December, in Manchester

At some point I was able to visit Russell for a short weekend in Great Britain.  We met in Manchester, went to York, and then went to London to meet up with Evan and Julie.

Great Britain is expensive.  I got in late and there were no public transit options to get from the Airport to Russell, so I had to take a cab.  For a 20 minute train ride I paid 60 dollars. It was painful.

But other than that, Manchester was great.   Russell took me and one of his friends on a tour of the city.  Here are some of the pictures and thoughts:

Acid rain was really a problem during the Industrial Revolution, according to Russell.  This is a section of stone on a church that shows how aggressively acid rain destroyed the surface.

For a big city, Manchester was not very crowded.

We visited the old industrial quarter, and the brick buildings were pretty.

One of the last 'conventional' photos Russell took. More on this later, in York.

In England 'New' means 'Old'. Also, by 'Great Food' they mean unleavened bread.

 Russell took us to the library, which was cooler than it sounds.  First, the building is awesome and has a massive and relatively low domed roof with a sky light in it.  This makes the room very open and bright, but it isn't overwhelmingly tall.  I liked it.  They also had instruments and rooms of sheet music.  Here is a video I took called "Mom is going to love me so much (more than you)."

Sharing is caring.

 After seranading the library, Russell had to leave to go work on his papers.  Mike loaded him up and we said goodbye.  The three of us then went to an art musuem with photography from conflict zones.  It was really powerful.

It also had a nice exhibit on high fashion and dresses worn by famous people. Not as powerful:

Then Russell texted us that we should go to a "toilet bar."  The bar he sent us to is a remodeled "victorian toilet" ... a concept I'm still not 100% on.  Back in the day (not sure which, maybe the Victorian age) they had underground areas to go to the bathroom in the middle of the street.  Someone heard about this and thought "lets sell drinks and food from there."  Russell's friend said, "OMG this is going to be the most hipster bar in the world." A second later we spotted a 'Cafe Racer,' which is the world's most hipster motorcycle.  Our assumptions were right, but the beer was great and the space was very unique.

"Yeah there's this bar that you've probably never heard of just hiding in plain sight. Hop on the back of my Cafe Racer and I'll take you there"