We joked about it for months. I thought we were joking about it. I’ve never been much of a Beatles fan. I appreciate their music and respect their place in world history but I’m not a fan boy. However once we were in London I thought it would be a damn shame to make at all the way over here and not go the extra 6 miles from the hotel to see the shrine to the Fabulous Foursome. Uncle Tim, Bobby, Kristin and I decided over lunch that we must go to Abbey Road studios.

Our great navigator of the trip, Bobby, decided to hand me the underground route map so that I could compare the maps cartography as to which stations we should use and on what line. I told him if he continued to used brainiac words like cartography that I would have to stop talking to him because I was too tired to be trying to figure out his high-falutin’ $10 words. After several attempts of cartography I quickly announced that I was defeated. I tossed the map back to Bobby and thought I’d just assume take a taxi. What’s another £20 on such a historically cultural mission? And without much hesitation spoke my thoughts. I glanced outside and hope that the seemingly short distance that I saw on the map was indeed true.

On New Bridge Street we hailed a taxi and I had the privilege of informing our driver that we were cheesy Americans and wanted to go to Abbey Road near Regent Park. I paused for a moment before asking our cabby if he know how to get to where the Beatles crossed Abbey Road. He quickly responded with a high pitch ‘who are they?’ with each letter he spoke filled with sarcasm that the four of us exploded into laughter.

The cabby told us about a Russian man with his wife had a wish list of locations that he handed him that included everything Beatle. The cabby drove the man to each destination the man took a picture and then went on to the next. Anything in London that had anything to do with a Beatle this man snapped a freeze frame.

Side note – the streets of London are precariously placed. Imagine the roads of Ann Arbor on steroids. Streets are crisscrossed, diagonal, and winding. It is very difficult to catch your bearings. Although most of what we did during our stay was on the North side of the River that doesn’t necessarily mean that the river was south. That damn thing and more twist and turns in it than a brick of Ramen Noodles. Our cabby seemed to expertly navigate his with through this nooodly maze of road ways. As we traveled on we all realized that we probably made the best decision. It was dusk, we were tired and this 6 mile journey was lengthy.

Our driver entertained us with stories as he dodged and weaved through traffic. I have no idea why there are not more car to car hitting incidents. As we passed Bentleys, Ferraris, Alfa Romeos, many Rolls Royce’s, Lexus’, and BMWs we were surprisingly in front of a music lovers Mecca. It was Abbey Road Studios. I have no idea of what I was expecting but it was a modest building with a small parking lot that had a sign warning people that if they didn’t have business in the studio they would have to leave.

Along the way I had asked the cabby if he would mind taking our picture as we had four but had no fifth to knock off the shot. He said, with a chuckle, that no self respecting Brit would be caught dead taking pictures of tourists in front of Abbey Road. When we arrived he turned off the taxi meter. Bobby, Tim and I ran around like gaffoons snapping pics of anything we thought was worthwhile. Then began the ‘how the hell are we going to do this’ discussion. We weren’t the only ones with the similar dilemma, as we tried to figure out which direction to cross in this very busy traffic circle.

We crossed, the light was dim, and the picture was poor. I made some camera adjustments and gave further instructions to the cabby. We backtracked to do it again. The results weren’t perfect but the memory of the moment is.

~Melik

This is our version of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road. You would not believe the number of cars that whiz through this area.