Here we are at the Manchester train station in the airport. This is the girls' first time in England and they are excited. Boy, was it cold! We checked the weather before we left and came prepared (except Jordan's shoes... she forgot to change into her boots on the train and was very sorry later!)
Riding the train to the City Centre.
These are some blurry shots of Manchester from the train.
When we arrived in the City Centre, the weather was atrocious. People's umbrellas were blowing backwards, and we were dragging our suitcases through the rain.
We were excited to visit the Christmas markets, but Reese was exhausted now not only with jetlag, but from following me up and down the same streets; so she begged to be left sleeping in the hotel room while the rest of us walked to the Christmas markets. Here is the view from our hotel room.
Jordan finally got her boots on and warmed up her wet toes.
Everything in our suitcases was wet or damp, so we had to lay everything around the heater before we changed clothes and left. Reese slept the rest of the day in her warm bed.
We were excited about this shop after coming from Saudi because they were selling sausages and meat pies. Jordan had to try a meat pie, and loved it.
There were so many delicious chocolates!
Baklava...
More chocolates!
By the time we made it down two aisles of the market, we were drenched. Every time I would look at something under a canopy, it would drip rain on my arm in the same place. My jacket was soaked and we were tired and hungry, and I was miserable. We decided to find a restaurant to sit in to get warm and dry to eat dinner even though it was only 3pm.
Brooke wanted her picture in an English phone booth.
We found this quaint little restaurant across the street.
Brooke had eaten a sandwich in the market, so she just ate my roll.
Jordan ordered this wonderful pulled pork sandwich. She couldn't finish it, and took the rest to Reese in the hotel room.
I got this wonderful warm stew with dumplings.
While we were eating, Jordan witnessed an accident from our table! A fire engine was speeding through an intersection when Jordan says they hydroplaned and hit a car waiting to cross the intersection! We couldn't believe it! You can see the fire engine parked to the left of the intersection, and car they hit sitting on the right, with their bumper in the street in to their right.
It was dusk, so their reflective sides made for poor pictures, but this is the fire engine pulled over.
This is the car that got hit. It's bumper was laying in the middle of the intersection and 30 minutes later, the people were still sitting in the car, so I figured they must have been hit pretty hard! I couldn't tell if these were police or EMT's, but they're attending to the passenger.
After drying out a bit, we walked back across the street to the Christmas market.
Here are all kinds of Christmas plants for sale.
These are tiny pancakes.
And this is mulled wine with a souvenir mug. I was quickly cold and wet again, so the gluhwein was warm and delicious. Bruce will be happy to have another souvenir mug. The mugs have the year on them and the last time we got mugs was when we were in Dresden, Germany when I was pregnant with Jordan.
Doesn't that just look like England? Brooke took this picture.
There's no shortage of pork here!
We enjoyed tasting various things and visiting all the stands, but it was still raining and constantly dripping on us; so we gave up and headed back to the hotel room around 6:00 for some sleep after picking up a few things for Reese.
We all woke up in the middle of the night and watched a movie from our beds. It was still dark when we finally had to get up and head to the train station. Here we are the entrance to our hotel. It's still drizzling.
We had no problems finding the closer train station and taking the train to the airport.
While we waited for our flight, the girls had cups of hot chocolate and muffins. The cashier was so sweet here when I didn't have enough British pounds to buy all of the girls' muffins. I asked her to tell me how much everything was and then I would use my credit card for the rest, but she told me to put my credit card away and paid a couple pounds for us out of her tips! What English hospitality!
We almost had to spend another night here because there were only 4 seats in business class, but an employee listed at the last minute and bumped us so that there were only 3. I thought coach was full, but some seats must have opened up at the last minute and we were asked if we wanted to split up with one person in the back. Jordan offered to sit in the back so that we could get home. Sweet Jordan!
So, that was our one-day trip to England--we loved it!
- Pattie -
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