Escaping to Manchester

After quarreling with multiple people, making a shameful mistake, and basically feeling downright dumb, tonight, I need this blog to escape. I need to get away from my room, my house, the whole overpopulated country... yeah it's been a rough day. Tell you what, today I'm going to forget myself in the past. This post will be about my brilliant childhood in England.

On the 6th of February 2002, five-year-old me and my mum first set foot in the sprawling city of Manchester. Even though most of my childhood memories are a little foggy, I remember that day clearly: it was pouring hailstones as big as my fist and the horrific sounds of them plummeting to Earth like stones terrified me to death. I was terribly afraid of being hit in the head.

I can easily say that from the day of the hailstones till the day we left, my seven years in England shaped and transformed my whole life. 

Though, I have to admit... my transition as a five year old kid wasn't very smooth. To be honest, I cried every day and clung to my mum in a noisy protest to not have to go to school. My father was the one to figure out the solution: every morning for a whole month he used to buy me a movie from a local Pound Shop (where everything was for a pound) and in exchange I had to stay at school. Fortunately, it worked - and I now have a whole collection of animations ranging from Snow White to Monsters Inc.

In England I grew to love the rain and snow, and funnily enough also the accent - British accents jellify my knees - but, what I loved most was the opportunity. There was opportunity everywhere and you could literally do anything your heart desired. As I grew up, I was given the freedom to explore for myself, wander into the library, shop for the weeks groceries... it was in England that I got my first true taste of freedom. To be honest, this freedom is what propelled me to begin earning alongside my studies in Bangladesh.

Of course, I think you guys already know my love for novels; that too sprung up from hours upon hours spent in Longsight Library. 

We arrived in Manchester to come stay with my father who at the time was undergoing his studies at Manchester Metropolitan University, and left for my home country Bangladesh, when he finished them. I have memories which can't all be expressed on a page, like the bustle of Piccadilly and the exquisite taste when we ate Daal Ghosh every year, at the ginormous Trafford Center. I can't express the strange mix of laughter and pain when falling with someone on slippery black ice, the beauty of watching snow fall at night and the sheer joy of walking along your street as the summer wind blows through your hair. I can only remember them. 

Tonight, I miss my home very, very much.