"In the Footsteps of Rock'n'Roll History"

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Thursday --- Our train got into Liverpool Lime Street about 5:30 p.m. We walked into the main entrance and immediately spotted Kate! It was awesome. We then turned around and bought tickets to get back on the train and off at a different station. Whoops! A ten minute ride on the train followed by a ten minute ride on the bus left us at Menlove Avenue. We walked across the street and -bang- our first Beatles sight. It was where the John Lennon grew up, his aunt's house "Mendips." Now I had always been under the impression that he had grown up working class, and this house didn't seem very working class. But it was cool to see, plaque and all. A family seems to live there because it was almost 6 and a woman parked her car and headed towards the door with her keys out. I kind of ducked and looked uncomfortable, but I'm sure she gets visitors all the time. Probably some creepy ones too that hover. That would suck. Anyway Kate lives in Woolton, a historic part of Liverpool. We walked up the street to her and Gareth's flat which was only a 5 minute walk from Mendips. We threw down those heavy packs we were beginning to constantly swear at (ah, the joy of backpacking) and chatted with a hungover Gareth before heading to the local public house for a pint and to watch the Liverpool-FC Steaua Bucureşti Europa match. It was a nice walk to Woolton's high street where we passed by the quarry and St. Peter's Church. We drank a few pints, ate some steak and ale pie and watched Liverpool win 4-1! We were quite popular at the Elephant or else scousers are really friendly because guys kept stopping at our table after hearing our accents. Liverpool was leaving a great impression on me, everyone was super friendly. We headed back to Kate's for an early night but not before stumbling into St. Peter's cemetery to try to find Eleanor Rigby's grave. We did what was expected, grabbed onto each other in the dark, got scared and ran out of there screaming like girls.

Friday --- Kate and Lindsey went to the grocery store in the morning while I tried to grab more sleep. It worked, and I woke up to the sweetheart known as Kate cooking breakfast. We lounged the day away until Steve, our Beatles tour guide, picked us up at 2 for our date with "rock and roll history." Steve was really nice and enthusiastic and you could tell he loves what he does. Although if he said we were in the footsteps of rock and roll history one more time I was going to snap. I kept wanting to ask "So Steve, where are we again?" But I bit my tongue. We went to the childhood homes of John, Paul, George and Ringo as well as Penny Lane, Strawberry Field, Eleanor Rigby's grave, St. Peter's Church (not as scary during the day), and the Hall where John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time. I think it surprised Kate to know how close some of these places were to her house. Her and I did duck and giggle while driving through Ringo's old neighborhood! I looked around and asked if we were in Toxteth, and she told me we were close. Turns out we were in Dingle. I didn't want to get out of the car! Luckily no shankings or muggings occurred, although we did see the megabus AKA the Magical Mystery Tour. Book a private tour for fifty quid if you can, the Magical Mystery Tour looked depressing and impersonal.

We were dropped off back at Kate's flat where it was time to get ready to go out on the town. Kate surprised me by having our friend Graham come to stay and it was great to see him! I missed his crazy antics and Manc accent. We took a cab to Kate's friends in Aigburth before heading out to Lark Lane to go drinking. The first pub we went to had a hustler walking around writing poems for spare change. Our large group pitched in a few quid and our payoff was one of the worst poems I have ever heard. He also sold Kate a book of his poems. We looked at his book later and found some disturbing poems, namely one about necrophilia. Really man?! The funny thing is we went to a pub across the street later and saw him at the bar getting pissed with his profits. Well played, sir.

Everyone had a good night drinking and joking around before catching a cab back to Woolton. Unfortunately the Elephant was closed so we walked back to Kate and Gareth's flat. There was a pub that was still open on the walk back, a very chav looking pub, and when we tried to go in we were told 'no girls allowed!' What?! Graham and Gareth still went in, didn't really care that we couldn't go in, and we went back to the flat without our chivalrous friends. I got really tired and crawled into the computer room while everyone stayed up and partied.

Saturday --- Everyone was a little worse for wear in the morning, and how do you cure that? The pub of course. Gareth's mate was turning 30 so he was off for a "boys only" day (is there a theme here?). Lindsey wasn't feeling well so she stayed in and Kate, Graham and I went to the Elephant for a pint and I treated Kate to breakfast. The pint took a while to get down, but the full English breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, baked beans, mushroom and tomato) hit the spot. Gareth and his friends were also in the pub betting on horses and getting pissed but Kate and I stayed on the other side of the pub! Graham was invited to join them and after us talking girl talk in front of him he left. Kate and I left the pub and headed across the street where they were showing football. We walked into "The Dark Horse" which was full of men who loved Everton. It was fun watching the match and spending some quality time with Kate. We then went to Sainsbury's then Grapes to continue our pub crawl. There was a really nice guy in the pub with his parents who we ended up chatting with for a while. Yes I was definitely flirting with a guy in front of his parents, very smooth! Anyway Lindsey then came to meet us and we had a couple of pints before going out for a meal. We went to an Indian restaurant where we had some delicious curry and I treated Kate as a thank you for everything. This was our last night of the trip and it was a nice way to end it. We went to bed after that since we had to fly out of Manchester at 11 a.m. so we had to get up at 6 to get a taxi to the bus station then bus to the airport. Yikes! I was sleeping great until Kate came in at 2 a.m. asking me to get up because Gareth had been asking for me. I go into the living room and him and Graham were wasted! Their boys day sure did the job. Gareth was singing and dancing incoherently and I laughed my ass off until I was able to sneak away and go back to bed.

Sunday --- The alarm went off at a ridiculous time! I was so tired but showered and packed my bag to catch a taxi at 7 a.m. We went to the Liverpool bus station to catch a 2 hour bus ride to Manchester. I was miserable and felt awful. The only funny thing was a Middle Eastern family on our bus - the man was yelling at his wife who was in traditional Muslim garb. He was furious with her and it was a bit uncalled for not to mention inconsiderate for the rest of us on the bus so we pretended we knew the translations from Arabic to English. It was pretty much "How dare you speak in public?" "If I ever see you looking at another man..." and "If my dinner is ever cold again...." Stuff like that. Yeah, we're jerks, but it was super early in the morning and this guy was a prick talking to his wife like that! So we made the situation humorous. It was necessary at that time of the morning and in our state. So we made it to the airport, shopped duty-free after the exhausting airport security routine and got on our flight bound for the states. I kept telling Lindsey I was going to get bumped since I did on the way to Europe but of course that didn't happen. I was back in economy where I belong, along with the smell of dirty diapers, unhappy flight attendants, and people really pushing the one seat weight limit. A perfect reintroduction to the States!

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