Manchester 1 and 2.

My three days in Manchester have been very enjoyable. I am going to combine the first two days into one post versus doing three separate posts. Lots of photos. I arrived in Manchester on Saturday around noon after catching the 5:40 am bus out of Cardiff. I slept on the bus mostly. I'm getting pretty good at that. The sun was shining when I arrived and I was happy to walk the short few blocks to my hostel. I was too early to check in but they allowed me to store my bag and head out to explore Manchester.

I walked into Picadilly Gardens and headed to Flight Centre to see if they could help me sort out my travel itinerary for my upcoming tour. They were very friendly and made some calls but I still had to wait for the Canadian division of flight centre to deal with it.  After leaving their office, I wandered slowly into the weekend food market they have set up in Picadilly.

The selection was very good with baked desserts, breads and Chinese to Ostrich burgers! I decided to go for the Ostrich burger and had it with the sweet onion and garlic mayo topped with wild rocket. It was very delicious.  I hope to one day try Kangaroo but this was my first experince with Ostrich.

I continued my walkabout entering Arndale Shopping Centre for a small while before heading back out to wander the streets. The photos below are from my wanderings.

On Sunday I headed out to explore more of the city. I went all the way out to Sportcity where Manchester City has their stadium to see if I could find Shawn and Jordan a postcard. I was not so lucky as the gift shop did not sell any postcards or player cards. No luck for me. Sportcity is just a  little outside of the main part of Manchester. It hosts the City of Manchester Stadium which is also known as the Etihad Stadium. They are currently building training complexes for the football team.

After Sportcity I headed to MOSI which is the Museum of Science and Industry. There are a lot of different displays on transportation such as cars, aircraft, and trains. 

After the museum I headed back through the city with the plan to eventually head to the Manchester Art Gallery.

 The Hilton Hotel

 Canada House!

 The library, very pretty.

 The Manchester Art Gallery

 Another Waterhouse! Hylas and the Nymphs.

After the museum I hopped on a bus and headed to check out the indoor ski hill they have out by Trafford Centre. Trafford Centre is a very large shopping centre but I was very good and didn't even go inside as I do not want to spend a lot of money when I have no place to put it.

  We drove past Old Trafford, home of Manchester United and after getting off the bus it was a short walk over to the ski hill. I had never been to anything like it. I did not actually ski but it was very interesting to see how many people were actually there on the slopes. While there I took in the Southampton game. I just love watching football, so much football all the time.

Until the next post! I'm in Liverpool now. Hope everyone reading this is well.

Liverpool until April 1.