We stayed at the Eleanor Rigby Hotel... I picked it because of the name. :-) This was the teeniest, tiniest hotel room I've ever seen. Kaz and I are small people and it was barely enough room for us to get around but it was cool. We were on the third floor with no elevator so those steps were kicking our asses. They played the same five or six Beatles songs over and over in the stairwell so I had Beatles playing constantly in my head. As much of a Beatles freak as I am, even I got tired of them by the time we left. :-)
The wireless internet wasn't working on the third floor so we kept having to go
sit outside in the cold to get on the web.
We were using Skype for phone
calls so people passing by were looking at us funny, talking to the computer on
the doorstep. :-)
The hotel was in an ideal location to access the tourist attractions.
Matthew Street, where all the action is. The Cavern Club is up on the
left, but you can't see in the photo.
I just realized I never got a photo
of the front of the place (!). Later in our journey, we ended up at the Reminiss club seen on the right.
Ok, so it's not really REALLY the original thing. I mean, about 50% of the building is gone and they had to rebuild the stage, but they used the original bricks. But it was still very impressive and a bit haunting. It's difficult to imagine how the Beatles played there with thousands of kids packed in like sardines and lined up all down the street to get in.
Giving George a kiss.
Picking John's giant nose.
Paul likes a Gin n' Tonic too. ;-)
Swooning at Ringo.
Pete Best was fired as the drummer during the time they
played the Cavern and replaced with Ringo. The fans were outraged
and
protested at the club with signs that said "Pete is Best" and "Pete Forever,
Ringo Never". It was quite an uproar.
Me with John
Kaz with Eleanor Rigby
An Aussie pub in England. (?) Walkabout is an appropriate name
because we sure had one that day. We walked at least a mile looking for a
used record store that didn't seem to exist. Kaz thought I was looking for
something and I thought she was the one looking for something... after we
figured out we were both wrong we said "screw this" and bought some fish and
chips and went back home. :-)
The boxy English cabs lined up waiting for a fare.
A pooped Kaz
Kinda boring but the Cavern Pub, across the street from the Cavern Club, has a
fair amount of memorabilia on the walls, lots of signed photos, etc.
I felt very old pointing out some of the memorabilia to Kaz... for example,
on the left is a bunch of Wishbone Ash stuff (Who??) and on the right is some
Donovan stuff (Who??). :-) Cliff would have truly enjoyed looking around
this place... and all of Liverpool for that matter.
Ok, so we left the boring Cavern Pub and walked to where the more happenin' clubs were. There were guys trying to coerce us into their bars with cheap and/or two-for-one drinks, so how could we say no? :-) Reminiss was the one we ended up in which was a weird little place. There were some tarted up girls dancing, but their boyfriends wouldn't dance with them, they were just watching. And a lot of other dudes just standing around watching.. it seemed a little pervy to me. Every girl had a tiny skirt on (constantly fighting to try to keep it covering her ass) and a clutch purse tucked under her arm. It was an amusing sight. :-)
As we were going in, I saw this little old man being escorted out and he crumpled to the ground because he was so plastered. When we went out to smoke, he came up to me and was dancing around and said "Gimme your fag" and took my cigarette. :-) He was having the best time and Kaz started dancing with him... it was very cute actually. :-)
The 90's music sucked Kaz in, she had to dance. :-) The hot chick in her little black dress was the only one to dance with though.
Actually, this was the place we hung out in the most. We met some fun, funny people there and had a good time all 'round. :-)
Tell Kaz there's
gonna be Karaoke and it's ON baby. :-)
Singing "I Got You Babe" with Phil who's the bartender/manager, and also a
manager of our hotel,
and also good friends with Pete Best and plays guitar in
his band.
Yes, Phil, bow to the "I Got You Babe" queen. :-)
Jay and Selina, who work at our hotel and happened to be at Karaoke that night.
Really sweet couple.
One of the coolest things we did in Liverpool was go see the Casbah, where the Beatles really began...
