Penny Lane

Better late than never, right? Right. So, here follow my (abridged) adventures in Liverpool, November 5th - 8th.

It actually started on the 4th when I went to Amsterdam to sleep over at Sandra's house. See, our flight to Liverpool was at stupid o'clock on Wednesday morning and there was no way that Miriam and I were going to make it to the airport by public transport. So we cut a huge chunk out of the trip by staying overnight in Amsterdam. And then we let Sandra come along. :)

We woke up early on Wednesday, turned on the TV and were delighted to see the new president elect, Barack Obama. We felt it was a good omen and embarked on our adventure in good spirits. (side note, the free papers, obviously not knowing who'd won when they went to press, solved this rather ingeniously -- they had a front page with OBAMA! and then, in brackets (if McCain won, turn over). On the back page it said McCAIN! with the opposite turn over message, had Obama won).

Miriam and I wait for the tram to take us to the train which took us to the plane. Photo by Sandra.

We landed safe and sound in Liverpool and took the bus to our hotel. It wasn't until we were on a parallel street to our hotel that I realized it was the same one I stayed in the last time I was in Liverpool, roughly a year and a half before. Go me and my sense of direction. We left our luggage (room wasn't ready) and headed out into Liverpool itself to do some exploring.

We had seats booked on the Magical Mystery Tour that afternoon, and after some peeking around in Liverpool, we caught the bus and let ourselves be swept away in Beatles history and trivia. Our tour guide was hilarious and really made an effort to give us as much extra information as possible. We saw Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, George Harrison's house growing up, John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's parents' last residence. We got dropped off at the rebuilt Cavern Club at the end of the 2½ tour and that became our standard meeting place from then on.

Caption? No caption? Speaks for itself, really.

Sandra, Miriam and I at some red gate near some fields.

Thursday was spent shopping (in the morning), did the Beatles Story Museum and then we were freezing (mostly) in the afternoon. See, for those of you that don't know, there was a little shin-dig called the MTV European Music Awards that night in Liverpool and, well, we didn't have tickets. But some band we all like was set to host the VIP bar there and (possibly) win some awards, so we were after a glimpse. We brilliantly missed them by fifteen minutes before the show and then, after the show, we saw the singer for all of a minute. Good thing I've seen him a few times before or that might have been a waste of time.

Singer, Jared Leto, lost in a sea of security vests.

Friday we sort of split up into groups and Sandra and I went to a Le Corbusier exhibition in "The Crypt". After that, we went shopping. Are we seeing a theme here? Afterwards we all met up at The Cavern Club again and decided to do a little bit of destruction of private property.

Signing a table.




Signing the wall.

Saturday we, er, shopped again and then caught an afternoon flight home. So yeah, I went to Liverpool and bought stuff. And learned a bit about the Beatles. Fin.