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Published: September 28th 2017
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The next morning we were up and out early to head down to Manchester via Longtown/ Carlisle.
Quick breakfast at the apartment where we followed the house rules and stripped the bed and took out the rubbish. The entire time we had been there there had been a rather large spider in the bathtub in the bathroom. He had been trapped and we hadn't needed to use the space so he had spent a couple of days there. So when we left we (Stuart) put a towel on the side of the bathtub so that he had something to climb on to get out. At least, that's what Stuart said he did, there was no way known I was staying to witness a potentially mad spider escape from his bath prison.
The plan was to get to Longtown at 11:30am to have lunch with Stuart's grandma. We stopped for a coffee on the way and arrived into town a little early, with enough time to pick up a bunch of flowers and use the bathroom.
At his grandma's we had a cup of tea and a chat before driving down into town for lunch at one of the
local hot spots. Longtown is on the edge of the Lake District (but not in it) and a stone's throw from Gretna Green and the Scottish border.
I had a baked potato for lunch and Stuart had a turkey panini. After lunch we headed back to Stuart's grandma's house for another cup of tea. His Aunt Adele, her husband Owen and their son Owen also dropped by briefly too.
Then it was back on the road to Manchester to make a 5pm car drop off. Traffic was a little nuts getting back into town so by the time we filled the car with petrol we were a few minutes late for the rental return but all was ok.
We found the lovely Hilton Doubletree Manchester (right across the road from the station) fairly easily and checked in. The biggest bonus of the place was the location given we would only be spending a night.
After checking in we headed out for dinner and a movie. We found a delicious Mexican place for dinner which did some awesome tacos and a pretty good starter of grilled haloumi too. We had a quick beer before seeing the movie,
Kingsman, for £4.99 each which seemed to be a pretty good bargain! That being said there was nearly half an hour of previews which was way too many for a two hour movie.
The next morning we headed out for a nice breakfast before hitting up a couple of attractions. The hotel gave us a later checkout too which was handy.
So first up was the library. I know, it seems like a weird tourist attraction but it is an old gothic style building that is actually quite interesting to look at. I was less interested in some of the exhibitions but the building itself was impressive. Ironically (and not surprisingly for anyone that knows me), I was impressed by the large library and old book collections, and equally by the gift shop at the museum. Had I not had to carry them home with me I may have bought several classics from the gift store... but I didn't as they aren't very practical to travel with.
Next stop was the National Football Museum. It was free admittance which was the main attraction, that and the fact that there didn't seem to be any walking tours that
ran in the morning.
The museum was very kid-friendly with lots of interactive exhibits and things for kids to blow money on. The museum itself was ok - being not a huge football fan I found a few exhibits I found interesting and spent some time there exploring them rather than looking at the rest.
Spent a little bit of time looking at videos and information from various football disasters. I already knew a fair bit about the Hillsborough disaster that killed 96 fans from my time working in the UK and dealing with media inquiries as a result of the 20 year anniversary of the disaster, but I wasn't aware that there had been several other disasters prior to that that could have helped to reduce the impact that Hillsborough and the use of (for example) crush bars would have had. Also read more about the aircraft crash in Germany of the Man U team too, all a little morbid really. Oh, and of the Man City goalie who broke his neck during a game and didn't realise for several days.
From the football museum it was a quick lunch before back to the hotel for
the late check out. Did a bit of a bag shuffle to leave the backpack behind as we were heading to a Manchester City versus Crystal Palace game in the afternoon and bag searches are always a hassle. So it was the tram out there and a short walk. Into the stadium with limited hassles before we found our seats and grabbed a drink. Bonus that they didn't take the lids off of the drinks we bought, unlike at the Rome game.
It was a good football game, albeit a little one sided with Manchester City scoring five goals to Crystal Palace scoring no goals at all. One goal in the first half down the end that we were closest to, with just a couple of minutes to spare. The other four were down the other end. I found the crowd and the chants quite interesting too and the couple of obnoxious British kids sitting behind us helped us understand what the rest of the crowd was chanting about.
At the end of the game we took our time and visited the Manchester City store where Stuart bought a blue jacket with a zip. Got a VAT receipt too - more about that later.
Back to the station and grabbed a slice of lunch of pizza for dinner. Then it was back to the hotel where we checked out and collected our luggage and headed across back to the station and towards the Virgin first Class Lounge. To discover it closed half an hour before we got there. Instead we found a seat until boarding our train to London a short later.
The trip down to London was uneventful and fairly quick, with a slightly lesser dinner and drink service than I would have otherwise expected on a first class ticket that we most likely overpaid for.
From arriving at Paddington we made our way to Waterloo via the tube and then it was a short walk to the hotel and straight to sleep. Managed to get (apparently) upgraded to an executive room but think it was just a title change to the room description really...
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