This Manchester Place is Kind of Cool
I think it was either Isaac Newton or Alan Greenspan who said that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Then by definition, by spending 4 straight weekends out of town, my knowledge of my adopted hometown is few and far between. So, thanks to a weekend full of class and dwindling back account, I finally got to spend a weekend here in Manchestah. And this really isn't a bad place.
On Sunday, we were forced out of City Centre to attend the Memorial service for Amit. There was certain Nick Hornby feel about 15 people who didn't know each other 2 months ago, taking a bus route we didn't know, wandering through a suburb we've never been, to visit a house where we didn't know anyone, to attend a service for a man we had only recently met. The only real common thread was the fact that it just didn't seem possible that someone our own age could just die in his sleep.
Earlier in the weekend, I was able to explore some other corners as well, as part of showing around a friend from Univ of Washington who was in town from Copenhagen. There's something nice about going out in groups of 15 people, but there's also something comforting about 2 friends wandering around a foreign city and telling old stories from UW, and find little places that don't need to satisfy a group en masse. It was a great excuse to duck into dive clubs playing loud music and chi-chi lounges offering overpriced drinks and the beautiful people.
The long and the short of it was simply getting to see where the non-students go in this town, and to be honest, it doesn't really look too much different than Belltown and Fremont. Some fun places in the Northern Quarter to look up if you get here are Centro, Odd, Bluu, and Night and Day. And if you have a good group and want to see a colussus dance club, check out M2.
It's hard to believe that school is in its final weeks, and everyone is kind of looking around the corner now. There's an unspoken feeling of disappointment as we see the real world trying to nudge itself out of the locked box we have it trapped in right now. So it's hurry up and panic time for a bunch of things.
Thus, I'm indulging on a birthday present tomorrow to see a Champions League match between Man Utd and Villareal. Man Utd needs the win and Villareal is on top of the group, so it should be a pretty exciting match. Plus Man Utd is fresh off the upset over Chelsea, so people are excited about them again. And I just couldn't forgive myself if I was in Manchester for 3 months without getting to Old Trafford. It's like living in New York all summer and not seeing The House that Ruth Built.
I'm becoming more and more fascinated by this $100 laptop MIT Media Labs and Nicholas Negroponte are trying to get built. In our current assignment we have to write a strategic plan detailing how Microsoft will respond. Let me know if you disagree, but we've decided they will publicly support it while going behind the scenes to absolutely destroy it through skunkworks, negative analyst reports and forcing key distributors to abandon it. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to Google and type in "Negroponte $100 laptop Microsoft." It's a pretty interesting story.
That's all I got this weekend. Augustin and I share the same brithday (many, many years apart) so we're throwing a 70's/80's party Wednesday to celebrate Gus getting one year closer to my age (apparently, there's a loophole and if you' re in grad school AND over 30, you don't actually age.) Two weekends left in Manchester then two in Paris/Rome/Florence/Copenhagen/Amsterdam then I'm back in the States on the 20th, Seattle on the 24th. Has it really been 2 months???
On Sunday, we were forced out of City Centre to attend the Memorial service for Amit. There was certain Nick Hornby feel about 15 people who didn't know each other 2 months ago, taking a bus route we didn't know, wandering through a suburb we've never been, to visit a house where we didn't know anyone, to attend a service for a man we had only recently met. The only real common thread was the fact that it just didn't seem possible that someone our own age could just die in his sleep.
Earlier in the weekend, I was able to explore some other corners as well, as part of showing around a friend from Univ of Washington who was in town from Copenhagen. There's something nice about going out in groups of 15 people, but there's also something comforting about 2 friends wandering around a foreign city and telling old stories from UW, and find little places that don't need to satisfy a group en masse. It was a great excuse to duck into dive clubs playing loud music and chi-chi lounges offering overpriced drinks and the beautiful people.
The long and the short of it was simply getting to see where the non-students go in this town, and to be honest, it doesn't really look too much different than Belltown and Fremont. Some fun places in the Northern Quarter to look up if you get here are Centro, Odd, Bluu, and Night and Day. And if you have a good group and want to see a colussus dance club, check out M2.
It's hard to believe that school is in its final weeks, and everyone is kind of looking around the corner now. There's an unspoken feeling of disappointment as we see the real world trying to nudge itself out of the locked box we have it trapped in right now. So it's hurry up and panic time for a bunch of things.
Thus, I'm indulging on a birthday present tomorrow to see a Champions League match between Man Utd and Villareal. Man Utd needs the win and Villareal is on top of the group, so it should be a pretty exciting match. Plus Man Utd is fresh off the upset over Chelsea, so people are excited about them again. And I just couldn't forgive myself if I was in Manchester for 3 months without getting to Old Trafford. It's like living in New York all summer and not seeing The House that Ruth Built.
I'm becoming more and more fascinated by this $100 laptop MIT Media Labs and Nicholas Negroponte are trying to get built. In our current assignment we have to write a strategic plan detailing how Microsoft will respond. Let me know if you disagree, but we've decided they will publicly support it while going behind the scenes to absolutely destroy it through skunkworks, negative analyst reports and forcing key distributors to abandon it. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to Google and type in "Negroponte $100 laptop Microsoft." It's a pretty interesting story.
That's all I got this weekend. Augustin and I share the same brithday (many, many years apart) so we're throwing a 70's/80's party Wednesday to celebrate Gus getting one year closer to my age (apparently, there's a loophole and if you' re in grad school AND over 30, you don't actually age.) Two weekends left in Manchester then two in Paris/Rome/Florence/Copenhagen/Amsterdam then I'm back in the States on the 20th, Seattle on the 24th. Has it really been 2 months???
posted by ABoyer at
6:35 AM
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