Alright, here goes..
So this weekend is one to go down in the history books. As all of you could obviously tell by my Facebook, Caity and I went to Liverpool this weekend and I cannot even explain how much fun we had! I knew going there that I was going to love it, but I had no iea that I would love it this much!
But before I get started on that, I need to properly fill you all in with our whereabouts on Thursday. We had our SUPER long day of classes from 9-5 p.m. I know, right? It sucks. In Art and Society we went to St. Pauls Catherdral which was beautiful! Unfortch, we couldnt take any pictures so all I got was the outside of it. We walked up like 500 stairs to get to the top of the inside of it, but we couldn't go all the way to the top because the stairs were being remondeled or something. But I was so okay with that because I hate going up stairs.
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| St. Paul's Catherdral |
Thursday night but hectic, but fun. We went to go see Jersey Boys on West End! I loved it! Of course I did, it's the Four Seasons. :) I love musicals and watching the actors perform. It makes me miss Follies! After our show, we came home and packed for Liverpool. I think we were up until 2 or 3 a.m. and we had to get up at around 6:30 in the morning to catch the bus at 8. Luckily we slept most of the way there, so the 5 and a half hour ride wasn't as bad as you'd expect, especially for a Nelson.
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| Add caption |
And this is where the fun begins!
Friday:
We get to Liverpool at 1:30 and the weather is so bad! It's cold and rainy and we're walking around Liverpool trying to find the hostel. After about 15 minutes and a million times of our umbrellas popping inside out, we decided to head back to the bus station to grab a taxi. Lucky for us we took a taxi because it was like a mile away. So we got to the hostel (which was awesome btw!) and went to our room and it had 3 bunks in it, so it fit 6 people. For some reason I thought it was an all-girls room. We left the hostel to go explore Liverpool.
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| The best hostel ever! |
The weather was cold and rainy again; Caity was pretty pissed hahaha. We were hungry anyways so we stopped at a little American pizza place to eat and warm up and wait for the rain to give in. The pizza was DELISH. After our pizza and a few helpless minutes, we found Mathew Street! By that time it was POURING down rain, and I started to get a little pissed too. We ran into the closest shop we could find, which was The Beatles Shop! I've seen pictures of Ringo and Juilan walking down the stairs to go into the store so I was super excited when I descended into the store also. We were in there for a good like 30 minutes just shopping around and looking at all the cool vintage Beatles things.
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| My first glance at Mathew Street. It has raining so hard! |
The stupid rain finally let up and we re-emerged into Mathew Street. We didn't really know where to go so we walked up the street to the Hard Days Night Hotel store. It has the largest collection of Beatles merchandise in the world! We didn't get anything yet, just browsing, but there was so many things that I wanted! We eventually got bored so we left and headed back down Mathew and we stumbled upon a bar called Lennon's Bar, had a pint, watched some karaoke and left. Then we found a pub called The Grapes. I remembered hearing about this pub and that The Beatles would have a few drinks there after their shows at The Cavern (I found out that they liked to sit by the ladies bathroom and watch them get ready while they kept the door open haha).
Caity and I were still pub novices so we weren't sure what to do or order so we sat down (with difficulty finding two seats) and ordered some cider. And more cider. And some more cider. We met a reaaaally friendly older couple who were so much fun to talk to! They were completely amazed that we liked the Beatles and we were only 20. I feel like he couldn't really wrap their minds around it lol. So they were a lot of fun to talk to and I glad we met them! After that aonther old man came up to us and was funny and liked to talk to us. But after a while he wasn't leaving and he was just kinda weird. Me, being an idiot, agreed for him to show us around the night scene in Liverpool. I feel like he had no idea what he was doing, so we ditched him.
We walked all the way back to Mathew street from God knows where he took us. Of course, we stopped back by Lennon's Bar! This time the bar was poppin and a ton of people were singing karaoke! All Beatles song, which I loved :) We sat down and watched everyone and we were watching this super cute old man singing! He was SO GOOD! He sang like 4 songs and when he was done we went up to him and started chatting. He told us about his daughter and showed us a promo card for her. He said she was on tour in America! He was so fricken cute. We had to go to the restroom because of all the ciders we drank, and we signed the wall! It was so funny! Later we got up on stage and sang karaoke of A Hard Days Night. We sounded horrible!! I loved it so later I went up on stage and sang karaoke again, only this time I was singing with some random old man. He didn't know the worlds very well though hahaa.
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| The entrance to Lennon's Bar! |
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| My wall signing :) |
After a few more ciders, we headed to the infamous CAVERN CLUB! OMG we LOVED it there!! We took a ton of pictures and danced up by the stage with two ladies my mothers age. They were so fun! Then Caity and I met some fun girls from South America and they became our best friends for the night and showed up in like half our pictures. After dancing our butts off we finally got tired and went to find a seat. We wended up sitting at a booth with a cute coupld our age named Ian and May, they were so presh! We started talking and left the Cavern Club to go to a club called Flare right next door. It was all groovy and the floor was really colorful. We didn't stay for really long, and we went right back to Lennon's Bar (duhh) and danced around listening to more karaoke. But after our long night full of 2 clubs and 4 bars, we went home to our hostel and passed out.
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| Our first Cavern experience!! |
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| What's not to love?? :) |
Saturday:
On saturday we woke up at 11 not feelin too shabby. Our roommates got up at the crack of dawn and were so loud! They wouldn't shut up. By the time we got up and all ready, our roommates walked in. They ended up being the girls we danced with last night!! Omg it was like the biggest coincidence EVER and they acted like it was just so casual! They were like "oh yeah remember we met last night?" and we were like uhmm oh yeah sure. Me and Caity were internally freaking out because we thought it was so crazy, but I guess they didn't think it was that big of deal haha.
Once we were all prettied up, we headed to Mathew street again, only this time we hit up ALL the Beatles places. The orginial entrance to the Cavern Club, the Liverpool wall of fame, Cavern Walks, Lucy in the sky with Diamonds cafe, the John Lennon statue, the Hard Days Night hotel and like everything else you can think of. We took pictures of EVERYTHING. We went back to the Hard Days Night Hotel shop and Caity got a poster of the cover of Live at the BBC and I got a cute mug of a pictures of the Beatles performing at the cavern.
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| Original entrance to the Cavern! |
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| The new entrance to teh Cavern! |
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| Kissing John! |
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| The Elenore Rigby statue |
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| Each brick is a person/group who've performed at the Cavern! |
After our long day of seeing, as my mother would say "holy places", Caity and I stopped by a super cute cafe right by The Beatles Shop called Cafe 31. It was the most darling little cafe ever! There was obviously beatles pics everywhere and it was so tiny and homey. We ordered and I got some tea (which was DELISH) and pancakes with ice cream and toffee sauce on top. Yeah, that meal is considered breakfast. I love English breakfast! The plates and bowls were funny with stupid little things written in them like "please smash cup down really hard" and stuff like that. CAfe 31 became Caity and I's new fave on Mathew Street. Well, besides The Cavern of course. :)
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| THE cutest tea I've ever had! |
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| So funny! |
After lunch we weren't sure what to do because we already hit all hte Beatles sights and walked up and down Mathew a few times, what else was there to do besides go to The Cavern?! We got to the Cavern around 3 p.m. to see The Shakers. The cute couple we met the night before at The Grapes told us we had to go see this band. We figured they'd be a fun time to spend the rest of the day so we decended into the Cavern for the second time in two days. This time it wasnt nearly as crowded as it was only 3 in the afternoon. We got down there and The Shakers were already playing. They were such a fun band and they loved to interact with the audience! They're stage presence and sense of humor reminded me of The Beatles quite a bit! I fell in love with them right there. They sang Beatles and Merseybeat songs so it was like impossible for me not to like them.
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| Our first time watching The Shakers! |
Next an acoustic guitar player came on stage and he was good too. He was really funny. There was this crazy weird old drunk guy standing right by the stage and he got a rubber chicken out of his backpack and started flinging it at the dude on stage. Then he spilled his glass of beer and put the chicken inside of it. After that he got a long, blonde, curly wig out of his backpack, put it on and put his hat back on over it. omg this dude was seriously so werid. They guy on stage was like poking fun at him a stuff, it was funnaay. He asked us where Caity and I were from and we told him America. He then said that we looked like Americans. Omg Caity and I were so mad! We didnt want to look like Americans! Anyhoo, he was a great artist and he was a lot of fun to watch and sing along with.
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| Acoustic dude |
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| Freaking weird old man |
After that The Shakers came back on a played and Caity and I were just chillin, drinking some cider and listening to them play! It was around 6:30 when we left to go back to our hostel for Caity to straighten her hair. We got there and 1) the idian guys in our room made it smell really bad, and 2) Caity didn't end up straightening her hair. So we just left and got back to The Cavern at 8 p.m., decending down the stairs for the third time in two days, to go see the Beatles tribute band in the Cavern Live Lounge! It's like part of The Cavern Club but it's in a different room with a separate stage, and it's more nice than the club part of the Cavern. The show started at 9 and it didnt end around 11:30. It was a super fun show to go see and they were pretty good although, I'm still biased toward the Kansas City tribute band, Liverpool :) During intermission Caity told "Paul" (who was super cute but married) that it was my birthday and he asked for my name. Near then end of the show Paul said that there was a birthday girl in the house named Heather! He then said he's not too fond of the Heather he knows and proceeded to sing Get Back! Omg I serisouly thought this was the funniest thing ever! Caity and I got up and danced while he was singing, then he sand Twist and Shout so we obviously had to get up and dance to that too! The show was amazing and I'm so glad Caity found the tickets for it!
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| Love 'em! |
The Shakers were playing until 12 that night so of course we went out to watch them for their last 30 minutes. A guy that works there recognized me and said "weren't you herre last night?" Haha totes embarassing, but of course I said uhhh yeah I was! The next act that was going on stage at 12 got on a little early and started rocking out with The Shakers. This dude was crazy good!! He started playing guitar behind his back and then he started playing it WITH HIS MOUTH! I've never seen that before!! He was totally rockin and I was just lovin it. After The Shakers got off stage we went to go get our pics taken with them! They were so nice to talk to!! Caity and I absolutely loved them! We actually figured out that there manager or producer (I can't remember which one) is from Mission, Kansas! Crazzzy!! So we got out picture taken with them and chated a little more. They said to come back and see them the following night but we told them that this was our last night in Liverpool. We left a little after 12.
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| AMAZING! |
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| Rockin it out!! |
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| Us with Tony and Eddie from The Shakers! |
We left with our head geld low because it was our last night in Liverpool, but more sadly, it was our last night at The Cavern :(. We went to Lennon's bar but nothing was happening there so we left and went to Fab4 pizza right next to it. Caity ordered her pizza and found some people from America. They ended up being from Kentucky, which Caity is from too! They were so nice. They were this couple that loved Liverpool so mich they got their Masters there and have been living there since! Dori, the women from KY, works at The Beatles Story so she said she would get us some free tickets! We were planning on going to it the following day and she sadi she'd be there! At that point, we decided that we LOVED Liverpool, but Liverpool loved us more! :) We ate are pizza with sadness lingering around us because we didnt want to leave at all. Not completely in our right minds, we decided if it wasnt going to cost too much that we should stay one more night! It was just mindless chatter, not really believing we could pull it off.
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| My last pic at the cavern :( |
So we got to hostel and, without hope, we asked how much it would be for both of us to stay one more night. The front desk guy looked it up and said it would only be 12 pounds each! We got soooo excited!!! We told him not to book it until we looked at bus ride back home. We looked online and found bus rides for only 9 pounds 50 each and we couldn't resist. We had to do it. So there it was, Caity and Heather spontaneously staying one more night in Liverpool. It was probs the best decision we made on that trip. :) At this point we decided that Liverpool didn't just love us, it was OBSESSED with us.
Okay guys, bear with me. Only two more day to go
Sunday:
We woke up at around 10 to get ready and head to Albert Dock to meet for the Magical Mystery Tour around Liverpool at 11:30! It was so much fun! On the bus they played Beatles music and had some trivia questions and plus we got to see basically EVERYTHING! We saw the birthplaces of Ringo and George, all the childhood homes of the Beatles, Penny Lane, Strawberry Feilds, the church where John and Paul met, the roundabout, firestation and barber shop mentioned in Penny Lane, Brian Epstein's house and so much more! It was serisouly a dream come true to even visit Liverpool, but I actually coulnd't believe I was seeing the history of the Beatles and things and places of their most famous songs. It was more than anything I could have wanted! I was basically star struck for the rest of the day.
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| Our ticket to ride! |
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| This needs no caption |
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Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he's had the pleasure to have known
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say hello |
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| The house George was born in! |
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| Does this really need a caption either? |
So basically, Saunday has already been the best day of my life, but it still gets better. After the tour went went to go eat at Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, but it was closed. :( Everything closes really early, or not at all, on sundays in Europe! So we went shopping in Primark and ate some yummy food at Subway. We were pooped so we chilled at our hostel for a little bit. We decided that we didn't want to spend a ton of money that night so we went to Tesco and bought some Strongbow cider to drink before we went out. We left later that evening and headed back to Mathew Street.
Lennon's Bar was our first stop. Elvis was singing karaoke. In a Liverpool accent. Not the best impression I've seen. He wasn't bad though. Then he started to make fun of John- in LENNON'S Bar! Uhm I wasn't okay with that. He was funny at first then I started to not like him too much haha. No one makes fun of my Beatles! Caity and I decided that we needed to leave our last mark in Lennon's bar, so we went back to the bathroom and wrote on the walls again
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On the left is what I wrote on Friday night and on the right is what I wront on Sunday night.
Man, am I funny or what? |
Obvi, we went straight to The Cavern Club after that!! So once again for the final time, we decended down into The Cavern Club for the fourth time in three days :) At this point I considered us official cave dwellers. And The Shaker's groupies. We were sitting down for about 25 minutes until Eddie noticed that we were back! Then the same guy that asked me the past night If I was there the night before that noticed me and asked "do you ever leave?!" My mother would have been so pround. I responded saying uh no I never leave here. We met a chick from Austrailia and a few old people too. We exchanged numbers and emails and had an amazing time dancing with our new friends!
My goal was that I wasn't going to leave Liverpool until I got Happy Birthday sang to me. I was in Liverpool only 3 days before my 21st. It had to be done. We wrote that The Shakers needed to play birthday. They saw the request and asked whos bday it was and the guy that works at the Cavern that recognized me stood up and started pointing to me and dragged me up on stage! I was on stage at The Cavern Club!!!! OMG That was totally crossed off my bucket list. They got me on stage and sang Happy Birthday to me while I awkwardly danced. All I could think of was how many great artists stood on that very stage! I never thought that day could get any better, but serisouly, that just mademy entire life. I could have died happy right there.
Here's a link to the video on my facebook! Check it out!
After that we danced around a little bit until they were done playing for the night. Caity and I wanted out picture with the whole band so they let us back into the dressing room where we got pictures with them and chatted for a while! They are the nicest guys I've ever met and I loved talking to them! Caity and I can't wait until we get to go back and hang out with them some more! We even became Facebook friends with them! One of the guys in the band is actually in Pete Best's band also! #socool. The Shakers were so much fun and without them I don't think our Liverpoll experience would havebeen the same. If you're reading this boys, we love ya!
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| So cute! |
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| We <3 The Shakers! |
We danced around a little more to an acoustic guitar player and migled with the old folk chillin there that night. After the Cavern closed at 12 we went to the Cavern Pub and stayed there until 1 to listen to some more music. Then once that closed we went back to The Grapes and talked with some Irish dudes and more old people. I dont know what it is, but they seem to love that we love the Beatles. Whatvz though, I love it!! Evenry single person Caity and I met this weekend worth meeting was around 50 years old and I don't think I could have had a better time with people my age. Love it in Liverpool!!! And it loves us :)
Monday:
Sadly, Sunday was our day of departure. We had all day though because our bus left at 5 p.m. Since we didn't have to go to The Beatles Story on Sunday, we went on Monday. We got up at around 10:15, checked out of the hostel and left at 11. We grabbed some coffee at the Beatles themed starbucks and used their free computers because we were computer deprived the whole week. I'm trying to land a job in the social media feild one day, so 4 days without internet was almost the death of me.
Anyways, we got in for free to The Beatles Story because of our good pal Dori. I think we spent around 3 hours in it! It was amazing! It had guitars from the Beatles, suits they wore, memorabilia and anything else you could imagine in the best Bealtes museum ever! It was an audio guided tour. I took an ungodly amount of pictues. Halfway through the Story, the fire alarm went off. A firetruck came by and I'm assuming it's a very clean machine from the fire station mentioned in Penny Lane. :)
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| George's guitar |
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| A replica of the Cavern in The Beatles Story |
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| Brian Epstein's handwriting |
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| It's a clean machine |
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| John's suit |
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| Paul's jacket |
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| 3-D of Sgt. Peppers |
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| John Lennon's gold plated glasses |
After our adventure in The Beatles Story we walked from Albert Dock to Mathew Street one last time. We went to eat at Cafe 31 again and basically had the same exact meal as the first time. For some reason this meal tasted so much better. We went to the hostel to grab our bags and leave for the bus station. It was so sad to finally leave Liverpool. Caity and I don't just love it, we're completely obsessed with it. We vow to go back once a month until May!
This past weekend had been the best weekend of my life and I have the great city of Liverpool to thank :) I wouldn't trade anything in the world for this trip, well except maybe if I met Paul. I might trade it for that haha.
Thanks to those people who have read through this whole thing! It was a long one, but I loved sharing every detail! Hope you enjoyed!
Cheers!
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