Manchester, England

It was a week of travel for Geeta...well, rather four days. But it felt like a week! I left on November 12, Sunday, for Manchester, England from Cologne to visit 2 very dear friends, Sunny Yang and Sara Wolstenholme. I boarded a train from Detmold at 9:00 AM, arrived at the Cologne/Bonn Airport at 1 PM and then checked in for a 3 PM flight. After an easy easyJet flight (haha) which lasted only about 1 hour, I landed at the John Lennon International Airport in Liverpool. I then boarded a bus which drove 1 hour 20 minutes to Manchester's main bus station, Picadilly Gardens, during which time I met a really nice guy from Berlin. His name was Michel (odd, I know, considering that is a French name), and he had actually travelled all over India and so was eager to talk about what he'd seen. I got onto a double decker Magic Bus (no Ms. Frizzle unfortunately) and then stayed on for about 40 minutes to Withington, a neighborhood outside of Manchester proper. I met Sunny at Christy's Hospital, after having to ring her mobile phone as I didn't know where she'd be. A kind older English gentleman who was crouched in his bathrobe outside "sneaking a fag (cigarette) break, don't let 'em know!" gave me 50 pence because all I had were 29 pounds in banknotes.."there you go, love, go on now and call 'er!" :-) Sunny and I met up, and cooked dinner at her apartment. Really, it's as full house with two other girls - Katya, a Russian pianist who studied in Norway and so speaks fluent Norwegian as well, and Marije, a Dutch violist. After dinner, I finally had a much needed shower and then Sunny and I fell into blissful sleep. We practiced the next morning (the advantage of visiting friends who are roommates - we all need to practice so it's built into our tourist schedules as well - something I'm truly grateful for) and then headed out to Manchester to see a bit of the town. It has a reputation, unfairly, of being this old working class hub with not much to admire - far from the truth! Around the Christmas holidays, it really looks like Dickens' A Christmas Carol, all wreathed and lit up and stately. First we visited the Indian quarters of the city, known as Rushmore to Mancurian (Manchester folks) locals but more cleverly called Curry Mile by students and out of towners. It is literally a mile or two of nothing but Indian everything - mithai (sweet) shops, jewelry stores, even the restaurants are lit up with the typical neon-flueroescent signs flashing names like "Taj Palace" and "Sanaam." We stopped by one place called "Shere Khan" after the tiger from The Jungle Book probably, and had a supremely greasy lunch. I wish someone would explain to me why Indian restaurants kill Indian food so happily with pounds of mirche (hot peppery spice) oil and a general fast food Punjabi flavor that leaves the taste of onions in your throat for three months. We don't cook like that at home, and everyone prefers home cooking...so you think it would dawn on Indian restaurant owners to give people what is simple and healthier, too! We are a funny race, I suppose. I picked up two boxes of Indian sweets from a mithai shop, one for the Wolstenholmes (Sara's family) and one for the Trieselmanns, my landlords in Detmold. The next place we stopped at was the Holy Name Catholic Church - not exactly a hot tourist destination, but I happen to love sitting and soaking in churches, so we just peered in for a breather. We also passed the British version of KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)...or KANSAS Fried Chicken, and shared a real good laugh over that one. Next was the City Library and then we windowshopped through an elegant shopping district. There were so many nice things to buy - my eyes particularly caught onto knee length boots, which I have been wanting for some time. But almost immediately after noticing a pair, I'd automatically say, "Come on now, Geeta, dollar vs. pound....dollar vs. pound. Just wait a bit." We stopped into a major department store called Selfridges...it was nice and all, but it sort of makes one want to believe in the virtues of communism after awhile :) We had a nice cup of tea (of course, being England and all), and then headed home. Sunny needed to go to a piano concert (Alfred Brendel, a fantastic pianist for Beethoven and earlier Classical era works) with her roommates, and I was to get picked up by Sara. She arrived in a black manual shifting car, and then we drove to buy some Tresemme Deep Cleansing shampoo, as she had just dyed her hair and was really unsatisfied with the color (I have no idea why, it looked great to me...nearly the same dark-blonde color as before). Apparently she'd read somewhere that if you put deep cleansing shampoo on dry hair, it washes out color. That's Sara for you - ready to try just about the craziest thing if her mind is set on it :) We had dinner with her parents that night - it was just so lovely to be there. Sara has the kind of family and house where I walked in and felt completely at home. We even remarked a few days later that it felt like I'd been there for months and months, as I was able to so easily fit into their family dynamic. Her parents are just hilarious, especially her mother, Brenda. She is like the mother from Bridge Jones Diary (same name!) but less weird and more with the times...and she definitely doesn't wear carpets as jumpers haha :). Brenda says whatever comes to her mind, which can introduce all sorts of interesting conversation topics. Later that evening, Anna, Sara's older sister (same age as my sister, Neetu - 25) came home from a gig she was doing in Newcastle, and it was the same sort of gracious introduction I'd received from the others - "It is sooo lovely to meet you finally, Geets!" (That's the other thing - they never called me Geeta, only Geets like how Sar does. I rather like that nickname, too!) We stayed up talking about music and shared great stories about our favorite horrible conductors and whatnot...Anna is a complete riot. She played a lot in Brazil with the Sao Paulo Orchestra and so can speak perfect Portuguese now, along with French. We all went to bed quite late. The next day, we woke up and practiced half the day, and then I went into Royal Northern College of Music with Sara, where she goes to school (Sunny as well). It is a friendly and modern building, contrasting the old architecture of Manchester's surrounding City Centre. I immediately liked the school - it seemed very open and inviting, and the level of students there is phenomenal. Sara had a piano duo class ("you'll be bored to tears, Geets, just go check your email in the computer lab instead for an hour and then we'll get dinner.") and Sunny had a lesson, so we all met up around 7:00. Sara had a lesson at 7:30 with her teacher, Jan Repko, and I wanted to watch, so we scarfed down nasty cafeteria food and then I observed her lesson. There were things that I liked about Jan but mostly, I felt like Sara needs to go elsewhere. She wants to, as well, I think, and understands the reasons why (she's lived in Manchester her whole life and knows it like the back of her hand, she needs to go into 'violinist seclusion' like me for a bit and just hone her fiddle skills, etc.)...she just needs to go when her health is back to normal, which it will be next year. I think she might end up in Germany (!!), in Lubeck, which is not so far at all from me. We always hoped to study post grad together, or in the same country at least! After the lesson, we dropped Sunny at home and then came home to chill out again. The next morning, we woke up and Sunny came over around noon to meet with me so we could explore Didsbury (Sara's neighborhood, only a 10 minute walk from Withington) a bit and have a tea in a cafe. We walked around, browsing through cute shops such as The Cheese Hacket and a Sikh florist's shop where the shopkeeper was kind enough to let me go on 10 pence less than what the price of flowers I'd bought was (I bought them for the Wolstenholmes, along with a card expressing my thanks). Sunny had a quartet rehearsal later that day, and Sara was supposed to, but their cellist Lydia got ill from running around London the past weekend and so their rehearsal was cancelled. It was too bad, as I'd heard lots about Lydia and was supposed to meet her that night when we planned to go out for drinks. Instead, Sara and I spent another hilarious afternoon with her mother Brenda while Brenda tried to book Sara's flights to Germany with my help for lessons in January in Lubeck. We had massive problems hooking up her new printer, too, but the stress was alleviated by Brenda's jokes. Later that night, we were tired again (lameeeee I know, we are so not bar people when we are together....we just enjoy our PJs and Ben and Jerry's ice cream!) and so stayed in to watch a bit of Anchorman and eat ice cream. I quickly went to Sunny's to say goodbye, headed back with a black taxi cab, and Sara and I said our goodbyes. They thankfully become less teary as time goes by because we see each more frequently now...and I think that after 4 years of solid keeping in touch, we know that we are basically friends for life...actually it's not that 4 years even means anything. I knew that we'd be friends for life when I first met Sara in Aspen, the first day. I knew the same of Sunny. Funny how you just feel these things intuitively. I fell asleep by about 1 AM, and then awoke at 3:20 AM TODAY (eek, actually tomorrow) and then proceeded to make the same 12 hour journey back, only 3 hours longer this time because the stupid Deutsche Bahn (DB, Germany's rail system) was delayed for 1.5 hours on the tracks to Bielefeld. I was a very tired and ragged mess when I came home around 6 PM, and am somehow still standing on my feet typing this email. Overall, it was a fantastic trip to Manchester...full of Victorian houses, Christmas decorations, Geeta faking an English accent (it worked most of the time with locals! And Brenda told me it was actually quite good...she predicted that one month's stay in their house and I'd have it for real haha) and most importantly, great great friends. I am off to bed now. Bis spaeter!