end up without any social interaction with the locals.
As an aside before I end off, and to reiterate just how much I love these random moments of interaction, I'm actually super grateful that this is (IIRC) my fifth such one. Before I even landed in the UK, I semi-blundered by allowing my seatmate on the flight from DXB to LHR to speak in my presence, but I did end up having quite a lovely conversation with a Rahul, originally from Mangaluru but working for the NHS in Somerset just outside of Bristol - he was a huge Emirates fan and told me that row 77 (which we were on) was his favourite and he tried his best to book it every time.
There was also Molly on my first night in London while I was out, who bummed a rollie from Kit and dropped a "XXX, styll." which was frankly astounding to hear live in front of me. There was Mukhtar, a fellow Goldsmiths Computer Science graduate, who had pretty much the same story as me - got into programming at a young age, started working early, took a abbreviated degree to get it out of the way, made senior a few months back at work, didn't really want to come all the way to London just for a convocation but relented to an overly proud mother, was going to Manchester to see a football club - Mukhtar is a G but I heavily resent the fact he has way more GitHub stars than me >:(
Lastly before Sean in Liverpool, there was Idris a local coffee shop owner here that we actually didn't plan on going to, but stopped at entirely the wrong bus stop on our first day and realised had a halal full english. He ended up talking to us for quite a bit - turns out he's originally from Sudan but has been in Liverpool 35 years (!) and has kept his business 100% halal despite pressure from potential business partners and other Muslims in the city to sell alcohol. He did also invite us to his house for tea before we left Liverpool, but my family again have very different ideas of what makes a good trip than me and decided they would rather shop than visit him, so unfortunately I did not get to do so - still very grateful to have met him.
No matter how put out I am by my travelling companions, I am still eternally grateful I have the ability and privilege to see how people live around the world and be welcomed into their lives even for these brief moments. I'm really not a traveler - I prefer the warmth and familiarity of my own home and bedroom, but my recent experiences as an adult without being under the yoke of my parents' insistence on turning every trip into a consumerist nightmare and being able to actually interact meaningfully with the people in the cities I visit has really started to change this opinion. Regardless, that's it for this one - see ya tomorrow STILL