Thursday, February 20, 2014

Day Trip to Manchester

Though we've lived here for more than two years, we haven't really spent any time in Manchester. I'm not sure why. It's a big city with a vibrant Jewish population (second largest in the UK), a ton of culture, and is less than two hours away. This weekend, we finally took a day trip to explore the city.


Our first stop on our cultural tour of Manchester was to Rare Grill--a kosher steakhouse. Of course our first stop involves food, right? Here, we had some of the most delicious BBQ chicken wings I've ever had. I also had a "bacon cheeseburger," which was amazing. The cheese was soy and I have no idea what the "bacon" was other than some type of crispy, slightly fatty, OMG delicious beef. The sweet potato fries were icing on the cake.


Next we checked out the Manchester Art Gallery. This free museum was really worth the visit. The building itself is gorgeous, and I really liked several of the exhibits. The museum is very child-friendly; Zoey enjoyed the children's zone where she crawled around and put various things in her mouth.



We also visited the John Rylands Library where we saw books from the 1500s! The collection was incredible. To see so many leather books pre-dating the founding of my country was really incredible.



Another great find was the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI). This museum, also free, is enormous. We didn't have enough time to explore all of it, but Dan really enjoyed the Power Hall-- a building full of giant machines. There was even a real steam train that ran in South Africa until the 1970s.



Zahara enjoyed the experiments building where she found some new friends to play with. It is so fun watching her interact with others now.


We strolled back through the pedestrian center before heading home. I can't believe it's taken us so long to explore Manchester. It's a great city with so much to do! Have you been? What are your favorite parts?



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