We wandered around Manchester.

Haiku-a-day:

May 10^th

The travel bug bites

and you are left to daydream

of far off places.

***Today's***

May 11^th

The blinding pain seeps

into my head halfway home.

Headache go away.

Yesterday I spent countless hours doing research for my next big trip.  I went to bed at 1AM, frustrated that I couldn't decided on hostels in Prague and Brussels.  

Today I toured Manchester with Vanessa and Sara.  I got up at 6AM (so not much sleep for me) and we headed out to catch our coach.  The journey down to the coach station is a half hour walk, plus we had to be there 15 minutes before, so we had to leave our flats early.  

I spent 10 hours in Manchester, but I found it's really not all that touristy and so there wasn't too much to do.  We wandered around most of the time.  We did tour their art gallery, which was very cool.  They've got a few Renoir's, Blake's, Lorrain's, and Maddox Brown's.  Their interactive/contemporary/modern exhibit was pretty cool as well.  

After the art gallery and more wandering, we ate lunch and set to exploring the outer part of the town.  There were supposed to be cute old buildings around there.  We sort of achieved this quest.  We encountered cute buildings along the way, but mostly a lot of bridges, and apartments.  Afterwards we found the Town Hall -- the building is an old church, it must be.  It was sooo pretty! -- and then the Wheel of Manchester, which is just like the London Eye only in a different city (and maybe not as tall?).  We paid £5.50 to ride.  The ferris wheel has a neat program where if you click on a language button, it would tell you about the city as you went around.  Informative to a point.  The people speaking would have you look to the south and then the north and back to the south and back to the north, so you did more searching than seeing.  The ferris wheel was fun nonetheless. 

Next we did more wandering, stopped in at a Greggs for eclairs, and walked across the whole city to get to the Manchester Met. U. and BBC Manchester.  By the time we got to the university, it was time for dinner.  We ate at a Yates's (mmmm chimichangas!) and then Vanessa and Sara dropped me off at the bus station.  They're off at a concert there still.  They'll be getting back around 1AM and I didn't want to have to get home that late, so I only went for the city exploration part of the day.

The walk home from the bus station was excruciating.  My head had been hurting for a while, but as soon as I got off and felt the bitter cold air, it was not good.  I popped some pills as soon as I got home.  Feeling MUCH better now.