Manchester Fun - Ice Skating, Dinner, and Manchester Wheel

On Boxing day, we went for a walk and bought tickets to go ice skating the next day. Our ice skating adventure started with lunch at Abdul's, a family-owned chain in Manchester. I had my first chicken kebab - it was huge and quite tasty. Neal also approved of the food, but opted for a much spicier concoction on his! When we arrived for our scheduled time, it was lightly drizzling. Manchester is very wet. In fact, the ice was essentially one giant puddle from the consistent drizzle-rain. After we got our skates on, we stood by the rink.

There were two rink employees in charge of monitoring the ice, but mostly picking people up after they'd fallen. These guys played on the ice as we waited. It was highly amusing - they'd get going really fast, then skid to a stop with their skates parallel to the wall of the rink where we were all waiting for our session to start. If you've watched skating before, this move usually results in some ice getting thrown up, sometimes making a little cloud. But with water in a puddle on the ice? It makes big arcs of water, like at a Shamu show! Within the first few minutes, several unsuspecting skaters were drenched with ice water! However, this sliding stop was not without its dangers... When the guy was heading towards the section where Neal and I were standing, I quickly backed up while Neal chose to duck under the wall of the rink. My position allowed me to see the guy completely wipe out and crash into the wall. It was pretty great :)

We had a great time skating, especially since neither one of us fell. I felt bad for all the people that were completely cold and wet by the end of the session. Neal decided that forward skating was for sissies and boring people, so he spent some time on the edges trying to teach himself to skate backwards. He got much better at it, although I think it's a skill that requires a lot of practice.

Just before Neal arrived in Manchester, I got my GRE Psychology Subject Test scores. I scored in the 99th percentile overall and in the two sub-categories - go me! I took all of Manchester's "Reading Week" to study, instead of travelling, so I am so glad it paid off. But the point was that Neal and I dressed up to take me out to dinner to celebrate - the picture's posted. We had a fun dinner out - we went to a Dutch restaurant. Neal got a whole lot of cold herring. This theme will reappear - he kept ordering things that you couldn't go to the place and not eat, since they were special/traditional of the country/origin, but they kept being cold things. And on rainy, cold days, hot meals really are better. I had some of the strangest apple pie that I've ever come across - definitely made me miss my mother's baking!

We also took the opportunity to see Manchester's light at night by going to the Manchester Wheel. It's similar to the London Eye, I think, but on a much smaller scale. Still, it was neat to be up above the city in a little capsule with the rain and the wind. Most of the pictures turned out blurry, but it was very pretty in person.


Then it was time to organize ourselves for our two largest adventures!