 |
| Giant Beatle's Picture at a Mall |
From the
11th to 12th Harper and I went on a trip to Liverpool.... My Life as a Beatles
Fanatic is now complete!! After a couple hours and a change of trains we
arrived in Liverpool on Saturday and jumped right into things. First we went on
a Magical Mystery Tour in an awesome bus that was decorated like the Beatles
Magical Mystery Tour bus. The tour took us all over the suburbs of Liverpool
where we saw famous Beatles sights such as; the houses where each of the
Beatles grew up, Penny Lane, St. Peters church where John Lennon and Paul
McCartney first met (and where the grave of one Eleanor Rigby is located),
Strawberry fields, and the Cavern Club. It was incredible to be able to
actually see places I had only heard of in songs or seen photographs of, these
were the places where it all began!
 |
| Dakota At Penny Lane Sign |
 |
| Us at Strawberry Field |
If that wasn't
close enough to where it all began at 9:00 that evening we went to a Beatles
tribute band in the rebuilt Cavern Club! Of course nobody could ever compete
with the real Beatles but this band was very impressive. The guy who played
John's role actually looked and sounded like John Lennon, his rendition of Lucy
in the Sky with Diamonds was practically indiscernible from the Beatles
original!
The next
day we switched hotels and moved in to The Hard Day's Night hotel, devoted
entirely to the Beatles! I was instantly infatuated with the Statues of each
Beatle on the outside of the building, but it didn't end there, on the inside
Beatles music was constantly playing (there was even a Yellow Submarine Juke
Box) and Giant pictures of the Beatles lined the Spiral Staircase showing the
Beatles' story through the years over 5 stories of the building. In our room a
giant picture of John Lennon overlooked our bed... a little disturbing but as a
big fan at least I was accustomed to being watched over by photographs of
Beatles. The Picture was titled Cynthia, and if you look closely you can see
Cynthia, John's ex-wife, smiling back at you in John's sunglasses. It didn't
stop there, all of the complimentary toiletries were dedicated to the Beatles,
our soap was in a wrapper that looked like a 45 rpm record, the shower cap box
was decorated like an amp, and the shampoo bottles had pictures of different
things involved with the Beatles, such as John's Glasses. We took the liberty
of each keeping a pair of Hard Day's Night slippers, which seemed to be
complimentary... we hope!
 |
| Yellow Submarine Juke Box in the Cavern Club |
 |
| Dakota in Front of The Beatles Story Museum |
We walked
down to Albert dock and visited the Beatles Story Museum, which was awesome!
The whole thing was designed like different places important to the Beatles.
For instance inside there were reconstructed full size models of; the outside
of the club they played at in Hamburg, a house where Paul and George came up
with Lyrics together, their first record studio, the outside and inside of the
Cavern Club, the outside and inside of Abbey Road Studios and even the inside
of the airplane they flew on when they first came to the United States. Towards
the end of the pathway through the Beatles' story some parts were a little bit
more imaginary, such as a large model of the Yellow Submarine. The sub was
complete with a Periscope which one could gaze out of and see Pepperland and
the invading Blue Meanies! The tour ended with 4 different sections devoted to
the paths of each Beatle after the groups break up. The museum was an
incredible experience that brought reality to my endless studies of the Beatles.
 |
| Dakota and the Yellow Submarine Beatles |
That
evening as we were looking for a place to eat dinner we made a spur of the
moment decision and decided to go see Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
in 3D. Instead of eating dinner we
decided to splurge so we ate popcorn, gummy candies, and ice cream instead! In
order to get the full effect of the Star Wars Awesomeness we couldn't help but
buy some groovy Pod Racer 3D goggles to watch the movie through! This was
actually a good decision because they were actually far more comfortable than
the standard 3D glasses. We stayed in the Hard Day's Night Hotel that night and
after some very difficult decisions as to what Beatles stores to visit and what
goodies to buy, we left on the train back to Bristol.
 |
| Us in our Pod Racer 3D glasses |
