Day 5/6

Okay, I forgot to write yesterday but not much happened actually until about 9.

Yesterday was our travel day to Liverpool. We got on the bus at about 9 I think and then we traveled about half the distance there and then made a stop in Stafford, the birthplace of William Shakespear and his wife. We stopped and saw his wife's birthplace which is in a quaint village outside the town. Again, it's something like what you see in the Lord of the Rings...without the round doors. In fact, the trip from city to city reminds me of the same trip in the US: it goes from big city to suburbs to farmland. The difference is that instead of corn and cows on flat ground, its sheep and some other crop (I guess) on the rolling hills of middle UK. We even actually got to see the church that Shakespear got married in which also holds his grave.

We then arrived in Liverpool and got to our rooms. This hotel was built in 1912 and it is evident. The style is like something you would see in the Titanic (which was registered in Liverpool) but the rooms aren't as grand because, well, they're 100 years old.

Then we went to "the most famous club in the world: The Cavern Club." It was where the Beatles were famously founded. There is so much Beatles history in that place and it felt like we were there in the 60s as there was still live music being played. But as much Beatles history there is there, there is equal fame found in it's other bands. The Cavern Club has housed bands such as The Who, Queen, Arctic Monkeys, Chuck Berry, Rod Stewart, and most recently, Adele less than a year ago. The atmosphere in there was again very unique and awesome. The live music played a lot of popular songs and you never really felt like sitting down. We finished the long day by returning back to our room to chill and watch tv for a while.

Day 6

With our EF Tour guide, she pretty much just brings us to famous places and just lets us go and explore for ourselves which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. It's nice to have freedom and you aren't restricted to what the group is doing and you can go at your own pace but then on the other hand you have to find out the information yourself or otherwise you just get the surface of the information.

With that being said, we started the day with a guided Beatles tour with a guy who knew a whole bunch about the Beatles. The Beatles were very autobiographical with their songs which made this tour extra interesting. On our tour we saw the boyhood homes and birthplaces of Paul, John, Ringo, and George. We saw Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and Elanor Rigby's tombstone. Actually the song name Elanor Rigby didn't come from the gravestone but was actually a combination of two different names. We also went to the place where Paul McCartney and John Lennon first met. This was a church reception hall that is usually locked but when we were outside the hall there was a man inside who invited us in.

Then after that our tour guide left us and we were stuck with the EF tours lady. We went to an exhibit that explained the relationship between the Beatles and Elvis. It was pretty interesting but rather small and busy because we were all in there at the same time. There were a lot of interesting artifacts in there though.

We then went to a Museum called "The Beatles Story." And that's pretty much what it was. The story of the Beatles in exhibits and audio explanations. It was really interesting because they made the rooms into exhibits that looked like some of the places that they experienced such as the Cavern, the recording studio, their agent's (Brian Epstein) office. Once we got done with that we headed back to the hotel and it's about 6:30 now and we have dinner at 7. After dinner we're planning to go to "The Grapes" which is the bar that the Beatles members hung out at as teenagers.

The number of events has calmed down since we've gotten to Liverpool but its still a good time and we are getting a lot of new information everyday and seeing sights that we are very privileged to see. We are standing in the same spots that the Beatles did and are experiencing the same things that the Fab Four wrote about.

Free Day Tomorrow!