The galaxy is face-on to us, and spread out over a fairly large area of sky so it has a very low surface brightness. Its considered a test for dark skies and visual acuity, and you'd never notice it if you just stumbled on it. You can only see it if you know exactly where to look.

Nearby M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) is something else again. Its a huge galaxy and angled to us so its glow is concentrated; it appears a faint oval almost three degrees across. On a dark night you can't miss it. Perhaps that is what you saw.

As the dark, clear places become harder to find, and as the people become increasingly concentrated into towns, the beauty of the night sky is seen less and less by the children of the world. That is so sad.

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When I got my first real telescope, a 4" Edmunds Astroscan, I took it out in the snow to a deserted Pennsylvania golf course. I was observing the spectacular open cluster M35 when I noticed a faint little bundle of stars embedded near one edge, just barely resolvable, as another, much more distant OC. I found it later in my star charts, NGC 2158. I felt like I had discovered it, like I was the first person to ever have seen it. I had seen M35 many times before in binoculars, but this little intruder (actually a background object, much further away) was really a thrill.

(Stock photo: The gentleman in the photo is not me.)