This trip started in Manchester, with a bunch of wise-ass WWE crewmembers standing in front of a bunch of sour faced customs officials. We sat and waited as the sour faced agents ‘activated’ our paperwork. In trips past, we’d walk up to the desk with a work permit, the agent would ask us some silly questions, then stamp our passports and we’d be on our way. Many trips ago, I learned the hard way that these officials have zero sense of humor. Upon handing over my work permit, the guard asked me what exactly I did for World Wrestling Entertainment.

“I am an audio engineer.”

“And you are telling me there is nobody in all of the United Kingdom that can perform your duties?”

“Nope,” the old wise ass Frenchy answered, “because we haven’t been able to find anyone sober long enough to do it.”

That little comment earned me a nice, long timeout in the immigrations office. Now I just shut my mouth and play nice.

In the interest of making everything complicated, instead of having the standard official looking UK work permits, we now have a nice, photocopied sheet with the entire crew’s names on it that pretty much  looks like we wrote it up ourselves in Word. Not that anyone would want to try and sneak into England to work or anything like that. It’d be way too hard to get one past the eagle-eyed sentries protecting the borders of Her Majesty’s Empire. But still, they take everything very seriously, so we had to sit and wait, and wait and sit as they examined, re-examined, then ‘activated’ our fake-looking document. The entire planeload of tourists breezed right through, while we sat and waited, along with one poor Muslim woman, with whom we briefly exchanged exasperated smiles.

A female guard finally came up to the woman and started to hand over her passport. Suddenly, the guard snatched it back, yelling, “What are you SMILING for? Hmmm?!?”

Taken aback, the woman started stammering, her smile disappearing immediately. The guard threw the passport at the poor woman, berating her with, “You need to learn English, that’s what you need to do!”

And I thought the Customs agents in Philadelphia were dicks.

Finally, the entire lot of, as we’ve been called, septic Yanks were allowed to pass. We boarded a van for the hour and a half ride to Sheffield, where RAW and Smackdown would take place. Our van took us on the very scenic and windy A57, better known as the Snake Pass. The motorcyclist blood in me was at full boil just seeing this magnificent road, rated as one of the most challenging in all of England. The tight two lanes curved and wound through scenery more befitting the Scottish Highlands. I already know what I’m doing after the London show next April. I think it’s pretty obvious.

By some miracle or accident of paperwork, the crew hotel was right in the middle of a pretty happening pub scene.

Normally, the powers that be wisely sequester the crew in a barren warehouse district, far away from anything even remotely entertaining. While on the surface it may seem cruel, it is no doubt intentionally done as insurance against keeping this TV crew out of rehab or jail. This colossal lodging error can be directly blamed for four days of liver damage and months of rehab costs. Man, what a good time!

The next few days flew by as we set up for our shows and recovered from our excesses. The usual millions of technical issues cropped up, and were dealt with. Somehow, we managed to (mostly) fake our way through two very challenging days of television production. But we managed, and that’s the important thing. I’ll leave it at that.

Nothing tastes better than a cold beer at the end of a tough show. Even if it’s only a Coors Light, it was handed to me from a Vice President, which tends to make any beer taste better. Besides, Coors Light is an import in England. Swanky!

The departure schedule said two buses would take the crew back to Manchester, one leaving a half hour after the show, and one leaving an hour after the show. Naturally, the majority of camera-donnas and nearly everyone else rushed out the door to make the first bus, which ended up jam packed with assorted septic Yanks. The audio crew, being much wiser, opted to take the second, nearly empty bus which left a mere half hour later. Patience is one of the audio crew’s few virtues.

And because Karma is what it is, that first bus got trapped in a huge traffic jam on the M6 due to – get this – sheep running loose on the highway! The second bus made it back to Manchester easily an hour before the first bus did. Well done!

Most of the crew flew home today, but Sleeping Beauty and I decided to take full advantage of this trip. She’s flying to Manchester as I write this for a fun-filled week of improvised European touring. When she arrives, we’ll make some plans. Paris, Brussels, Geneva and Norway are all under consideration, as is whatever else may come up.

Today I had a full day off. After checking some websites in a fruitless attempt to find last minute travel deals, I decided to head into downtown Manchester. The front desk informed me the easiest way to get into town was to go across the street to the train station. With my impeccable sense of direction, how could anything go wrong?

After walking in circles for nearly an hour, I accidentally found the unmarked, well hidden train station.

The train for Manchester Center was boarding as I bought my ticket. If there was an award for Best Comical Rush To Make The Train, I’d have won it for sure.

Once in downtown Manchester, I started wandering, with two things on my mind; beer and dinner. I’ve found it is very easy to find beer in the UK, but it can sometimes be difficult to find food. As I wandered about, snapping pictures and looking around, a guy stopped me on the street, asking, “Excuse me. Are you from America?”

“Yes. How’d you know?”

“I’ve been there! What part are you from?”

“Rhode Island.”

“I’ve been there! Providence! Very nice place! My name’s Ian. I’ve been everywhere.”

“Umm…” Ok. This is getting weird. “Cool.”

“Yeah, very.” Ian continued, “So, are you gay?”

“Am I gay? No.”

“Well,” he said, sweeping his arms around majestically, “you’re in Manchester’s gay district.”

Me and my impeccable sense of direction. “Ian, I’m just looking for food. That’s all. Nice to meet you.” And with that I evacuated Rainbowland to the safety of Chinatown.

I walked into a Japanese restaurant, and startled the mother and daughter combination that made up the restaurant staff. The place was completely empty, but I was hungry, so rather than take the emptiness as a sign of bad food, I did what any hungry American would do, I ordered. The mother clucked violently at the daughter in Chinese then came over to talk to her only customer. As she came closer, her perfume, best described as ‘Eau de Bug Spray‘ nearly knocked me out.

“Where you from?”

Oh no, not this again.

“America.”

“Ah, America good! Not like here. Dis place boring. Full of hoodlum. In America you no have problem like that. In America,” she said, gesturing with an imaginary gun, ” you shoot.”

Yes. In America we always shoot hoodlums. That’s right. Perfect.

The daughter snuck behind me, planted small bowl of soup on the table, then, before I knew what was happening, she tied a bib around my neck. Yes, in America we evidently spill soup a lot too.

The mother left my side to sit  in the corner, contently folding Origami birds while a bored chef prepared my meal.

As I ate, an older couple walked in, looked around at the empty restaurant and walked right out. A while later, a second couple walked in, and briefly sat in the waiting area. After a few uncomfortable hissed words from the woman to her partner, they also got up and walked out. Uh-oh. The origami folding mother, gesturing towards the door, said to me, “You bad for business.”

But, I’m your only business…

I hurried through my meal, eager to get out of this surreal restaurant. Back on the streets of Manchester, my search intensified for a cold Guinness. I passed a few trendy looking bars, but none met my admittedly low standards. I like hole in the wall dive pubs. To no avail, the fruitless search continued along a canal.

Nothing of interest happened on that canal, I just liked the picture. It would be a good place to put a pub, just have to figure out a way to keep the drunks out of the water.

One thing positive I can say about Manchester – there are a lot of cool statues and monuments scattered about. Completely unbeknown to me, my crappy little point and pray camera captured this image of the Albert Memorial monument as I walked by.

Finally, after an hour of searching, I found what I was looking for.

I popped into the Thirsty Scholar for a minute, and was soon toasting the Best Day ever with a nice, frothy, perfect pint of Guinness.

My impeccable sense of direction led me on a very roundabout path back to the train station, just in time to catch an express coach back to the Manchester Airport. Tomorrow the real fun begins as Sleeping Beauty and I figure out exactly how we’re going to spend the next week.