How to convert CustomerAddressAttributes (long string consisting of all the id's and values) into a list of Customer Address Attribute objects

Hello to all,
Inside the Address Table, there is a column called CustomAttributes it contains the id and value pair of attributes in a single string format (looks like HTML or XML because of tags). How do I convert that string of <attributes></attributes> into a list or array of attributes (Object) so that I may access the values?

If there is a simpler way to do this I am open to suggestions
Thanks in advance

This routine formats the attributes as HTML
        public virtual string FormatAttributes(string attributesXml,
            string separator = "<br />",
            bool htmlEncode = true)
See source\Libraries\Nop.Services\Common\AddressAttributeFormatter.cs
It might be of use