Liverpool

      Nik and I went to Liverpool to see John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's childhood homes. We had a tour booked to spend an hour inside each house, and that was the only thing we knew about or had planned. Anyone who knows me may be surprised that I actually went into a situation willfully unprepared (not my usual style) - but discovering the cool things to see and do as we went turned out to be really fun. We basically spent two days exploring and visiting everything Beatles-related we could find.
      I grew up listening to my dad's music so I knew quite a few Beatles songs. I knew that they were a big deal in the 60s. But when I first started spending a lot of time with Nik two years ago, it became very clear very quickly that I needed to know more than that - especially after the first time I went with Nik to visit his parents in Boise. Nik and his dad could and do spend entire days in their (amazing, gorgeous) music shrine playing Beatles music together and every other conversation includes a Beatles reference or two. I almost needed notecards to keep up! (A great deal of the 8-hour drive to and from Boise is usually devoted to a Beatles album or two, so I get some serious study time.)
      Here in the UK, though, I've gotten the full story. For my politics class I wrote a paper on the Beatles, outlining their history and analyzing their socio-political influence. I visited Abbey Road Studios and took the infamous picture in the crosswalk. In Liverpool I visited John and Paul's homes, Penny Lane, the Cavern Club, and the John Lennon peace memorial. And the big finish - I saw Paul McCartney perform live at the Royal Albert Hall. So next time I visit Boise, I am all set!

Chinatown

      The train station in Liverpool is beautiful and the area surrounding it is the focal point of Liverpool nightlife - so arriving at 8:00 on a Saturday night, we instantly loved what we saw. We walked part-way to our B&B, just to see what we could see, and then took a cab the last couple miles. Along the way we stopped and talked to a hilarious group of guys outside a pub who were looking for a good baby name. They didn't like Nicholas or Leslie but they were fun to talk to! Once at the B&B I finally gave in and admitted that I was, in fact, really sick. I fell asleep in record time and Nik went out in search of interesting things (aka beer). About 2:30 in the morning our neighbors drunkenly buzzed our room a few times before figuring out they were in the wrong place and we also lost an hour of sleep for the UK's daylight savings that night, so we felt pretty awful the next morning. But we were off to see where the Beatles first began, so it was ok!
      The Beatles' Childhood Homes tour was pretty awesome. Both houses had been restored to how John and Paul would have known them, based on memories and pictures. At each one the caretaker took our pictures outside, took us through the rooms and told stories about what their lives were like, and then let us walk through on our own for a bit. I really enjoyed seeing what it was like - especially when the caretaker at Paul's house told me I was sitting in the very spot where the Beatles sat and sketched out Love Me Do in the back of a biology notebook. That gave me goosebumps. But I think my appreciation was nothing compared to Nik's. He could have died happy right there!

Mendips, childhood home of John Lennon

20 Forthlin Road, childhood home of Paul McCartney

Setliffe Park

    
      After the tour we got lunch and then went to check into our next B&B. It was an old Victorian house which, appropriately, used to be the childhood home of Stuart Sutcliffe, one of the original Beatles from the Hamburg days. It was a beautiful house right on the edge of a huge park a few miles outside the city center. We dumped our stuff, got ice cream cones, and spent the afternoon wandering through the park in the sunshine and walking along Penny Lane. Back at the B&B, we enjoyed a drink on the patio and then walked to Lark Lane (adorable little row of fun shops and restaurants) and splurged on a nice italian dinner and a bottle of wine. After dinner we went into town and went to the Cavern, the club where the Beatles first started playing shows. It turned out to be a hotspot for very drunk mid-life-crisis tourists, but we had a lot of fun singing along to the Beatles cover band guy. And I knew every single song, thank you very much.

      The next day we had the full english at the B&B (baked beans for breakfast is the best idea the Brits ever had), checked out, and went to the waterfront for a last morning in Liverpool. It was still sunny and summery, so we walked into town. We window shopped in Lark Lane on the way so it took us about three hours to get there. At the waterfront we sat on a patio in the sun (theme for the weekend) and shared a pizza - goat cheese, spinach, and sundried tomato, yum. And then went on the ferris wheel at the Albert Docks! It was huge and kind of terrifying, but also awesome. Then, sadly, we had to leave to go catch our train. I really didn't want to leave because we'd had such a great couple days and Liverpool was such a cool and beautiful city. There was a lot more I wanted to see and try out. But I couldn't be too sad because our next stop was an adorable little B&B in the-middle-of-nowhere Wales!

Byebye Liverpool!