This wasn’t exactly the kind of “adventure” I want to have, because it involved urgently replacing my lost passport, but hey, I met a friend, took some photos and visited… Birmingham. I was surprised to see loads of tourists, so I’m probably not giving old Brum enough credit.
I’m still not entirely sure how I lost my passport or if it was actually stolen, but months went by before I realised and I already had another trip booked. I needed a countersignature from someone with a valid British passport to replace it. It seems that losing your passport is all the rage in Nottingham, because everyone I spoke to was either in the same boat, or their passport had expired, so a friend from Coventry very kindly agreed to meet me in Birmingham.
Every Brit knows our trains are unreliable, but it was a Saturday, so what could possibly go wrong? Storm Babet was what could possibly go wrong. My local bus to Nottingham didn’t show up and then the next one took nearly two hours instead of 50 minutes because of the crazy traffic. I grabbed an application form from the Post Office in the Vic Centre, legged it to the station and surprise! Every train to Birmingham was cancelled. A friend in Nottingham then contacted me saying they could do it after all, but my other friend was already on the way to Birmingham, so I had to find a way to get there. I ran to the National Express station. Every bus to Birmingham was full. I stood outside and checked Megabus. There was one arriving an hour and 40 minutes after I agreed to meet my friend. By the time I messaged him, all but one of the five available seats sold out and of course, the price of the last one went up. I had no idea how I’d get home, but this was the only way I was getting to Birmingham, so I booked it. According to my pedometer, I walked at least three miles looking for the new Megabus stop. I also rang Megabus to ask only to be told they didn’t know where it was either, which is very Megabus™.
Birmingham New Street Station is actually an interesting building. It’s this huge reflective silver thing. There’s also a giant mechanical bull inside. I should have taken photos, but I was kind of stressed. Anyway, friend and I got the countersignature sorted and from where he was sitting, he could see the board announcing the wonderful news that all the Nottingham trains were still cancelled. I considered getting the train to Derby, then the Red Arrow back to Notts, but that seemed like it could go very wrong. Megabus it was. There was just one more departure that day, about four hours away. That was the only reliable route out of Birmingham, so I booked it and we went ‘sightseeing’ to pass the time. I really am being mean to Birmingham. The tourists with their selfie sticks were definitely sightseeing without quotation marks.
Our first stop was Birmingham Library. Definitely prettier than Nottingham Library. My mum has a fridge magnet of it – a truly scintillating fact. A highlight was a busker rapping ‘don’t get hit by the tram’ on the way there. We weren’t really sure where we were going afterwards, but we found the canal, which is also pretty. I mean that. Why do I sound so uninterested?! I’m blaming the passport.
There are also these fountains if you walk a bit further. The red-brick building with the white arches is quite nice, too.
`Past the fountains, you find another part of the canal and the aquarium. I wanted to look for another shark plush in the gift shop (all I ever do in aquariums), but it closed a few minutes before we arrived. Tragic! We really weren’t sure where to go at this point, so we just stood there for a while. There was a nice sky to admire and some cute neon signs on the restaurants opposite. Also, if you look closely… you’ll see a true highlight of Birmingham. A LEGO GIRAFFE! This is definitely not sarcasm.
We eventually decided to get closer to the giraffe. What else was there to do with everything starting to shut? Although actually, Google Maps told us the Lego shop had already shut, but it hadn’t! I’m sure my eight year-old self is plotting how to hit me with a Lego sledgehammer as a punishment for having no intention of actually buying anything, given that she was in love with a Lego man called Rocket Racer… although I don’t think Rocket Racer was available at the time of my visit, so maybe I’ll be forgiven. Anyway, then we started to walk back. This is a nice view if you like urban things as much as I do.
I also took a photo of this nice building this time.
In the Bullring, we saw a plush pig dressed as a dinosaur, which I kind of regret not buying. Not that I need it. Plushies are taking over my house. We also met a bloke who said my dress reminded him of a wedding he attended near Stonehenge in which everyone dressed as Vikings, and that my Docs reminded him of his girlfriend shoving a Subway sandwich in her Docs.
My friend (and saviour) finally escaped my absolutely scintillating company at New Street Station. I made the right decision setting out for the Megabus stop early, because as expected, I got slightly lost. I did see these nice urban night scenes though.
For all my complaints about the coaches in this country (long stories), the good old Megabus was on time and got me back to Nottingham in one piece, which I can’t say for the trains. I’ll usually avoid my local bus at all costs, too, but I didn’t even bother checking if the trains were running – just crossed town to the bus stop and Trent Barton got me home. I suppose I’ll always be a professional bus passenger. That’s a long story, too…
Birmingham really isn’t that dull. I think it’s just easy to assume that anywhere close to home can’t be that exciting, and I’ve only ever visited for gigs before, so I haven’t really seen anything of interest. The biggest lesson learned, though, is that I will treat my passport like the One Ring, minus chucking it in Mt. Doom, in the future – and I probably ought to fix my car.
Atlas and a Camera 