There and Back Again...A Hart Family Tale... Part 3 Rick's Reason/Manchester

The first "reason" we took this trip was so I could attend a contact lens conference and get some continuing education for my optometry license. In Alaska I am required to complete 36 hours of education in a 2 year period. Fortunately, SEARHC has a benefit for the medical staff which pays a certain amount each year for expences to attend. I can pick what ever I'd like. This trip took my whole allotment for this year... but it was worth it.

The BCLA(British Contact Lens Assoc.) has one of the biggest contact lens meetings in the world. They usually have it in a different city in England each year. This year was Manchester. There were over 1000 delegates...85 from the USA. The speakers were all world renowned and about half of the were from the States.

We had decided that since hotels would be expensive and we were staying in one area for a week that we would rent a flat. Here in Manchester we rented a "self-catering" unit, which turned out to be a condo. We had 2 bedrooms, kitchen, bath... We were able to buy groceries and cook meals there as well as keep milk, juice, etc. the frig. There was also a washer/dryer in the place which is always nice on a long trip. Strange unit though...the washer and dryer were the same appliance. It did take Lori a while to figure out how to go from one to the other.

The location turned out to be really nice... a 15 min. walk to the conference site. We were just down the street from a public library and the kids were able to used the computers there to check emails. I had it even better. One of the vendors at the conference set up a small internet cafe a the conference center with 6 computers. It was very convenient.

We were able to use Manchester as a "base-camp" for some side trips such as York, Preston, Chatburn. We did find a big mall and were able to replace our broken camera. We even took time to see a movie...Pirates 3.

Having a car was nice, but getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road was interesting. We had picked up the car at Heathrow Airport in London. Meg was my navigator and we got us to Manchester without too much difficulty. The problem was finding the flat... Almost all of the cars there were manual transmissions. A slight adjustment to shifting with the left hand while pedal were the same. I kept hearing this word in my head for 9 days...LEFT!!! Lori and Meg were very "kind" to remind me to not drive like an American. I didn't run anyone over and didn't hit another car, so I was pleased. Roundabouts while maybe efficient and too difficult were at times crazy and in places you didn't expect.

Since most English food is pretty bland, we avoided it except for the fish and chips. Meg was the only one who didn't since she eats no meat and Lori and Charles will eat fish. During this trip we probably had fish and chips over 10 times. Lori's goal was to get sick and tired of and she was sucessful by the end. We found Indian food which we all like and we had tapas(I'd never heard of these small portioned serving meals) at a Spanish place and an Italian place.