Liverpool: Beatles, Soccer, Cathedral, and Nightlife

Wow, what a weekend! Once I got past the pain of Ryan Air's boarding policies, I settled in and started enjoying myself. I visited Beatles museums, a monstrous cathedral, the highest peak in Wales, a few football (soccer) stadiums, a castle or two, and a few bars along the way. In addition, I had another run-in with the evil volcano, Eyjafjallajökull. The story is long enough that I'm going to break it into two parts: Liverpool & Snowdonia.

Liverpool

After landing in Liverpool, my colleague took me to THE most important attraction in the city: Ansfield Stadium, the home of Liverpool FC. There is also a shrine to the Hillsborough 96, the unfortunate 96 people who died at Hillsborough stadium in a 1989 FA Cup semi-final match against Nottingham Forest FC. Often misunderstood as an event of hooliganism, the cause of this tragedy was in fact due to the police trying to control the crowd at the expense of their safety. The deaths all occurred prior to the match starting as the crush of fans tried to get into the stadium. All 96 people who died were Liverpool FC supporters. R.I.P - The Hillsborough 96


Now that we got that depressing bit out of the way. On to something a little more fun: Friday. I started Friday out with a trip to two Beatles museums. The Beatles Story and The Beatles Story - Pier Head. One admission gets you into both museums. I learned quite a bit about the Fab 4 that I didn't know, including that Stuart Sutcliffe was the fifth Beatle (who left the band early on to pursue his art career, but died shortly after. He was not alive to experience the regret of leaving the band. Additionally, I learned that Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best as the drummer. These may be known to your average Beatle-ologist, but it was unbeknown to me, your average Gen-Xer who barely remembers holding vigil for John Lennon in elementary school.

The Pier Head exhibition really hit me hard as it was sponsored by Cynthia Lennon (John Lennon's ex-wife) and Julian Lennon (John and Cynthia's son). In this exhibit were quite a few pieces of John Lennon memorabilia. What hit me hard were the correspondence displayed like love letters from John to Cynthia from the road and a postcard from Julian to his father which simply read: "Lover from Julian to Daddy." My eyes got a little wet as I thought dearly of my family at home. Here are a couple more pictures:



I then visited one of the largest cathedrals in the world: Liverpool Cathedral. This was an unexpected find for me. I had walked all around Liverpool taking pictures of the different buildings and enjoying the scenery. When my colleague met me, he didn't know what to show me because I'd walked all over town and seen it all. He finally walked me up to Liverpool Cathedral, which I passed on because it was a little of of the way (I also didn't know that it was one of the largest cathedrals in the world - I just thought it was closer than it looked). When we got there, I was in awe of the immensity of the building. The cafe and gift shop in the sanctuary is a nice touch.


Finally, I ended my first day with a night on the town, where I believe that a scouser (that is the nickname for people from Liverpool) was hitting on me. He kept coming over by me and putting his arm around me. I couldn't understand a freakin' thing he said over the music and through his scouser accent. I got out of there as quick as I could. I did see a good show at the Cavern Club, which is famous for being one of the Beatles favorite venues.


Next: On to Snowdonia!