On the Road to Manchester

Hello Everyone,

I'm currently listening to a mix of Busted and Spice Girls whilst reminiscing over my recent road trip to Manchester and I thought I would write a little post about my journey, which in total was just over ten hours!

First things first (no I'm not the realest) the reason I was travelling to Manchester was to see one of my closest friends since childhood who is currently studying up there. Having a job that requires me to work weekends and then balancing that with university, studying and having a little *chill* time, my time is often limited. So, with a weekend off from work I decided it'd be a cute thing to do and go and spend some time with my friend who I haven't seen since the start of December.

The outbound journey had a little hiccup when my coach was delayed by half an hour. Now, given that the UK had suffered a tiny snow storm the day before my coach was due to leave Leicester, I was surprised and relieved I even managed to get on the road to anywhere! Another speed bump in my journey (punny, I know) came when my travel sickness kicked in, twenty minutes into the journey. Luckily I had managed to purchase some travel bands which kicked in quickly and eased my nausea. For anyone who gets travel sick, either when on a road trip or flying, I would highly recommend the bands I bought, they were called Sea Bands and were £8 from Asda. I was somewhat shocked by the price of the bands, and considered trying to find an alternative in Poundland but in all honesty I can say they were a great investment and worked for me.



So, when faced with a five hour journey, what did I do to pass the time? Of course I packed plenty of snacks such as Worcester Sauce flavoured popcorn and some M A S S I V E chocolate buttons to keep my hunger tamed, as well as calories I packed some books to help distract me. I decided to read Girl Online by Zoe Sugg aka Zoella, as I had received it as a Christmas gift, but hadn't gotten around to reading it. The narrative focuses on a girl named Penny who blogs under the alias Girl Online. I'm not going to ruin the book with any spoilers, although I may blog a review later, but in short Penny's mum, who is a wedding planner, gets a job in New York and it's in America where Penny meets Noah, a cool guitar playing boy who seems to like her just as much as she likes him, however Noah isn't all he seems. I was a little bit let down by the way the book ends, but nonetheless it did help me get through part of my journey so it wasn't all that bad.

For my journey home I packed a copy of Peter Pan which once belonged to one of my closest friends, Vanessa, who gave me the book as a Christmas gift. I've read Peter Pan time and again, honestly, Peter is one of my favourite fictional characters I find it weird to say that the boy that never grows up is one of my biggest crushes but it's TRUE. Along with books I also packed my iPod to help me survive the five hour journeys to and from Manchester.

Here's some of the songs that helped me fall in love with my journey:

• Wolfpack by The Vaccines
• Another You, Another Way by Against the Current
• Beside You by 5 Seconds of Summer
• Is There Somewhere by Halsey
• Obvious Bicycle by Vampire Weekend
• Colours by GroupLove

When I arrived in Manchester my friend met me off the coach and we stayed with her grandparents, whom I met for the first time and were extremely welcoming and kind. We ordered pizza because you deserve a pizza after a five hour journey, then we drank wine and watched Miranda. The next morning, after a chocolate induced breakfast, we went into Piccadilly to shop. Now, the Primark in Manchester is H-U-G-E! I would say it's bigger than the one in London. I managed to pick up some birthday presents for my friends Georgina and Emmy, before we headed to the Arndale for food. Manchester reunited me not just with one of my closest friends, but also my food BAE Taco Bell, which I haven't had since I went to America almost two years ago. I felt my heart grow by three sizes as quesadilla filled my stomach. After a few hours of shopping we headed for the coach station.

The return journey was /interesting/ for a couple of reasons. The first being a confrontation between two passengers, in which one traveller was annoyed with the other for talking too loudly on their phone. The second being that when we arrived in Sheffield, two passengers were pissed with the driver as they were meant to get off in Manchester, which in my opinion wasn't the driver's fault as it's our responsibility as passengers to be aware of any changes to our journey. The passenger's got off and were transferred to the right coach and our travel restarted.

Now, I mentioned snow earlier in this post and on the return journey I saw the most incredible view I've seen in my life. There's a hillside on the return journey, which as a result of my terrible geography skills, I can't tell you where, but it's somewhere before Barnsley and Sheffield if that helps! The hillside has a river flowing underneath it and, obviously, a shit ton of hills. I've seen this hillside when I got the coach home from Manchester a few years ago, and back then I thought it was a beautiful view. I have an obsession with water, I really want to live near a lake or river when I'm older. Anyway, this time the hillside was covered in snow. Thick, untouched snow. When we were coming to the end of the hillside, I saw from the top of one of the hills that there were some families sledding, it looked so fun and it felt like I was in some movie or Alaska for 3 seconds.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this post was but I guess I just wanted to share my love of road trips and hillsides. What's the best road trip you've been on?

Thanks for reading,
Aimee :) x