London Day 19: Abbey Road

We ventured to the Maryleborne Tube station early on Saturday morning for the Beatles walking tour. The tour was relatively interesting. We saw places where scenes of 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help!' were filmed. Some other memorable landmarks included the courthouse where Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr had both gotten married, the original site of the Apple store, a flat where Ringo Starr, Jimi Hendrix, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono had all lived (at separate times), and a flat where Paul McCartney had composed many memorable songs including 'Yesterday', 'Yellow Submarine', and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'. The best part, however, was going to see Abbey Road studios and the Abbey Road crosswalk. Luckily (for us, not for the traffic), the crosswalk is a pedestrian right-of-way crosswalk (not many in London are), so we were able to take some pictures crossing the crosswalk just like the Beatles did over 40 years ago. Yippee! We were even lucky enough to get an old VW Beetle in the background of one of our pictures as we crossed, which was a weird coincidence.

After the walking tour, Dave L, Claire, and I took the Tube to the Bond Street station, where we got out in search of some good (and cheap) fish n' chips. We found a little pub that had an available table and sat down for a long time, talking and enjoying our lunch. After lunch, I took a "power nap" (which actually turned into an all-afternoon nap) before waking up to Christine and Ramon sitting in my living room watching TV. Alex and Claire came over soon afterwards, and we all decided to go out in Covent Garden with my roommate Sam as well. Unfortunately, everywhere in Covent Garden was packed, and we weren't dressed well-enough to go to a club, so we ended up heading back towards Holborn and going to a pub called the White Hart. The night was fun for the most part, but Alex went to the ATM at one point and got his debit card stolen, which really sucked. Luckily he has gotten it all figured out, but it definitely put a damper on the night for a little bit.

We didn't stay at the pub too late because we were all pretty tired, and Claire, Christine, Alex, and I were all going on a walking tour the next morning.