Manchester, England, England

So it is now Sunday, the last day that we are in Manchester (New Hampshire, not England), and I'm going to be a little sad to see it go. The downtown area is really lively and has a ton of awesome restaurants and places to go, and I didn't get to nearly experience all of them.

I'm currently in a cafe called Republic that uses all fresh, local ingredients, and it definitely pays off. As a snack I got an order of arancini (because I had to of course!) and man they were good! I mean they were nothing like the ones we make at Christmas, but these ones were delicious in an entirely different way. Even the chai latte I got was the best chai latte I've ever had! Maybe I'll come back here after the last show...

So back to Friday: I took the bus in for sound check (it takes about 45 minutes for the bus to get to the arena), and then after sound check I walked around the city since it was a beautiful day. As it turns out, about a block from the arena there is currently a U.S. Chili competition happening. So the main street is blocked off and there are tents of food and people giving out free things, so it was pretty awesome.

After grabbing a sausage sandwich I walked more around Manchester. Here are some pictures:

Elephants on the hill!

The Palace Theatre! I know a couple people who have worked here :)

One of the parks in the area

The arena!

This weird statue thing is in front of the arena

Lots of people

Sailors?

PETA protestors getting yelled at by a cop

Yes, there have been PETA protestors at every city we've gone to so far. I feel kind of bad for them because there are usually just like four people and they look kind of pathetic. I feel more bad for Adam who takes care of the elephants because he is such a nice guy and would never do anything to harm them. Actually Ringling Bros. has a whole Elephant Conservation program to help preserve the Asian elephant species, so I'm not really sure what PETA is complaining about. Yes, maybe 40 years ago the elephants were mistreated, but I don't think so anymore.

So yesterday Craig came to see the show with Katie, Sami, and Sami's family. I met them at Portland Pie Co. where we had really good pizza, and then they saw the 7pm show. It was nice to have people watch the show who I knew in the audience since we could talk about it afterwards and it motivated me to stay a little more focused than I normally would have been, especially at the end of the three-show day. Mrs. Credit was sooooooo excited to see the show, and it was such a pleasure to play the show for them and take them backstage afterwards.

Well it's about time to go get ready for the last show in Manchester. Maybe I'll stick around afterwards and do the elephant walk with the clowns since we close so early today. Regardless I'll probably have this song stuck in my head :)