Time definitely flies when you are having fun. In what felt like a blink of an eye, our holiday had arrived. I still had a day at work. I was awake 30 minutes before my alarm was due to go off. I made good use of this and did our online check in. I had an unwelcome surprise. Like most airlines nowadays, Etihad charges for advance seat reservations. This then becomes free at online check in. I had paid for seats on the flights back as twin seats were available. Not having anybody sitting next to us is worth a bit of extra money. However, the same was not the case on the outbound. I was happy enough with the seats the check in system allocated for us for the Manchester Abu Dhabi flight. However, on the onwards flight, the system allocated us bulkhead seats. I hate those with a passion. I figured that this was no big deal. I would just change them to regular seats. When trying to do so, it then wanted to charge me for seat selection. I decided to complete the online check in with the existing seats and figured I could always check at Manchester airport if they could reseat us.
Once my alarm went off, I got up and ready. I packed the last odds and then took the rubbish and some recycling out on my way out. As I work quite close to Manchester airport, I took an Uber to work with my luggage meaning that I could then just head directly over to the airport hotel to meet up with Graham after work. It did not take long until a driver was assigned, and the app showed that the driver was 2 minutes away. However, the car did not appear to be moving. I sent the driver a message, but he did not reply. I found that there was a function to request another driver on the app. I decided to do this and thankfully a new driver was assigned very quickly. This time, the driver really arrived 2 minutes later. We had a clear run, and I still managed to be the first person in the office.
I had a productive day. At 16:00, my out of office went on and I headed across to the Crowne Plaza at Manchester airport. This used to be our go to hotel, but it was out of commission for years. It initially was a quarantine hotel during the pandemic and was then used to house asylum seekers. It recently had an extensive makeover and is now operating as a hotel again.
I got there before Graham did and found a seat. Patience has never been one of my virtues. Once the time that we had agreed to meet, I decided I may as well check in. This was a smooth process. The person who was checking me in asked if we had stayed at the hotel before. I explained that pre pandemic, we had stayed there a lot, but for quite some time afterwards the government had rented out the hotel for one reason or the other. He explained that for a large chunk it was used or people who had worked with the British army in Afghanistan and they had to be evacuated. He shared that a number of people who stayed in the hotel for a while now actually work at the hotel. I found this truly inspiring.
Once the check in was done, I went back to my seat and read for a short while until Graham arrived. Then we headed upstairs to our room. Graham had a nap, and I carried on reading. Once the restaurant was open for dinner, I woke up Graham and we headed downstairs.
This hotel has a fabulous Asian restaurant called Sampans. We had many great meals there over the years. When the hotel was refurbished before reopening as a hotel, there was some suggestion that Sampans would be replaced with a different restaurant. Fortunately, they had a change of heart about this plan. We shared some prawn crackers. Graham had some beer and I just a had some sparkling water as all their soft drinks contained sweeteners, which is something I try to avoid. Graham had kung po king prawns with cashew nuts and sweet chili sauce with egg fried rice and I had the sizzling beef in black bean sauce with egg fried rice. Everything was delicious.
After dinner, we headed back to the room. I took a photo of the artwork on the way. As we had an early start the next day, we got ready for bed. Graham was asleep within minutes. I read for a little while, but soon I was pretty to settle down for the night as well.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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