Liverpool

Strawberry Fields- inspiration behind the Beatles song
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Today we took a four hour train ride to Liverpool.  We started at Oxford Station and had a stop at Birmingham where we switched to a train that would take us to Liverpool Lime Street Station.  I thoroughly enjoyed the train ride.  It took us through the English countryside and gave time for reading a book.  We initially had trouble getting a seat on the train, but eventually found enough seats that weren't reserved.  When we arrived in Liverpool, we headed to the Beatles Museum.  This museum took visitors through the society the Beatles lived in and gave a lot of background information about how they formed their band.  I am not a very big Beatles fan, but I did find the exhibit to be very informative.  The museum had an audio tour guide that explained each of the exhibits and took visitors in chronological order from when the Beatles were growing up until the present.  After going through the museum, we headed to the harbor where we walked around the shops and enjoyed the beautiful ocean scenery.  Liverpool was one of the birthplaces of rock and roll, because it was on the water.  This allowed for different cultures to intermingle and ideas to spread.  We then got on a mystery tour bus which went around Liverpool showing many famous Beatles sights such as the houses the Beatles grew up in, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields.  It was interesting to see how the Beatles  grew up and to see that many of their songs were inspired by their childhood.  Our tour ended at 7:15 and we ran to the train station to catch our train at 7:19.  We barely made it!  The trains in England run exactly on time and we were lucky to make the train, considering it was the last one to Oxford for the night.  Overall, I really enjoyed Liverpool.  It was nice to get out of Oxford and to see a lot of the English countryside on our trip.