On Monday, I took two walking tours - one not by choice and the other by choice; however, both of them were extremely disappointing. Naturally, the one I did not do by choice was for class. Our professor, Malcolm Dick - yes, that is really his name - took us around the Mayfair area of London. Mayfair is an extremely swanky, up-scale area and he lectured on what it would have been like to live there 100 years ago or so. The way he chose to do this was absolutely ridiculous - he lined a bunch of us up according to the caste hierarchy and made us all really uncomfortable by saying we were married, etc. Also, apparently if you were wealthy back in the day you displayed pineapple outside your house.
After class, Mel and I went on a self-guided walking tour of the Kensington Gardens area - what a joke. First of all, we got lost. Second of all, a park that belongs to the Royal Family should be kept better. Third of all, Kensington Palace don't close 30 minutes before you are supposed to.
Friday night, Mel, Christie and I went to see Romeo and Juliet at the Globe, THE GLOBE. What an experience. We had standing tickets, or we were "groundlings" to use Shakespeare terms. It was fun to watch the cast members weaving through the see of people in the yard. Highly enjoyable. Juliet was rather disappointing, however. Everything else was fantastic.Saturday I woke up extremely early so that I could shower and be ready to go by 07:30. I took the national rail system to Liverpool, stopping first in Chester and changing trains. I actually arrived in Liverpool around 11:20. I got lost whilst trying to find my hotel and wandered all over hell and gone looking for it. Nothing over here is clearly labeled, so even after I stopped at a bookstore and purchased a map I still couldn't figure out where I was going. Alas, I found it around 12:15. I stayed at the International Inn/Cocoon - it was rather pleasant. I had my own room with a king size bed and flat-screen TV.
Being that it was already almost 14:00 when I got going on Saturday I made the decision to just wander around and not try to see anything specifically - I would do that on Sunday. The city of Liverpool made the decision not to demolish a church that was bombed during WWII - St. James Church - and it was absolutely breathtaking. Most of what I took pictures of on Saturday was what Liverpool used to be. For my class I have to write a research paper and I am doing mine on Liverpool, so I made sure to document, in photographs, the change from past to present.
The major attraction on Sunday was the Beatles Story. I spent a good three hours there and I have to admit that when I made it to the end and they had a section dedicated specifically to John Lennon I started to cry a little bit. He was such a beautiful human being and he was taken much too soon. It was neat to see their story from beginning to end...I never knew they had so many members before finally settling on the four that we all know today.
After visiting the Beatles Story, I continued on my walking tour which takes you through the Cavern Quarter - an area frequented by the Beatles. In fact, the club where they were discovered is down there as well as two other pubs where they used to hang out before and after shows. I went into the Cavern Club and it gave me chills...to stand where the Beatles may have once stood was crazy! I was in Beatles heaven.
Unfortunately, I was not able to visit Penny Lane or Strawberry Fields because they were in the suburbs of Liverpool and I was in the city centre. I took pictures of them at the museum :) I learned last night that Abbey Road is just up the street from where I am currently living, so I will be going to visit that soon!I saw lots of other stuff too, but it was all boring kinds of things like museums and statues. I just really wanted to tell you about the Beatles.
See all the rest of the pictures in my facebook album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2122267&id=185002852&l=39d3c9fb03
