Strawberry Field forever!

Ah, the exhaustion of traveling.

This weekend was an experience to say the least. Friday, after my tutorial, we took a train to the birthplace of Shakespeare. Stratford-upon-avon was chock full of things to se and do but the tempermental English climate was feeling sassy and it rained off and on the whole time. Nevertheless, we kept on trucking and saw his birthplace, his old school, and his grave. It was a whole lot of history for one afternoon. In the brief moments of sunshine, we walked along the River Avon (another one). It was absolutely beautiful, looking exactly as I pictured it in my head. Theres one advantage of daily showers: vibrantly green grass and foliage.

From there, we hopped on another train (we were so very euro) to the surprising lovely city of Liverpool. Now, when I thought of Liverpool, I always pictured an industrial, bleak urban nightmare dotted with Beatles history, but I was definitely ignorant on that front. In fact, Liverpool was named Cultural City of Europe for 2008, which, according to all the posters proclaiming it around the city, is a big deal. There are parks everywhere and their museums are huge and architecturally impressive. The highlight of our weekend was definitely the private taxi tour of The Beatles Story. Our tour guide, Lull, showed us sights from Penny Lane and Strawberry Field to the childhood homes of both Lennon and McCartney. We even saw the Cavern Club (where the Beatles played numerous times) and the school where Paul and John first met on July 6, 1957. (The school was having a Summer Fete across the street from St. George's church, whose cemetary has a grave of a certain woman, Eleanor Rigby...the boys later borrowed her name for one of their popular songs.)

The sightseeing, although fabulous, had nothing on the nightlife and our experiences with the locals. First of all, we stayed in a hostel. Enough said right there. Secondly, I haven't met people as friendly as those "Liverpudlians" outside of the South. Also called "Scounses" the locals speak with an accent more similar to the Scottish/Irish accent than the posh english one. It took a lot of concentration to understand what they were saying, but we somehow managed. (The fact that the people we talked to just happened to be cute university boys also helped our foucs...)Liverpool will definitely stay in my mind for many, many years.