Optometry School: Road trip

During the Easter break my friends and I decided to go on a road trip!

We left Monday and took the bus to Manchester where we met up and stayed with one of our friends. Once we had put our luggage away we went the Trafford Centre for lunch. The Trafford Centre is this fancy mall, that reminded me of the West Edmonton Mall, where different sections of the mall were themed - they had even made the food court look like you were on the titanic.

For lunch we ended up going to Nando's which is this chicken restaurant that seems to be very popular over here. I ended up getting some chicken wings which were good, but they didn't have honey garlic, so I ordered lemon herb which according to the menu "barely registers on the heat scale" but turned out to be a tad bit too spicy, so apparently the only ones that wouldn't have been too spicy for me was the plain wings - which that just isn't any fun - so needless to say next time I'll probably stay away from the wings and just go with a half/quarter chicken. After lunch to the Imperial War Museum which was an interactive look at war, as every 30min or so the lights were dimmed in the whole place and on all the walls above and around the exhibits they would show these videos filled with images and pictures from the war.

After the museum we then went out for dinner to an Indian restaurant called Akbar's. I had no idea what to order, so my friend who had been there before ordered the food which was amazing. We ended up getting a variety of appetizers which included seekh kebabs, keema semosas and chicken tikka, all of which were amazing, even though the kebabs were spicy, but still oh so good.

Then our main dishes included chicken korma, lamb and potato balti and a traditional curry - all of which were were fantastic and it was neat the great variety of tastes we had (from the sweet korma to the spicy curry).

They even brought us this huge family garlic naan!

After the great dinner we were stuffed so we just drove around Manchester and checked out some of the sights.

The next morning our friend made us a wonderful full traditional English breakfast!

After the feast we decided to go walk it off, so we went and walked around the downtown area.

Afterwards we decided to go watch Alice in Wonderland at the IMAX in 3-D. The movie was good and it had some really good 3-D effects. After the film we went back to our friend's place and had a big Indian feast with her parents. The food was amazing and fortunately they knew ahead of time that some of us can't stand too much spice, so it wasn't too spicy :)

On Wednesday we left Manchester and drove to Wales. We drove along the water a bit at the north end of Wales before we headed south through Snowdonia National Park.

It had been a nice day for driving, over cast and a bit rainy, but shortly after we entered a national park called Snowdonia it actually started hailing a bit and then next thing we knew it was snowing!

As we drove further into the park the snow started tappering off as we drove through the mountains and fortunately it didn't accumulate too much on the roads (although we found out that later in the afternoon they actually closed the road, so I guess we lucked out). We ended up deciding to stop for lunch in a little village called Portmeirion, which one of my friends had heard about. When we arrived we found that it was very much a tourist attraction and that this was one of the few attractions in the UK which had a gate fee. We debated paying it since it was still overcast and a bit rainy, but we were hungry so we paid and went in and checked out the city. The city is quite unusual as it isn't what you would expect of a Welsh (or even UK) village as Portmeirion was built to look like an Italian villa.

We definitely got the Mediterranean feel as soon as we walked in with all the buildings were stuccoed in bright pastel colours.

It was still drizzling a bit as we wondered around the village, so we found a place to sit and have some lunch. After lunch the rain had basically stopped so we explored the city even more. After spending about an hour or so checking out the village we were having such a good time and the sun was actually starting to come out so we went for a little walk on one of the hiking trails they have.

We made it out towards a little light house and then headed back.

As we walked the weather started to act up as it was nice and sunny then when we made it to the light house it was super windy but still sunny, but a few minutes later it started hailing! The hail didn't last too long, but for the rest of the time at Portmeirion it was sunny for about 10-15min and then would hail for 5min and then was sunny again...it was really quite strange. After spending our whole afternoon in Portmeirion we got back on the road and made it to Machynlleth where we had booked a hotel. Machynlleth was what I expected a traditional Welsh village to look like.

After we checked into the White Lion Hotel we went downstairs and checked out the Pub for dinner but we weren't too crazy about the cost and selection, so we went and wandered around town looking for somewhere to get some dinner.

After asking at a few places someone told us that we should go to Skinner's Arms which was the pub that all the locals go to for dinner. We headed over and could tell that they must have some decent food since more than half the tables were already reserved and most of the other tables were full, but we managed to find a table and had a good meal.

There wasn't much going on in the town so after dinner we headed back to the hotel and watched some videos that we had brought with us.

The next morning we got up and had our complementary breakfast, which was way way better than any complementary breakfast I had had before. They had a tone of cereals, juice, milk and coffee laid out and then came over and took our order. I ended up going of course with a full English breakfast, which was again amazing.

The breakfast was very much like the one that I had in Manchester, except here they actually deep fried the bread, which I know sounds kinda gross, but I found that the fried bread was amazing with the egg as it seemed to taste better than just regular toast and eggs (and probably does an even better job at clogging the arteries). After breakfast we checked out and headed for a leisurly drive towars Birmingham. It was another good day for driving as it was again overcast and drizzly. Just outside of Machynlleth we encountered some construction, which made us a bit worried since we didn't want to have to turn around and find a different route. But as we approached we noticed that the construction was on the cattle grate and that they had put a detour sign up pointing us to go through a gate. The gate also had a sign on it telling us to close it behind us, so I jumped out of the car and went through the mud and opened the gate for us to pass, and then held it for another car (going the other way) before closing and getting back into the car.

I dunno why but I was pretty excited, I think it's probably because it's something that I have only seen done and happen in movies, so it was pretty cool. Anyways after that excitment we were back on the road and as we drove up the mountains we started to notice a bit of hail .. and then some snow...yes it was snowing again, even though we were taking a completely different road and weren't even in Snowdonia!

This time it was snowing more than the other day and the snow was actually accumulating on the roads and there were a few times when I wondered it the car was going to make it up the snowy hills...but it did.

As we drove there were sheep all over the place and I found out that unlike in the movies when you drive up to the sheep who are standing in the road they actually quickly run off the road!

We drove around and ended up going to the Clywedog reservoir and dam, which is apparently the largest solid concrete dam in the UK.

Along the way home we made another stop, but this time at a rest stop where our friend who was doing all the driving let me and another one of my friends drive (around the parking lot). My other friend has driven manual cars in Europe, but wanted to see what it was like being on the other side of the car, and seemed to adapt very well, as expected. Then it was my turn. I not only had to deal with being on the other side of the car, but I have only tried to drive a manual car once in my lifetime (about 8 or 9 years ago) ... and that initial experience didn't go too well. So I got in and started up in neutral and then shifted to first and started going. It seemed to be no problem as I managed drove around the parking lot (where I even got it up to second gear!). The only time I stalled it was when I was done and idling, so it went well (in my opinion any ways :P) and so I was all ready to jump on the motorway and get us back to Birmingham...but I didn't.

We ended up making great time and got back just before rush hour. After I got home I went through all of our pictures (mine and my friends) as we had almost 400 (over 250 at Portmeirion alone!) and very few duplicates, actually a lot of them are pretty good and some are even fairly artistic.