Manchester United!

Today was AMAAAAZING! Emily, Brennah, and I got to go to the Manchester United Football game (which for those of you that didn't know, is theee top grossing sports franchise in the world)!! We left after Emily's class this morning and made our way on to our first train ride and first independent trip out of the city. Needless to say, it was quite a fabulous day!

This is the Preston Train Station, which is about a 10-15 minute walk from campus. Thank goodness I have AMAZING flatmates because Lucy walked us there and basically showed us how everything worked since none of us had ever done anything like this on our own before.

Legit, right?

This is right outside the platform that we went to in Manchester at Piccadilly. These little benches are for resting against.

Apparently you have to pay to go to the "toilet" here: A lesson that Brennah learned very quickly.
 (Mom - remember this for when we are taking trains... bring your change!)

This is the Manchester Art Museum that we went to later in the day

On the tram to Old Trafford (the stadium)

Where we had our lunch

1st view!

Just following directions..

Inside the Art Museum

The cafe in the museum had real sugar cubes!

Emily's Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

The remainder of Brennah's Queen Victoria Cake

When we decided to just walk around we found the Town Hall. Doesn't really look like any town hall I'd ever seen

I loved how Gothic-looking it was!

This totally made me smile!

Apparently Abraham Lincoln did something for Manchester at some point, because there was a huge random statue of him in the middle of town. Yeah Land of Lincoln!!

I don't know why, but this building across from Town Hall made me think of that double-decker bus in Harry Potter, when it get really skinny you know?

Welcome to Manchester!

All of the little old-fashioned taxi's all lined up and cute!





Fake Big Ben ... aka the clock-tower at Town Hall

All of the vendors

Emily is a HUGE Man U fan -- so she was like livin' the dream all decked out in her gear!

Old Trafford!

We got our tickets!!

Had to get the matchday scarf...

American Flag

Coming out of the tunnel

Kick-off!

1st Penalty when Stoke like swarmed the referee

Setting up the penalty kick

Just about to...

GOALL!!!

Apparently they like to rub it in the opposing fans' faces..

Not sure if this video will work or not, but if it does, it's the second penalty kick where Manchester scores again

We had to bolt out of there with 6 minutes left, you know since 74,419 of our closest friends were at the game and were trying to get on the same tram as us back in to town. We literally sprinted back to the platform

Kind of a cool little memory of the night.. =]

Overall a fabulous day. Manchester United beat Stoke 2-0. The game really wasn't as crazy as everyone was telling me it was going to be, so I guess that was good. They really do sing the whole time though, and if they're not singing, they're chanting "U-Ni-Tid" or "Glory, Glory United." I really wasn't too in to football (Emily learned quickly on the train home that if you call it soccer, you will get yelled at), beforehand, but it's a ton of fun. The atmosphere was just fun to be around and Manchester is a great city. There's a lot to do and a ton of stuff to see. I do need to learn to appreciate Art though, Brennah loves that kind of stuff and I wish I did, but me and Emily just went and played in the kids section the whole time. I'll get better, Mom, I promise! Definitely a great first venture out. I feel like I sort of understand the train system - at least a little bit - and I love the girls that I'm going to be traveling with.

Curry and FIRE!

Officially consider my comfort zone stepped out of..

Well, here is my dinner. I still can't pronounce whatever I had. I'm the barf-looking on on the left side. I do have to say though, it wasn't horrrrible.. It was like sweet and sour something with chicken and pineapple. But basically the bread-looking thing in the bowl to the right is called a "naan." It just had like cheese in it and you dipped it in the "sauce" aka mush of nastiness. Okay, I'm over-exaggerating, it really wasn't awful.

It was a fun night that I really got to bond with my flat which was really cool. I showed them Footloose and they loooved it! So I was pretty excited they liked that. Later we just split up and went back to our rooms like we normally do and then Becca started shouting that she saw smoke outside. So, naturally, we all went to look. Sure enough, there was a ton of smoke about a block away. Now I don't know if you all will understand this or not, but they are OBSESSED with Fire here. Like fire safety is like numero uno here. Everything has fire cautions on it and what to do when you see a fire and what not to do so you don't cause a fire and to make sure to keep all fire doors (which is pretty much like every single one) closed at all times or you will get fined. I think it's just because the buildings are all really old and close together. But anyways.. we all threw on some clothes and ran downstairs. Now everyone was making fun of me for it, but I did grab my camera..

The first fire truck we saw

All of the smoke and embers that were flying about a street over

British fire hydrants.. I thought it was pretty cool looking =]

The Fire

Hannah and I left the rest of the flat while we ran over to see it first hand.

It is(or used to be) an abandoned church

At least there were a ton of other people taking pictures..

So tonight was pretty exciting. Other than at the end when I asked a girl to take a picture with my flat and she very blatenly said "No, I don't do Americans." It kind of caught me off-guard there. Thank goodness all of the policemen and my flatmates were all right there. I mean I knew there were people who didn't loike Americans, but I guess I had just never met one like that. I have a whole new respect for all of the people who go through that on a daily basis. Being hated for no reason at all but merely a label that was placed on you, it just seems silly.