Family UK Trip 2022 - Day 9

We got up Saturday morning and ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant.  It was a breakfast buffet and was the kids first real taste of a full English breakfast.  They serve all kinds of savory things in the morning.  The English definitely like their sweets, but the meals in general are less sweet and salty than we are used to.  Ezra grabbed a black (blood) sausage that he thought was a chocolate cookie.  Elliott grabbed some greek olives that he thought were cherries.  

After breakfast we walked to the airport to figure out exactly where we would need to go the next morning.  We were also hoping to check in for our flight since it was less than 24 hours out and we couldn't seem to get it to work on our phones.  There was no people or kiosks to check us in, so it was basically a long morning walk to prepare us for the next day.  

Then we headed out on a tram to go to the Etihad campus, home of the Manchester City stadium and practice fields.  We had tickets for the Kids Fan Zone which is a few hours before the game and includes all sorts of fun things for the kids to do.  They hold it in an indoor practice field and the kids played ping pong, and did all kinds of athletic challenges.  It was definitely geared towards younger kids, Emmett was a little too old for most of the activities.  

Elliott did the "bubble ball soccer" and scored a goal!

We got some food there and then walked over to the stadium.  We walked all the way around the outside and waited where we thought the team would go in.  Jim thought they came an hour before the game, but it turns out they come 90 minutes before the game and we were about 15 minutes after that.  We did see some VIP guests come in, and Emmett recognized one as the person in charge of the transfer players.

Then we went into the stadium.  Our seats were just 4 rows back and it was crazy to see the players up so close.  We were fortunate to have beautiful weather.  We could see various reporters from the media making reports.  We watched the goal keepers warm up and then saw all the players do their warm-up drills.  The actual game started and seemed to go by really fast.  Manchester City beat Southampton 4-0.  Emmett was really happy that all his favorite players played in the game.  

After the game Emmett did some more shopping in the City Store and we just hung around the stadium until most of the crowds cleared out.  Then we headed into town and went to Franco Manca's Sourdough Pizza restaurant.  We had a bit of a wait there but enjoyed the pizza.  Afterwards we went back to our hotel to pack up for our early morning flight.