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Published: October 1st 2006
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Penny Lane
Reminds me of another song. Liverpool- Home of The Beatles.... and not much else, apart from a couple of soccer (sorry, FOOTBALL) clubs.
Liverpool wasn't too bad actually. For an old industrial city, it's quite nice. I set out on my mission to see all things Beatles by heading to Albert Dock to check out the Beatles Story, a museum dedicated to the Beatles. It was really cool. You walk around through various rooms and era's of the Beatles. Many rooms were set up to take you back to places like Hamburg, the Cavern Club, Abbey Road studios, Brian Epstein;s record store and more. The last room was totally white, with a white grand piano in the middle. On top of it was a photo of John Lennon and a pair of his famous glasses. The song Imagine played over and over. Quite surreal.
I went back to the hostel for a shower and clean up, before heading out again to try and find some sites. It began to rain shortly after, so I settled into a pub, had a meal and a few drinks.
I decided to have a reasonably early night so I could get up early and check everything out before heading
to London to fly home.
No such luck.
I believe I have witnessed the loudest snorer in history. I could not sleep, so about 12.20 I got up and went to the common area, watched a bit of TV and planned my next day, using a special Beatles map I bought from the tourist office. At about 2.30 or so, I ventured back upstairs towards my room. I am not joking when I say I could hear this guy from about 5 doors down (at least) in the corridor. I walked up to my door, listened, and decided I couldn't sleep in there. Specially since my phone was nearly dead (it has music on it I could listen to with headphones), and I needed it that day to check the time so I wouldn't miss anything. I'd also packed my earphones away. I wandered to the nearest toilet, went in, and found it quite clean. I sat down, leant against the wall and tried to sleep.
I woke up a little bit sore, thinking I'd done well to sleep like that. I checked my phone and realised I'd only slept about 10 minutes and it was still 2.45am. I heard
The Cavern Club
The Beatles played nearly 300 shows in the early days right here. the guy say yesterday he had to leave at 5am that morning, so i bit the bullet and went back to my room. I lied down, getting more and more frustrated about sleeping. In the end I decided to use my phone. I put some music on, not worrying about headphones, just blasting it out next to my ear. I managed about 1 hour of broken sleep. Better than nothing. After the guy had left, I squeezed in another 2.5 hours of sleep.
Anyway, onto the sights. Using my map and loose plan, I walked the city, checking out sights such as the Cavern Club, places where John Lennon lived when he was younger, the place he married Cynthia and a few other hotspots. After that I jumped on a bus to check out Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields. I wanted to check out the childhood homes of the four Beatles, but the prick last night gave me limited time and no phone to check on times.
Anyway, I saw the two main sites, so I was happy.
I got back to the train station, and bought a ticket. My train left at 3.15 and since it was only 2.30 I went off in search of some souvenirs. I walked to Albert Dock, where I'd seen a shop earlier and bought what I wanted. I asked the lady for the time and she told me it was just short of 3pm. It had taken me 25 minutes to walk there, and I had about 18 to get back to the station and catch my train. Here we go again, I thought, as I started my marathon run back. Very difficult with your full backpack on, I must admit. A couple of times I nearly gave up, but managed to get to the station, jump on and find somewhere to sit just as the train took off. Skin of my teeth again. The train arrived in London at around 6pm, four hours before my plane was due to leave. I caught the underground to a station that linked to an airport line. After a short wait, I managed to get a train to the airport, arriving at about 7.15. I knew the queue would be long, so I was happy to be there just short of 2.5 hours early. Even enough to have a meal in the gate lounge! Unfortunately for the person on the plane next to me, I had garlic mushrooms and bbq ribs. Beautiful meal though.
So that's it! Hope you enjoyed the blogs. I know they weren't that detailed but its hard to find a cheap internet connection and even harder to find the time to type. But, I think I did OK, and you can always ask me to expand on anything I've mentioned. I guess I've also got so many stories that I won't remember them till something reminds me of it. So prepare for the next few years of me saying, "that reminds me of that time in Europe"..... and no, I didn't attend bandcamp.
See you all soon, if I haven't already.
By the way, now that I'mhome I can add pictures to my blogs, so it might be worth going back through them and checking them out. Apologies in advance if you get ten thousand emails flooding your inbox, telling you I've updated my blogs.
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