Manchester United
Hello!
Busy busy busy busy busy (ad infinitum) time here. First term ends next week (already!!!) and everything (EVERYTHING!) is due by Friday. I have things pretty much finished, except for one essay that I really haven't begun, but that doesn't stop the panicking. The 7 hours of daylight we're currently getting is also not helping things. It's quite difficult to wake up in pitch black at 7:30am, and it's equally as disturbing riding the bus home at 4 in the afternoon, again in pitch black, and not sure if it's dinner time or bed time or what. But at least it's 50F degrees outside and not 20. Suckers.
After next week, though, I'm heading to France, zipping through the Chunnel by Eurostar because it's the last chance to travel paying only the cheap-o 12-25 fare and allows me to spend two whole hours in Paris!! Hopefully a bit of relaxing. Then the holidays, which I'll probably spend just chillin' around the dorm with the Chinese folks, who are officially the only other people not going home for the holidays, and then off to Yorkshire to spend a two week placement organizing old books at the Nostell Priory. Yeah, I'm even a little jealous of myself!
This past weekend I took the train up to Manchester to meet up with Diana, who's house in Chicago I've spent a good deal of time minding, and who's cats I became intimately acquainted with as they took up sleeping on my face. Her husband had a show at a gallery, and while he was busy being famous and important, she and I skipped around Manchester like a pair of cold and wet Laverne & Shirleys. See, it rained all. weekend. long. This is because I am an unlucky person. When Diana and I were together, it would rain on us and we'd lose her husband and things of that sort. When we were apart, she would return to her lovely (free!) accomodation with the family of the gallery owner and sit in a whirlpool that was undoubtably larger than my hotel room, and go out for lovely dinners. I would still get rained on as I waited a half hour for buses and overpaid to sleep on a rock mattress situated over a disco. So clearly the rain was entirely my fault.
Yes, so I arrived in Manchester around 5pm Friday. But for some reason, for weeks before, all the reasonably priced accomodation in Manchester was booked full. Anything left was extremely expensive or way outside the city. I opted for a hotel about 2 miles outside the city in a little town called Eccles. I could reach Eccles by tram (which I found out took about an hour) and then take a bus from the tram station to the hotel (which came about every 20 minutes, if I was lucky). Once I got into Manchester, I had to wait an hour to catch the tram because the weekend ticket I was buying wasn't good until 6pm. So I hung out forever at the train station until I could finally buy my ticket and catch a tram.
Once I found my way to the hotel on the bus, I checked in and found myself in a fairly small but nice room with a twin bed and a TV. Oh, I could have danced for joy when I saw the TV. TV is hard to come by here. Especially one completely in my control that I can lie in bed and watch. Having no intention of taking the hour plus trek back into the city that night, I opted to go in search of some food (deep fried fish and chips - yum, then ohhhh my poor tummy) and plop down in front of the telly. As I returned from my food finding mission, I saw middle aged people swaying drunkenly around a dining room and signs plastered around the lobby saying there would be loud music playing that night. Nothing I could do about it, though, so I continued my big plans for the first night in Manchester. Around 10pm I discovered what they meant by loud music. My room was directly above the dining room where the exact same DJ that had spun for my junior high dances had began blaring terrible music with the speakers pointed directly at my bed. So I spent the night not falling asleep to the warbly bass beats of the Village People and that infuriating duet from Grease. The experience was heightened by the frequent, irregular pauses in music as the DJ encouraged 100 drunken employees of Dunder Mifflin paper supply to sing right along!!
Saturday morning: I didn't wake up about 8am, and headed back toward Manchester Piccadilly rail station to meet up with Diana. Our tentative plans were to get on a train and head out to the town of Buxton in Derbyshire (Jane Austen fans, you may commence squeeing) and take in some rain-soaked scenery. After my jim dandy impression of Manchester so far, I was ready to get out. After a short bit of waiting, Diana came through the doors and it was all "Yaaaaaaaaayyyyy!!! Something from home!!!" It was the first time in over two months that Chicago didn't feel like a million years ago. Also, she brought homegrown processed food goodies, and that doesn't suck at all.
We caught the train to Buxton, and caught up while watching the scenery outside the train grow more and more breathtaking. Buxton is a bit like the Bath of the North of England. Also, lots of the bottled water is from there. So it's kind of like visiting the town of, I dunno, Evian? It's very, very pretty. And because it's in Derbyshire, there were posters all over from the new Pride and Prejudice movie and things about Chatsworth, which was used as Mr. Darcy's house in the film. It's not really near Buxton, but that didn't stop my Darcy-senses from tingling.
Here are some pictures of loverly Buxton:
The Crescent (where the spa was) from a hill.
The hill from in front of the Crescent.
The Buxton Opera House
A babbling brook.
A creepy graveyard.
A pretty gazebo.
A nice pond.
The park.
Some more of the park.
Even more of the park.
Diana in the park taking a picture of me in the park.
The pub where we ate lunch.
We walked around a lot, looking in shops and museums and trying to stay out of the rain. We at lunch in a lovely pub, and later had tea in a very pretty, but clausterphobic tea house. I was full enough to bust, but it was the perfect country getaway. Once it got dark, we climbed back on a train and headed back into Manchester.
Of course, Manchester is like a portal or something for my bad luck. There was something about that place that aggravated my bad luck DNA and amplified the Force. Outside of it, everything was lovely and calm, but back inside, well, trouble was afoot. We were meant to meet Jay at the gallery, and we walked straight there after getting off the train. We got to the gallery at 6, but it was dark, locked, and closed. Diana didn't know where anyone was, so we had to find a pay phone so she could call. They were already home. So despite the relatively early hour on a Saturday night, Diana had to take the tram back towards the place she was staying, and I took another tram the opposite direction back to the hotel of loud noises and hard beds. After a longer than normal trip home, which involved a lot of dancing in the rain (I had to pee and the bus would not come!!!), I made it back to the hotel and watched some top 50 comics ever countdown (severe British bias!) where some old man whinging about his mother-in-law unjustly beat out Rowan Atkinson AND Stephen Fry, and Hugh Laurie wasn't even on the list.
Sunday morning was check out! Woo!! I'd slept better that night, and even had a lie in, as these funny English people call sleeping in. I sat in the rain for a good while and waited for Diana to meet me at the tram stop. The day's plans were to sightsee around Manchester until it was time for me to catch my train back to London at 6:45pm. Diana is a much more suitable travelling companion for me than Racy McRunRun back in Edinburgh. Once Diana and I found each other, we raced off immediately to Cafe Nero, where we sat for a good while sipping coffee and chatting. Then we picked a random direction and started walking around what was clearly the central shopping area of Manchester.
Ever since I've arrived, mostly all I notice is how very, very different everything is. London, despite being a very international city just screams foreign to me. It might not be very English, but it's certainly not American. When I made plans to see Diana, I was looking forward to have someone else I know share in what I've been experiencing. Of course, Manchester is not like London at all. I don't know if it's very English, but it's nowhere near as foreign as London. Of course, some things are still similar. They still drive on the wrong side of the road. You still feel like you're cheating death each time you cross the street. And pedestrians still have the amazing habit of walking directly into you from all directions. But the feel and look of it is very, well, American. I asked Diana when we both first arrived if she was feeling any culture shock yet, and she wasn't. The funny thing was, neither was I. It was the least culture shock I've felt since I arrived here. Maybe it's all the new development and familiar franchises. I don't know. It was weird.
Anyhow, I took some pictures of the city as we walked around. It's very beautiful and reminds me of Milwaukee with the rate at which it seems to be developing from an industrial city to a cultural center. It's also not all that big and very walkable, so we saw a good deal of it by foot. We eventually made it to Urbis, a large urban art museum. They currently have an exhibit of photographs by Mick Rock, a rock photographer. Lots of the stuff was of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Queen and Blondie. Some fantastic and famous stuff, including the publicity photo from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The rest of Urbis was some huge museum/art exhibit about urban life. Cool, but I can't believe this gigantic, modern glass building was all devoted to just this. We spent a little while wandering through, playing with all the exhibits. It would be a cool place for kids. Then hunger pains got the better of us and we headed off for lunch.
Here's some photos from around town:
Downtown Manchester
Outside Urbis
Urbis
Skyline from inside top of Urbis
City from River Irwell
Manchester Cathedral
Sidewalk of grave markers from outside a different church.
Manchester's version of the London Eye
Square all decorated for Christmas (light and blurry)
Same square (dark and sharp), because my camera is being odd lately.
The dressed up town square is in front of the Manchester city hall. There was a Christmas market going on, which we wandered around. It was very German and Dutch themed, which I don't really understand. Maybe Manchester really is like Milwaukee and full of Germans. It got me a little in the Christmas spirit, but not dangerously so.
After all this, it was beginning to get late, so we headed back in the direction of the train station promising to stop somewhere to get tea first. Afternoon tea is a nice habit, I've found, especially when all you can snag for lunch is a sandwich, but it doesn't do much for very full tummies after big late lunches at Pizza Express. Also, there was nowhere to stop between the market and the train station, so we ended up having coffee at the train station at a nice coffee place overlooking the tracks. Time flew by, and soon it was time for Diana to leave and me to board, so we said our farewells. She promises to send me more Kraft Mac & Cheese and find a cheap flight to London in the spring. I'm holding her to both those promises as they are high up on my list of Things Important to Lauren.
The train ride back was very very crowded, but all right. I discovered that they will allow people on even after the train is full, and no they won't put them in first class even if there are no seats. So lots of children running up and down the aisles and running into my elbow. By 10pm I was back at the dorm, and by 10:15 I was fast asleep.
So that, my friends, was my trip to Manchester. Who knows if I shall ever return, but next time will have to be better, if at least more comfortable. Still, I don't think I'd ever tell anyone not to go.
Busy busy busy busy busy (ad infinitum) time here. First term ends next week (already!!!) and everything (EVERYTHING!) is due by Friday. I have things pretty much finished, except for one essay that I really haven't begun, but that doesn't stop the panicking. The 7 hours of daylight we're currently getting is also not helping things. It's quite difficult to wake up in pitch black at 7:30am, and it's equally as disturbing riding the bus home at 4 in the afternoon, again in pitch black, and not sure if it's dinner time or bed time or what. But at least it's 50F degrees outside and not 20. Suckers.
After next week, though, I'm heading to France, zipping through the Chunnel by Eurostar because it's the last chance to travel paying only the cheap-o 12-25 fare and allows me to spend two whole hours in Paris!! Hopefully a bit of relaxing. Then the holidays, which I'll probably spend just chillin' around the dorm with the Chinese folks, who are officially the only other people not going home for the holidays, and then off to Yorkshire to spend a two week placement organizing old books at the Nostell Priory. Yeah, I'm even a little jealous of myself!
This past weekend I took the train up to Manchester to meet up with Diana, who's house in Chicago I've spent a good deal of time minding, and who's cats I became intimately acquainted with as they took up sleeping on my face. Her husband had a show at a gallery, and while he was busy being famous and important, she and I skipped around Manchester like a pair of cold and wet Laverne & Shirleys. See, it rained all. weekend. long. This is because I am an unlucky person. When Diana and I were together, it would rain on us and we'd lose her husband and things of that sort. When we were apart, she would return to her lovely (free!) accomodation with the family of the gallery owner and sit in a whirlpool that was undoubtably larger than my hotel room, and go out for lovely dinners. I would still get rained on as I waited a half hour for buses and overpaid to sleep on a rock mattress situated over a disco. So clearly the rain was entirely my fault.
Yes, so I arrived in Manchester around 5pm Friday. But for some reason, for weeks before, all the reasonably priced accomodation in Manchester was booked full. Anything left was extremely expensive or way outside the city. I opted for a hotel about 2 miles outside the city in a little town called Eccles. I could reach Eccles by tram (which I found out took about an hour) and then take a bus from the tram station to the hotel (which came about every 20 minutes, if I was lucky). Once I got into Manchester, I had to wait an hour to catch the tram because the weekend ticket I was buying wasn't good until 6pm. So I hung out forever at the train station until I could finally buy my ticket and catch a tram.
Once I found my way to the hotel on the bus, I checked in and found myself in a fairly small but nice room with a twin bed and a TV. Oh, I could have danced for joy when I saw the TV. TV is hard to come by here. Especially one completely in my control that I can lie in bed and watch. Having no intention of taking the hour plus trek back into the city that night, I opted to go in search of some food (deep fried fish and chips - yum, then ohhhh my poor tummy) and plop down in front of the telly. As I returned from my food finding mission, I saw middle aged people swaying drunkenly around a dining room and signs plastered around the lobby saying there would be loud music playing that night. Nothing I could do about it, though, so I continued my big plans for the first night in Manchester. Around 10pm I discovered what they meant by loud music. My room was directly above the dining room where the exact same DJ that had spun for my junior high dances had began blaring terrible music with the speakers pointed directly at my bed. So I spent the night not falling asleep to the warbly bass beats of the Village People and that infuriating duet from Grease. The experience was heightened by the frequent, irregular pauses in music as the DJ encouraged 100 drunken employees of Dunder Mifflin paper supply to sing right along!!
Saturday morning: I didn't wake up about 8am, and headed back toward Manchester Piccadilly rail station to meet up with Diana. Our tentative plans were to get on a train and head out to the town of Buxton in Derbyshire (Jane Austen fans, you may commence squeeing) and take in some rain-soaked scenery. After my jim dandy impression of Manchester so far, I was ready to get out. After a short bit of waiting, Diana came through the doors and it was all "Yaaaaaaaaayyyyy!!! Something from home!!!" It was the first time in over two months that Chicago didn't feel like a million years ago. Also, she brought homegrown processed food goodies, and that doesn't suck at all.
We caught the train to Buxton, and caught up while watching the scenery outside the train grow more and more breathtaking. Buxton is a bit like the Bath of the North of England. Also, lots of the bottled water is from there. So it's kind of like visiting the town of, I dunno, Evian? It's very, very pretty. And because it's in Derbyshire, there were posters all over from the new Pride and Prejudice movie and things about Chatsworth, which was used as Mr. Darcy's house in the film. It's not really near Buxton, but that didn't stop my Darcy-senses from tingling.
Here are some pictures of loverly Buxton:
The Crescent (where the spa was) from a hill.
The hill from in front of the Crescent.
The Buxton Opera House
A babbling brook.
A creepy graveyard.
A pretty gazebo.
A nice pond.
The park.
Some more of the park.
Even more of the park.
Diana in the park taking a picture of me in the park.
The pub where we ate lunch.
We walked around a lot, looking in shops and museums and trying to stay out of the rain. We at lunch in a lovely pub, and later had tea in a very pretty, but clausterphobic tea house. I was full enough to bust, but it was the perfect country getaway. Once it got dark, we climbed back on a train and headed back into Manchester.
Of course, Manchester is like a portal or something for my bad luck. There was something about that place that aggravated my bad luck DNA and amplified the Force. Outside of it, everything was lovely and calm, but back inside, well, trouble was afoot. We were meant to meet Jay at the gallery, and we walked straight there after getting off the train. We got to the gallery at 6, but it was dark, locked, and closed. Diana didn't know where anyone was, so we had to find a pay phone so she could call. They were already home. So despite the relatively early hour on a Saturday night, Diana had to take the tram back towards the place she was staying, and I took another tram the opposite direction back to the hotel of loud noises and hard beds. After a longer than normal trip home, which involved a lot of dancing in the rain (I had to pee and the bus would not come!!!), I made it back to the hotel and watched some top 50 comics ever countdown (severe British bias!) where some old man whinging about his mother-in-law unjustly beat out Rowan Atkinson AND Stephen Fry, and Hugh Laurie wasn't even on the list.
Sunday morning was check out! Woo!! I'd slept better that night, and even had a lie in, as these funny English people call sleeping in. I sat in the rain for a good while and waited for Diana to meet me at the tram stop. The day's plans were to sightsee around Manchester until it was time for me to catch my train back to London at 6:45pm. Diana is a much more suitable travelling companion for me than Racy McRunRun back in Edinburgh. Once Diana and I found each other, we raced off immediately to Cafe Nero, where we sat for a good while sipping coffee and chatting. Then we picked a random direction and started walking around what was clearly the central shopping area of Manchester.
Ever since I've arrived, mostly all I notice is how very, very different everything is. London, despite being a very international city just screams foreign to me. It might not be very English, but it's certainly not American. When I made plans to see Diana, I was looking forward to have someone else I know share in what I've been experiencing. Of course, Manchester is not like London at all. I don't know if it's very English, but it's nowhere near as foreign as London. Of course, some things are still similar. They still drive on the wrong side of the road. You still feel like you're cheating death each time you cross the street. And pedestrians still have the amazing habit of walking directly into you from all directions. But the feel and look of it is very, well, American. I asked Diana when we both first arrived if she was feeling any culture shock yet, and she wasn't. The funny thing was, neither was I. It was the least culture shock I've felt since I arrived here. Maybe it's all the new development and familiar franchises. I don't know. It was weird.
Anyhow, I took some pictures of the city as we walked around. It's very beautiful and reminds me of Milwaukee with the rate at which it seems to be developing from an industrial city to a cultural center. It's also not all that big and very walkable, so we saw a good deal of it by foot. We eventually made it to Urbis, a large urban art museum. They currently have an exhibit of photographs by Mick Rock, a rock photographer. Lots of the stuff was of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Queen and Blondie. Some fantastic and famous stuff, including the publicity photo from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The rest of Urbis was some huge museum/art exhibit about urban life. Cool, but I can't believe this gigantic, modern glass building was all devoted to just this. We spent a little while wandering through, playing with all the exhibits. It would be a cool place for kids. Then hunger pains got the better of us and we headed off for lunch.
Here's some photos from around town:
Downtown Manchester
Outside Urbis
Urbis
Skyline from inside top of Urbis
City from River Irwell
Manchester Cathedral
Sidewalk of grave markers from outside a different church.
Manchester's version of the London Eye
Square all decorated for Christmas (light and blurry)
Same square (dark and sharp), because my camera is being odd lately.
The dressed up town square is in front of the Manchester city hall. There was a Christmas market going on, which we wandered around. It was very German and Dutch themed, which I don't really understand. Maybe Manchester really is like Milwaukee and full of Germans. It got me a little in the Christmas spirit, but not dangerously so.
After all this, it was beginning to get late, so we headed back in the direction of the train station promising to stop somewhere to get tea first. Afternoon tea is a nice habit, I've found, especially when all you can snag for lunch is a sandwich, but it doesn't do much for very full tummies after big late lunches at Pizza Express. Also, there was nowhere to stop between the market and the train station, so we ended up having coffee at the train station at a nice coffee place overlooking the tracks. Time flew by, and soon it was time for Diana to leave and me to board, so we said our farewells. She promises to send me more Kraft Mac & Cheese and find a cheap flight to London in the spring. I'm holding her to both those promises as they are high up on my list of Things Important to Lauren.
The train ride back was very very crowded, but all right. I discovered that they will allow people on even after the train is full, and no they won't put them in first class even if there are no seats. So lots of children running up and down the aisles and running into my elbow. By 10pm I was back at the dorm, and by 10:15 I was fast asleep.
So that, my friends, was my trip to Manchester. Who knows if I shall ever return, but next time will have to be better, if at least more comfortable. Still, I don't think I'd ever tell anyone not to go.
posted by Lauren Matson | 6:19 PM
3 Comments:
"The day's plans were to sightsee around Manchester until it was time for me to catch my train back to Chicago at 6:45pm."
Chicago is that easy to get to and you complain about missing it?
Ha ha, oops!
Force of habit.
Diana, plane to Chicago. Lauren, train to LONDON!!!
Today there is fog outside! Yay! I totally forgot that London was supposed to be foggy!
Wow! I should be so lucky if Milwaukee looked like that.
You actually have to look pretty hard for the culture around here(Milwaukee that is!)
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