Manchester, leeds and the lake district

4 november 2016 - Manchester, Verenigd Koninkrijk

Last Friday I took the train to Manchester airport to meet up with my parents which took a flight from Amsterdam to visit me for the weekend. We rented a car and drove towards Manchester. After only half an hour drive it was decided that my mother was not allowed in the front of the car because she just couldn’t get used to driving on the left side of the road. She was so scared that she rather sat in the back haha. We got to our Airbnb pretty quick and went into Manchester by bus. In Manchester we visited the town hall, the Manchester art gallery and the john rylands library. However our journey to the John Rylands Library was not without trouble, we first walked to the completely different side of Manchester…. We blamed it on the rain, making it harder to orientate ourselves. When we finally arrived at the John Rylands Library it was worth our while. It is one of the most beautiful buildings and libraries if have seen so far. We ended our first day in Manchester with a nice beer at a proper beer garden.

The next day we went to visit Leeds, so that I could show my parents in what kind of accommodation I have been living so far. It was really nice to finally be able to show them what I have been talking about all the time. After I had showed them around in the residence, we went into the city centre and of course to the university campus. I have to say I think I saw more of Leeds in that day with my parents than in all the time I have spent there so far just living in Leeds... We ended our evening with a lovely dinner at a cute little restaurant in Leeds and got back with the bus to my residence where the car was parked. This was probably the most shocking part of the day for my parents, because all the students here go out without coats or anything in small dresses or t shirts which is very cold! Besides dressing very cold, they also love to dress up in themes which creates an interesting mingle on the street of Leeds.

The third day, Sunday, we went to the lake district. There we did a little road trip around the lake district which was beautiful. We saw different sides of the lake district and had a nice day there. For lunch we stopped at a little tearoom and got beef and vegetable broth, a typical English kind of soup with large chunks in it. All in all we spend around 5 hours driving around and saw all kinds of weather haha. The English weather can change a lot and one minute the sun was shining bright while the other it was raining cats and dogs.

The last day we went to Manchester again and searched for the many pieces of street art which can be found within Manchester. I really liked this because we saw a completely different side of Manchester and you really had to look around you in order to be able to find the street art. Not soon after I had to take a train back home and my parents also flew back after we had had a really nice weekend. 

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