I hope you’ve all had a great start to 2020!
A week after spending the holidays in Manchester with some friends, I’m now back in Guildford and ready for the exam season. I just thought that it would be nice to have my first blog post of 2020 on spending the holidays up north 🙂
For those of you who aren’t familiar with travelling in the UK, it’s actually very easy to get to any area you want with the public trains. My journey went from Guildford, through to London Euston and up to Manchester. Super easy and straightforward if you have the Trainline app. In terms of cost, it’s affordable as long as you book early! For reference, I booked mine a week in advance and it was around 30 pounds.
In Manchester, I stayed with a few friends who lived in the city centre. There was so much to do during the Christmas time as it is a big, big city. The small, quaint town of Guildford can’t compete! The award-winning Manchester Christmas Market was truly extravagant. There were festive foods and also a variety of independent traders. I always like going to Christmas Markets mainly because of the ambience. It’s nice to walk around, grab a bite to eat, and just take in the different sights and smells of the festive season.
If you do have the time during your studies abroad, explore the cities beyond London as each one has a particular scene to it. I found that Manchester is as diverse as, if not more than London is but the city centre is definitely filled with more young adults. I spent a lot of time in the Northern Quarter, where the shops there were mostly independent and the people were very stylish with their vintage wear.
I wish I had pictures to show you but since I was there to mainly visit friends, a lot of them were just selfies! I guess you’ll have to go up north and see the city for yourself 🙂 I’d recommend for you to for a weekend trip at the very least because there’s so much to do, even if you’re just looking for incredible places to eat.
I have to get back to studying now, wish me luck!
Catch you next time,
Iman
