Europe 2023, August 17

Back to normal running with a later bus trip to Manchester scheduled for today. I was taking too much time messing around at breakfast and didn't realise the bus was due soon, but made it just in time.

The bus to Manchester took about two hours and arrived a bit early. We had one scheduled stop along the way at Manchester Airport and despite multiple announcements before and after reaching the airport car park nobody actually got off. Ten minutes later back on the road a woman sitting in the front row gets up and asks the driver why we didn't stop at the airport.

I walked over to the National Football Museum first to see what had changed since last time. A bit disappointing to see most of the exhibits were quite similar, only with a bit of women's football added. The second level had a few more interactive games like a penalty shoot out with long lines that all the kids were waiting for. The third level was a temporary exhibit with board games and video games (not playable) which was alright. Overall though not enough had changed, spent around 1.5 hours there.

Made a short detour to another Nike Outlet on the way to Old Trafford but it wasn't worth it, they didn't even appear to have any discounts. Had some good places for lunch though, so wasn't a total waste.

Back on the light trail and walked up to the Manchester United stadium, there was a surprising amount of people around since nothing was happening. They had a metal detector in operation just to enter the mega store.

I thought I'd buy a shirt but didn't find anything good in their whole range, a black training shirt was ok but had some weird pattern on it. Only a few player names were already pre-printed on some shirts, but there's really no players I have a huge interest in from the current team, probably Casemiro would have been the best option. The third top (white this year) was ok but a bit plain and I didn't really like the material. The accessories section was disappointing, they didn't even have any magnets.

Had to wait around forever for the transport back to the city centre because of some problem on the line. Still was about half an hour left before the bus back to Birmingham so got an early dinner and walked around the city centre. There seemed an unusually high number of people around, the only possible explanation I could come up with was being the summer school holidays.

During the week I had been getting emails from Stub Hub almost every day reminding me that my football tickets should arrive a day or two before the match this Saturday. I just happened to check my emails on the bus and got a surprise email that now the ticket from the seller isn't available anymore. They said they could get me another ticket as a replacement, so I replied quickly to confirm. I spent the rest of the evening checking my emails and got no further update, a pretty poor response time when the match is like 36 hours away.

Thankfully had no delays with the return bus this time, got back to the hotel and had to start packing again for London part two.

Birmingham

• 5 out of 10

Good

• Canals, although could be widened and have a better surface
• Good shopping and restaurant districts
• Much cheaper than London

Bad

• Limited attractions
• Running options were limited besides the canals
• Street layout in the city centre is confusing

Missed Out

• Black Country living museum
• Resorts World
• Villa Park tour