What we're leaving

God bless Aer Lingus for the timing of the return flight to Dublin (8:00 pm), which meant we had a full day before heading for the airport.

We stuck to our checklist to a certain extend. Breakfast was in the little Norwegian place we'd been to a week ago. I had the same as before (meatball sandwich with onions and fried egg - yummy), while Carl liked the sound of Norwegian Hash when he saw it on the menu last time, and tried this today (it got the thumbs up).

From Nye Trollstua we made our way to Rokoko café for smoothies (the best in Play del Inglés in our experience). These were just right for today's weather, which had picked up again after the few days of cloud and haze and was back to clear blue sky and temperatures in the low 30s). Rokoko's smoothies are special because of their amazing thickness and their intense coldness, and they didn't let us down today.

Another part of our planned schedule for our final day had been a trip to Sioux City, which had ben on the agenda since the car-rental time. We intended to get the bus there, but decided against it when we found that there's only one bus, at 10:35 am. So back we went to the bungalow for a short siesta followed for some more time around the pool. Today's blip shows the surroundings we're leaving behind, which naturally enough was proving to be quite a wrench.

We decided we still had time for a final beer and a light bite to eat before coming back to finish our packing. The beer bit went okay, but time ran out and we weren't able to eat where we'd intended. Instead, we hurried back to our packing chore and grabbed a pizza in the restaurant in the complex. This is run by Pepé, who looks after the bungalows, hands out the keys, and generally runs everything. It was after 6:30 when we parted with Pepé and hailed a taxi to take us to the airport. We got there in plenty of time for check-in and a bit of airport shopping. Indeed, we were way too early, since our departure was delayed by forty minutes, which meant that we didn't land in Dublin until 12:40 am.

A great holiday. Playa del Inglés is vastly improved from what I remember in the '90s. The atmosphere is great, the people are genuinely friendly and helpful, the night life is everything one could ask for, and prices are much lower than at home. Having our own place was wonderful, thanks to our friend Martin, whose offer back in May came so out of the blue. Once again: a great holiday.