Liverpool and The Beatles

This weekend I went to Liverpool with a group from my school, and it was AWESOME. We got there at about noon, hung around for a while then went on the Magical Mystery Tour. I saw so many different things, and I took pictures!

George Harrison's house, where he was born.

John Lennon's house.

Paul McCartney's house at 20 Forthlin Road, where he and John wrote most of their songs, in the room with the window right next to the door. Paul's room was the one right above the door.

These are Ringo Starr's houses, the brown one and the white one respectively, down the street from each other.

"On the corner is a banker with a motorcar, / The little children laugh at him behind his back. / And the banker never wears a mac / In the pouring rain, very strange." This bank:

"Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout / A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray / And though she feels as if she's in a play / She is anyway." This building (and it is in the middle of the roundabout) used to be the shelter that they sing about:

And these are self-explanatory.

That night, we went to The Cavern Club. The original is unfortunately no longer there, but that was where The Beatles first played and were discovered by their manager, Brian Epstein. The one we went to is basically the same, just not the original, and a little farther away than the first one was. But we danced there all night, and it was really fun. I also decided that night to make "Come On Eileen" our theme song, so I requested it.

The next day we went to The Beatles Story, a museum-type place that had basically the entire history of The Beatles and things from their past displayed. It really was the story of The Beatles, told through an exhibition.

When I finished going through the exhibition and was shopping in the gift shop, I was looking around and found a T-shirt with the Abbey Road album cover on it, and I really wanted it. So I bought a medium, like I usually wear, and thought I was all set. Well, I then saw my friend Shawn who had a T-shirt like mine, but hers was just fitting her. And she is smaller than me. So I asked her what size she had, and of course she said she had a medium. Well, I was really sad because I knew that size wouldn't fit me if it was just fitting her; so I asked the workers there if I could just switch my medium with a large. Unfortunately I couldn't; the codes were different. So I had to go through a whole return deal, gave them my receipt, etc. THEN I found out that Shawn had a women's fitted tee, and not the regular T-shirt I had gotten. I freaked out; now it DEFINITELY wasn't going to fit me. They told me to switch it again, since we were still in the store, but I didn't want to have to go through all that again. Plus, it would have been embarassing. So I made a decision. "Here, hold this," I told my friend Lauren. I gave her my bag, switched the large for a medium, and walked out of the store. At that point I didn't care, I just wanted my damn T-shirt.

So we walked out of the store, and ran into a very special man. This is Sgt. Pepper! He was very nice and let me take a picture with him. :)

We also went to Anfield Stadium, where the Liverpool Football Club plays, but since I don't really care too much about professional football (soccer) it didn't really capture my attention as The Beatles stuff did. But after that we did more Beatles stuff on our own. We went to The Grapes, which is on the same street as The Cavern Club; this was where John, Paul, George and Ringo would get drinks before playing their gigs. And we sat at their table! Well, only for like 15 seconds because some ladies were already sitting there and we asked them to move so we could take a picture... haha. They were very nice ladies.

All of this stuff was on Mathew Street, famous for being the starting-off point for The Beatles. There's a statue of John Lennon there now, leaning against one of the walls. The walls around him are made up of hundreds of bricks, each one with the name of a band or performer. Every single band that has played at The Cavern since its opening in 1957 has their own brick.

So I had a pretty great weekend. And the icing on the cake was this pub we heard about and ate at called Wetherspoons, where they had a deal for a pint of beer (or some other drink options) and a burger with chips for 5 pounds. That was a really great deal, especially since pints usually cost from 2 to 3 pounds each. So we ate cheap in Liverpool. :)