Euston Station, the Train Journeyed North…

On Saturday afternoon, I took the Virgin Train from Euston to Manchester. The Virgin Trains are quite nice. They are large, plush seats, headphone jacks and it wasn’t at all busy. However, due to infamous ‘planned engineering works’ [a term I have learned to dread as it complicates your journey], there are no direct trains from London to Manchester on Saturdays until December, 2008. Instead, I took the train to Northampton. It terminated there and coaches were there waiting to shuttle passengers to Birmingham International Airport. When I arrived there, I hopped on a second Virgin Train to Manchester. The whole trip took about 4.5 hours as opposed to 3 hours under normal circumstances.

I arrived in Manchester shortly before seven. Richard was waiting for me on the platform. It was pretty surreal to see him again. He and my [Torontonian] friend Josef both helped me get my 35 kilos of luggage to the airport when I moved back to Canada in ’06.

We set out to find our hostel ‘The Hilton Chambers’. I like to call it ‘The Hilton’. After walking the wrong direction for 10 minutes, we found it. Did I mention I’m a city planner? But like most European cities, there’s little logic to the streets. It’s tough, ok? It was the most stunning hostel I’ve ever stayed it. It was all clean and refurbished. We had a twin room with an ensuite – no bunk bed! The room and loo were both quite spacious. We dropped off our bags and went for dinner in Chinatown. Though, it wasn’t cheap like Toronto’s Chinatown.


Dec room.


Nice view?

After dinner, Richard’s friend Dave came over to our room to predrink. Dave lives in Manchester so he’s familiar with the city. Around half eleven, we set out for Canal Street. Canal Street is a narrow pedestrian street with a row of shops, bars and clubs on one side, and a canal on the other. We started at two different bars, then off to a club called ‘Essential’.


Dave, Richard + I.


Out on Canal Street.


From the roof of 'Spirit'.

At the club, the cover was 10 quid [$20]!!! Anyone who parties with me knows that I don’t like to pay cover for clubs. Naturally, I tried to talk my way out of it. I told the girl I was visiting from Canada and asked if she’d ever been. She told me all about her trip to Mont Tremblant. I went on and on about how beautiful it is [even though I’ve never been]. Then she told me the cover was still 10 quid.

The club was pretty crazy. It was on two floors with hard house music, lots of pretty people, performances on stage AND in cages. It was a good time.


A caged 8-foot tall drag queen.

It was pretty bright outside when we left the club at 4am.


Blue men climbing the wall? Sure, why not?


Richard chills on a statue.

The next morning was a little rough since we had to be out of the hostel at 11am. After a breakfast [lunch?] of proper British jacket potatoes, we went shopping. We went to the Arndale. It’s a large indoor shopping centre in the city centre. However, the stores on the perimetre of the complex also had a very prominent street presence. So it was like a mall with store fronts on all four adjacent pedestrian streets.

Hello planning Heaven. So even though the complex was large, the scale felt smaller from the street. It’s like shopping on my beloved Bloor Street… WITHOUT the cars. I finally found a pair of jeans and a waistcoat… from Topman of course. The centre was badly damaged in the 1996 Manchester City Centre bombing by the Provisional Irish Republican Army and needed extensive redevelopment work. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing the southern half of the centre was repaired and refurbished. The result was the world’s largest ‘Next’ store on four floors.

Richard and I met up with Dave for dinner on Canal Street. We got a window seat overlooking the Canal.

The street was different during the day. It was equally as lively but all the restaurants appropriate street space as patios. But since it was sunny and 23 degrees [I’m told this is very rare for Manchester], it was PACKED and we had to sit indoors. After I finished my proper British bangers and mash, Richard and I got a train to Derby.


The trip was about 2 hours. We had to transfer, we ran into an acquaintance of his on the Stoke-on-Trent platform. Needless to say, we were quite knackered when we got back to his flat so we just passed out straight away. He generously gave up his room for me so I had my own room!

On Monday morning, I got a better look at my new environment. Richard lives alone in a very old 2-bedroom terrace house – the quintessential British dwelling type.

It was almost entirely refurbished so it was quite nice. It was only about 12’ wide and maybe 50’ deep [on the ground floor]. There was a 0’ front yard setback and a small ‘garden’ in the rear. You immediately enter into the reception room and then step down into the kitchen. Then you step down again into the laundry / bathroom area [added on much later]. Up a narrow, steep, L-shaped staircase is a 3’x 3’ landing with a bedroom on either side. The sinks, bathtub and eaves trough all outlet to the same exterior drain. I noticed that as the tub drained, I could hear water pouring outside – I was very confused. There was a small shed for the water heater tacked onto the back. There was no shower.

We set out to explore Derby a bit. There wasn’t a whole lot to see. We went to a new shopping complex that put the city on the map. But I didn’t buy anything this time. It was also fairly large, with all the regular high street shops and surrounded by pedestrian streets. I bought a lifetime supply of Toni + Guy heat serum [not available in Canada].
We also went to the grocery store and this is what the parking lot looked like:


The accessible parking row was perpendicular to the store and stretched all the way to the back of the lot [where I took the photo]. I couldn’t believe it. Richard wasn’t phased by it. Imagine a grandmother trying to head into the store from the last space with her walker?