Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Christopher’s Summer 2005 Manchester Weblog - Postscript
It took me a few weeks to pull together the last bit of my trip to Manchester. The following entry covers my final day and my trip home. Word to the wise...never ride with a lost cabbie or sit on a plane with someone drinking vodka straight from the bottle.
Okay, I know I have been home three weeks now, but I have been wanting to share with you my final day and flight home from Manchester. I mean, after all, since it was me, you knew that things would not be normal.
When last I had written it was Friday and I was busy getting ready for coming home. Of course there are always last minute things to do, like making a billons copies of German articles and books that I just can’t seem to find in the US. So, I spent a good deal of time at the Rylands library “making copies.” Finishing that work, I hoped onto the bus to head back to Didsbury. One stop after I got on, a young Muslim man got on the bus and came up to the upper deck and sat across from me. Now, in Manchester this is nothing unusual, but this was a week after the bombings in London, and this young man was, well, scary. He was very nervous, carry a large backpack, wearing a heavy jacket (on an 80 degree day). Well, as you might well guess, everyone (including the two Muslim men who had been talking very loudly and messing around at the front of the bus) became quiet and stared at this young man. He just sat there, staring forward, fiddling with his backpack. For two miles we all just sat there, in dead quiet (which is strange on a bus in Manchester because normally people are all talking on their cell phones or instant messaging on their phones so you hear people clicking away). When he finally got off the bus there was a noticeable exhalation and everyone started to breath again. Then, as if it was ingrained in all of us, we all seemed to be thinking, “Was that racist of me?” Well, I don’t have an answer. All I know is that it certainly makes you think twice nowadays about hoping on a bus anywhere in the world.
