From London With Love

17th July 2009

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Hello, hello

I have so much to blog about, it’s unreal, but here we go…

Even though I was too excited to sleep on Wednesday night, I was up and going by 6am on Thursday. We were on our way to the tube station by 7 and the train station by 8. I’m sure our class was a sight to be seen on the train. We had a 2 hour train ride and we were all exhausted, so everyone was wadded up in seats trying to catch up on some beauty sleep.

We arrived in Liverpool about an hour and a half before our Magical Mystery Tour was to begin (yes, that was really what it was called. colorful bus and everything). Dr. Fischer took us to Matthew Street (aka the location of the Cavern Club). I think that’s when it all hit me that I was actually in Liverpool. Standing outside the Cavern Club, I  seriously got chill bumps (and maybe a few tears in my eyes). Such an amazing moment.

As we waited for our tour to begin, I literally had to keep myself from squealing with excitement. I don’t remember the last time I was that giddy about anything. Our tour guide was funny. He was a young man, but apparently he had been in a Beatles film and had actually met Paul on several occasions (I’m not sure I buy all of that, but he did have a picture of him and Paul on his phone). Our tour lasted about 2 hours, so I’ll just bullet the things we saw:

• Penny Lane (and the bank mentioned in the song)
• Dovetail School (John & George’s elementary)
• The church where Paul was a choir boy
• No 9 Newcastle Road (John’s first home)
• The clock where John used to meet his mother after she got off from her job at the local cinema
• No 12 Arnold Grove (Harrison Home)
• 197 Whitehouse (Epstein family home)
• St. Peter’s, the church where John & Paul met (They said there’s a grave marked Eleanor Rigby there, but Paul claims it’s just a happy accident)
• Strawberry Fields
• John’s Aunt Mimi’s home (The only Beatle home marked with a plaque. You have to be dead 20 years before they do something in your honor)
• No 20 Frothlin Road (The McCartney home) and the guy who lives there. It’s open for tours. They pointed out the bathroom window where 100’s of Beatles songs were written by Paul and John.
• Woolworth’s where Cynthia worked before she gave birth to Julian
• No 9 Madyrn Road - Ringo’s childhood home
• Liverpool Art Institute - Paul hands out the diplomas at every graduation, so I guess if I don’t meet him soon, I’m applying for art school! :)
• 64 Mt Pleasant - The place where John & Cynthia married
• Lime Street - the street mentioned in Maggie Mae
• Empire Theatre - the last place the Beatles played in Liverpool (1965)

Our tour finished back at the Cavern Club. It’s a really neat venue. It’s several flights underground (they used it for slave cargo a long time ago). There was a Beatles tribute band scheduled to play last night, but had we stayed to watch we wouldn’t have been able to catch the tube once we made it back into London.

This morning, I woke up early to catch breakfast (gotta take advantage of all the free meals I can get) and my friends Allison, Meaghan and myself headed into town to the Tower of London. It was really cool! We spent almost 4 hours walking around and taking it all in. London is celebrating the reign of Henry VIII this year, so there were several special exhibits on him. We got to see his armor and such. He did not age very well, I’ll say that much. My favorite part of the visit was seeing the crown jewels. Wow. I now have new standards for left hand ring bling ;)

We grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to the Tate Modern, one of London’s many free museums. We walked through most of the exhibits and saw paintings and artwork by Andy Warhol (my favorite part of the museum), Jackson Pollock (another fav), Picasso, Monet, etc. We were a bit tired of looking at exhibits by that point, so we didn’t spend a ton of time there. We decided to stop by the gift shop on our way out and I’m glad we did because we saw Maggie Gyllenhall! She was in there with a nanny & her two kids looking at books and toys in the childrens section. Everyone was leaving her alone, so I followed suit, even though I really wanted to tell her I thought she did a great job in the Dark Knight. Naturally, I pretended to be really interested in coloring books for a few mins, ha!

I tried to find wi-fi when we got back so that I could upload pictures. No such luck. Pictures of the past few days will come eventually. Tomorrow we’re going shopping in Camden and Portobello Road and might be going to see the Chambers, even though they’re playing an hour away. I have a lot of reading and a paper to write so I’m going to have a (much needed) quiet Friday night, which is really OK with me….I’m exhausted.

Also, I want to say that I have a new love of trains and bridges now. I really enjoyed our train ride to Liverpool yesterday. It was really relaxing and I got to see lots of the countryside. However, the train did not have a whistle, nor did the conductor say “All Aboard!” which was a bit of a let down. As far as bridges go, there are sooo many of them in London! We walked across the Millenimum Bridge where they filmed some scene from Harry Potter (like I said, people here are OBSESSED with Harry). Bridges, trains, tubes, busses….I love it all.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Hugs & Kisses,
Car