Glamorous Glue

The shopping here is fantastic. I am in heaven and hell because while I want to go absolutely nuts I simply cannot afford it - especially if I want to travel further than Salford and Macclesfield.

Walking into TopShop was like walking into the Vatican. I was just sooooo excited to be there. I have fallen in love with a shirt that they have there: it's sort of shorter, button-up, with small sleeves. It's white, with black buttons, and a print of the Eiffel Tower on it. But it is 35 pounds, or roughly 70 clams for you Aussies. I'm trying out not eating very much so it won't be such a massive blow to my weekly budget. There's always spicy wedges for a pound at Dixy Chicken.

The best part is probably the vintage clothing stores on Oldham Road, because while telling people in Australia you got your clothes from TopShop in Manchester is slightly cool, telling them you got your clothes from a vintage store in Manchester is even cooler. It says, 'you will never be able to copy this look' like nothing else can. After all, my TopShop love affair is probably available online, and if you're willing to pay the shipping as well as the pounds, it's yours back home. But not if I bought it from Pop or Affleck's Palace.

The odd thing is that vintage clothing is relatively expensive here. I saw this awesome jumper and when I looked at the price it was 15 pounds. Which in my head is 30 dollars. I will not pay that for vintage stuff! That's the only drawback, I guess. Perhaps some other places are cheaper. I'm looking forward to markets and such. I should investigate if the city has some and if they are coming up.

The best place by far, for me, has been Primark. I got the most comfortable pair of jeans I've had for months there for 8 pounds. Like, I spent 43 pounds there and got the following:

1 black military-style jacket
1 cropped navy jacket
2 pairs ballet flats
1 pair skinny jeans

86 dollars for not one but two jackets would be amazing. Barring a shirt (I have brought plenty of these with me), I have gotten hundreds of outfits out of these items. And it was dirt cheap. Needless to say, you all need Primark. The only problem we have encountered with Primark, however, are their skirts and tops. They don't seem to fit right. So perhaps elsewhere for those items? The city has H&M, Urban Outfitters and River Island as well, which are expensive (H&M is probably the cheapest of this bunch) but very nice. Avoid Internacionale and Peacocks unless you shop exclusively at Supre back home.

For a JB Hi-Fi equivalent, look no further than Fopp. They're like, if JB and Borders met and had a dirty weekend and then a few months later JB realised it was pregnant and Borders was supportive, but not ready to be a father.

The price of DVDs is cheap even when you do the conversion in your head. For example, the complete series of Spaced is 12 pounds and the box set of the IT Crowd (series 1-3) is 15 pounds. Super cheap, right? And they had the DVD I have been searching for back home for ages; Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Which is what I'm going to watch right now.

Laters.