Ani MollerOne o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock rock

I’ve been in Manchester for about two weeks now. P and I moved into our place last week and have spent all this time cleaning it up. While the place is in a great location and is a nice place, it was seriously filthy. The people before us obviously smoked like trains as everything had a layer of sticky film on it. We had to throw away and replace pretty much everything that hadn’t been hiding in the cupboards. But now, the place is almost finished being spring-cleaned, and we’ve bought almost all the necessary housey things. The best thing about our flat, next to the floor-to-ceiling windows and the two balconies, is that we have access to a heated pool, jacuzzi, sauna, gym, and games room with ping pong, foosball, snooker, and pool. Ace! I’m addicted and I seriously stink of chlorine.

Living in the city centre is great. We’re only a few minutes walk from Piccadilly Gardens, which is a small park right in the main shopping district. It has a fountain, which is where the scally children play when it’s hot (i.e., when the temperature goes over 15ºC).

There are so many shops in downtown that I might have to start worrying when I get a job. There are also quite a few cafes, the best of which is sadly Starbucks, although none of them seem to be open past 7pm. The weirdest thing about downtown is that there are no real supermarkets. There is a small Tesco, but it is mostly overpriced, and, well, small. Today we caught a bus out to the ‘burbs to go grocery shopping in a proper supermarket. We got 50 items for £57. I can’t figure out if that’s good or bad anymore as I’m getting confused when it comes to converting back to another countries monitary system. Which country should I convert to anyway? New Zealand? America? Spain? Belgium? I don’t know.

So far, Manchester seems quite nice. I really love having two great friends here. It is great living across the road from Mischa and Lance. We go shopping together, cook for each other, go swimming together, and hang out and play games and watch movies. It’s like having awesome flatmates but not having to live with them, which is obviously the worst thing about flatmates. The strangest thing is that today I found out that Lance and I went to the same primary school, as well as intermediate and college. I must have spoken to him only a couple of times over those 13 years, but knew who he was. I also hadn’t seen him since 1996, so it’s funny that we now hang out and live across the street.

Sadly, as many open wireless networks as there are in this neighbourhood, I don’t really pick up any of them (except one that I can only get one bar of reception for, but it disappears completely a lot). P and I decided not to get internet until one of us gets a job, so we have to either sit in the square in our apartment building (but it rains almost every day, so that’s a bit difficult) or wait for Mischa and Lance to get home (or hang out in their hallway which is a bit scabby). So, not too much internet for me. However, I am quite happily filling my time watching television shows about British families buying property overseas and people buying second-hand junk to try and flog off at auction. I swear, there are at least 5 versions of each of those themes. The best thing though, is BBC. No adverts! Now, if only television licenses didn’t cost £1,000,000 a year…

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 25th, 2004 at 7:21 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Log in to make commenting easier!