I took a quick bus from Liverpool to Manchester which was really quick and pretty cheap.  They run pretty frequently and were much cheaper than the train.  I arrived in Manchester then started off by day by heading to one of the oldest libraries in England.  It was started by a philanthropist who left his money to start a library after he died.  It was called the Chetham’s library and it was established in 1655 and is housed in a building built in 1421.

Seeing books that were that old was pretty cool as well as some of the topics contained in the volumes.  It was also a chain library in the beginning which meant the books were chained to the shelves and you could not remove them.  Wandering around for a while was really cool but we weren’t allowed to open any of the books and even if we were, there was a small chance that I could actually read anything anyways.

After checking out the library I walked across the street to the National football museum which I had very little interest in, but since it was like most UK museums (FREE) I decided to walk through and check it out.

My favorite part of the museum was that they had a special exhibit on mechanical arcade machines, some of which were football themed which meant I got to indulge in my love of arcades!

There was also a strange Michael Jackson statue which required a sign explaining why there was a Michael Jackson statue in the Soccer museum.

Apparently from 2011 to 2013 this statue stood in the stadium of Fulham FC as a tribute to MJ who attended a game in 1999.  When the team changed ownership they wanted the statue removed and so they agreed to donate it to the museum.  I also liked reading about the design of the soccer balls and how they are not standardized and change from year to year.

I then dipped into the Cathedral for a quick second and then headed back to my hostel.

The hostel I was staying at was offering a pub crawl and I had not really met anyone in the city and had been mostly alone for the past few nights.  So I decided that it would be a cool idea to join the pubcrawl and meet some people.  I chilled out for a bit prior to the start of the pubcrawl and then headed over to the other hostel where it was starting.  It was here that I realized how few Europeans know anything about flip cup.  The guy leading the pubcrawl had a bunch of beer and other drinks to try and get some stuff going and the game of choice he picked was beer pong which can accommodate a maximum of 4 people at a time.  When there are 20 people looking to be included it really doesn’t work well.  I asked if he wanted to play flip cup and he looked at me with a dead stare and when i went on to explain it, the majority of people had never played…. except for the Americans of course.

The pubcrawl ended up being one of the best ones I have attended since then (I am writing this in November and have done a bunch since then, but this was for sure one of the most fun)

The next morning myself and two friends I had met at the pubcrawl decided to explore the city a bit more.  We set off and went on a walk around the city.

We stuck out heads into the art gallery…

the peoples museum of Manchester which went over the evolution of the people in manchester over the centuries including the various unions, womens rights issues and how things evolved over time.

We then stopped for a quick bight to eat from the grocery store then headed to the museum of science and industry which was the highlight museum of the day.

There was a bunch of stuff on the textiles industry of manchester as well as a bunch of the old loom machines that still worked and ran during some demonstrations which occurred several times a day.

There was also a bunch of power related equipment that really made me think about how the industrial sized factories used to work in the old days, when there was one steam based generator in the factory which needed to power several different machines.  It was really neat.

Across the street they had an aviation section with several aircraft on display.

After checking out the airplanes, we headed back to the hostel and I convinced a few people to go on a quick brewery crawl prior to the evenings activities.

It ended up being more breweries in those perfect warehouses under the train tracks again.

The first one was called Cloudwater and I actually ran into this brewery several times in other parts of the world.  I know why as the beer was really good here.

I ended up having one of their Double Dry Hopped Pale ales and it was excellent.  Unfortunately we were on a bit of a schedule as things started to close, so i only had the opportunity to have one here.

The next stop was Track brewing, which was right next door.

Here I hadThe MOAB which was their Double IPA (I hadn’t had many of these lately and was craving some major hops.  It was delicious and similar to the last place, which i could have had a few more here.

The next stop after track was our last stop on the tour called Alphabet brewing company.

It was in a much larger warehouse space under a larger span of railroad track.  The guy tending bar had lived in Canada for a while and was a huge hockey fan.  So I ended up spending a bunch of time talking to him about Hockey, which is another thing I don’t get very often.

I had the Moose Spingsteen and the Hey, I just met you and this is Hazy which were both very good.  I really enjoyed the names of the beers at this place and the beer itself was really good.  After some more chatting and a few beers, we departed the brewery crawl and headed back to the hostel.

There was a deal at the place next door so a random assortment of people from the common room headed over for a few drinks.

After some chill time next door, we advanced into the bar district and ended up at a tiki bar which was super fun.  There was a lot of fire coming from behind the bar.

The night finished with some great times and i the morning it was time to check out of the hostel and head north towards the lake district of England!

When I got to the train station i was in for a surprise because there was a guy wearing a Auston Matthews Toronto Maple Leafs jersey.  I didn’t end up going to talk to him as he was pretty enveloped in his headphones, but it was nice to see.

I boarded my train and was off to the Lake District for some hiking.