Welcome!: Manchester-bound!

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Manchester-bound!

Now let’s move on to the part of the trip that Dearie loves the most: Manchester! Being a Manchester United’s biggest fan, it has been his lifelong dream to watch his favorite team in the one and only Theatre of Dreams, and I was more than happy to oblige! He has bought us tickets to the United – Arsenal match and it cost us both our arms and legs (ah! We’re limping!) but it’s a good thing that we both travelled together so we could look for cheaper options in terms of lodging.

However, I have to say that our accommodation history throughout our stay in the UK has been really pleasant. The hotel we stayed at in Manchester was Travelodge, and it was much bigger than Stanley House Hotel in London. But even in London we were pretty happy with our place since we didn’t spend much time inside the room anyway, and they provided decent daily breakfast. The most important thing to us was the location – it had to be convenient and near to the metro station.

Anyway, back to Manchester! (The short attention-span-me.)

So, we made our way to Manchester by train from London. The train ride itself was uneventful but really nice (uneventful in this way means we didn’t get robbed, or take the wrong train, so yeah, uneventful is a good adjective here). Our seats were pre-allocated so it was relatively easy finding out way.

Fast forward to a few hours later…

Hello Manchester! You’so pretty! We arrived in the late afternoon so the sun was shining brightly and the wind was blowing and I was freezing and my luggage was heavy.. Oops, okay, I’m not painting a very good picture here, am I?

Seriously though! We managed to drag our luggage and we initially decided to take a bus to the city near our hotel since we saw there was a free shuttle from the train station. We hopped in, but I wasn’t very certain because I couldn’t see the stop name where our hotel was at in the bus route. Luckily we asked the driver and turned out the bus didn’t go to the place that we wanted to go! So we quickly hopped out and after deliberation, decided to just opt for train!

The train there was nice because it wasn’t underground and we could admire the view along the way! The ride wasn’t long, in no time we arrived in our stop! It was a beautiful place near the river and our hotel was perched nicely in the side of the bridge that connected this side of the road with the one where Old Trafford was.

After checking in at our hotel, it was probably around 4 or 5pm, and Dearie couldn’t wait to go to the stadium! The match happened the next day, so we still had that evening to go check out the place first before the big mayhem the following day. What was memorable about it too was the weather! The moment we stepped out of the hotel, it was hailing! Real ice falling down from the sky! What a welcome, Manchester.

The walk to Old Trafford itself probably took 15-20 minutes. And there we were, at the Sir Matt Busby Way! Throughout our 3-days stay in Manchester, we probably went to Old Trafford like 5 times. Well, that’s the main purpose we were there! Anyway, that evening we just walked around the stadium, took obligatory pictures and checked out the United store. This was when Dearie bought the thick black jacket that would survive him throughout the rest of the journey.

The next day passed by like a blur! We woke up early and quick to dress in our Manchester United’s attire – Dearie in his red jersey, topped with Cantona scarf that he bought the day before, and moi in the blue one. The atmosphere was so lively on our way to the stadium as we saw fellow fans going there as well. The surroundings of the stadium now resembled a flea market, with booths and people selling match scarves, shirts and all sorts of memorabilia!

Oh! Another awesome experience I must share here is the pre-match lunch in the Red Café! People who bought the VIP package were entitled this lunch before the match and it was amazing! We sat with 6 other people in the table, two from Ireland, two from Malaysia, the other two from the States and then there were us. What’s fun was during the meal itself, they actually distributed a quiz that we could fill in as a table, and the table with the best score would win some prize! The questions in the quiz itself mostly circled around sports, although I remember there was one question of: “What is the name of Jamie’s Cullum’s wife?” to which we answered, “Mrs. Cullum.” Well, that certainly isn’t wrong!

Anyway, the questions weren’t easy okay! But the group managed to answer quite a fair bit, and to my amazement, Dearie actually knew way more than I thought! I know he’s a major United fan, but his sports knowledge really went beyond that, and it made me proud! (Aww!) Especially when one of the Irish guy was a sports journalist, yet Dearie had more knowledge than him, it seemed. Even though our table didn’t win in the end, I think that was a very good and clever idea to get everyone engaged before the match, and a chance for us to actually make new friends along the way too!

Next, the match! All I remembered was walking and trying to find our seats, and all I could see was people, people and more people! We had really good seats at Sir Alex Ferguson stand and wow, the view from up there was simply sensational! I think these pictures can describe better than any words. I could see Rooney, Van Persie, Ferdinand and all those players I usually could only watch from the television screen at home. If I was excited, I can’t imagine how Dearie must have felt!

The game was fantastic and we won! The energy was contagious, people were cheering and shouting and singing along, and it seemed like everyone was in pure sync. We were like droids army, systematically standing in line and following orders. (Weird metaphor, but you get the drift, don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t YOU?)

The match ended with a 2-1 victory! Woo-hoo! I nearly had to drag Dearie outta there, cos he was kept asking me for pictures with his Cantona scarf. Bless him! Going out after the match was a pandemonium again! We made a stop at the store again to buy even more stuffs and we both bought the table-cloth jerseys and other souvenirs like coasters, mugs, and figures.

The next time we were at Old Trafford again was the following day when we went for the stadium tour and museum tour, checking out the football field up close and personal, hanging out in the players’ dressing room (no biggie..) and getting too much info on the club and its history that I cared to know. Haha, kidding! It was really fun!

One evening in Manchester, we went out to the city and had quite fancy Italian dinner with a friend of mine who was living there. I think otherwise we wouldn’t have figured out a way to go to the city beyond our hotel and Old Trafford so it was pretty special. Oh! Near to our hotel, there was this shopping center that has Nike’s factory outlet and I’m sure Dearie loved it because he bought tons of cheap football jerseys for his friends back home!

Thank you Manchester for the awesome experience! Thanks for making my Dearie's dreams come true too!

❤

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Quotes

There's a hundred million different ways of writing, and it takes you a long time to sort through that stuff. And I think it takes anyone a long time to find a voice.

You must learn to take the good with the bad, the happy with the sad, love what you’ve got and remember what you had. Learn to forgive, but never forget, learn from your mistakes but never regret. People change and things go wrong, but you just have to remember that life goes on.

The day before I’m supposed to be meeting Caroline for a drink, I develop all the textbook symptoms of a crush: nervous stomach, long periods spent daydreaming, an inability to remember what she looks like. I can bring back the dress and the boots, and I can see her bangs, but her face is a blank.

I don't know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult. You know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I'll just be glad when something nice happens.

I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

There's a big fucking world out there. It's messy, and it's chaotic, and it's never, never ever the thing you'd expect. It is ok to be scared, but you cannot allow your fears to turn you into an asshole, not when it comes to the people that love you, the people that need you.

Maybe what I'm saying is, is the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right? Like, I mean, me for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don't know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was, uh, whacked with insecurity, you know? Now I'm older and my problems are deeper, but I'm more equipped to handle them.

I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.

Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.

A woman needs to be held, even, and science has shown this, if its with someone she doesn't care about. Protective hormones are released, and the amount of hormones released depends on the degree to which she is held. The first and best is the complete surround. He wraps you in both arms, whispers how beautiful you are. Second best is the 'arm around.' He is next to you but with one arm around you. Third is he's just next to you on his elbow, but he rests his hand on your stomach and looks at you. Fourth is you snuggling up to him with your head on his chest, while he looks away into space. But when the first best happens, you feel completely, wonderfully like a woman.

So, so what, so fuck off, go home, leave you alone? I'll tell you something Paul, there isn't anything that I've wanted for eighteen years, cause I was a kid eighteen years ago. And if I did still want the same things I'd think I'd gone wrong somewhere, because actually I don't want to marry David Cassidy, I don't want bigger tits, I don't want to do better on my marks. I've stopped worrying about that kind of thing and maybe you should try.

Well maybe there's a big bit of you that's gone missing somewhere, maybe everyone should want something they've always wanted.

Why is it that adults aren't supposed to go mad about anything? You gotta keep a lid on it. And if you don't then people are apparently entitled to say what they like. "You haven't grown up. You're a moron. Your conversation is trivial and boorish. You can't express your emotional needs. You can't relate to your children." And you die, lonely and miserable. But you know, what the hell, every cloud has a silver lining.

I just woke up one morning and didn't feel the same way. Where did it go? It was like there had been a lot of food on a plate in front of us, and we ate it all really quickly, and then there was nothing left. Maybe that's how couples stay together: they're not greedy. They know that what they have in front of them has to last a long time, so they kind of pick at it. I hope it's not like that, though. I hope that when people are happy together, it feels as though someone keeps piling seconds and thirds on their plates.

That is what I have learned: Sex is destructive. Love is nothing to be fooled with. I learned that I was dangerous, not to be trusted. I wondered if my parents were right, with all of their stiff lovelessness. Maybe they knew better. My parents don't dole out love for the deserving or the undeserving. I was learning that love could cost me.

You could say all you liked about reason and logic and common sense and imagination, but when the chips were down, the one skill you needed was the ability to think about absolutely nothing whatsoever.

There is a comfort in never making an effort, but it's a lonely comfort. What keeps you going is the knowledge that you're only playing with only four cards showing. But when you see other people succeeding with their mediocre hands, you have to make a decision. If you turn over that final card you're certain of victory, but it also means you have nothing in reserve.

I’d gone through life believing in the strength and competence of others; never in my own. Now, dazzled, I discovered that my capacities were real. It was like finding a fortune in the lining of an old coat.

Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.