"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." - The Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever

                Last Friday Sarah and I decided to take a break from job-searching and get out of the city for a day or two. We ultimately decided to go on an overnight trip to Liverpool. In the UK they have this company called Megabus (www.megabus.co.uk) who offers ridiculously cheap fares on bus rides all around the country. They’ve even expanded to include some European destinations! I had taken them several years ago to Manchester and back. We were able to get return tickets for Liverpool for only £14 which was pretty sweet.

                We decided to go up on Tuesday which meant waking up at the wonderful time of 5:30am to catch the bus. We didn’t go to sleep early the night before either because why would we do that when we could have an Andrew Garfield marathon? The London Tube was striking Tuesday and Wednesday which meant the train the Victoria was going to be crazy. We were lucky enough to get on near the start of the line and actually got seats but it filled up fast and I felt like the devil for having a suitcase. To be fair, I was trying my best to keep it out of the way but when there’s a million people crammed on a train it’s going to feel like an elephant. After a torturous thirty minutes we arrived at the Victoria train station. We had forty five minutes before our bus was due to depart but I would definitely rather be early than late, especially on tube strike day. Our bus ended up leaving fifteen minutes late because of European driving laws requiring that drivers rest for forty five minutes (the previous bus had gotten in late). It wasn’t a big deal but one lady going on a bus to Nottingham was flipping out. Seriously, if fifteen minutes is affecting you that much, maybe you should have planned better.

                I was pleasantly surprised to see that Megabus has updated a lot since my trip to Manchester. The first time I took them it was a double-decker bus, completely full. There was very little leg room and no amenities besides a washroom. This coach had seats with extra leg room, plugs to charge laptops/phones/etc. and free WiFi! It was great. Sarah and I watched the saddest movie ever, a Belgian film called The Broken Circle Breakdown that I absolutely love. Then I read half of The Fault in our Stars, because obviously the previous movie had not upset me enough. The bus made two stops, one in Leicester and one in some university town, before arriving at Liverpool One Coach Station at 1:35pm.

                Before touring we went to check in to our hotel, The Sir Thomas (www.sirthomashotel.co.uk). Originally we had planned at staying at a hostel. I’ve stayed in hostels before and they are fine as long as there’s no curfew but it’s still a pain having to share a washroom and bring your own bedding and stuff. I had checked out the hotel deals on Expedia for fun and we actually got this hotel for just £3 more than the hostel! I’ll take that. The hotel was lovely and if you go to Liverpool I definitely recommend seeing if they have cheap rooms available. It’s perfectly located just off the main shopping district, at the corner of the Cavern Quarter. We literally never had to take transit because everything was walking distance. The staff were really nice and the rooms are clean. Yes, they are small, but it’s what we expected. We also got two beds! We have been sharing a couch bed for so long it was nice to have a night in a bed to ourselves. There was wifi in the hotel and really good curtains (it’s the little things that help).

                We’d been travelling since 7 that morning and hadn’t eaten at all so before heading out we grabbed lunch at the hotel’s restaurant. They were having a lunch deal of one course and one drink for £7.95 so we took advantage. I had some penne pasta that I think confused itself with a salad but was still pretty tasty. Finally, we were ready to head into the city. Tuesday’s stop was The Beatles Story (www.beatlesstory.co.uk), which is basically a museum dedicated to The Beatles. You can get an added package taking you to some Elvis museum but we really could care less so we got the cheaper ticket. You get an audio guide and it takes you through several rooms. It starts from their early years to how they all met. They go into detail on their various managers and drummers and acquaintances. Then it’s the stuff we all know about: Beatlemania, the break-up, etc. It’s really interesting and we were fortunate enough that it wasn’t very busy. After we were done we headed back up to the hotel. We got to walk along the Albert Dock, which is one of Liverpool’s most famous landmarks. We took a different route back to the hotel which allowed us to walk down Matthew Street, the self-proclaimed ‘Home of the Beatles’. That’s where The Cavern Club is located.

                We rested for a bit at the hotel while trying to plan our night. We hadn’t gone out for a night on the town since arriving in England so it was really fun to be able to get all sparkly and put a skirt on. We went to a restaurant down the road called The Living Room (www.thelivingroom.co.uk/liverpool). It was supposed to be kind of posh but relatively affordable. They actually had a really good supper deal going on but I wanted something outside the selection. Sarah and I split a bottle of some amazing Italian Cabernet (Banfi or something is what it’s called). I had duck spring rolls to start followed by gnocci as my main. Both were delicious. For dessert I had chocolate fondant with some Bailey’s on the rocks. The restaurant itself was very nice, though it was quite empty when we were eating. But, to be fair, it was only 7 on a Tuesday. They were incredibly quick: we were on our main course by 7:30!

                From there we headed to the legendary Cavern Club (www.cavernclub.org). You know the place. If you’ve ever seen a picture of The Beatles playing, you’ve probably seen the Cavern Club. It’s not just famous for The Beatles. Many other bands have played there over the years. Nowadays it’s more of a tourist attraction, unfortunately, though that’s to be expected. It’s so cool being able to stand in such an epic spot and everything is just like you imagine and then you look next to the bar and they are selling t-shirts and postcards. The bar is mostly populated by tourists who wear backpacks and are just there to say they went in. There were a few people who were doing like we were and clearly had put effort into going out. We actually picked an excellent time to go. We arrived shortly after 8pm, which is when these two young guys with guitars who call themselves the Nowhere Boys (haha, you’re so clever…) started their two hour set. They are a Beatles cover band, in case their name didn’t clue you in. You’d think I would find that lame since I find everything touristy lame but I actually loved it. There was no better way to experience The Cavern Club than by listening and singing along to the songs of The Beatles. They played a wide variety though sometimes they confused us (like saying they didn’t know how to play ‘Yesterday’. Who doesn’t know how to play ‘Yesterday’?) but ultimately it was a lot of fun. Sarah requested that they play ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’ and they did and we were freaking out and singing all the words but nobody else seemed to have any clue what the song was. They should be ashamed of themselves.

                When the set was over we left and headed closer to the center of town to go to a club called Popworld (www.popworldliverpool.co.uk). Now, we chose to go here because it was the closest club that was open on a Tuesday night and not a gay bar. We were very disappointed. We showed up around 10:30pm and it was empty. Like, we had been expecting it to be pretty quiet initially, since we assume when clubs are open until 4am people probably don’t really start going until midnight. But this place was empty. Literally just us, a DJ and a depressed bartender. We actually felt sad for the place. Things were not boding well for our night out, after such a good beginning.

                We left after about ten minutes and started heading up the street where lights were flashing. We didn’t want to stray too far and fortunately we found a place at the top of the road. It was called Soho and it doesn’t even have a website. The music was Top 40 which is what we expect on a night out. It wasn’t busy but there were at least people. We sat outside until it got busier around midnight and then went inside to dance. One of the things I’ve always loved about going out in Europe is you meet so many people. Sure enough, I met some really cool people like Sasha and her boyfriend Chris who were, like us, coming up from London for the day out of sheer boredom. I also met these two guys from Switzerland, Danyal and somebody whose name I forget. They were actually at The Cavern Club and said hello when they recognized me from earlier. I talked to them for quite awhile, about everything from travel to music. It was really fun. We did not want to stay at the club until 4am so we tried to leave around 2am, like back home. We got back to the hotel at 3 so we were partly successful.

                The next day we awoke feeling good (I’m not being sarcastic) and got our stuff together to check out of the hotel at 11am. Our coach wasn’t leaving until 3:10pm so they were nice enough to let us leave our suitcase and backpack with them for a few hours. We had booked a tour at 11:30am. The tour was, of course, The Magical Mystery Tour (www.cavernclub.org/the-magical-mystery-tour). As one can guess, it was a two-hour Beatles tour. We got on the Magical Mystery Tour bus and our guide took us all over the city. It would be really hard to see these places outside of a tour, as they are quite spread out. We saw Penny Lane, George Harrison’s birthplace, Strawberry Fields, John Lennon’s home with Aunt Mimi, Paul McCartney’s childhood home (one of them, anyway) and much more. It was really informative and definitely a good way to kill time. The tour dropped us off at Matthew Street shortly after 1:30pm. We’d already done the Cavern Club so we grabbed some lunch, grabbed our suitcases and boarded the coach back to London.

                The only problem with Megabus is, at the end of the day, you are stuck on a coach for five hours. And that gets boring, even when you bring a book…and a laptop…and a DVD player…I watched Rebel Without a Cause and slept and messed around on the internet and everything but the time did still drag. It probably gets easier over time; it’s been nearly four years since I last spent that much time on a bus. I’m out of practice.

                That’s what is so awesome about living in Europe: you can decide last-minute to go on holiday somewhere for a day or two or a weekend and there’s always great deals. We don’t get opportunities like that in Canada, since there’s very limited ways of getting places. So Liverpool ended up being our first jaunt outside of the city. Can’t wait to see where we head next.