Trip to the UK, Day 3: Manchester

In the morning I got the 9:13am train from Liverpool to Manchester, and I picked up a pastie (little flaky pastry with filling, I got ham and cheese) for breakfast. The train ride was really nice, it was fun to see the countryside.
When I got the Manchester, I met up with Dave outside the train station. For those of you who don't know, I know Dave from Apple Hill. He's an Irish pianist who is in his last year at the Royal Northern College of Music. We went to his flat from the train station and chilled for a while. Then we went to a church near Market St where he was playing a recital that afternoon. The church was beautiful and it was great to hear Dave play again. He and another pianist from RNCM played for the recital.
The pictures are from when Dave was warming up before the actual recital- I didn't want to take pictures during the performance.
This is town hall and the white tent in front is for the Manchester Irish Festival which was going on while I was there. Dave thought it was really funny how cheesy it all was, all the stereotypical Irish things for sale at the vendors.

We went to dinner at a pub right across from the RNCM, and watched the end of a rugby game. Dave told me how he had watched the entire Superbowl this year and thought that it must be the same for me to watch rugby. It was- I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but it was fun anyway. After dinner, Dave showed me around the RNCM building. It was really nice, they just built the new building a couple years ago and it seems like everything is really great.

We went back to Dave's flat after the college tour and chilled, drinking beer and watching tv. It was really nice to catch up with him, and reminisce about good times at Apple Hill. We were thinking about going out to a concert, but ended up just staying in. We stayed up all night, well, until I had to catch the bus back to the Liverpool airport which was at 5:55am. Dave was nice enough to walk me to the bus. Hopefully I can make another trip back to actually have a proper visit in Manchester.
Dave and me all geared up for our 5am walk to the bus station....