Insert Beatles lyric here...

This Saturday a group of us decided to go to Liverpool. We spent as much time on the train as we did in the city, but overall it was a great day. The main goal of the trip was to see the Beatles museum, but seeing Liverpool as a whole was really cool.  It was rainy and windy, as usual in Liverpool, but it cleared up in the afternoon and was really rather pretty.  It was fun getting out of London briefly, and it was neat to see all the Beatles stuff since I am such a fan.  I listened to their music the entire train ride there.

This is Albert Dock, which is the dock that had most of the big museums in Liverpool.  It is an active dock, showing some of the maritime influence that Liverpool has.  We even saw a boat come into the area in the rain.  When it was sunny the water was super pretty and it was neat just to walk around and look at the water.

The first thing we did, after lunch that is, was go to the Beatles Story.  The Beatles Story is a museum on the dock that focuses entirely on the history and fame of the Beatles.  It walks you through artifacts and stories of their rise to popularity and their success.  It was interesting learning the story behind their fame, as well as the inspiration of much of their music.  I love their story.

One of the early clubs they played at was called The Cavern, and is still a functional club today.  Outside of it is this statue of John Lennon.  There aren't statues of any of the others, but this one was really neat.  Inside the club their are pictures of all of the famous people who have started at this bar.  They also had Beatles cover musicians playing the whole time, though one of them started his set with Sweet Caroline, which was really fun. 

Outside of the Beatles stuff we did, I spent about an hour or so in the Tate Liverpool.  The museum was having an exhibition of Rene Magritte's works that was totally amazing.  Freshman year I did a paper on his series of pipe paintings, focusing on The Treachery of Images, so it was really fascinating to see some of those pieces.  It was nice to walk through the gallery by myself and completely take in all of the interesting pieces of art.  He plays with ideas of representation, label and image, and asks philosophical questions of what the purpose of art even is.  Total Art History major moment, but it was probably the highlight of the day.

I am loving London still, though, and was kind of sad when I realized that I won't get many entire weekends in the city.  Time is so limited and it is difficult to decide how best to spend it all.  I know I won't get to do everything, but I hope to be able to take advantage of as many things as possible.