Birmingham (England)

So I've heard a lot of negative media on the second largest city in the UK (by the way of ugliness, dead industry, etc), and I figured it was about high time to take a look for myself. Saturday proved to be good respite from the dredges of my impending presentation of Juliana Horatia Ewing's work in fantasy, goodness and the Victorian child.

So I met up with the lovely David promptly at 10:30am, ran to the Leamington Spa train station and hopped aboard the 11:11am to Birmingham New Street station. at approximately 11:43 we arrived in the midst of something called the Bullring which seems to be a gimungous roundabout that city planners disguised behind the world's largest market/shopping mall. I can't complain though--there were two H&Ms, an apple store and actual people of color. I almost felt like I could breathe that new york goodness in once again. The details of the day are pretty mundane: shopping for books, shopping for work clothes, shopping for shoes (david, not me). we had coffee and pub lunch at some offshoot in the city, got fed up in the mall and then ventured outdoors to find everything just about decorated for christmas. please note that it's 5 November.

Our adventures took us past Town Hall, the jewelrey district, Louis Vuitton, some old statues of dead people and some minorly narrow cobbled streets. In total, I don't think we got the "complete" Birmingham experience, but what we did see surpassed our expectations by a lot. Next time, we'll explore the hundreds of canals (more than Venice) and see the true grit that is the B'ham. I took a few pictures...of some building attached to the mall, a cathedral, Town Hall, the classic red phone box and the poetic irony that is the bestselling song in the UK right now--Put Your Hands up For Detroit. If they only knew.