Years ago, in a hostel in Edinburgh, an astonishingly annoying guy¹ stated that he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to travel, or go anywhere else, because you could find anything in the world in Manchester. At the time, I thought he was an idiot. Having visited Manchester, and found it to be an interesting place … I still think he was an idiot.
¹ He somehow was more annoying than the guy who staggered in blind drunk and threw up in his own bed, mostly because he couldn’t seem to understand why other people didn’t treat him as the centre of their universe. The hostel were apparently completely out of line for not having a bed available when his plans changed, or for objecting when they found that he’d snuck in & slept in a stairwell. Nobody seemed too sad for him when it turned out that vomit-guy had borrowed money off him, then checked out the next day.
‘Checkout’ from the place in Aberystwyth was very much an honour system thing; Be out by 11:00 & leave the key in the lockbox for the cleaning folks. Oh, and turn off the water heater. Me being me, I took a photo of that, just so that I could prove I’d done it.
It was two-train trip from Aberystwyth, changing at Shrewsbury, and … It was uneventful? No delays, and because I was on the other side of the train split, no concern that I’d end up in the wrong place.
Google Maps got a bit shouty during the initial stages of navigating me to my hotel, but in fairness it’s a complicated set of streets around Manchester Piccadilly station; The technique of “I’m going to walk in the right direction as I see it, and hope that you figure it out eventually” did the job, and it eventually calmed down.
I had no particular agenda for Manchester; I’d never been there, so I went there to just wander around. Mission accomplished?
I did find a sprawling shopping mall & get a new pair of jeans, because the current ones were on the way out. Stuff seems to wear out after when traveling, though that’s probably because it gets way more use, since you have less stuff to rotate through.
I only had a two-night stay in Manchester, so I’m confident that I didn’t see much of the place, but I still got to wander through a few different areas of the central city, get lost a few times, get confused by the street layout & go in the wrong direction a few times; All the normal things.
It was a mid-day-ish train out of Manchester, so I had time for a leisurely morning, with hotel breakfast from the Novotel next door; Different building, but shared systems, from what I could tell.
Leave a Reply