We arrived in Manchester around 11:30 then rushed to the hostel, dropped off our bags, then took a shorter train back to Stockport. We then had to walk 15 minutes in the freezing, damp weather to the stadium. We then learned we had access to this VIP suite type thing, where they serve you lunch, etc. before the game, mostly for their corporate sponsors to use, so that was cool. Then the head of Communications for the team, who graduated from Syracuse in 1997 showed us around the stadium and have us the low-down on rugby. The stadium was nothing special, but the sport has only been officially recognized for a few years and apparently it's come a long way in the short time.
The weather was freezing, so sitting outside for the game was difficult--but the game itself was really cool. The guy who showed us around said that playing one game of rugby is the equivalent to being in a 55 mph car crash...oops. we could hear the skin on skin smacking sounds from the stands. here are some pictures....(FYI:all of my pictures up to date are on snapfish now)
So the game was over around 5, so we went back to the suite thing for what we thought would be a reception, but it was just a bunch of drunk, english guys being really loud, so we left, went to a pub and got dinner and called it a night.The next day we had to be checked out by 11, and weren't meeting the group to leave until 6:45...this posed a problem. There was NOTHING to do in this city. We walked around in hopes of finding something, and only found their sad excuse for a park:
We then decided we'd just plop ourselves down in a pub and try to find one of the futbol games on tv, except for some reason all they were showing was the news, so again, just a bunch of drunk english guys. But this time we stayed because we had no better options. I had my first fish and chips of this 4-month-adventure, and they were amazing.
We then decided we'd try to find another pub with more tv's, so we walked down the street to where we had dinner, and there were more tv's, but none of them showing the games that were supposed to be on. We had british people coming up to us asking if we knew liked futbol, and then asking us the score of the games to which we replied "i dunno" like dumb americans, then got yelled at "I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU LIKED FUTBOL!"...oops
So this is the point where I explain the title of this entry. After lunch we decided to try to find another pub with more TV's where we could maybe find a game, so we went back to the place down the street where we had dinner. Now, because I had a legal drink with lunch, all i wanted was soda...SODA. So we put our stuff down at a table, and go up to the bar. The bartender then says "Do you have ID" to which I said "Oh I'm just getting soda"..."I still need to see ID"...WHAT?! It's 3:00 in the afternoon and all i want is a frickin' pepsi, why must you give me a hard time. So I give him my NJ license, and the girl I was with gives him her Washington State license...the US licenses really confuse them here. So he stares at them for about 3 minutes then says "Sorry I've never seen these before, do you have any other backup like a bank card?" ...SODA...that's all I want, now I'm showing him my credit card...what??? So after he looks at our bank cards he takes both licenses to the back, where a crowd of 5 employees are standing over this guy's shoulder looking at our licenses like we just gave him a piece of paper with our birthday written in pencil. ALL I WANT IS A PEPSI...REALLY?!? So then he comes back, hands us our licenses, and starts being friendly "What brings you to England? blah blah blah"...just give me my soda you idiot...I swear, this country hates me.
