Wednesday 10/26: Museums, Sore Legs, and “American Food”

I “slept in” until 8:30am today and had scones for breakfast with Aurore. I say sleeping in because Aurore is a morning person and generally gets up around 7:30am... A bit of a shock after my sleeping times in Glasgow! ;)

After breakfast, we headed out to tour the city! Unfortunately my legs are still super super sore. Just going down the flights of stairs to get out of her building was extremely painful. But, I was determined to see as much as I could of Manchester, so I hobbled on…

Our first stop was just across the street at the People’s History Museum

(http://www.phm.org.uk/), which had exhibits showing British activism throughout history.

Photo: An exhibit at the museum (Billy Elliot, anyone??)

It was really interesting to learn more about British history and how the people fought over and over to have their voices be heard. I found it especially fascinating since I’ve been following the Occupy movement going on all over the world. It’s inspirational to see what can happen when people unite for a common goal that makes our world a better place.

Photo: Aurore and I trying on hats in the museum

After spending over an hour exploring the People’s History Museum, we stopped briefly at the Engine Museum, and then headed home for a quick lunch.

After lunch, we wandered by the river, saw the tallest skyscraper in Manchester (which kind-of looks like it’s going to fall over…), and visited an old library.

Photo: Manchester's lopsided skyscraper

The library was really cool—it almost seemed like a church, but the stained glass had writers instead of saints and there were statues of Shakespeare instead of Jesus.

In one of the exhibits, I found a letter written by Elizabeth Gaskell (the author of many books, including Wives and Daughters)!

Photo: Elizabeth Gaskell's letters

By late afternoon, we were getting hungry, so we stopped at a pub for some dessert (aka “pudding” in the UK). The interior was really beautiful, lots of woodwork and rounded booth seating. Aurore got a chocolate-orange cheesecake and I had an apple crisp. I wish I’d taken a picture of my apple crisp—it was rather tiny to start off with and, to make things worse, they served it on an enormous plate! It was yummy, but was gone really fast!

From there, we wandered around downtown (me hobbling along with my sore legs) and visited the cathedral, an art gallery, and a huge mall. Our visit in the mall was as fast as possible—just the time needed to use the bathroom and laugh at some of the ridiculous outfits.

Since my legs were hurting so much, we decided to take the “Free Bus” home. It was a great idea in theory, but we ended up waiting 20 minutes for the bus to come, and then we hit rush hour traffic. After we’d spent 10 minutes inching down one block (staring at the same warehouse), we asked if we could just get off. The driver informed us that we could, but we’d have to wait until after the bus crossed the street… Hmm. Yes, that took about 10 more minutes and we blocked traffic for a good part of that. It was ridiculous!

When we got back to Aurore’s flat, I was so tired! James, Aurore, and I watched some Onion News videos (I introduced it to them) and they shared a few funny British news clips with me. It was nice to just sit for a while and hang out.

Around 6:30pm we headed to the American Diner, which is a restaurant that travels around the UK and stays in cities for a few weeks. It has a bowling alley inside and it plays 50’s-60’s music and serves “American” food. If you have a bad feeling already, you’re correct. It was pretty bad. I ordered a milkshake and it was basically chocolate milk with a scoop of ice cream floating in it. Although it wasn’t as bad as the cocktail James ordered, which tasted like a liquefied jelly doughnut (there was even a pastry aftertaste—I swear). We met up with two of Aurore’s friends (one of whom was celebrating her birthday) and they were really fun! Once we’d managed to nab a table, we ordered our food. Luckily they had a falafel sandwich on the menu…three of us ordered that. Well, it didn’t taste anything like the falafel I’ve always had. It was not very good, but the two others had actively disgusting food. So, all in all, we weren’t impressed with the American Diner. I told them that they were welcome to come visit me in Oregon and experience REAL American food!

We all headed back to James and Aurore’s flat to have a drink and hang out. We chatted for a while and ended up watching a few more Onion News videos. After the girls left, we talked about the potential for Aurore and James to visit Oregon! I hope it actually works out!