Manchester, Yikes!

After having retraced family roots in Oxfordshire I was ready to move further North towards my ultimate destination, Edinburgh. As I left booking the train a bit late, the tickets were extremely expensive so in the interests of my monetary circumstance, I decided to take a 5 hour bus ride to the capital of the North. The National Express coaches that run about the country are quite handy indeed. Cheap and reliable.

The journey was broken into two parts. I caught a two hour bus ride to Birmingham from Oxford where I changed for a bus to Manchester. During the first leg I sat next to a 23 year old woman from Kenya. We talked about all sorts of things including African politics and Kenya's valliant contribution to long distance races in the Olympics. A brief lesson in Swahili was also on the agenda.



For good reasons the 2nd leg to the journey felt about 4 times as long. I owe this to the mad woman from Birmingham who got on the bus at the Birmingham station. This woman was the loudest, most abnoxious and shamless woman you will ever meet. She kept picking me out and talking about me in front of the whole coach. How embarrassing... Things only got worse when she pulled out two bottles of what looked like Coca-cola, but ended up being something a little stronger. You can see where this is going.



After finally getting off the bus and ridding myself of drunken Birmingham women, I started to think about what might be going on in Manchester on the weekend. I was actually a bit concerned because I heard that Manchester had a game against Arsenal (which, unfortunately Manchester won 2-1, ps. im an Arsenal supporter now). So here I was worrying about crazed football hooligans but really, football was the least of my worries. Somehow I'd managed to land myself in Manchester during the annual Gay Pride Festival weekend. hahaha.



Despite guys running around with hands in eachothers backpockets, I did mange to meet some nice people in the hostel who I went to a gig with. It turns out that the guitarist, Mike, was actually staying at our hostel... Sleeping in the bunk right beneath me! His stage name is Passenger.



I kid you not. This guy turned out to be an absolute prodigy. So much so that he has challenged my love for musicians such as Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz. His skill with the guitar coupled with his brilliant voice, touching lyrics and raw passion really hit a nerve with me. This was the first time in my life that I had become this emotional as a result of music. I loved his work so much that I bought one of his albums at the gig. Not only was he a sterling performer, he also turned out to be the nicest guy you've ever met. I consider myself lucky to have spent time eating breakfast with him and the Australian girls the morning after the gig. He had some great stories to tell of his travels. At this stage, I'm planning on catching up with him in Edinburgh where he's booked in to perform a gig at a pub there. He's also going to AUS. Will definitely be referring you all to his gigs. Legend.