After spending two days in Pembrokeshire we had to start travelling north to reach Manchester since the airline connections from there were much better than from Cardiff. Our final stop before returning home was in Llangollen after 4 ½ hours drive from Harverfordwest.

We arrived there in the afternoon on a Sunday and the first chore was to find an accommodation. Fortunately the tourist information office was still open and they helped us find out a bunk house in a very central location in Bridge Street at Wynnstay Arms Hotel. For £20 per person we got a crammed 8 person bunk room with barely enough space to keep our luggage inside. The room had a bathroom but this was not necessarily an advantage since some digestive systems were at the end of their shift and their products were ready. Without an extractor in the bathroom the smells were pretty much trapped in the room. (I'm sure this scenario is not mentioned in their promotional flyers.)

Langollen looks, and probably is an old town. The main street has its fair share of souvenir shops which gave the opportunity to those of us who had previously disregarded their families, to make up. With no family to take anything to I got some Irish cakes for my work mates. Probably the most prominent thing in this street is the Irish war memorial cross in front of Barclays bank. Without being disrespectful for its purpose, a good use for this cross is use it as a landmark to locate the ice-cream shop directly opposite on the other side of the street. The number of people that gather in front of the shop are enough to support my claim.

In Langollen you can practice white water rafting, kayaking, climbing, and scrambling with that 4 wheel buggy bike that I can never remember its name. Unfortunately we didn't have time for any of this fun because we had to leave early for Manchester in the morning.

At the end of their holiday everybody thought that we deserved a good meal so we had dinner at the Chinese Restaurant in front of our pub. The set menu was the best value for money option so after excessive consideration and convincing everybody agreed on it. This was our last opportunity to make some fun of people without them understanding what we're saying. I'm sure our loud laughs, finger pointing and other non verbal cues gave us away, but then what does it matter.

The following morning after a good breakfast at the pub we left for Manchester. As soon as we started approaching, the weather starter turning grey not to betray all the claims I heard about the weather in this part of England. After some window shopping and a good bargain at TkMax we went to KFC for lunch and then we went to watch the world cup game between Switzerland and Togo on the big screen in the square.

Back at the airport I had to say goodbye to my friends once again and went to catch my first Ryan Air flight back to Dublin. I made an early check-in after one of my friends told me that she wasn't allowed on a flight because she arrived late for check-in. The flight was then about 20minutes late but I had just purchased "The Art of Travel" which was keeping me good company at the gate.

Once we boarded the flight I could experience the Ryan Air experience for myself. After getting out of the gate I had to walk to the aircraft and was nodded to by the expressionless air hostess on duty. The first thing I noticed was that the flight safety sheets fixed on the bright yellow headrests. I remembered somebody saying that in order to avoid having to check each seat for the loose sheet after all passengers have disembarked they fixed the sheets to the headrest. Throughout the whole flight the flight attendants weren't idle for a minute. They were constantly zapping to and fro selling everything from refreshments to Dublin bus tickets. The last task on the air hostess list was to go around with a black garbage bag collecting any passenger garbage to avoid having somebody clean the flight after – was it that a long time ago when an air hostess was regarded as a glamours job. In Dublin we probably arrived at the furthest gate possible because the walk to the luggage belt was never-ending. However at the end of the day all I paid for the flight was £0.01 so I might as well close an eye on these small insignificant things.