Spring Break Europe - Part 1

so I guess a crazy week has to begin somewhere

Sunday
We flew out of Prague around 10:40 Sunday night on a little discount airline called BMI Baby. It was small and cute and has a little baby mascot named Tiny. We arrived in Manchester around Midnight local time and caught the 12:30 shuttle to Picadilly station just in time. (next shuttle at 3:20) we arrived about 20 minutes later at our hotel, just across the street from the station, Hotel International. It was old and creaky but colorful and charming. Our room was not much bigger than the sunken in beds and the view out our window was a brick wall and some wooden planks. Amazingly enough I was ecstatic about the place- so much crust and character, proof that it was going to be an adventure from the start.

Monday- Manchester
We got an early start to our day and went downstairs to eat our free breakfast. We made our way over to the little food spread in the dining room and as I was choosing a cereal to go along with my croissant (quite surprised and pleased at the selection) Jeremy and I were approached by the cook/dining man and asked if we wanted a “court” breakfast. Well, we gaped at each other and gaped at him, frightened by not knowing what he was saying or what it was he was offering us, so we politely declined and sat down to eat our cereal, croissants and orange juice. Halfway through breakfast we saw several other people come in and accept the mysterious “court” breakfast. Still hypothesizing on what strange British delicacy this might be, we watched as the cook man brought out plates of hot eggs beans and sausage to the newcomers, and we quickly realized that we had actually declined the “cooked” breakfast. Sneaky Brits. The same cook man asked us for our room number when we sat down as well, and when we told him 101 he said “ah room with a view”

After breakfast we went to the train station to print out our tickets for London the next day. We did this successfully then decided, why not get a day metro pass for Manchester while we’re here? Well the reason why not is that we couldn’t figure out how. We found the ticket machine just fine, but ended up staring at it, poking it like apes for 20 minutes, until we just decided maybe some exercise would do us good. The rest of the day was spent exploring Manchester on foot. This ended up being the perfect decision because the city centre of Manchester, which is where we were ,was actually the perfect size for walking everywhere we wanted to go. We wandered around map-less the whole morning and saw the Manchester cathedral, the Manchester wheel (too expensive to ride), town hall, print works, the theatre, and China Town and it’s fancy arch. We stopped in for a much needed lunch break at Hog’s Head (in a fit of nerdy Harry Potter excitement) where we ravenously gulped down a giant plate of fish and chips and a Guinness each. One of the most satisfying and filling meals I have ever eaten.

We slowly dragged our heavy stomachs out of there and hit up the John Rylands Library. This library is part of Manchester University but has a crazy amount of historical literature. We saw the oldest dated writing fragment of the new testament, which was a fragment of St. John’s Gospel (2nd century AD) along with personal papers of John Wesley, ancient collections of Shakespeare’s plays and lots on the history of printing and fonts. There was even a special corner on the St. Christopher woodcarving I learned about in art history last year, and an example of the “Chancery” font. After the library, Jeremy and I walked along canal street for a little while, played pooh sticks on one of the bridges, yelled at the aggressive ducks who drowned our pooh sticks, went to a place called KRO for some cake, and realized that we were standing in the Picadilly Gardens that we had been searching for all day (I had been expecting more flowers.)

After all the walking we went back the hotel for a nap, then out to the Old Wellington Inn for Dinner. This restaurant had a very medieval England feel to it, small ,creaky, wooden, sticky tables, hearty laughs, warm atmosphere (we liked it a lot). Jeremy had the Timothy Taylor Cask Ale, which I continue to hear about to this day, with bangers and mash, and I had the house wine which was Cancha y Torro Merlot- Delicious!- and a salad with chicken. We walked home in the rain, which added some more glory to my already beaten ballet flats. (they may need to write a book after this)

Tuesday-London
Tuesday morning we declined the cooked breakfast again and the cook man once again reminded us we had the “room with a view.” We took the 9:30 train to London, but before boarding enjoyed a long-winded conversation with an old English chap named Paul Dymond about printing on synthetics, sublimation, and his old business in Greensboro. He even drew Jeremy a picture of some fabric printing machine (that looked more like a bug to me) on the back of his business card. He told us he was on his way to a wind energy convention type thing in London, then we said cheers and parted.

Our train was a little late to arrive due to what the conductor called “ a bit of a fatality on the tracks” (eek!) But we were on our way shortly, and we spent the next two hours enjoying the views from the train window of the English countryside and the many sheep grazing in it. We arrived in London Euston a little before noon and made our way via metro towards King’s Cross Station. Here we found out that Harry Potter is a liar. The entrance to platform 9 ¾ (cute stone wall with 9 on one side and 10 on the other) does not exist in King‘s Cross Station, nor is platform 9a (the closest thing we could find to it) as pretty and stone wall-ish as they make it look in the movie. Sigh, you’ve let me down little wizard. Moving on from that earth shattering disappointment, we took the metro to Victoria station, and saw Buckingham Palace, complete with marching troop of guards. We then walk alongside of St John’s Park which smelled deliciously of fresh flowers, on to Westminster Abbey, St Margaret’s Cathedral, and big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. We ducked into the metro station after this to evade the rain and popped up near a row of little restaurants, which was convenient because as Jeremy noted I was getting to the very grumpy stages of hungry. At Pompadour Patisserie we each had a Panini and shared a pot of tea. For dessert we shared an English style cream tea (recommended to me by Sandy from work) which consisted of a pot of tea, a scone, and butter, jam, and cream butter to spread on it. It was delicious, and melted away all the grumpiness.

We hiked back out into the rain after that and began another afternoon of wandering. We headed across a foot bridge for a look over the Thames River and continued across. We walked along the river for awhile on the other side and discovered a little turn off with mostly closed shops and a large spread of really cool wooden carvings/sculptures in the middle of it all. I took a picture with a duck carving and Jeremy with a lion, and we pressed on. We crossed the Millennium bridge back to the other side where we saw St Paul’s Cathedral, we walked forward a bit more then took the London Bridge back to the other side once again. This bridge was not falling down as the childhood song would have us all believe, however Jeremy and I almost fell down several times trying to cross it against the fierce Thames winds. Mystery revealed…sneaky Brits.

On the other side we saw the egg-shaped town hall, the tower bridge (way cooler looking than London bridge), and hoped about in the little bubbly foot fountains. We ventured on and saw Sir Francis Drake’s Famous Galleon (pretty pirate ship), Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and the London Eye (ferris wheel thing- again to expensive to ride.) we continued walking toward what we hoped would be warm and tasty restaurants but ended up being an endless, rainy, cold pathway to nowhere. We re-routed across a bridge though and finally (as Jeremy noted I was getting to the death stages of hungry and tired) found our way to a restaurant/pub called the Old Monk Exchange, where we enjoyed the “2 meals for 8 Lb” special with a cask ale and a hard cider. Ahhh. After dinner we reluctantly made our way back out into the cold rain toward Victoria station. There we bought 4 “Millie’s Cookies,” took the metro to Euston, and enjoyed our cookies with a hot chocolate while we waited for our train. Jeremy also bought one last cask ale at the Brittania in the station, while I stole some snacks from the free first-class table (if they’re not going to take them then someone should.) Our train platform was announced 4 minutes before it was supposed to leave so we dashed over there and it surprisingly left right on time (too bad for the suckers in the bathroom) we had a confusing layover in Crewe, then made it home to Piccadilly around midnight. Whew, a long two days.

British Terminology
Right Spiffing! = Awesome!
Chips = Fries
Crisps = Chips
Advice Slip = Receipt from ATM (contains no actual advice)
Lifts = Elevators
Queue = Line
Way Out = Exit (public signage)
Cheers = Hello/Goodbye
Bobbies = Police

Lauren