What's up folks?!
I was supposed to write this post some days ago as usual, but I have been overwhelmed by an assignment I needed to submit the day before yesterday and I had to write it down in one day since I was in Manchester for the whole weekend.
So basically what happened was that one of my dearest italian friends, Cristiano, moved to Manchester to work for few months. He wanted me to come visit him for a weekend as soon as possible since he doesn't particularly get along with British people.
I met some english guys and they seem lovely to me but I guess the place he works at is not the best environment to make friends....for example there is a freak who is obsessed with the royal family, my friend tried to joke with her about them but she got seriously mad at him for that...weirdo...
Anyway on thursday night my flight was leaving at 10.30 p.m. I started packing, as usual, around 7 p.m. but, I mean, it was only the hand baggage , not a big deal to prepare it.
At 8 I was at the bus stop, to realize, after 5 minutes the bus was supposed to come, that I was at the WRONG bus stop...Great! I run to the other one but the bus was gone, there was another one coming in half an hour, I told myself it wasn't a big deal, I could have waited for 30minutes.
The longest 30 minutes of my life. When I was waiting, it started raining, oh I must correct myself, pouring rain, raining not only cats and dogs but I guess dolphins and whales as well!!!
It was crazy! After a while I couldn't feel any part of my body anymore cos it was frozen! I decided to get a cab...Problem : I didn't have cash.
I thought there was a close cash machine, it turned out to be closeD not close, I went to the closest food shop , knowing that there was an ATM inside: OUT OF ORDER.
Alright , I thought I would have just jumped into a cab and then the driver would have stopped somewhere to get cash. It was still pouring rain and, as usual, this ALWAYS happens to me , the moment I am NOT looking for cabs I see thousands of them , the moment I need one they are all freakin busy. It took me 10minutes to finally find a free one: got inside , it was 9 , basically I was already supposed to be at the airport at that time.
For the whole ride the taxi driver had an Indian CD on , don't take me wrong, Indian music is awesome if you are in freakin New Delhi with 40 degrees, but it kind of gets on my nerves when I am in late for my flight and I am completely wet because outside is 0° degrees and there's a storm. Listening for 30minutes to Indian people singing who sound like they were having stomachache is not what I need. I asked the guy if he was Indian then, and he said that he was from Pakistan...so why for the Gandhi's sake are you listening to Indian music on a freakin freezing Dublin night?!?!?
However eventually I got to the airport, I run to the metal detector, I took off my coat and a guy working there took it, then he looked at me and he asked "Why so wet?!". I gave him a stare that I guess was just half of a second but I never noticed how many thoughts can cross your mind in only half of a second.
Did you know that in such a short time you can plan approximately 10 different ways of killing someone!?!? Yep I surprised myself as well but when he dared to ask why I was so wet I was seriously relieved that any kind of weapon is not allowed in the hand baggage, because I could have been able to use it haha
Anyway finally I got to the gate. My flight had one hour of delay... all that stress for nothing...stupid Ryanair.
Around 1 a.m. I landed in Manchester finally! Got into the train and Cristiano fetched me at the station with the other 2 italian mates living with him, Nicolò and Matteo.
I was sooooo happy to see him and so excited for that weekend which already started super well since we stayed up talking and being stupid till 6 in the morning.
I was actually really shocked when I got at their place. It was perfectly clean and tidy, I was so proud of them, they said they did it for me :) they are such lovely guys!
Anyway the day later Cristiano and Matteo showed me Manchester (Nico was dead in bed haha). We started walking from Piccadilly which is seriously such a pretty area it reminded me of Amsterdam because of the intersection of canals and these flats facing them :
Then we went to the city centre which is very modern. Manchester is really a business city, pretty much it is all made of big modern buildings mostly made of glass and what is really missing are parks, green areas, that's why it looks so grey.
But the xmas atmosphere is really great and it makes every building prettier than it is for the amount of lights all around.
The xmas market is huge, it is like a village inside the city, it is really magic.
xmas market
Front of Manchester Library
Manchester Library: it hosts the oldest piece of Bible existing on earth, some Dickens' letters, The Canterbury Tales, and it is free entry!!!worth to visit!
We stopped having lunch in this cute place, so good for sandwiches, tarts and of course a cup of tea:
Walking in town,randomly in the business area we found an ice-skating field open-air in a very modern square surrounded by glass buildings. That was really fun, especially watching all those people falling down every second (mostly chinese "skating" like robots) and trying to avoid them as much as possible even if it was really hard since there were sooo many people.
(Cristiano & Me)
Then we stopped for a pint and we got back home with the intention to go back to bed early but the guys cooked this big italian dinner and we ended up to stay up the whole night.
The morning later, on Sat , we were supposed to wake up early and going to Liverpool, and we did go to Liverpool although we had some issues in waking up on time to enjoy a full day there.
On sat night Nicolò, Matteo and I went out in Manchester , unfortunately Cristiano was working :/ . They brought me to a university pub, american-style, pretty cool...but the amount of drinks my friends offered me..I cannot even remember , I just remember running in the streets of Manchester, trying to get into a gay club, running , running, running carried by Matteo through the umbrella we both were holding on opposite sides...why were we running?!That I cannot remember haha
We took some pics though:
(Nico, Matteo, Me)
In conclusion I loved Manchester...maybe mostly because of my crazy italian friends..but still :)
Next post about LIVERPOOL!!Stay tuned!!!
Chiara
