Birmingham

And, we're not talking Alabama here, folks. Birmingham, England. UK. A large city in the UK, (second largest, actually) and a stop for my business trip. We arrived there late in the day on the day of our arrival across the pond. We were starting to wane. Seriously. But, I had three appointments before I could sleep. So we headed out to those - S tagged along.

But before we get to the photos and riveting commentary, let me just point out that I now have a lucky thirteen - 13! - thirteen followers. The newest follower is....drumroll please...

S!

See if you can figure out which one is his icon. Funny man. OK, on with the post.

This is a perfect example of a UK road sign.
Very informative, but sort of busy and small print.
So, if you really don't know what you want, you will be going around more than once on that there roundabout. I guarantee it.
Luckily, we had a GPS system!

This is a shot from our hotel room of the surrounding area.
Big city. Smog.

I liked the artwork in the hotel room, though.
I'm sure they had hundreds just like it.

This is the town where the jet lag took over - look at S - asleep in the hotel lobby.

Birmingham has a symphony hall that is called the "twin hall"
to the Dallas Meyerson Symphony Center.
It was built after the Meyerson, and the rooms and building around the hall
are completely different. But the hall itself is acoustically almost identical.

The symphony hall sits on this plaza.

S and I went over to that big red building for dinner.
It's called the Mailbox.
Also in this photo - a plastic bag? in the tree.

Another view.

A lot of it is just a mall - just shops like you'd see in the US.

It's where we saw the BBC Birmingham office.

But, here's where it was different from most "malls."
It opened up in the back for restaurants and bars along a canal.

This part of Birmingham was a good bit prettier than the skyline.

Shortly after this photo was taken, we walked back to the hotel and slept like we've never slept before. The next morning, we again felt like humans. It was a nice development! And, we headed on to our next stop - Manchester. More on Manchester later in the week!