Travel tips for study abroad students: Manchester

As you all may know I definitely took advantage of traveling during my Christmas holidays because unlike many study abroad students, going to class is my #1 priority. I'd rather take a week long trip instead of flying to a new city for the weekend and rushing to do everything. A couple of French people warned me that the places I had chosen to travel to were expensive places, they even claimed to be even more expensive than Paris which kind of scared me a bit. Thankfully I discovered that there are cheap options but you just have to look for them and be flexible. I'm going to share my tips for all the cities I went to this past break and even share the hotel/hostel.

Manchester
My first city outside of France that I went to visit. The reason why I chose to go to Manchester was to see Paul McCartney on my 22nd birthday and visit my friend, Sofia, but the city itself definitely impressed me and became one of my favorite places I've traveled to.

• Become familiar with bus routes. Manchester does not have great public transportation outside of Picadilly (the center of Manchester). Also be aware that the buses take a break at a really inconvenient time at around 21h and they don't start circulating until 23h.
• If you happen to go to Manchester during the holidays season check out the Christmas market for cheap and delicious food and plenty of gift ideas.
• Again if you happen to travel during winter make sure to layer up because it gets very cold at night. Oh, and it rains quite a bit so make sure to take an small umbrella along.
• There are plenty of fast food places which are called takeaways in England and their food is CHEAP! I remember my boyfriend and I went to a takeaway place and got their £11 deal which included a pizza, garlic bread, and two drinks. We got two big pizza boxes and we thought "ok, maybe they ran out of smaller boxes for the garlic bread," but we were wrong! The garlic bread was basically a cheese pizza, so two big pizzas with drinks for £11, that's what I call a pretty good deal. Also check out the Curry Mile for tons of restaurant options.
• For those who like to shop like myself there's a wide array of stores you can shop at and a lot of them are priced pretty well. Top Shop is where you would go for your trendy items and their jewelry, Boots and Superdrug are both amazing for finding all the beauty products that you've heard on YouTube, and finally Primark. Primark is unbelievably cheap! Bags, accessories, sweaters, shoes- basically anything you can think of for outrageously cheap prices. 
• If you want to buy some groceries at Sainsburys and Tesco are both pretty good options with a wide array of inexpensive food items. 
• Manchester is a very walking friendly city so make sure to bring comfortable shoes.
• If you have Bank of America or BNP Paribas in France then you can take out money from any Barclays without any extra fees. 
• Here are some American-British translations to ease your time in London. Potato chips = crisps, French fries = chips, cookies = biscuits, biscuits = scones, buck = quid, and cents = pence or p. 

I know I'm going to keep mentioning this but if you have an iPhone, iPod touch, or Android download the foursquare app because it will become your best friend during your trip. I didn't have 3G while I was there but it works just fine with wifi, so take advantage of foursquare and look up restaurants and other places to check out. Yelp is also another great resource during your trip.