England: Day Six + Day Seven, Manchester

Bob *You've got 206 bones in your body, want one more?* zegt:
Man, I haven't washed my hair in a week, it's awesome
Bob *You've got 206 bones in your body, want one more?* zegt:
and a little itchy
Kev (good music / i dance / no good music / i not dance) zegt:
seems gross to me
Kev (good music / i dance / no good music / i not dance) zegt:
yet
Kev (good music / i dance / no good music / i not dance) zegt:
I never really minded a bit "gross"
Bob *You've got 206 bones in your body, want one more?* zegt:
admit it, you're totally turned on now, aren't you?
Kev (good music / i dance / no good music / i not dance) zegt:

I'm rubbing myself with butter as we speak.

So, we're at the very last England blog (thank heavens) and our final destination is Manchester.

Manchester was by far the "ugliest" city we visited in England, but that didn't mean much, as it was still cleaner than most of our cities. Now, what is Manchester known for, as far as I know?

- Manchester United, which I couldn't care less about.

- Being an old mining town (I think?), but I don't give a rat's ass about that either.

- Being the home of Canal Street, where they taped the British QAF, which was pretty much the only reason Tim and I had for heading over there.

Our hostel room was an 8-person room this time around, but it never got filled up completely. Upon arriving, I felt awfully ill again and took a nap, whilst Tim indulged himself by visiting a bunch of comic/game stores, or whatever the proper name for those things is. Whilst feverishly napping I did hear two roommates come in, but since they spoke German, I decided I didn't care enough to meet them and stayed put under my sheets. I'm not sure exactly how long I slept, but Tim apparantly did have a good time while he was gone, coming back with a whole new wardrobe, excited like a naïve schoolboy on Christmas morning. Simply adorable.

Since I refused to spend another two days in bed, we asked the hostelpersongirl where we could score some painkillers, and we were once again directed towards the local Tesco, where painkillers of all sorts were incredibly cheap. Naturally I stocked up and those babies helped me through the next week or so. English supermarket painkillers way rock, Dafalgan is absolutely nothing to them.

My body having been thus tricked into believing it was better, we headed out into Manchester. Honestly, I will probably be mixing up what we did on which day, so I'm not going to try and bother being all that chronological about it. We did eat very well in Manchester, that I know. It was also the cheapest city by far, and I think all our meals there combined cost about as much as one meal in London. My wallet was very grateful.

We visited some of the gaming shops, but while it was fun browding the merchandise, they're not really my thing. We also did some shopping, and I bought a present for Kenneth and Kevin, and a shirt for myself. Uh, I think that's almost it for the first day. In the evening we visited Canal Street, but as it was thursday, it wasn't exactly buzzing with excitement. We went into a couple of bars and had a couple of drinks, but then decided to just go to bed and come back the next day.

Whilst discovering Canal Street and the adjoining streets, we often passed a very dirty looking sauna, which just screamed 'dingy cum-hole', so it's still a mistery to me why we decided to return there the next evening, but more on that later.

Next day, we met another roommate, a girl whose name I've completely forgotten. She was an American from Iowa, and spoke very softly and sweetly and she was just sooooooooo sweet and soft and giggly that my bad tempered morning self was just about ready to throw a book at her, but luckily I have too much respect for books to do such a thing. Sweet, softspoken and giggly Iowa girl was in town for the World Freefighting championships or something or other. I'd seen commercials for it all over England, it was some ultra violent fighting thing, which Sweet and Giggly apparantly followed over the world. She did however assure us that she herself was not violent at all, before retreating into the shower, promising 'I will try not to make the shower messyyyyyyyyyyyyy.' And off she was, and good too, because I was about to burst out laughing. That was about the only interaction I was to have with our roommates (other than one of the Germans asking me if I'd like to have a brown banana) as I only got back to the hostel somewhere early in the morning when everyone was already asleep and I didn't wake up until they had all left.

Anywho, our daytime was spent shopping. England had been a bit of a dissapointment when it came to shopping. It was either the same stuff I could get here for less money, or stuff so outrageous (and outrageously expensive) that I would never want to wear it. Oddly enough, Manchester, of all places, was to me the place with the funnest stores, including a complex named Affleck's Palace, which had a bunch of really nutty stores, with really nutty stuff (I always did wonder where girls got those skirts that don't quite cover their arses, and boots up to their vagajay) and I absolutely adored all of it, though I didn't purchase any stuff there. I did buy some clothes (some say awesome, others say heinous) from a store that only had handmade, unique items, which translates into very expensive and I couldn't have afforded the stuff, had they not had a sale, lucky me.

After having a very good dinner again, we headed to the gay district and conquered our fears to go into the dingy cum-hole which represented itself as a sauna. The service upon entering was rude, a good sign of things to come. After changing into our towels, we found our way up to the sauna part, which was basically a television playing porn with some chairs in front of it, a shower, a cold steamless steambath, a sauna the size of my closet, a dark room with some sort of beds and a jacuzzi. The jacuzzi was nice enough, but we were only just seated when we were disturbed by an enormous erection, attached to a huge dick. This loudmouth character proudly displayed his erect penis (granted, it was a considerable tool), waving it in front of our faces and making his intentions very clear. We wisely ignored him, as much as you can ignore someone in a not too large jacuzzi, and after a while he went and we breathed a sigh of relief. We took a tour of the rest of the place (took about 5 minutes) and decided to return to the jacuzzi, in which another man, much less abrasive was already seated. Somewhere during all this relaxing, my medication got the better of me and I nodded off to sleep. It was thus that I did not notice that our loudmouth erect friend rejoined us in the jacuzzi and it was thus considerable time before I suddenly awoke to find myself indecently fondled by both him and our other companion in the shower. Which was my cue to get the hell out of there and stare angrily at Tim for not intervening. Though in his defence, he had no idea I had fallen asleep and thought I was allowing said men their indecencies. Which says a lot of his opinion about my taste in trolls, I suppose. Having had enough of the sauna by then, I sat myself down on one of the chairs and tried not to look at the porn, nor at the masturbating elder gentleman in front of me. Unfortunately the loudmouth did follow me and stood next to me whilst stretching, in doing so poking his penis into my ear, forcing me to watch the porn and bend my back to its utmost limits in order to avoid his drumstick. He must have taken some kind of pill, because that damn thing stood straight up the entire time we were there and even the most virile of men have their relaxed moments in my experience. Eventually he did give up, proclaiming me a wanker (an epiteth much better suited to the man opposite me, who was still blatantly indulging in this activity) and he went in search of Tim, who by this time had also had enough and we hightailed it out of there.

After prettying ourself up to the best of our abilities, we hit Canal Street again, but after two or three bars, Tim announced he'd rather return to the hostel and we separated, as I continued to barhop. The drawback to barhopping is that you have to drink something in every bar. Since you get a pint in England, by bar seven I'd had about 14 Stellas in me, combined with the medication, I was having a hoot, but I still hadn't quite found what I was looking for: a place you could dance all by yourself and not look like a sad twat. So, exiting the bar, I accosted some nice guys with the simple question: the biggest, danciest party? Having gotten directions, I immediately forgot them and went the wrong way, ending up at a pretty big club, which was like a red&blue on drugs.. uh, more drugs... and with a lot of very young guys in their underwear. Not a bad party for sure, but I was determined to find the one I had been directed to, so after about 40 minutes I left again and retraced my steps, getting hopelessly lost of course. If I inherited anything from my mother, it's my haircolour and my complete inability to navigate. Luckily I ran into a friendly gay couple and we chatted for a while before we together went to the party before mentioned.

I'm not going to bother describing the place, but it was a hell of a hoot, and me and my new acquaintances danced our asses off for the next hours, and the pints flowed freely, leaving me completely off my rocker by the time we left to, I assumed, another bar, although that assumption turned out to be wrong. We made our way through small streets and backways and alleys, across a beam over the river (it's a miracle I didn't fall in) and I had absolutely no idea where I was and yes, before someone starts to whine, that wasn't very smart and wise of me, but whatever, it turned out alright.

Eventually we entered a building, where my companions paid the entrance fee (I think I was sort of out of money by then) and still assuming it was a bar, I went in to being forced to ask the question: Ok, why is everyone naked? As it turned out we were actually in another sauna, though luckily not the same one. This one was enormous and quite fancy, and there were a looooooooot of guys there, I think it was as busy as the Meir on a sunny day. While I know that Kevin's been looking forward to this part of my England update, I do chose to withhold more detailed information about the night and simply let your own minds construct what may or may not have happened. And it probably did.

After the tree of us left, I was getting to be a little more sober and with that came worry that I would never ever find the hostel again. I was just voicing this concern and my company was already hailing me a taxi (they were indeed very nice fellows I must say) when I noticed the street sign. As it happened, we were actually ON the street of our hostel, only a 30 second walk away as a matter of fact. If only we had known earlier :) Anyway, we said our goodbyes and I dragged myself into our room, at I have no idea what time, but it was already pretty light outside and it must have been past five, easily.

By the time I woke up, we had to check out (well, we should already have been checked out actually) and we walked around Manchester a little more, visiting a market, having more good food and taking that picture I put on top, because it reminded me of Karolien for some reason *ducks and covers*. After that we made our way to the airport and after being throroughly frisked by security because our shoes made the alarm thingy go off, we had a smooth flight home and were welcomed by Kevin and Kenneth at his appartment.

And that's all folks. Finally.

Cheers!