UKMPA2011

I would agree with a lot of what's been said here. I'm from London, but have lived in the North West. While it's not as big as London, Birmingham or Manchester, it's still considered a major English city. As people have said, it's a major cultural centre, particularly for music. I doubt if there's any similar sized city in the world that has produced as many bands as Liverpool: http://en.wikipedia....ic_of_Liverpool As someone has said the other major thing the city is known for is football (soccer). Whether or not you have any interest in the sport it would be hard to live there and be unaware of the sport as two major premiership teams are based in the city. There's more than enough other stuff going on in the city to keep you occupied. There are major art galleries, including a Tate and a huge amount of history dating from the British Empire, particularly slave trade history. It's also near(ish), with a car, to some of the UK's most beautiful areas; the Lake District and the Peak District. Finally, if you exhaust the restaurants, bars, shops of Liverpool - Manchester is very accessible by train and is even more busy and full of things to do. As with many UK cities Liverpool has a pretty strong regional identity, with accompanying accent. Understanding people might be a challenge at first, but in terms of friendliness of locals, you're better of in Liverpool than London. Finally on crime. Liverpool does (particularly did) have a bit of a reputation for crime, but as a general rule UK cities are a lot safer than US cities. Plus, you wouldn't be spending much time in Toxeth/Croxeth, so don't worry about it too much. In general in the UK the thing to watch our for is drunk people getting into fights, but you don't have to be a genius to spot drunk and rowdy teenagers - so just avoid them.