…haha get it, because Man…chester….

Alo,

My name is Kevin, a rising rising junior in the CS department (I think) and I’m about to tell you all about our journeys in Manchester.

While the week was, surprisingly, very fun. I’ll be the first to admit that our expectation for Manchester was relatively low compared to the other destinations. There’s nothing inherently wrong about the city itself, it’s just that timing-wise, Manchester followed Paris on the itinerary, so it was more of an afterthought for most of us.

We arrived in Manchester after a long journey from Paris. Since our flight with RyanAir got delayed, we were amongst one of the last group(s) to arrive at the hotel. Needless to say, our first impression of the city wasn’t great, since we literally just came from the most touristy place on the planet. Here’s a comparison

Monday

After a relatively low-energy morning with class and office hours, I wandered around the city with no particular destination in mind. Unlike Cambridge, Manchester was filled with multi-storied brick buildings which screamed “industrial revolution” at every corner. There was a large presence of college students within the city center, which basically just meant discounts everywhere I went. I discovered a gaming lounge not far away from where we stayed, so logically the day ended with the whole crew booking a table for some good ol’ Super Smash Bros action.

Tuesday

After our second class in Manchester, we all headed out to “tour” the city per the leadership of our beloved DLN.

Our first destination was the theatre where Alan Turing met his lover. For those unfamiliar, this arrest eventually led to his criminal conviction for gross indecency (he was romantically involved with a man in 1952 England). This then led to him being chemically castrated by the state, and he subsequently poisoned himself two years after.

We then went to the University of Manchester to see a plaque posthumously dedicated to Alan Turing, crediting him as a “creator of Computer Science”.

We then explored the University of Manchester’s version of our Anderson building (Carleton’s newest science complex). Since I wasn’t able to find any pictures, I’ll instead kindly point you all to the inside of Anderson for a look around. The center looked exactly like that if you’d just take away our cool chandelier and random Jenga tower in the corner.

Our “tour” of the city ended with a statue of Alan Turing in a park.

Wednesday, the adventure

Wednesday turned out to be the busiest day of the week for us schedule-wise. We started off our morning with a visit to the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), where we got to see the falsely claimed “first” computer, the Baby, and some old cotton-making machines. For the uninitiated, the Manchester Baby can not be the world’s first computer because it was created 3 years after the ENIAC, which – even if it’s bad – is the world’s first fully programmable, Turing complete, electronic computer. [Editor’s note: take a look at this post to see why our students have such strong opinions about the first computer]

The second floor of the museum had a bunch of interactive exhibits showcasing various science topics. I’m pretty sure it was meant as a playground for children ages 6-10 to get them excited about science. I don’t know about the children, but we were definitely more excited about science than before.

We then headed to cricket, which honestly wouldn’t have been bad at all if it was literally any other sport. For how popular cricket is, I was expecting it to be more entertaining. Anyhow, I now have the item “going to a cricket match” off my bucket list.

After an hour of cricket noises, Breanna and I headed out for some Manchester thrifting action. We accidentally wandered into Affleck palace in search of Pokemon cards. Since we weren’t planning on getting lost in the hippest indoor market of the UK, those cards inadvertently took us through three stories worth of thrift, pride, random stone jewelry, marijuana, and anime collectible stores. Honestly this was the highlight of today for me.

Thursday

Thursday is another museum day. We got up semi-early to catch a train to Macclesfield where The Silk Museum and Paradise Mill are located. As it turns out, there were a lot of overlaps between silk production and computing. The museum tour itself was extremely comprehensive. From silkworm cocoons (which we got to hold) to the actual weaving of the finished silk, our awesome tour guides walked us through the entire process. We even got to see a complete and working Jacquard Loom (it worked using a punch card system!!), which is arguably more of a “first computer” than the Manchester Baby ever could be.

Sunday

Honestly, Friday and Saturday were pretty relaxed for me. After three weeks straight of traveling/doing things, I just got some much needed time to chillax and catch up on the school works I’ve been ignoring. Anyhow, to end out the week, we headed to Coventry and eventually made our way back to Wolfson College in Cambridge. Surprisingly, Manchester has been such an enjoyable time, my only regret is that I forgot to grab some bee souvenirs to bring back home!