Manchester, England, United Kingdom
Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Well, our final morning arrived, and it started like all the others .. an excellent breakfast in the riad. Then things changed from the norm… firstly we had to pay and secondly we had to pack. I sorted out the first while Belinda and Lucia sorted the second. Once the finances and packaging had been completed we set forth once more into the maze of alleyways to buy more trinkets, spend more money, haggle more prices and try and remember every single part of this tremendous city.

We bought a pair of sandals for Luce, we tried a few places; the first was a rather confused affair where we didn’t really understand what the shop owner was trying to do.. so we walked away. Then when we tried in a different shop the shop keeper declined to match my price. I tried walking away from that but I was sent back by Luce to get the pair, so I had to up my price ! Never mind, we got what we wanted, a pair of hand made, multicoloured sandals.

We had a quick lemonade in a cafe overlooking the small square, where we watched the local trading enforcement officer taking out his frustractions on a hat seller ! We think the seller had expanded his table too far, sending it over the designated “line on the ground”, but whatever the reason, the law-man won the day.

After a lunch in a grimy, dingy, lovely, marvellous cafe, we sat around the riad reading for a couple of hours before jumping in a taxi and whizzing to the airport. Another few hours waiting around was ended when we zoomed Manchester bound on the EasyJet flight – we saw many of the same people who had flown out with us 7 days ago.

The flight was uneventful, and at Manchester Belinda surprisingly got through passport control quicker than Luce and I. But, after only a 15 minute delay, we were in our car and driving back, in the dark and cold, to home…..