A visit to The Cavern

Liverpool is famous more than anything for its affiliation with The Beatles. It's both the city where all four of the musicians were born and where they became famous. The Cavern Club, located 3 floors underground, was where they played some of their first gigs in the early 1960's. When you enter and you see the low, arched ceilings and thick brick walls, it is apparent that the bar was used as an air raid shelter during the World Wars.

Since the 60's the bar has become a tribute to The Beatles. As you can see in the photo at right, every inch of the walls is covered in signatures and devotionals to the band. We went on Monday night after dinner, had a couple of beers, and listened to some live music, the majority of which was Beatles cover songs. We hung out til midnight when the bar closed and then headed back to the hotel which luckily for us was only about a 3-minute walk.

The next day was a travel day, and a long one at that. The first leg of the trip was 3 different buses: downtown Liverpool to the Liverpool airport at 10:30, Liverpool airport to downtown Machester at 11:40, and downtown Manchester to the Manchester airport at 1. Once there we ate the sandwiches we had bought for lunch and then entered the terminal. It's a good thing we weren't in a hurry because I forgot to take the liquids out of my purse and of course they stopped my bag. As the man took his sweet time going through my bag, he also performed a test for explosives. I have no idea how, but my bag managed to have traces of PETN, the plastic explosive that the infamous "Shoe Bomber" used hahaha. He had to ask me all sorts of questions about how/where I might have acquired it and fill out a mini-report. Luckily the second test came back negative and they let me leave after running me through the new x-ray scanner thing and my shoes through some other machine.

At 4:45 we caught the 3-hour flight to Málaga and arrived at 8:45 after gaining an hour from the time difference. Once in Málaga, we took the train downtown and met up with Jose, his roommate Juane, and my old study abroad director, Iker for dinner. Jose let us crash at his place that night as we had to catch the bus to Almería at 3:30 the following day. It was a long trip, but that's expected when you only pay 35 euros for your roundtrip airfare.