Day 42...Manchester United!! 7th August

Had our inclusive breakky then set off for Hadrians wall, which was right nearby. Hadrians Wall courses 118km across the narrow neck of the country, starty from Solway in the west to Newastle in the east. It was built in AD (125 maybe? I can't remember) by Roman Emperor Hadrian. he'd had enough of the marauding barbarian Picts (Scots to you) so decided to build a ruddy great wall fencing them out like rabbits. It marks the northernmost point of the Roman Empir and was one of the greatest engineering projects undertaken by the Empire. In its heyday, the wall was 4.7m high and had watch towers every roman mile. Now its around waist/chest height and was hard to determine it from the stone fences of the farmland around it. Some farmers used the wall as part of their own.

It was weird looking at it close up, putting my hand on it - knowing that someone else had put his had on it when building it thousands of years ago. It was also weird coz I always thought concrete had advanced over the years or something. Their concrete looked just like ours, so it looked like it had been built by the local farmer in my lifetime. Not hundreds of my lifetimes ago! We wandered in an area that you had to pay to see, but didn't realise and did it for free - haha. It was basically the foundations of two roman houses, but looked a bit like rocks in the ground to me. After a short walk along the wall, dodging cow and sheep poo, we drove pretty much all day to get to Manchester.

Manchester is hard to describe. Its both bigger and smaller than I expected. It had a lot more new buildings than the other English towns. They were quit classy and modern, and while not massive highrises, were pretty close. With the help of the TIC (tourist info centre) we fenagled a nice cheap room in the city.

When we opened the door to our room, we scared the living daylights out of the cleaner who had been sitting on a chair watching a soap opera. Caught out! She shat herself and tried to cover up by saying she was cleaing (while sitting down with the tv and drinking a bottle of water no less) but we covered for her and pretended along with her. It was hell funny and we cracked up when she left the room. We then spet the rest of the arvo wanering around Manchester. It was a real classy city and reminded me and Nate of Melbourne in a way. It had lots of red buildings and trams, nice shops and drinking areas. It also had a mix of stuff that Kristin would like, like indie music stores, vintage shops and art galleries. LIke Melbourne, they have added alot of street art to liven the city.

Nate and I sat in Exchange Square, where they used to trade corn back in the day. Two bars (one from the 1500's - the oldest building AND bar in Manchester, and the other from the 1700's) were in the square. They sat on an L shape to each other, creating a lovely outdoor square so we drank and ate a platter for dinner. It was all pretty cheap and very nice. And very busy for a weeknight too! We ended up drinking from about 5pm till 11pm and both had a lovely time. We talked to a couple from the nearby town of Bolton and watched the pub staff have it outwith a crazy drunk guy. He kept coming back to harass them since we had begun drinking there!
I loved drinking in those old pubs. I could imagine the gentlemen drining, smoking and playing cards there in the olden days. The low wooden ceilings and the wooden floors was just too cute!

Wasn't too drunk as we paced ourselves, so tottered home via the convenience store and bought our breakfast. The hotel had its own share kitchen, so we put our stuff in the fridge. I wrote on it *do not touch, lest ye not fear death* so our stuff was safe.

Sleep around midnight or later, not sure.