My Magical Mystery Tour

Home again.

It was a long "weekend," but a very good one. 

Eva and I spent our Monday morning exploring "downtown" Liverpool. We did some souvenir shopping, looked for Lambananas, and just wandered around seeing the sights. I'm still in love. Liverpool is the perfect combination of quaint seaside town and big city. There is plenty to do, but people take life at a friendly, leisurely pace (emphasis on "friendly" ... Scousers are by far the nicest group of people I have ever encountered).

We slowly made our way through the city center and out to the famous Albert Dock on the shore of the Mersey River. 

The Dock is very different than how I imagined. It's a bustling tourist center, rather than the quiet, sailor-filled river-walk I have always envisioned. My mind's eye image of Albert Dock before this trip was a combination of the opening scene in Across the Universe where Jude sits out on a spit of land and is the only person for miles, and the scene in Nowhere Boy where John gets drunk on the pier by himself. 

My guess is this is about where Aaron
Johnson throws his glass in the Mersey.

Either way, I imagined little but seagulls for miles around. Instead, I was pleased to find museums and shops all around the Dock, which is kind of a massive plaza.

After exploring around the shops and museums and walking a way down the river, Eva and I stopped in the Merseyside Maritime Museum to see the Titanic exhibit. It didn't occur to me until right then that we had been in Liverpool on the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic sinking April 15. They hadn't done anything we noticed to mark the date, but I would imagine that's something Scousers don't like to bring up...

The exhibit was very cool. There was a small replica of the RMS Titanic, various silverware, jewelry, coins, and other small objects recovered from the ship, lots of photographs, old promotional posters for that fateful cruise, a "True and False" game to test your Titanic knowledge (True: There were no cats aboard the ship; False: Titanic could not be docked in Liverpool because it was too big), listening booths where you could hear accounts from survivors, witnesses, and others involved, and much more. 

After the Titanic exhibit, we explored the rest of the museum, but went more quickly there since we didn't recognize any ships beyond the Titanic and Lusitania. I did, however, enjoy a collection of "Loose lips sink ships" posters and other propaganda from World War II. 

"Careless talk costs lives!"

After the museum, Eva and I got a very late lunch at a restaurant called "Revolution" right on the dock. Since we were in Liverpool, we had to order fish and chips, and, despite a long wait, they were not only delicious, but also very filling. 

While waiting for our food, we watched ships come and go in the bay and a "Yellow Duckmarine" tour go past (it's exactly the same thing as the Just Ducky tours in Pittsburgh... have I mentioned how Liverpool is English Pittsburgh? To a tee. I felt like I was home, and not just because of the Beatles music playing everywhere we went). 

Tastes like home.

Following lunch, we walked back to the Cavern to meet Kev before his band practice. On our way, Eva recognized Kev's bandmate Josh playing guitar on the corner of Matthew Street. We stopped to chat and Eva introduced me to Josh. We stood and listened to him play a few more songs (Beatles and The Black Keys), then he walked us to the Cavern where we picked up Kev and went to the grimy little neighborhood where they practice.

(To give you an idea of this back alley, Kev asked me if I'm afraid of rats and if I have all my shots before we slipped under a fire escape and behind some trash bins to where the studio door was hidden.)

Their practice room is actually a closet littered with CD's, records, press clippings, notebook pages, cigarette butts, food wrappers, beverage cans and bottles, random clothes, drumsticks, guitar picks, guitar strings, and all manner of garbage. The walls are plastered in promotional posters for Kev's band "The Verdict" and the other bands that share the practice room, as well as personal photos and posters from movies like "GoodFellas" and "Scarface." 

Eva and I sat around talking with Kev and Josh about our morning and how we like Liverpool while we waited for their lead singer, Gaz (yes, his name is Gaz).

When Gaz arrived, they took their time tuning guitars and setting up, while Gaz asked me and Eva the same questions we'd just answered (Yes, we like Liverpool and we went to Albert Dock this morning; no, we don't smoke). 

Finally, they were all ready and Eva and I put in earplugs to protect ourselves from the fact that we were experiencing a live rock show in a closet. 

The guys played for about two hours, stopping regularly to change this lyric or add more bass here and ask us what we thought of this song and that cover. These guys are really talented, and I loved feeling "in the band" while they rocked out to The Black Keys' "Lonely Boy."

On a side note, the funniest thing about Liverpool was how excited people got when Eva and I told them we're from "Kent, Ohio near Akron, Ohio." 

I didn't think this would ring any Scouse bells, but Eva assured me it would and she was so right. The response was always, "Oh, Akron! Do you know Dan Auerbach (Black Keys' guitarist)? Do you know Patrick Carney (drummer)? We love The Black Keys! Akron must be the Greatest Place on Earth!" Really. They're crazy about Akron, Ohio. Liverpool, England loves Akron, Ohio. I never would have guessed it in a million years. 

Normally when people ask, the Ohioans in our group (Eva included) just say they're from Ohio (most Europeans don't know where that is, so we say it's near New York). In the rare event that a person is familiar with Ohio, my study abroad-mates say they're from Cleveland because to Europe, Cleveland is the only place in Ohio. I, on the other hand, just say I'm from Pittsburgh because I have yet to come across someone who hasn't heard of the good old 412. 

After practice, we said goodbye to Josh and Gaz and Eva, Kev, and I made our way back to the Cavern. We spent the rest of the night in the Cavern Club, Lennon's Bar (across the street), and bar-hopping in search of live music (not much luck), before calling it quits for the night and going home to watch the BBC before bed.

I'm so obsessed with this place.

We ended our Liverpool adventure just before lunchtime Tuesday. Eva and I woke up early for a tour of The Beatles Story, an interactive Beatles museum at Albert Dock. The tour was really awesome, and showed everything from the Beatles' history and the history of the Fab Four as individuals (plus everyone ever related or connected to the band). The tour is set up with a variety of rooms decorated to look like different key places in the lives of the Beatles. Eva and I both got a headset, where we could listen to an explanation of each location, as well as hear firsthand accounts from people like Brian Epstein, Pete Best, Cynthia Lennon, Neil Aspinall, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and more.

The tour took most of the morning, but we followed it up with another tour - this time at St. John's Gardens and St. George's Hall on Lime Street. On the way there, we passed the Liver Building and Drury Lane (we did not meet the Muffin Man). 

St. George's, today, is a concert hall and courthouse. In the 1700's and 1800's, however, the site was home to the Liverpool Infirmary lunatic asylum, and parts of the Hall are now dedicated to the history of the asylum. The Hall also showcases a small slave museum (Liverpool was a major slave port back in the day) and prison museum. The prison museum was neat because you could go in real jail cells where they played audio that made it sound like you were actually in prison awaiting trial. There were many plaques and bits of literature on what the courthouse was like in the days when English convicts were either executed at the courthouse or sentenced to exile in Australia. 

Once that tour was over, we had just enough time to run back to our hotel, collect our bags, check out, and say goodbye to Kev at the train station. 

It was a long trip home after that. Our flight was delayed again (two hours), meaning that, although we caught the train from Liverpool to Leeds at 1:00, we didn't get home to Florence until midnight. 

I still had some finishing touches to put on the final project I presented today, but I was luckily able to get that done between Italian and Genius, where I presented my project on The Dante Plaques. The plaques, carved into various walls around Firenze, feature quotes from The Divine Comedy. I feel like my presentation went well for being rushed together at the end. Everyone in our class got to create his or her topic entirely on his/her own, and they all turned out very good, so it was a fun and interesting class.

But now that that's out of the way, it's time to relax. I can't believe I only have one more day at home before our class trip to Venice this weekend. I'm looking forward to it though. I liked Venice in February when it was freezing cold and we had to keep hiding inside, so I can only imagine how much I'll love it now that the weather is going to be good. I also can't believe our weather in Liverpool: sunny every day but yesterday morning, when it rained and hailed. So much for England having the world's worst weather. It was nicer there than in Firenze or Pittsburgh. 

Anyhow, that's Liverpool. Someday I need to go back there. I'm thrilled with how much I got to see this time around, but I know there's still so much more to explore. 

And I promised John I would be back.
I can't let him down.