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Second impressions about this Manchester trip

Well… I’ve been here for four weeks now. Time to write about my second impressions.

First of all, I’m running out of time and I still don’t want to go back home. I think I could live this life forever! Of course that in all places on Earth (probably even in hell, side-by-side with the devil in person) it would be nicer just to study, expend money, drink and have fun, than go to work everyday for eight hours (plus one hour each way to get to and from work, the stress and stuff like that…). But, anyway, that’s life! And I’m not rich so, if I want to travel again, I’ll have to work for it.

By the way, knowing that I paid for my entire trip, with the money from my work, is something else. Gives you this good sensation of being the owner of your own life.

Ok. Manchester. Now the days are getting darker. And it was really interesting for me to notice that it truly affects people. I wasn’t expecting that to be shown so clearly but since it starter do get dark sooner, really fun and excited people seemed to get blue, down and without energy. It happened almost on the same day! I don’t know if it was just my imagination but I can swear that I noticed it.

I haven’t had the time to do and see all that I wanted. That’s sad. I probably won’t be able to go to London!!! Can you imagine that?! Being in the UK and not going to London? Anyway, I’ll just work hard to convince my-self that this fact will give me a reason to come back here.

Another thing: Here, people are always going back home. In the last two weeks, many friends returned home. I miss then. Incredibly, for the first time in my life, I can understand people from Big Brother TV show. I don’t watch it. Just don’t! Er… Actually, only when people start to fight to the death. On these particular moments I take a quick look. But, as I was saying, now I can understand how you can become attached to people so rapidly and miss them for real. I hope we can stay in touch.

Humm… That reminds me. I would like to have had the chance to make friends from here, from Manchester. It would be nice not just to practice my English (that’s a massively good reason) but to have some real connection to this place. To have a reason to want to come back here (to Manchester, not just to the UK, I mean). I’m saying this because, at the moment, all that I have from here are my experiences, feelings and sensation about the place (the streets, pubs, supermarkets, buildings) but I don’t have any strong connection with someone from here. All my friends are foreigners as I am. If I want to see them again, I’ll go their countries, not here. But, to foreigners it is always hard to know people from the place if you’re not inserted in some space which is part of the local society. I mean, we all came to study in a school only for foreigners, which came here to learn English. We’re not in, for an example, a university, that would have a mix of locals and outsiders.

Comparing Recife in Brazil with Manchester in the UK

(Text written some weeks ago.)

I live near the equator, in Recife city, which is the capital of the state of Pernambuco, in Brazil (A map is always a good idea, yeah? ). We have a lot of hot weather (sometimes it gets very hot) but also some rainy months. I don’t know if it rains all the year in Manchester but, since I arrived here, today is the first sunny day that I have seen. Therefore, I really think that Manchester is a rainy city. The temperature is much colder then in my city and here I have to dress as I never dressed before. Although I like this! Maybe just because it’s new for me but people look more chic.

Another thing regarding what I like about the weather is that sometimes when we talk here the steam produces a white fog. It may look kind of silly but I always saw that on the movies and thought it was nice. So, every time it happens here I think it’s great and keep blowing at the street like a crazy person. I hope no one has seen it…

Here, I miss what I call “real” lunch. In my country we have a large meal at mid day. The most common lunch would be beans, rice, vegetables and meat. I love meat…however in Manchester I have eaten subway for lunch twice already… therefore, I’m always hungry as it just doesn’t fill me up like a Brazilian lunch would.

Having said that, I really like some things that I found at the supermarket! Delicious things cost less here than they would at my city. I bought tasty cheeses, ice-cream (in this cold, yes) and chocolate and I intend to buy more… That’s one of the reasons why I was trying to find a place to run here! You see, I was almost always a sedentary person but, maybe three months ago I started training to run. Before I travelled here I was already running for 30 minutes straight everyday. But, as it’s always raining it’s difficult to run outside here and I’m not aware about any parks where I could do it.

Well… People… One thing got my attention here. I’m not actually criticising but I got impressed about the teenage girls clothes at night. For me it’s so cold always and they can walk around in the street with mini skirts and shorts. I don’t know how they can do it! I would freeze for sure! Of course we have clothes like that in Brazil (everybody knows that), but in this cold it’s surprising.

Still about the people subject, on Tuesday I was at the supermarket waiting in the line to pay my things and a really old lady stopped after me. I was looking at that and was having hard time to understand why she was there after all. After sometime I asked: “Excuse me miss. Sorry to ask but don’t you have here a special line for elderly people and pregnant women, disabled people?” She said that here at UK they don’t have that. I felt sorry for her and other people in those conditions because normally they can’t stay standing for long time without feeling uncomfortable.

Bonfire night pictures (and more)

So Saturday was Bonfire night, this typical English tradition, which, I think, can nowadays be understood in two ways : the celebration of democracy, or the celebration of its fall (as more and more people start to rise against the governments, everywhere in Europe). Anyway, I'm not here to discuss politics, and especially not politics from a country I don't come from. I have another set of pictures ready to be uploaded, from the fireworks and the bonfire on Guy Fawkes night.

While I was holding my camera and trying to get something original (as original as fireworks pictures can be), someone came and asked me why I was shooting under a tree, as it "obviously was spoiling the photographs, and hiding the fireworks". Well, you'll see by yourself... (oh and there is one of a ride too)

Meet Me At The Cemetery Gates: Manchester’s gothic traits

 I enjoy indulging in celebrations of the dark and deadly at this time of year, despite the green witch wigs and noses sold in the Co-op. The celebration of the supernatural, of the occult, of the spirits and fairies that appear to have frightened the British people of the past is now part drinking excuse, part hideous commercial hypnotism and part rebellion against rationalism. But is it also the stirring of a desire for ancient ceremony and national traditions? Do I like it because it feels strangely familiar?

As a city of dark and damp winters, Manchester has a deep gothic seam only half unearthed. However I can see The Manchester Gothic in Lowry’s ‘The Lake,’ a horrific masterpiece of a ruined landscape, as poisonous as a post-nuclear wasteland, with lurid gravestones lurching in the foreground.  The city’s ghosts are drab and practical, but terrifying non-the-less. Instead of the royal spirits of London and Edinburgh, the decadent ghosts of Cheshire’s stately homes or the treacherous and heartbroken wraiths of the moors and hills, Manchester’s past reveals poverty and desperation, faceless crowds bent double, breathing their last through soot-blackened lungs.  Clichéd images, I know, but where do their forms linger outside of Lowry paintings?

Manchester is chasing its shadows away, with light-reflecting glass and steel of the new business districts you are distracted from soot-blackened bas-reliefs and crumbling chimneys of Salford and Ardwick. Is it trying to erase the tragic elements of its past and forget the empty factories’ dead? Perhaps it’s this time of year that leads my thoughts to these will’o’the’wisps of the cobbled streets.

Hélène Mariaud’s photographs (below) have captured fleeting, fascinated glances of the grand old Southern Cemetery(final resting place of Lowry) just as we would see it when hurrying home as the evening draws in. Does lingering around those gates as the light fades seem weirdly attractive? That depends on your gothic traits. 

A portrait of my beloved, decrepit cat

It's been more than a month now since I've been living in Manchester (Chorlton to be more precise, and near the Southern Cemetery for even more precision), and it actually feels like I've been living here forever. It gets better every week, as I get to know more of the place all the time, and as I get better at speaking English.

As a French person living abroad, I have, of course, things to moan about, things that surprise me and that I find quite strange... (not, I'm not talking about food at all...) which I will probably write about in upcoming articles. But I have to say, Manchester really is a breath of fresh air for me...

So I will post this article with a very cheerful pictures, because I think this shows this kind of atmosphere that you can only find here, in England, on a rainy evening walking home along the cemetery.

(okay this is really awkward to write the first post on here)

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