Manchester, England - August 7-12

Friday August 7

Saturday August 8

Sunday August 9

Monday August 10

Blah blah blah... The days all just passed uneventfully.

We really just did boring crap, like apply for our national insurance number, and spent lots of time online job hunting. We were too tired after our night out with Max and Rhianna to hit up any clubs on the weekend which was a bit of a bummer, but at least our wallets were happy. We took a few photos of Manchester city, including some of the cool old pubs they seem to have everywhere in England - characterized by the hanging baskets full of flowers out the front.

Manchester, England - August 6

In this episode of Ruth and Steve's excellent adventure we delve into the story of how we got into trouble with the police.

And how exactly would that be?


Read on and find out....


Thursday August 6

Today started with an early start. We were up to get the 8am train to Stoke-on-Trent where we were meeting Steve’s Cousin David and his wife Beccy (the ones who’s wedding we’d attended in June). We were heading to a theme park for the day – Alston Towers. They picked us up a little after 10 but it was after lunch by the time we got in as it was a bit of a drive and the ques were bad. We went on 4 rides for the day – there was an average wait of an hour for each which was a bit shite, but they were worth it in the end.

We went on Nemisis first, which was similar to a roller coster but you were hanging down from the bar above. It came so close to the ground and other obstructions that it felt like it was going to take off your feet at the ankle, so I spent the ride trying to tuck me feet up (even through they were strapped in). Beccy screamed the whole way... It was funny seeing the picture at the end – they take pictures and try and sell them to you just like most theme parks these days - Alton Towers is most like Dreamworld back home. It’s all a big black hole for your wallet here. I’m surprised the don’t charge for the toilet, since they charge for just about everything else.

After that we headed to Air, which was a bit slower than Nemesis but strapped you horizontally so that you were parallel with the ground. The ride is supposed to make you feel like you are flying. It also got pretty close to the ground and trees and stuff but this time felt like it would take off your arms as they were hanging down and your ankles were strapped.

Next up was Oblivion. Oblivion was my favourite, by far. It was the only one that actually took my breath away. It was the shortest ride, most were around 2 minutes, but this I think would have been over in less than 1. You are strapped in 2 rows of 8 people and you are strapped upright it chairs that are attached to the ride at your feet. You start by going up a steep incline at low speed. There’s a flat part at the top and it takes you to the edge of a 90 degree drop. It tilts you over the edge and stops, so you are suspended at the top looking down over the drop. You can’t see the bottom as it disappears underground and reappears about 20 metres away. But to go from the top to the bottom you are perpendicular to the ground. The ride drops you suddenly and you plunge at high speed into the black hole at the bottom. It’s an instantaneous rush, it’s over in a few seconds but it takes your breath away. You reappear vertically again a few seconds later on the other side and after a brief steep up slope the ride is over. I wanted to go on it again straight away.

We wanted to go on Rita, which does 0-100 in 2.5 seconds and I think is one of the fastest rides in the world, but it was closed. Bummer...

So we went to the ‘log ride’. I can’t remember what it’s called but it’s the same as the log ride at Dreamworld, a slow moving water ride but instead of floating in a log you are in a bath tub. I took my jumper off and put it in a plastic bag as I knew I’d get soaked and get cold. Despite the ‘warm’ start to the day it turned cloudy and cold by the afternoon. We decided to all pull faces for the camera this time, and it turned out so funny that Dave and Beccy bought the picture. I have my tongue poking out, Steve’s eye balls are half rolled and he has 2 thumbs up, and Beccy and Dave look like they are screaming. We all got soaked... They actually have drying booths for all the water rides, but it will cost you 2 pounds ($4Au) for the privilege. No thanks, that’s a pint darlin’

We lined up for one final ride for the day but Air had closed by then, as had Rita so the line was nearly an hour and a half, so after about 50 minutes and only getting half way we bailed and went home. Beccy and Dave were staying in Manchester for the night so after a feed we met up again at a bar called Yates across from their hotel and drank with them for a few hours. We got to know them a lot better over the course of the day and that evening, which is really cool cos they are both awesome people. They also told us not to go home, if we had to sleep on their floor until we got jobs then we should. Always nice to have an emergency plan...

After we left the pub we headed to the bus stop to wait for the night bus. There was a chick there who instantly started talking to us at a million miles an hour telling us how jaded she was and how she’s old and doesn’t party like she used to did I know what she meant I mean it’s like she can’t stay out all night like she used to blah blah repeat same story blah blah repeat... and I think to myself it’s funny that you’re at the bus stop waiting for the night bus and you’re clearly off your face? Partyting perhaps? She told me how she was so old cos she’s 29 and I laughed. I try to tell her I’m that old too but she’s talking so fast I can’t get a word in. To be fair (and yes I picked this up from Dave over the course of the night), she might just have had one of those personalities, maybe she really was just in her own little world and liked to relate it to other people at the speed of light repeatedly but it seemed that she was everything she talked about being over. Complete with “can I get your number and we should stay in touch seriously? and like hang out?” Like seriously! She didn't know anything about us...

It was then that we met Max and Rhianna. They were waiting for the bus too. After a brief discussion, we all agreed to share a cab since there were 5 of us waiting for the same bus. As it turned out, Max lived about a 2 minute walk from our place and the girl who talked really fast live about half an hour walk away but since she didn't have more than a bus fare in money we got her as far as Max's place. She stayed for a beer before leaving.

Max had lived in Australia for 2 years and lived with a police woman in Melbourne (in Fitzroy I think). One night they had a party and got drunk and him and his mate ended up wearing her work shirts. And so it came to be that after disappearing into his room for 10 minutes to find it, Max reappeared wearing a genuine Victorian police shirt. The chick still owed him money so he had kept the shirt, and though he was miffed that the shirt had effectively cost $350, I assured him it was great entertainment value for us... And so we got into plenty of trouble with the Victorian police, we stayed and partied with Max and Rhianna until well after dawn. We listened to proper old blues music because Rhianna was into that kind of stuff and some weird abstract dance music that Max was into. It was so funny getting trashed with him in his house while he had a cop shirt on, we laughed about it for ages. I asked him if he knew what rank she was, and we looked up on Wikipedia what the bits on the shoulders said her rank was: Senior Constable. We stumbled home about 8am and crashed for the morning.

London & Manchester - England August 1 - 5

Saturday August 1

Did a bit of touristy site seeing to start the day, with a trek to the tower bridge and the area around it.

Later in the day we caught up with my old school friends, Teneale who I went to college with and Gemma who I went to primary school and college with. I haven’t stayed in touch with anyone from school, I kind of drifted off my own way at the start of year 12 then dropped out early to take my first drafting job. So it was going to be something different from me. It had been 12 years since I had anything in common with these girls. I’d talked to Gemma a bit on msn and knew she was into dance music now, so that was a bit of a start.

We arrived in Camden at about 2.30 and headed to a pub called The World’s End. When we walked in, they were playing Pendulum so we got a good vibe straight off. All of the staff were very alternative and sported visible tatts and piercings. We hadn’t found anything we really loved about London yet, and from what Teneale had said Camden sounded like our kind of place. We had a sit down meal of some pretty good Thai and some beers while we waited for Gemma and Teneale.

After a wander up the street to buy Steve a new phone, we met the girls out the front of the station. The 4 us headed into Camden markets, chatting and catching up on news along the way. The Camden markets were so cool, we could have spent sooooo much money there. It had anything and everything alternative as well as old antiques and stuff. There were little pubs and cafes dotted through as well. After a while of window shopping we headed to a bar for some drinks. It was a CBGB tribute bar but kind of felt like stalls for horses in the way it was laid out and furnished. We had a few drinks there and then headed elsewhere as the music was so loud we couldn’t hear each other talking.

At the second bar we started properly catching up, and reminiscing about our college days and all the mischief we got up to. I felt a bit bad for Steve because he didn’t really know any of the people we were talking about and I know I always hate when other people do that to me, but he seemed content. We talked for a few hours before we realised we were well on our way to drunk and so it seemed a logical progression that we would kick on somewhere and keep drinking and hanging out.

We left the bar and headed back to Gemma’s place, which was also in Camden. We stopped at the bottle shop on the way and decided there was no way a bottle of vodka was enough so we got 2. Gemma’s place was pretty cool, a nice spacious one bedroom apartment. It would be the sort of area I would want to live if we ever lived in London, Camden was so cool. The 4 of us talked and drank the night away. Gemma and I had some very ‘deep’ conversation, the sort you only have when you are really trashed, the theory of evolution etc so it was an entertaining night. Teneale headed home around 4, and Steve and I crashed on the blow up bed on Gemma’s lounge room floor at around 5.30am.

Sunday August 2

We woke up around 1 and headed back to The World’s End pub for lunch with Gemma before heading back to our hostel. We had an early train to Manchester the next morning so we were both asleep by 8pm.

Monday August 3

4.15am the alarm goes off. Mmmmrrrrrrrrrrrr. I don’t want to move....

We haul ourselves out of bed and get our gear together to head to the station. We’d lined up a place to live in Manchester for the next month while we looked for work. It was with 2 sisters, from Australia who needed someone to fill a room for a month only, which suited us fine as we couldn’t promise more than a month. We arrived in Manchester after a 2 hour 11 minute train ride. Just to explain how good trains are here, we arrived at the Manchester Piccadilly Station within 20 seconds of our due arrival time. They’d want to be good for 28 pounds each! (Ouch) And that was the cheapest we could find by a long way.

We got on a bus to our new house and discovered that our new housemates are dwarves. Not I’m not sure if that is the politically correct name as I know they are touchy about what you call them. I message Jessie and tell her I’ll never call her a midget again... Our other 2 housemates are a bit odd. It’s a 4 bedroom house, 1 downstairs and 3 upstairs. There are 2 larger double rooms (1 of which is ours) and the other occupied by a black guy called Richard. The single room is occupied by someone who plans not to occupy it. He is in a relationship with a Muslim and he isn’t so he needs an escape route if her parents show up lol. So even after a week (which is what is it when I am writing this) we haven’t even seen this guy. And we have only spoken 2 sentences with Richard.

Our new place is in a really beautiful street. A lot like the inner north in Canberra, big mature oak trees lining the streets and cool old houses. The houses here are all 2 storey though.

Our street

Our neighbourhood - Chorlton

Weather in England, however, can eat my butt hole. I have to confess that the weather here has made me question whether I really want to stay here. I mean, I can make more money at home and replenish my traveling money faster. I can get back to some initially cold but soon to be warm weather. Seriously, the weather here is shit. I have been told by lots of people it’s shit, but nothing really prepares you for a summer where 23 degrees is the MAXIMUM. Everyone raved about the weather the day it hit 23, it even got a mention in the local news paper because it was such a special event. FFS! Brian and Julie, see if you can guess this one ;) The guide to Manchester we read says the temp for summer here is 11.4 to 21 degrees. w00t. Who's idea was this anyway?

Steve and I’s room is a furnished double room with a new double bed. Apparently they don’t make queen sized beds in the UK. After dumping our gear and getting the tour we headed down for some Primark action. Primark is like Kmart but way cheaper, so we got work interview clothes and bed clothes. For 67 pounds (the exchange rate is awesome atm so that’s about $130Au) we got 3 pairs of pants, a belt, 1 shirt, 4 pillow cases, 3 pillows, a fitted sheet and 10 pairs of socks. We then headed to the super market and our ‘set up’ shop was 100 pounds ($200Au) and that included cheese grater, washing liquid etc, all the extra crap you need to start up, so we figured we were off to an OK start financially.

Tuesday August 4 – Wednesday August 5

Found ourselves a free internet spot/local pub called the Iguana Bar. Beer was an OK price at 2.20 pounds ($4.40Au) a pint. It’s true that no one in England drinks pots (though they call them half pints). The standard is a pint. If you don’t specify, it’s a pint. Suits us fine. It’s not even like your beer will get warm in SUMMER here. Most alcohol through Europe has been cheaper than Aus due to ours being so heavily taxed. We didn’t go to Ibiza though because of the stupidly expensive drinks there – 8 Euros for a bottle of water ($16Au) and 14 Euros for a vodka ($32Au). And Spain is full of the type of English people I have come to hate. But everywhere else, including England is still cheaper. Perhaps is holds some allure after all.