But Heathrow was alive with the bright lights of stores attempting to inveigle the constant flow of travelers making their way through the terminal as announcements blared through the overhead speakers into stepping inside. Some folks wended their way to their destination which may have been a restaurant or the toilets while others had looks of steeled determination on their faces as they tacked a course to their departure gate...or the toilets. Harried parents struggled to herd their young children while kids in their gap year ambled more casually.
Our layover was somewhere around 4 hours as we had taken an earlier flight and, once we cleared security - sadly my passport did not get stamped - we set out for a bite to eat. One of my goals for the trip was to drink less coffee and more tea. Truth be known, I had none of the UK's favorite/most iconic drink while in the country last year and felt guilty, like I had slighted my hosts. And so my first drink back on terra firma was tea.
It was delicious and perked me up for perusing the stores in my search for salt & vinegar snacks, another of my trip goals. I will admit that I had a list of the ones I sampled last year with me so as to avoid re-snacking. While I found many a sour tasting treat, I also found myself unable to resist Lucifer's biscuits as the combination of ginger & chilli was quite tempting. However, Lucifer is also known as The Great Deceiver...
I don't know how far it is from London to Manchester, but it's not a great distance as our flight was less than an hour in the puddle jumper. Sitting in a cramped seat with little leg room was a bit of a shock to me after the comparative luxury of being in World Traveller Plus.
After collecting our luggage at Manchester Airport, we hastily made our way to The Station to catch a train to the city centre, a.k.a. - downtown, where an aparthotel room lay waiting for us. My ladyfriend quickly bought us tickets on her phone as we stood outside the gates to the platform. We had just a few minutes before the train departed. Since both tickets were on her device, we were unsure as to how we would each get through as you had to present the ticket to a scanner to get the gate to open. She flashed one ticket and we both ran through as if we were Schwarzfahrening.
The train was quite pleasant with seats plenty comfortable for the 20 minute ride to Manchester Picadilly station. Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath" popped into my head and I felt the excitement build inside me. I'd never been to Manchester nor ridden a train in the UK previously and my vacation with my sweetheart was to properly start soon.
My first sight of Manchester's streets was of London Road and, um, another street. Why Brits post street signs on the side of buildings instead of near traffic lights perplexes me. It's bad enough your street patterns were laid down a thousand years ago which makes wayfinding challenging but you make finding out where you are exactly something of a chore.
The temperature was much more to our liking than the 80+ temps in Madison as it was only in the low 60s. And it wasn't raining. Yet, anyway. The air smelled pleasant enough with all that coal burning having gone the way of the dodo. And no car exhaust either. It just smelled like old buildings, I guess you could say.
I would later discover that it was a routine street scene with modern and Victorian era buildings sitting side by side comfortably - or not.
Our aparthotel was in a newer building right by St. Peter's Square and our room was on the 18th floor facing east affording us a splendid view of the city.
We were in a fancy new joint, apparently, as there was this control panel right by the door.
It looked like something from 2001: A Space Odyssey with its slick black surface (I didn't measure to see if it had a 1:4:9 ratio) and backlit buttons. Plus the thermostat dial at the bottom gave off vague HAL eye vibes.
"Turn on the air conditioning, HAL."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Skip."
"D'oh!"
One must insert their room keycard into the slot at the top in order to turn on the lights. Also note the Do Not Disturb button just beneath the card slot. Pushing that lit up a red light on the card reader panel outside the door. No more hanging signs. "WC" is surely deliberately retro for such a modern setup - water closet. The button to the right of WC turned on the bath towel bar drier thingy, something I didn't encounter on my last trip. But, in a place that rains all the time, I suppose it's the only way to ensure you have a dry towel.
It seems that the appliance company was started by a fan of Red Dwarf as they were all labeled "SMEG".
At least they weren't from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation and endowed with Genuine People Personalities. Unlike my rooms last year, this one included a coffeemaker in addition to a kettle. But, just like most places last year, this brewer only made espresso. Combined with the SMEG kettle, I could whip up Americanos. Gah! At least I came to the UK this time knowing that "batch brew" = drip coffee.
I am unsure how England went down the espresso route. Lattes, flat whites, and so on. Coffee culture there revolves around espresso. This wasn't immediately apparent to me last year as the first coffeeshop I went to, the wonderful Leicester Coffee House, has pour overs. After that, I never saw those 2 words put next to one another nor was "drip" ever seen on a coffeehouse menu. I went into the Costa, their Starbucks, as far as I can tell, by the Clock Tower and tried to order a pour over which I was told they don't have. Drip coffee? The friendly young lady behind the counter stared back at me with a blank expression that no doubt belied her true feelings: effin' Americans.
One of the really nice things about Britain is that they have wonderfully soft water. I don't know where Manchester's water comes from but it ain't from limestone pour overs deep under ground like here in Madison. The tap water tasted, well, soft with a gentle mineral flavor and no chlorine. I bet this is one reason why their beer has that soft, mellow, doughy malt taste. I know just the person to ask.
The little refrigerator in our room came with two small bottles of semi-skim milk. This is the rough equivalent to our 2% milk as it has 1.8% milkfat. Their whole milk is, if I recall correctly, 3.7% milkfat while ours is 4%.
I unpacked the bag with all the snacks to determine just how out of control I let my insatiable appetite for tangy tubers get at the airport.
Nine. Oof. One more than last year. I was pleasantly surprised to find one brand named after me. Ahem.
My ladyfriend also bought plenty at Heathrow including some heather honey biscuits so we were set on snacks.
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