Friday
We had to wait a few hours in Stockholm for the connecting flight to Manchester. Instead of hanging out at the airport we jumped in a taxi to the old city (Gamla Stan). A colleague we met on the plane from Tampere joined in as he had to wait for his connecting flight as well. While Tampere was cold and below freezing point, Stockholm was pretty warm. We had lunch and walked around a little before heading back to the airport.
As soon as hotel check-in was done in Manchester we headed off to MEN Arena and concert with Green Day. I thought beforehand that punk rock isn't my genre of music, but I've got to say this was maybe the best concert I've ever been to. Those guys were true entertainers with a great sense of humour.
Saturday
After stuffing ourselves with bacon, eggs, hash browns, Yorkshire pudding and what-ever belongs to the English breakfast, we spent the morning hours walking around downtown Manchester. It isn't a very pretty city all in all, but the restaurants and stores are really good. And it has an amazing football club. We sat down in The Old Wellington Inn, a pub over 450 years old. 
There were some other Norwegian football tourists there as well. They told us to go as early as possible to Old Trafford if we were to buy shirts to avoid line-ups. We ran straight off to the train and arrived at Old Trafford some five hours before kick-off. I bought a home shirt with 11 Giggs on the back and the 1999 Champions League final shirt (where Solskjær scored the winner). The shopping bag got pretty full as I naturally had to buy stuff for the family and in-laws as well. The credit card bill was exciting reading!
After successfull shopping we spent the next hours in a nearby pub. Soon after we arrived the pub filled up with Man United supporters and the chants started rolling. The atmosphere was electric. Those guys sing for hours straight, quite impressive. Ole Gunnar wasn't forgotten either. "You are my Solskjaer, my Ole Solskjaer, you make me happy, when skies are grey, ..."
An hour before kick-off we headed towards the "500 Club lounge" at the stadium and had dinner while reading through the match-day program. The facilities were superb and access to and from the stands was fast and easy. 75000 people watched as the teams entered the pitch to the sound of.... Glory glory Man United,
Glory glory Man United,
Glory glory Man United,
As the reds go marching up up up!
Unfortunately, Giggs was injured and not in the squad but Man United won 2-0 still. Berbatov and Rooney scored two beautiful goals and Morten Gamst Pedersen came onto the pitch for Blackburn during second half.
Sunday
Sunday morning we decided to visit Liverpool, only a short train ride from Manchester. Or so we thought. The train was delayed so we got to explore Victoria station for a while longer. Once in Liverpool we visited the Beatles museum, walked around the harbour and had lunch in The Pumphouse. Nice place. We then took train straight to Manchester airport and were soon off to Finland. Or so we thought. In Stockholm and while waiting in the bus that would take us to the plane, we were told the flight had been cancelled. Some of the crew members had gone sick and there was no backup. We were rebooked to the Monday morning flight and had to stay overnight at Arlanda.
That was a great weekend and I hope to be able to do it again some time!
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