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Manchester White Christmas Part 1 - Tuesday, December 14, 2004
It sure was nice to get away for a while and visit with family in the UK ? and a white Christmas to boot!We flew out of Portland. Normally we park in the economy blue lot at the airport, but two weeks would've added up to close to a night at a park and fly hotel, so we took that option and stayed at the Holiday Inn just off the 205. A shuttle ride in the morning is much nicer than getting up in the early AM to brave freeway traffic for two hours...
Upon check-in we learned that though we booked our flights months in advance, we didn't have assigned seating and would have to check in again in Chicago! We booked through Cheap Tickets
I made a few calls from PDX, trying to get seats, but authority for seating is turned over to the staff of the departure airport on the day of a flight, so no way to do it over the phone. That's a handy tip though, if you call the day before at latest you can still get seats assigned over the phone.
The flight was okay, but we had to race through Chicago, skipping Duty Free to get to the gate and try and get good seats. All we got was winded... We ended up with two seats in a row of four rather than two along the side, but the other couple were nice enough. With a tail wind, we actually got in early.
We had to wait a bit to get picked up (bad traffic on the motorway), but the flights were over. *sigh of relief* I hate being cramped up on a plane for a whole flippin' day! Just a short drive to Oldham and we had officially arrived.
The first few days of the holiday were a bit of a blur, as always seems to be the case when jet lagged, but there were a few highlights for sure. We went shopping with my wife's parents in downtown Manchester, but the first stop was to ride the Big Wheel, a monstrous tall ferris wheel. At 60 meters tall, it affords some fantastic views of downtown and even the surrounding countryside. It would've been nice to know it was anchored by 20,000 gallons of water on either side when we stopped at the very top while they let people out, and the wind was shaking our gondola though. UK gallons are bigger, so 40,000 would've given a nice sense of security...
A bit later, while wandering through a holiday market, the wind really kicked up, pelting hail and blowing stuff right out of stalls! I rescued a few scarves while the merchant struggled to close up her stall before it tore apart in the gale. Everyone was huddled under awnings, especially around the stands offering hot food and pints of something tasty. If I had thought there was room, I might have headed that way myself. As the wind died down we all started thinking about the people on the Big Wheel, stopped at the top, blowing around like leaves. That would've been scary as hell, 40,000 gallons or no.
Next we did a series of splitting up to buy various bits that we didn't want others to see and so on. My father-in-law and I went to the cool model shop to get something for my brother. He thought I was well daft when I picked up a delivery truck for some UK women's magazine, but it was pretty cool. Eric, if you're reading this, that's not what I got.
Also in that blur of jet laggy days, we had a little poker tournament. My brother-in-law and his fiancé came over from Sheffield and brought a nice set of chips and a felt table cover. Time to play some Texas Hold 'Em!
The tournament ran a bit late, and when it came down to just my wife and I, we decided to finish in the morning. She won... I could make excuses, but instead, I'll just post a picture of her looking groggy with a fist full of cash. I'm wicked... ;)
Hey, where did she stash the pictures!?!?
I'll post part 2 a bit later, hopefully with a pictures...
- Created:
- Sunday, January 2, 2005 at 8:16 AM
- Last Modified:
- Sunday, January 2, 2005 at 10:53 AM