So, we’ve gotten out to explore Manchester a bit. Yesterday the girls and I went for a walk around the neighborhood we’re in. It’s a largely working class area residential area, so there’s not much to see. We did find a playground they enjoyed for a bit.

Today I decided we really needed to see the city. The girls and I took at an Uber to the Manchester city centre. There is an old building there called The Printworks. It was originally a newspaper printing facility that was converted to an entertainment venue in the 90’s. Full of clubs, restaurants, and a HUGE movie theater. It’s only 20 screens, but it covers 4 floors and seems to go on forever. We saw Wreck It Ralph 2.

A few observations about the theater, for my fellow Showplace alumni: Tickets were sold on the main floor, with a number of self-serve kiosks to the side. Tried using one of those, but the touchscreen was badly calibrated, so I gave up and went to the box office. There are no screens on the ground floor, just ticket sales. There was then a concession stand on each floor. They looked fairly similar to what you see in a large chain (such as Stadium 16). Popcorn was available in two flavors: salted or sweet. No butter. No extra salt sitting around. It was good, but not nearly as much so as in the States. Presentation was great, but the workers started cleaning before the credits ended and the theater was empty. There were two post-credit scenes for the movie, but I felt uncomfortable with them cleaning around me and left before the second one.

After the movie, we walked to Forbidden Planet, a major comic book store chain in the UK, then Kyla met us for dinner. We went to a place called Frankie & Benny’s, which advertises itself as American style. Food over here tends to be better and healthier than the States. They use fresher ingredients (they don’t need the preservatives as food doesn’t need to be shipped as far), no high-fructose corn syrup, and less artificial ingredients. Overall, it’s good, but the taste is very different than in America. The kids in particular are having trouble adjusting. I’ll talk more about food differences in a future post, but I think I’m going to turn in now. Tomorrow we leave Manchester and head for Basingstoke, our home town for the next few years. We’ll be in a hotel for until we find a place, but hopefully that won’t be long. Wish us luck.