<p>Tonight makes night#2 staying in Manchester. There was so much excitement going on yesterday that I didn't have time to write in my blog, so I will cover both days: so Monday night I was real tired from my walks so I wanted to go to bed early, which I had planned on doing regardless because it was 30 mi to Manchester and I was anticipating some crazy hills. So the self catering kitchen opened at 7 am so I figured I could finish off the free pasta at like 730 and then set off. I went to bed at 9 pm and woke up at 7:05am - and from my alarm! So I went to the kitchen a bit later and surprise surprise, it wasn't open. Neither was reception so I used the emergency phone to contact a member of staff, and someone came to open the kitchen for me. So I set off soon after, official time was 8:22 am. I rode along edale rd, past edale and thru barber booth. A farmer had opened up the gate leading to the road and a sheep ran out. There was a truck driving along side me and I guess it spooked the sheep cause then it started running down the road! The farmer didn't even Chase after it, but she said something to the truck driver which was probably something along the lines of " scare it back this way!" Cause the truck was getting really close to it at some points. It went a good distance down the road until finally it pulled over, the truck went by and it calmed down a bit, then ran back in the opposite direction. So pretty quickly, I came to a gigazmo of a hill. It started off with a 16% incline! I made it up most of that. Then it just went higher and higher and I couldn't see the end cause of the fog. It was like the never-ending staircase from the phantom tollbooth. I was on and off with the riding and the walking ( but mostly riding, and was feeling a bit ill and almost regretting eating all that pasta) until there was light at the end of the tunnel! As soon as I reached the top, it went straight downhill again! Surely someone could have just built a road around the hill!? I was out of the fog though, so that was good. The rest of the way was a piece of cake. I went down another long steep hill and it was level almost the whole way to Manchester. By this point the fog is nonexistent with how low I am so I got good views of the hills and cliffs, when I was still in the peak district. But the traffic was unreal! At one point it was at a stand still so I went onto the sidewalk but I clipped a garbage pail and swerved into the street, as a tractor trailer was coming. But I managed to stay on lance so I pulled back up onto the sidewalk. So once I got to London rd in Manchester I had some issues finding the hotel, but eventually saw it. So ill still count that as not getting lost on my journey :-) I arrived at 10:46 am, riding (the walking with lance wasn't even registered on my comp since I was going <1 mph) 27.59 mi, avg 7.6 mph, max 33.5 mph. I checked in and beat Michael to the hotel so I went to the art gallery and he met me there. Then we went back to the hotel and I bought yesterdays groupon, which was a 3 course meal at a Russian restaurant. But since the deal hadn't ended yet, I didn't have the code for the owner, so she wouldn't accept it, but offered us a different voucher, which was also for 3 courses, but this included a shot of vodka!! So that worked out well!! She offered me a sweet tasting vodka, and it didn't taste too bad! Michaels smelled like rubbing alcohol. If I would have had that I probably would have thrown up. After dinner we walked to the MEN arena and fools gold had already started performing. Then at around 9ish, the chili peppers came on!!! It was amazing! The new guitarist josh sounds a lot like john, which is good for their old songs. But no one can ever replace john frusciante! They opened with one of their new songs, don't know names just yet, then played dani California, the adventures of rain dance maggy, can't stop, by the way, scar tissue, under the bridge, Californication, tell me baby, higher ground and a few others. after they played hard to concentrate, flea said since that was a mellow song they were going to play another reaalllly mellow song, so mellow it should be cAlled death mellow! And then they played right on time!! They encored with soul to squeeze, a few others and then ended with give it away. Anthony was looking HOTTTTT without his shirt! Flea did a walking hand stand across the whole stage. One of the trumpet players from fools gold came out and jammed a bit as well which was cool. So after that amazing performance we went back to the hotel, after getting a little bit lost. So now onto today! We woke up early to eat breakfast then catch the 845 am train back to the peak district! We got off at hope then walked to castleton and went straight for peak cavern. We were the only 2 on that tour so that was neat. The cave was pretty awesome, and cold! After the tour we went to the visitor info center to see if there were any buses going to Manchester from the area so we could stay a bit later, but there weren't :-( so we started walking to speedwell cavern but decided against it cause it would be cutting it too close to catching the train from hope, so we went back to the visitor centre, had lunch with a bunch of ducks, and then tried to go to the castle, but it was closed during non summer weekdays ( which I should have known) so we went to the museum in the visitor centre. Then we walked back to the hope train station and bought some fudge along the way, which didn't last long! We took the train to Manchester, and ided the lichens I've seen so far, and I got real tired and dozed off, and had a dream that I slept thru my stop at Manchester, and when I woke up i was in Edinburgh! So When we got back to Manchester, we grabbed our stuff from hotel international and I moved to my new hostel, Ashton house. After dropping my things off mike and I went food shopping before he caught his bus to Birmingham. Then I came back to my hostel and met 2 guys, one french, one English, and they are very nice. The English guy has been staying in this hostel for 3 weeks so far, he said the showers are military style! I hope the womans bathrooms aren't like that, otherwise I'm not showering for a few days! I went to reception and asked if I could bring lance inside the reception hall, cause at the moment he is just outside locked to a pole and she said no. I am really not happy!! Poor lance out there in the cold and dark, all alone! And it was drizzly last time I checked up on him. Oh well he could use a bath anyway. K bed time now, lots to see in Manchester tomorrow!
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