We are here.

We are here, we are here (Horton Hears a Who).....

We had a nice and easy flight from Charlotte, North Carolina to Manchester, England. We flew business class, which we don't do that often, and the experience was very pleasant on U.S. Airways. Both our steward and stewardess were very friendly and hospitable.

I had champagne upon arrival on the plane -- I'm always keen to alcohol on a plane. Hate flying! I also went to go to the bathroom and was about to walk straight into the cockpit. Hello pilots! :D The steward was nice enough to tell ditzy me wrong way, but invited me to visit the cockpit if I'd like. Britt asked me if they gave me wings. lol

For our meal on the plane we had an appetizer plate, some sort of beef, potatoes, veggies, and a salad for dinner - chocolate mousse -- along with two glasses of chardonnay for me. I was getting quite sleepy (tipsy) by then.

They handed out nifty little Samsung Galaxy tablets for movie viewing. I watched Noah -- well, half of it. Yikes. I thought it was such a bad, bad movie. After that, I slept a good three hours courtesy of the sleeping eye mask things they provided.

Oh -- and I purchased "Gone Girl" and started reading it. I'm liking it so far. I have a hard cover of it which I lost -- so now I own the paperback version also.

Upon awakening, I knew we only had a couple more hours of flight left.

My view:

Later, as we were descending:

Once we arrived at the airport, we were treated to rain -- not unexpected. :) Don't forget your rain gear!

We waited on the tarmac for an hour -- apparently they were down to one runway due to the weather and had quite a queue of planes waiting.

Our cabbie was super nice and full of information as to the local area.

We checked in at MacDonald Hotel and Spa and were surprised, that despite the early hour, our rooms were ready. Yay! We were pretty pooped. Our rooms are large corner rooms with windows all the way around, a king size bed, and pretty large bathrooms. Score.

The exterior of the hotel:

Views from the hotel:

I located us right next to the train station we will go to when we head to St. Bees on Monday.

We decided to sleep a couple of hours to add to the three we slept on the plane. It helped a lot! After that, we walked about three miles through Manchester just to check it out. It's basically a big city with plenty of tourists. Apparently, the city's inhabitants are called Mancunians. Who knew?

A couple of photos as we walked through it today:

In the bus photo, the lady on the right is scolding her son because he almost got hit by said bus as he forged forward into the street. Thank goodness, he did not.

We had fish & chips at a hotel restaurant and it was good. Lunch - we both had the same, plus Brian had a beer and I had a wine -- was $80. I need to start a Go Fund Me page for this trip. hahahaha It was tasty.

We're chilling now. Supper with Brian, Jr. tonight and I think tomorrow we're going to mostly rest/adjust to this time change before our big hike. Perhaps we'll go see Planet of the Apes. We're watching one of the original versions right now in our hotel room.

We're excited to be here and looking forward to our trek!