The first day in Manchester (March 31st)

One thing I was really looking forward to doing once I hit Manchester was to eat kebabs. For whatever reason, Manchester and that whole area are covered with kebab shops that serve big mounds of cheap, delicious meat. I'm hungry just thinking about it now. Unfortunately, after 21 million hours of flying and waiting in airports and flying some more my stomach was really, really unhappy. It was totally unfair then that my hostel was in the part of town occupied by a lot of Middle Easterners (there was a bank next door called "Habib Bank" -- the love bank?) and all of their great food that I couldn't eat.

So... after being temporarily kicked out of the hostel I decided to wander around the city and make my way towards Old Trafford. I sat and people-watched at some square (Piccadilly Gardens, I think it was) for awhile. There was a guy playing some sort of homemade harp-like thing attached to a speaker. The music coming from it was beautiful, but I couldn't begin to tell you what sort of music it was, other than from somewhere in Asia. It really reminded me of Pioneer Square in that well-dressed professionals ate their lunch or stalked by along with students and homeless people and teenagers in tracksuits.

A couple things I learned from the people-watching: pigeon-chasing is Very Serious Business for the children of Manchester. They will hunt down every last one that dares land on the ground, completely oblivious to incoming trams, cars, etc. The girls and women were all very fancily dressed, hair done just so, and covered in makeup. Made me feel like even more of a slob.

After that, I hopped on the tram to get to the stadium. The Metrolink, as they called it, is like an older version of Portland's MAX light rail. The inside was steel gray with bright orange paint that had seriously flaked off. It reminded me of movies about life in prison. The Metrolink seemed to serve primarily very old people, and Japanese tourists who wanted to see Old Trafford. I really don't think there was a person under the age of 80 on that tram that didn't get off at the stadium.

You (whoever you are) are probably not very interested in the stadium itself. If you (again, whoever you are) are unaware of Old Trafford, it's where Manchester United play soccer. The tour was pretty neat though for someone who's watched a whole lot of English soccer but has never seen these places in person. OT hold just under 77,000, which means it has ten thousand more seats than the next biggest stadium I've ever been to - Qwest field in awful Seattle - but seemed smaller than the place. No matter where we walked in the stadium the view of the pitch was perfect and everything seemed close, as opposed to Qwest which seems like a cavern (probably this is because last time I was there those snobby fans up who wouldn't support a lower division team only had 1,500 people in the stadium and the only ones making noise were those of us in the visitors' section) and it's nearly impossible to see the goal on the far side. The tour group went through the locker room and the players' lounge as well as the players' tunnel. I have to admit, the last part was pretty cool, walking out towards the pitch and imagining the home crowd RIGHT THERE. I was however, unimpressed with ticket prices. No wonder Man Utd fans get called the Prawn Sandwich Brigade. Actual humans couldn't ever afford to go there and I suspect that tour is as close to attending a game as I'll ever get. Oh well, there's always cable TV.

That evening I spent a great deal of time walking in circles through the streets because I evidently left my sense of direction in Portland (or maybe Atlanta). At the end of it, I did manage to pick up a cell phone and a sandwich, so that was something at least. I barely made it to a reasonable bed time before passing out at eight.... and waking up again at midnight (roommates back from the club), one (more roommates), two, two-thirty... and so on until it was finally six or so. Then it was on to Glasgow!