Manchester

After I got back home, for the next two weeks my life was hell. Writing papers is not much fun. Basically, instead of doing the work before hand, I kept pushing it off and procrastinating like crazy. One of the problems with the system over here is that while one may think that one has free time, one actually doesn’t.
My papers got done. Though they could have been better. That was my fault. I will say this, I never ever thought that I would gladly do work on a Friday just to make sure it got done.

After I handed my papers in, after all was said and done, I just did things for myself. Things which makes me happy. I went to the movies as many times as I could. I saw Up in the Air, The Road, The Book of Eli. I rented many movies off iTunes. All in all, it was mostly about just celebrating the fact that I was done with all that work.

The first major thing I did with this new term was I went to Manchester with my friend Charles from Filmsoc to go to an Ale tasting festival. That was brilliant. He like me is a big fan of stouts and ales. Lagers aren’t bad. They just don’t tend to have that personality of an Ale. Lagers all taste quite similar. Charles had been to these events before. He told me to rent the pint glass. There was also a ½ pint glass but the pint glass also had a marker for ½ pint. I just bought ½ pints all day but the vendors had a habit of overfilling by accident. So, I ended up getting more beer for less money.

One of the hosts for this event was Budweiser Budvar which has trouble selling anywhere other than Europe because of Anheuser Busch. In the pamphlet for the event which had all the different beers in it, there was a short piece which ripped the American counterpart to shreds. They didn’t beat around the bush at all. They just talked about how bad the American beer is.

Pretty much the norm for alcohol percentage was 5% or so. I think the weakest beer I had was 3.9%. Needless to say it was a good day although after a while, I couldn’t really taste the new beers just because my palate was shot. We did meet a group of German girls who kept saying cheers constantly. There was also a live band which played at the tail end of the event. They played old classic hits. Knocking on Heaven’s Door. For What it’s Worth. That sort of thing.

The city of Manchester itself seemed nice. They have a tram system there not unlike San Francisco. Before going to the festival Charles and I walked around a bit. We stopped by their public library which has a massive circular reading room. We also walked through their art museum and looked at some of the paintings very briefly. It was fun.

That night in the Manchester train station, there were a bunch of football hooligans. It was a big game day in Manchester. As we were getting on the train to get back to Brum, cops were wrestling some to the ground to arrest them. It was strange because those that were getting arrested seemed to take it pretty well like it was all part of the game. It was almost as if getting arrested was something fun for them.

It was a good day but there isn’t much to talk about really. I just went up and got decently drunk off of some very nice beer. Before I came to England, I never really liked beer. Now that I’m here, I’ve gained an appreciation. The thing is that beer in the States just tends to not have as good a flavor. My flat mates think light beer is ridiculous and in truth it kind of is. I would rather have a full flavored heavy dark beer, than one which is just like drinking water…. which is slightly off.