A great visit...

It is Monday morning, actually afternoon - and I just got done taking Mary to the airport. We had a slight fiasco, though. Apparently you are only allowed to take one carry-on through security (just like the US), but they count purses as a carry-on. So, here is Mary with her purse and her laptop not knowing what to do. We got one of the handler's to come over and help her. Basically she had to figure out a way to shove one bag into the other. I'm not sure how she did it, but she got through. Geez! Too much stress too early in the morning!

We had a great weekend. Mary got into town on Thursday early, and was surprisingly un-jetlagged (is that a word?) Anyway, we hung out for a bit before heading downtown to do some shopping. We spent most of the weekend out, and even saw the new James Bond movie in England, which I thought was very cool.


I mentioned before in an earlier post that we have a huge ferris wheel downtown that you can get a skyhigh view of the city landscape. Mary and I decided to go down there and do it on Saturday. The views were awesome, but I definitely thought (once we got half way up) that it was a much better idea while I was still on the ground. :(

The Halle Orchestra was playing on Sunday evening, so we took in the concert. It was under the Pops series heading, but was slightly serious repertoire. Here was the program:

Suppe - Light Calvary Overture
Debussy - Claire de Lune
Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No. 2 (this was awesome, BTW)

Elgar - Cockaigne Overture
Halger - Silver and Gold Waltz
Gershwin - An American in Paris

So, a great program - while not Mahler or Ravel, it was very enjoyable to listen to. Earlier on in the day we ventured down to the Manchester Museum of Art. We played around there for a bit, and found a huge game of Connect Four. Those are the pictures with us looking through the holes. Guess which one of us won the game... :)

Anyway, it was a great weekend. Probably the best weekend I've had since I came over here. It was great to see my Mary and to get to spend some quality, well-needed time. Tomorrow I go to Munich with Steven to test-drive horns at the Besson factory. I promise more pictures and a post when I get back!