The Beatles, Irish Pubs, and Sea Shanties

Liverpool City Center

Brandon and I had a chance to visit Liverpool this past weekend, in order to attend an ethnomusicology conference at the University of Liverpool. For those who are unfamiliar with the geography of the UK, here is a map, so you can see that Liverpool is much farther north than London, and was therefore much colder than the fantastic weather we have been experiencing here.  As you can see, it is also close to Ireland and therefore has a large Irish population.

The conference we attended had a theme of 'Trans-Atlantic Journeys' and focused mainly on preserving and researching old sea shanties, so one evening we had a special pub experience, listening to an Irish band, and singing sea shanties along with other ethnomusicologists.  Watch a short video here:

Liverpool is also known for being the hometown of the members of The Beatles, so of course we had to visit some famous Beatles sites.  We actually forgot to bring our camera when we went out to visit some of these places, but we were lucky enough to meet a nice young man from Brazil while on the bus and he kindly took our pictures for us, then sent them to us via email.  He was on a whirlwind tour of the UK and Ireland, and was a die-hard Beatles fan so he was on a mission to visit all the famous spots. 

At the Strawberry Field gate

In front of John Lennon's childhood home

"Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes..."

John Lennon statue outside the Cavern Club

Liverpool is historically a sea port, and was the home of the White Star Line, which was the company that built and owned the Titanic.  Although the ship never actually docked in Liverpool, there is a memorial to all the workers who lost their lives on its famous voyage, and we also saw the historic building where the White Star Line had its headquarters.

Titanic Memorial

Plaque at the Memorial

The building that used to be White Star Line Headquarters

And here are a few more pictures from the trip.

City Center

World Museum

At the docks

Panorama of the docks area

It was nice to stay in a hotel in a big bed and take a little time for ourselves.  Now we are quickly preparing for hand ins at the end of April and the arrival of the Stover family in mid May (with a trip to Edinburgh and Bath). 

Nostalgia and other things we miss

Our days in London  are flying by.  Emily is interning in the communications department with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (oae.co.uk) and Brandon is interning in the Marketing, Outreach and Recruitment department at Goldsmiths.  Each of us work at these positions three days per week and our studies take up the other days.  Our days are slipping by quickly and our dissertations are due in only 5 months!

Living in Europe is nice, don't get us wrong, but there are a few things we miss. 


1. I miss my telescope (Brandon).  Back in Princeton our house was in a small town with a big backyard and a field behind it.  Light pollution was low and I had a fancy telescope.  I could take wonderful pictures like this.

(My version of the Orion nebula)

You can see with the below picture, astrophotography has come a long way (This photo is what spawned this blog post). 

(The first photo of the Orion Nebula (Left) and one taken by an iPhone (Right)!)

2. Food - Shrimp chips, Tacos, and all the things that are outlawed in the UK (like velveeta cheese, chex mix, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese...)  They are banned in the UK because of dangerous chemicals and such, but sometimes they just taste so good.  No tacos because that's a Tex-Mex thing, without the Mex (or the Tex) you just have  -  (Blank).  (However, we just found an oriental food store down the road from our flat that sells shrimp chips!)

3. Road trips - Road trips don't happen for us because we don't have a car.  Instead we have rail trips, but they aren't quite as fun (less work than driving, but also less fun).

4. Paper Crafts - Emily misses making cards and scrapbooking. For the past two Christmases we have created our own homemade Christmas cards to send to friends and family, however we could not do that this year, due to all of our supplies being left in Illinois.  We even sold some of our cards once at a craft fair and made over $100!! 

5. St. Matthews Church - Although we have found a good church to call home while in London, we really do miss our church family at St. Matthews.  (Emily especially misses the handbell choir and playing with the church praise band!!!)

6. Lastly, We miss our friends and family - We made new friends, but we have not forgotten our old friends.  Emily's parents have visited and Brandon's parents are getting ready for a trip over in May.

Stay tuned for our next post after we journey to Liverpool.