How I Became a Beatles Fan (Day 16)

Well my first night at a hostel was an experience for sure. I actually didn't think it was too bad, except for there are a few perks of hotels that you don't necessarily think about when comparing..and there are a few things that I am making sure future hostels I stay in have. First: free wifi. It was fine being without internet when we were in this huge group, but when I am travelling with Rachel later, I will definitely want to be able to access my email and whatnot at some point. Second, and this is more of just an annoyance, there was no AC..which actually makes a pretty big difference when you are in Europe and the hostel has really thick duvets. But really it was not bad at all.

Today was the last full day of our trip up North, and we saw a lot of interesting places. Most of our trip today was dedicated towards LDS Church History sites. The first little village we only stopped in for maybe 5 or 10 minutes just to get a feel for it. It was just a little village, pretty out of the way and with no particular sights or anything. I'm pretty sure that the few locals who were out were really confused why 50 Americans suddenly drove up on a coach and started walking around their streets. This was one of the villages where a lot of early converts to the Church were from and so we just got a brief glimpse of what that area is like. 

Our first real stop of the day was in Preston, England. We got a guided walking tour around the city and saw lots of the important places for the Church, including the river Rabble where the first converts in England were baptized. Our guide is a really well-known church history tour guide I guess and his name is Peter Fagg. He was extrememly interesting to talk to and to learn from. It was really neat to be in a place that was so important for the early English Saints and to just imagine how they must have felt and what they might have seen and experienced back in the 1800s. After our tour, we just had a few minutes to get something to eat, so the natural solution was to get Mars Bars McFlurries (they are the best...sorry that you all live in America and that's not a thing over there).

Our next brief stop was at the Preston Temple. So I can officially say that I have been to all the temples (2) in the UK. It was so gorgeous and the grounds were immaculate. I wish we could have stayed longer, but it was still amazing to be able to walk around and feel the Spirit. :)

The final destination of our trip, and our last overnight location, was Liverpool. We were behind schedule all day today, so instead of the four hours we were supposed to have free, we only had about two. I ended up going to the Merseyside Maritime Museum and then to the International Slavery Museum and they were both really interesting. Liverpool was a really important port back in the day, I mean the Titanic sailed out of this port, so that tells you a lot right there. The Slavery museum was fascinating but also a little emotionally draining just because it is such a hard topic to address. 

Our big tour of the night was going through the Beatles' Story. It was just this museum that we had an audio guide for and just went through and there were stories and pictures and recreations of places that were important in the story of the Beatles, and then at the end there was a room with a section dedicated to each of them after the band broke up and then at the end a recreation of the room where John Lennon wrote "imagine". It pretty much made a Beatles fan out of me. Some of the best quotes were by George Harrison though: "As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon stays dead" and "We were the Spice Boys." It felt a little bit like we were transported back in time to when Beatlemania was sweeping the nation as it were. I quite liked it actually. 

We were supposed to be having dinner after our tour at the hostel, but there was some miscommunication about that and the hostel wasn't expecting that...so instead we got to go out on our own to find something to eat. Some of us decided we wanted Italian, and we found a restaurant, and were just looking at the prices when a man behind us told us that there was a better, cheaper italian restaurant not very far away and he was actually headed there. (I know this sounds a little sketchy..and it kind of was...but he was with his wife and daughter and there were ten of us and there was actually a better, cheaper italian place just a few blocks away...so even though we did go through a semi-sketchy alleyway, it was all ok). Their takeaway menu was really inexpensive actually and I got the most delicious garlic, chicken and mushroom calzone. It was a good ending to our last night away from London for the week.