Maggie comes to visit!

My roommate Maggie has been studying in Florence for the semester. For her spring break, she decided to come visit me in cold and wet Manchester. Luckily she visited on the perfect week and experienced only sunshine; she probably doesn't believe my complaints about how cold it is and how often it rains here anymore.

While she was here, I tried to give her a full tour of Manchester, only to realise I didn't know that much about Manchester besides what goes on at the uni and what stores and bars to go to. I definitely think it's true that you never play the role of a tourist in your own city, so I had some firsts last week along with her.

We toured the Manchester United stadium. Manchester United is the professional football club in England I've pretended to become a fan of this semester. But hey, at least after the tour I finally know some players' names! What's especially interesting is that Man U is the highest valued football club in the world and is thought to be the most widely supported football club in the world. So at least I'm not a bandwagon fan, I have legitimate reasons for routing for the Red Devils.

Manchester United Stadium:

The stadium, or Old Trafford as it's known, seats almost 76,000 spectators below a cantilever roof, which is a roof that has no support coming from below. Because of this, there're no poles blocking the view of the fans.

Cantilever roof:

On the tour, we saw the players' changing room, walked out of the pitch as the crowd roared (from a music cd), and sat in the sidelined players' seats. After the tour, we had a free-for-all in the Megastore, which is basically a Wal-Mart full of only Man U gear.

Changing room:

Megastore:

Maggie and I also tried curry for the first time together on The Curry Mile, a mile strip of Indian restaurants and shops leading from my dorm to uni. Watching us order food that we had no idea how to pronounce, let alone what it was, was pretty laughable. But thankfully, it all turned out to be amazing. We tried appetizers of bread and 5 different types of sauces, lamb curry, nam, and rice.

The beginning of The Curry Mile:

Some restaurants along it:

I also made Maggie try Kebab King, all of our favorite late-night place. It's open from 3pm to 4am and only good when you've had a few drinks in you. There's a scrolling screen of pictures in the corner and it's basically everyone's life goal to be on the screen. I've had my picture taken once with a large group, but sadly never saw it materialize on the screen.

Kebab King:

The rest of the week, we spent going out to some of my favorite clubs, wondering around city centre, and going to class. Or not going to class, depending on how you look at it. The teachers at Manchester were striking on Tuesday and Thursday to protest pension cuts. Most teachers cancelled class either based on the principle of it or because they didn't want us to walk through picket lines trying to get in the doors. All I can say, it couldn't of happened on a better week.

Read about the strike here.