Farewell Manchester

Last night out in town...
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So, after our Scotland and Wales trip we headed back to Manky Hester to spend a couple of months with our heads down, trying to save some cash for our Eastern Europe Experience...

Hannah has been doing supply teaching, nursery (kindergarten, not selling plants!) work and the odd bit of waitressing and cloak room duties. The children got better as she learnt to say 'no' to certain jobs, and she made some friends at a nursery she worked regularly at, making work more enjoyable! Did some work at Manchester United, where she got to enjoy the game of English football (Soccer!!), and at Manchester City where the focus was not on the soccer, but on avoiding the "classy" supporters, resplendant in tracksuits, leather jackets and heels. Yes, in the one outfit!

...really cool people there who will be greatly missed.

Goodbye to the industrial wasteland that is our backyard...
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Trumble's been getting regular hours with the agency; a restaurant attached to a local micro-brewery , a brasserie in a posh department store and a small hotel in town. Spent the last five or six weeks there, worked lots and lots of hours and met some great people and did some pretty good food. It was a shame that he hadn't stumbled across the place when we first arrived in Manchester...

After two months of pretty solid work by the two of us, it was time to start packing up the flat and preparing to say goodbye to Manchester for the last time. Although we hated the place at times, with the scally's (bogans) spitting on the streets, teenage (usually, pre-teen) mothers, cigarettes and weed being smoked on the busses, crap weather and a rather high crime rate, we are sad to see the back of it. We have met some really cool people there who will be greatly missed (those not coming to Aus anyway!), and it's been really interesting to experience another version of city living. Oh, and it will be tough knowing that Europe is not on our doorstep anymore!

The last week in Manchester was preetty hectic as we were trying to clean up the apartment (No thanks to the flatmate), organise boxes to be picked up for Aus, close bank accounts and find new tennants, whilst both of us were still working more than full time! Finally though, we got it done and we were off to Reading for a night, to see Trumble's aunt Sue and cousin Kallie, and then down to Chichester to see his grandparents. The next day we headed back into London to catch up with firnds of Trumbles, and Hannahs mate Kim....

On Tuesday we spent about an hour and a half going through security (where H kept up the tradition of getting searched at every airport security gate we go through) at Stansted, before we boarded our shortish flight to Matička Praha, or Little Mother Prague...