In the end, I left the Lake District two hours earlier than planned. It was raining again; what's new! Windermere has a direct train connection with Manchester, so it wasn't too long a journey, though not particularly a pretty one, particularly under a dense grey cloudscape: for a large part of the time you're passing through the industrial heartland of England.

This is my first real trip to Manchester, since my only other visit took place between the hours of midnight and three in the morning, late one night, when I'd driven here from Birmingham with a friend, years ago. That time, during my club-going days, we went to a club called "Flesh". And I ended up sleeping with the only english guy I've ever slept with to this date. I'll never forget how he wanted to stop by a "chippie" for some pease-pudding and chips before we went to his place!

I only know a couple of things about Manchester: one is that many of its old red-brick factories have been renovated into nightclubs and apartments; the other is that it's home to pretty much the most famous soccer club in the World, Manchester United, or "The Scum", as we prefer to call them in Newcastle (we're soccer rivals you see).

As you're pulling into the station, you see the heritage of Victorian industry all around you: the canals, the massive red-brick buildings. My hotel turned out to be right down town, practically in the grounds of the Cathedral. It looked promising from the outside: built in 1805, but the only good things that can be said about the bedrooms are that they're fairly large. Quite horrible decor - last decade's Ikea mixed with rip-off Laura Ashley.

When I'm new to a city, the first thing I usually want to do is just to get out and explore - to walk the streets and get a feel for the place. So I walked all afternoon, taking a big long route around the entire city-center, at each intersection choosing the road that looked most interesting. I don't know England's larger cities well, apart from London, Birmingham and Newcastle; but from what I saw today, I'd rate Manchester second only (of course) to London in most respects. It's certainly much more prosperous than Newcastle, and it seems to be more gay-friendly than even London (the little city tourist map has a huge section around the Gay Village colored in pink!), and it has much more character than Birmingham. But which city doesn't have more character than Birmingham? To be fair, though, much of Birmingham's was destroyed during the 2nd World War. Come to think of it, huge parts of downtown Manchester were wrecked by an enormous bomb as recently as 1996, and it seems to have done itself proud in the rebuilding.

Putting it in American terms, then if London is sort of D.C. and New York combined, and Newcastle is Pittsburgh, then Manchester would be Chicago, and Birmingham would be ... well, maybe Cleveland (sorry Bob), but only because Birmingham is saved by its great orchestra.

Enduring cold winds and drizzle (the weather is now more like March than April!), your intrepid reporter went exploring places unfrequented by other tourists, such as along the old canal paths in Castlefield, deserted today apart from a couple of skinheads. I stumbled upon Canal Street, which I remembered, is the center of the Gay Village - it seemed very nice - quite posh, actually. I ended in the Northern Quarter, which is a sort of cut-price Bohemia - Covent Garden meets Skid Row,

City Hall

Along the canals

In the Gay Village

The monstrous Hotel Picadilly, a triumph of post-war concrete ugliness.

I'm still not used to all the shops closing at 5.30, though - it still seems weird after living in the States. Thank God Marks and Spencers (the largest in the World is right next to my hotel) stays open until 6.00 - I grabbed some food to go there, and went back to my hotel to get ready for the evening. My room has a bathroom, but no shower - so I had to take a bath, which is always an uncomfortable proposition when you're six-foot-six!

In the evening, I met up with an email pen-pal, Anand, and he took me to a wonderful bar called Spirit, in the Gay Village. We sat outside on the top-floor heated terrace, overlooking a panorama of magnicificent, renovated red-brick apartment buildings. The Gay Village here is one of the nicest gay quarters I've ever seen - great spaces, and a nice, mixed ambience. If we had more places like this in San Francisco, I'd probably go out more. Anand was great company, and we chatted and drank (and I ate a sticky-toffee pudding which Anand treated me to!) until ten-thirty, which was way past my bed-time :) All in all, despite the lousy weather, a favorable first introduction to Manchester.