Beatlemania!

Guess what??  I now know the names of all four Beatles.  It's crazy, I know.  First and last.  Sheer madness.

But that wasn't even the best part of the weekend.  Oh, no.  Despite my misgivings about Liverpool, it was actually a pretty fun place to spend the day.  We (me and another girl and one guy, all WU students) got in late-ish Friday night after a semi-ridiculous train ride during which we had to fight for seats and occasionally had to stand in the aisles because apparently they frequently over-book that train and unless you actually reserve a seat you're out of luck.  Woo standing for two hours.  Not actually for all of that time, but for a considerable amount of it.  Ew.  Anyway.

So the first thing we did Saturday was a tour of the city in a 'Yellow Duckmarine', aka a WWII-era amphibious vehicle painted bright yellow.  They took us around the city on land and showed us everything there is to see about Liverpool, and then, to the delight of onlookers, drove straight into the water.  Best part.  So that tour gave us a good idea of what there was to see, so we could go and actually see it after.

[Favourite random sight on the tour: the office of the White Star Line, makers of the Titanic.  The tour guide pointed out the twin upper-story balconies from which, following the disaster, the owners of the line dropped the names of the survivors on slips of paper into the crowd below.  Wow.  What a picture.]

We spent way more time than I would have thought possible discovering 'the Beatles story' in an interactive exhibit complete with personal headphoned audio tours describing every. little. detail. of the Beatles' path to international stardom and subsequent fall.  It was really interesting.  Therefore I can now tell you, actually, way more about the Beatles than their names.  Go me.

Then was the Liverpool Philharmonic's 'John Lennon Songbook' performance, a journey through John Lennon's life via various songs.  It was...incredible.  I thought orchestra renditions of Beatles/Lennon songs would be ridiculous, but they were really wonderful.  The singers were good, the guy actually portraying Lennon and singing/narrating was awesome, the orchestra itself was phenomenal, and 'Imagine' at the very end brought me to tears.  It was just great.  Completely and wholly worth the £15 we paid for tickets in the very back row.

Add to that our extensive wandering, through the streets of Liverpool and into galleries and a cathedral and in search of food and souvenirs and live music and we had a really truly wonderful weekend.  Personalities grated but didn't completely clash, and all in all we survived.  First taste of England: success.