A lovely trip to Manchester

This past weekend my flatmate Dave was nice enough to take us to Manchester! He grew up in the suburbs of Manchester and offered to let us stay at his house and then explore the city for the day!  His family were so friendly and welcoming, we had a dinner of leek & lentil soup, chicken, TONS of vegetables and then apple crisp for desert.  We were all so stuffed we just wanted to relax but Dave took us to downtown Manchester to this alternative-indie nightclub that was playing lots of 90's music and really good singalong songs.  We sung and danced the night away enjoying Dave's childhood friends and the young people of Manchester. 

The next morning we woke up nice and early to go tour Old Trafford Stadium, where Manchester United plays.  Dave and Stasia are both big football (soccer) fans, so they were in heaven.  I just found the stadium incredible and it was so interesting to hear about.  I had no idea that Manchester United was such an old football club and had so much history to it.  There was a museum included in the tour price so we took a little bit to explore the museum which told the history of Manchester United and highlighted some of their best managers and players.  

Trophies

More trophies

A trophy that spun around

The pitch! Old Trafford fits 75,000 people

The pitch

Myself in front of the pitch

Myself, Stasia, Dave, and Ariana

In 1958 there was a plane crash in Munich that killed 8 Manchester United players.  This clock commemorates it.  Our guide spent a lot of time talking about the air crash, it was very interesting

The munich tunnel, dedicated to the history of the munich crash in 1958

A team picture taken before the air crash, ironically all of the players in red were the ones who died.  Kind of strange how they are all sitting on one side.  

Ariana, myself, and Stasia in front of the tunnel that the players run out of every game.  The tour guide lined everyone up and played music for us to run out to, it was cheesy but so fun

Other side of the pitch

Manchester United's logo

Only in England would a meat pie be considered 'stadium food'

The room where the team gets their pre-briefing

Some of the players jerseys above where they sit before games

Stasia said, "Oh Welbeck he's hot!" and this was my response.

Stasia, myself, and Ariana in front of the statue of the "United Trinity" I really don't know the meaning, we just felt like posing in front of it.

United Trinity up close

In true tour fashion, this one ended in the store.  However this store was great because it was MEGASTORE! It had anything and everything Manchester United.  

Outside of the stadium

After touring Old Trafford Dave took us into the City Centre to walk around.  He had a nice little walk planned out for us.  Manchester is a gorgeous city, its a mixture between historic 1930's looking buildings and very modern cutting edge buildings.  We were all more than content wandering the streets and looking at the mixture of architecture.

The Cathedral in Manchester-Dave told me in England a city is not a city unless it has a Cathedral

It was 2PM on a Saturday and this pub was PACKED.  

The Manchester Eye

One of the high end shopping streets.  We spent a good 45 minutes wandering Harvey Nichols wishing that we had the money to buy all the extravagant clothes.  

A view from Harvey Nichols

Georgio Armani

Manchester town hall, it was very gothic looking and had lots of details to it.  Reminded me of some of the churches I saw when I was in Milan

The COOLEST Urban Outfitters I have seen to date

The Printworks.  A Manchester artist did a series of pictures of what he thought would happen if there was an apocalypse in Manchester.  Here is a link, the Printworks is the third picture. 

After picking up our stuff from Dave's house we went to the Trafford center, which reminded me of Las Vegas.  I don't have a picture of the outside but it looked similar to Caesar's palace and the inside was attempting to look like a cruise ship.  It was such a fun environment!

The ceiling was even painted like a sky with little lights! We went to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen at the upper right hand corner, it was so delicious.  It was the first time I had seen a restaurant list french fries as fries instead of chips, which is the custom in England.  

The ketchup bottle at Gourmet Burger Kitchen! I may or may have not taken it back to Leeds with me. After we had dinner we headed back to Leeds, which was a long drive after our full day of sightseeing.  We missed our exit by three, got side-swiped by an ambulance, and barely made it home because we almost ran out of gas, but it was all a good adventure.  Overall Manchester was a great city with lots of good shopping and a great environment.  I was so thankful that my flatmate took us there and his family was so hospitable to all of us.  

I am currently sitting in my friend Sydney's apartment in San Sebastian, Spain! She is in my sorority back home and studying in San Sebastian for the semester.  I am out visiting her from Tuesday-Sunday night.  I haven't even been here for 12 hours and I love the atmosphere of Spain.  We went for tapas and sangria for dinner and then wandered around the concha (beach).  It was so nice to see the sun out, it has been so gloomy in England.  Now we are just relaxing; she is getting homework done and I am avoiding mine.  Tomorrow when she has school I am going to the beach to get some of my schoolwork done, then she has a full week of activities for me including paella, exploring surrounding cities, and we might head to France on Saturday! But that is all for another blog post, I will upload pictures and full documentation of this trip on Monday!

Oh, and only 16 days until I am headed to Dublin for St. Patricks Day, and 18 Days until my family comes out to England to join me! I am pretty happy with the way my life is right now.

-G