All You Need Is Love- And A Red Scarf

Liverpool! Home of the Beatles. I'm typing right now on a German PC laptop. On the keyboard, some of the keys are in differnt places, but the software has been set up to USA configuration. So basically I have to type by knowledge, not by sight. Good thing I'm a pro at capital letters. Although it's good- Ive learned a bit of German now. If I run into a cute girl in Berlin, I can always show here "My Computer".

Here's the outside of the Spekeland Pub. It's now an apartment building. One big one. 6 people live here. Each pays 90 dollars a week. Unreal.

Here's a pic of the ground floor of the place I stay in. To my right is a poster of famus composers. When they got their cat, they named him Berlioz, after one night holding him up to the poster and deciding who he looked the most like. It wasn't unamimous.

But I didn't sign on to talk about German PCs, fasicnating as they are. It's been almost two glorious days of Beatles Beatles Beatles. Today I took the Magical Mystery Tour and heard all kinds of awesome facts and stories about them growing up in Liverpool. Visited Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, etc.

I thought I'd save you another picture of me standing next to something, so here is Strawberry Fields as John Lennon would have seen it:

Tomorrow I'm getting a small private-ish tour inside John and Pauls houses! They're still preserved as if they still lived in there when they were young. The Liverpool government promptly bought them up to charge tourists 15 pounds (30 bucks) to see where John and Paul wrote over 100 songs together in the bathroom. (Apparently it had the best acoustics in the house.)

Yesterday was a HUGE football (soccer) match between Liverpool and Arsenal. I spent the game inside a massive pub filled to the brim with die-hard Liverpool fans. Red scarfs everywhere- much like Pittsburghs Terrible Towels. Every Europe football team has their own colors and scarfs (my kind of people, right Phillip?) Liverpool won 4-2, and the celebration was unbelievable. I was told it was a good thing they won..........

The pub where it was CRAZY

Here's a video when Liverpool scored the goal to put them ahead. One guy got elbowed in the face on accident by his friend but here didn't care because he was so happy.

After the game, some new friends I made took me across the street to an open mic. They bought me pints and shoved a guitar into my hands so that "Hollywood" (my nickname) could play a few. With rabid Liverpool girls around to hear what the chap from Sunny, CA sounded like, I sang/played Lenny Kravitz' "Get Away", Green Day's "When I Come Around", and I Forgot's "Breakfast At Tiffany's". I think I kind of felt what it was like to be a Beatle for about 10 seconds there.

On a more personal, non-touristy note, today was the day that solitude set in. Well, today and yesterday. Yesterday I kinda had a little breakdown as I was trying to figure out the public transit system. It's been 10 days straight of planes, trains, automobiles, and buses. In America, most of the cities are in blocks. Not Europe. I literally could not follow directions of "go here, turn left". The nicest lady ever put on her coat and walked me a block and pointed into a bus and said "Get on this".

Today as I picniced by a theatre (where I later saw Romeo and Juilet tonight, awesome), I felt very alone. Everyone is so nice here - really nice. But I sample them and move on. It's like sample day at Costco. But I don't get to build and establish relationships. I just move on to the next city. So I felt that today. But also just solitude. Not necessarily lonliness- I think that suggests a longing. I dont really long for any thing or one in particular. Theres just an absence there. A silence that usually is filled with a sounding board in the form of a roommate, friend, fellow actor- or just someone who knows me. But to be alone with my own thoughts is, well, I'm not really sure how to describe it. If I think of a joke or a comment, no one there to tell it to. I do meet and hang with people a lot, but it's all "on your best behaviour/meeting a new roommate for the first time" time of behaviour. Not the good old stay up till 4am talking about life and nothing. Although, that has already happened once here, so I eat my words.

But today I spent a lot of time just talking with God. I guess it's cliche, but he really is my travel partner here. When I think on Him, I don't feel so alone. Even if it's just a blue sky.