Lots Happening in Manchester
Life has been crazy since we both returned from our time in the US. There’s been a new job for Zeke, teacher training for Wendy, and even a weekend visit from Zeke’s mom!
here are a few pics from the last week and half:
we had a good bye dinner, hosted by soon yi, for our friends vincent and tamanda, and their new baby who have just moved back to malawi.
last friday we were lucky enough to have charlotte (zeke’s mom) as a visitor for the weekend, since she had been visiting family in the Netherlands and decided to stop by Manchester on the way home from Europe. wendy picked charlotte up from the airport and took her around west didsbury for the afternoon. she couldn’t resist the allure of and the dish ran away with the spoon.
then friday night we went to the opening of the exhibition dark matters at the whitworth art gallery where charlotte took lots of pictures (including one with wendy’s supervisor carol and american phd/GTA buddy katherine).
charlotte also videoed us playing with one of the interactive pieces by daniel rozen. our friend dan, of hello america fame, went with us and saw his first performance piece. he liked this interactive one much better.
then we took charlotte to the curry mile for indian food, but mainly for the pranks our favorite restaurant plays on its new customers. she let out a scream when a rubber chicken popped out of a covered dish the waiter brought. see below her “small beer”
and below charlotte stars in another installment of hello america, morning edition. see her verdict on crumpets (it completely makes up for crunchie bars):
on saturday we went to MGS, the school zeke works at, for their open day. we were lead on a guided tour by two 15 year-old students. they were pretty hilarious, and happy to be leading around people that they could joke with and be their goofy 15-year-old selves. our friend dan later described one of the boys as “a nightmare in class,” but to be fair that’s probably how most of our high school teachers would have described both zeke and/or wendy, so there’s plenty of hope for him yet!
here’s the drive leading up to the school:
and the main quad area, built to look and feel like one of the prestigious Oxford colleges (since hopefully that’s the type of place the boys are headed next):
in the classics dept. at school we learned that harry potter has been translated/published in latin. speaking of which, mom said the school definitely had a Hogwarts-type feel, which we took as a compliment.
after our visit to the school on our way to the historic John Rylands Library, we randomly spotted a giant display in the city centre being put on by Major League Baseball. who knew? (also, side note: watching British people attempt to play baseball, even for a few minutes, is pretty funny and entertaining)
once at the library, we stopped for tea and desserts in the cafe before touring around:
charlotte loved the scone with clotted cream.
after a great visit inside the library we headed home for a nice relaxing evening making Mexican food and chatting.
on Sunday we woke up and went to church together before heading to the city centre with our friend Dan Smith to see an art exhibition. on the way we snapped a few pictures:
mom took a picture of wendy, zeke, and dan that we concluded would make a nice cover for our music album someday. too bad the band name “The Smiths” was already taken by some other Manchester dudes…
we got lunch at the restaurant in Manchester Art Gallery before seeing an exhibition of Ford Maddox Brown’s work, an artist that lived in Manchester in the 19th century and was a big influence on the pre-Raphaelite movement.
we sent mom off the next day after a great visit (thanks for coming mom! love you!), and thought of her several times over the next week as zeke wore his new suits that mom helped us shop for:
on monday we had dinner with our friends Jen and Ellie before meeting up with Rich and Abi at a concert in the northern quarter. we saw an american group called The Civil Wars, who were absolutely incredible, not to mention we had a great vantage point close to the stage. the opening group was a band of 3 sisters with gorgeous voices called The Staves.
needless to say, we’ve been fairly busy and it was great to have a relaxing weekend to sit back, recover from the colds we’ve both been trying to shake off, and watch some football.
