Strawberry Fields Forever

England is expensive.  Like, really expensive.  And, after our girls weekend in Scotland, I am pretty broke.  Luckily, if you aren’t traveling for the weekend, the University of Worcester offers day trips to cool places in England that are fairly cheap.  This weekend, we went to Liverpool.

We went on the Beatles’ tour, which is a two-hour bus tour that took us all around Liverpool.  I learned so many facts about the Beatles and we visited places in Liverpool that were important to them.  I got to stand by Penny Lane and go to Strawberry Fields. It was super touristy and I loved it.

The last place we stopped was Paul McCartney’s childhood home, which was perfect because Chelsea is 85% sure that he is dead.

While we were in Scotland and talking about the Illuminati and conspiracy theories, I brought up the theory that Paul McCartney died in 1967 and they covered up his tragic death by hiring an impersonator.  I watched a documentary about it once and told basically everyone I knew (they all thought I was dumb).  For the record, I don’t believe that he is actually dead and only tell people because it’s kind of interesting.  Chelsea, however, completely latched on.  The tour guide assured Chelsea that the conspiracy is completely made up and has no truth in it whatsoever.

Chelsea said it’s probably because he’s paid to tell people that.

When the tour is over, the guide takes the group into The Cavern, a pub the Beatles played in over 300 times.  It’s underground and was absolutely awesome.  The place was packed, there were neon lights going on everywhere and a guitarist on stage was singing “Hey Jude.”  It seemed like it was 2 a.m. on a Friday night rather than 2 p.m. on a Saturday.  Somehow, we made our way to the front of the stage and when he was done singing, the artist let us up onto the stage.  So, I got to stand on the same stage that the Beatles first performed.  As Drew would say, it was pretty neat.

We walked around for awhile trying to decide where to go for lunch.  Apparently, we’re really bad at finding places to eat and this took us forever.  We settled on this Italian cafe and it was delicious.  They had the best gelato I’ve ever tasted and the ambience of it was just really adorable.  Also, I’m pretty sure that I’m related to the people who started the business.  On the wall, they had a giant poster of the family who owned the cafe and the little girl looks exactly like me, if I had been a super hipster as a child.  I wish my parents had let me wear coke bottle glasses as a six-year-old.

Sometimes, when we’re out with Drew, we make him stay outside.  This is because he is too big for England.  We never noticed it when we were at home, but he makes really big movements.  Playing cards the other night, Annie forfeited because she was afraid Drew was going to break her hand slapping the table.  I’m pretty sure he put a dent in my wall when he opened my door last week.  Anyway, the point is that we let him come in the Beatles store with us and he broke things.

The bus ride back was pretty awesome, even though we were kind of upset we were leaving because we realized there was a Justin Bieber concert and Drew is definitely a Bielieber.  But, Ryan convinced the bus driver to let us play Beatles songs over the speakers for the entire three hour drive back and Boogey was kinda drunk because he stayed in the Cavern for the whole trip, so he was dancing in the aisles.

Boogey was bartending at the Crown Inn, so we decided to go over there, even though it’s a trek across town, especially while wearing heels.  I almost broke my ankle five times.  Ryan and Colleen came out with us and it was so much fun.  It was probably one of the most fun nights I’ve had since being in England.

I can’t believe I’ve only been here for not even three weeks yet.  I feel like I’m having the most incredible summer and that I’ve known all these people forever.  It’s the best summer.