Magical Mystery Tour

Visiting England had been on our mind for a long time, so we planned a trip fast enough. I mean we were sitting and looking through different flight tickets to anywhere. Eventually, we noticed the fair price tickets to Liverpool from Oslo. We thought why not? Staying a music fan, I had read books about The Beatles, so we decided that it would be a great idea to see those noticeable places. We matched the tickets to Oslo from Vilnius and 4 day journey seemed to be realizable. One thing left to do was to get a visa to the UK. We gathered all the documents, wrote the plan of our trip and applied for a visa. The 8 days 0f waiting and visas was issued to us. We packed our bags and hit the road.

At the Oslo airport we had 3 hours to the next flight, so we went into the forest nearby and had lunch over there. Then we flew to Liverpool, took a train to Wavertree and there

we were. The calm district with a pub on the first floor of our hotel. And it was what we needed after the long day. We went there and got to a birthday party. It was really interesting to watch local people, how they sang and how they wished the best with the poster on the wall: "Happy birthday, James. You fucking fat bastard." I heard an authentic English for the first time, except films.

The next morning we had coffee with toasts and headed to the center of Liverpool to taste an English breakfast. We stilled our hunger and went to Albert dock, where we walked down the wharf, took a ride on the Liverpool wheel. From above we looked down at the river Mersey, docks and the

city of Birkenhead. It looked gloom and industrial.

I guess there are no many big cities, where you can't find Chinatown. Liverpool is not an exclusion. It's the oldest Chinese community in Europe. To enter the main Chinatown street you should go through the stylish arch. There we found many Chinese cafes and restaurants, the public house. Not far from the Chinese district we came across the Cathedral, where we saw graveyard with many tombstones. It's funny but a little bit later I was watching the British film titled Blood, when I saw and recognized that place. In Liverpool we met many people in red t-shirts of Liverpool FC, so I came in their official store and took a photo

with t-shirt of Stevie G. Closer to the evening we ate at the Chinese restaurant and traditionally went to the pub on the next side to our hotel. Like in a song: "It's been a hard day's night..."

Having looked in every corner, we went to see the Cavern club, where the Beatles' spirit still roamed. Their original instruments and reconstructed scene were exhibited there. The aura of those years was hanging in the air. Inhale, exhale and shout "Can't buy me love" and so on. Afterwards, we had a few pints of beer and listened to live music in the Cavern pub. Very hospitable place. Who do you think we met there? Of course, John Lennon himself stood outside, leaning on the wall.

On the last day we planned to find and see the houses of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. We went by Penny Lane street and got to Woolton and the Menlove Avenue. I guess it had been a working class district back then, but now it looked like a rich and safe district. There we met a man who told us, that he had been living there since 1969, I guess. He showed us where to go to find the Strawberry Fields gate. We took a plenty of photos and took a bus to airport. The tour had ended but we knew that one more miscellaneous place had been marked on our world map.