Saturday

We take advantage of the fact that check-out time isn't until noon and our flight not being until 4.30 and sleep in late again. I nip down to the bakery and buy our briefly-regular croissants from the corner bakery - take that 11 euro hotel breakfast - while we potter around the room packing and watching the German TV coverage of the build-up to tomorrow's England v Germany second round match. It's probably for the best that neither of us can understand a word of it.

When it finally comes time to leave, we walk our familiar route up through Potsdamer Platz towards the Brandenburg Gate, and along the long, straight road towards Alexanderplatz. The heat is already stifling and with bags to carry we make sure it's a steady trudge - managing to take in some really interesting architecture we would otherwise have missed. Annoyingly it's hard to work out what much of it is, save to say it's mostly massive and rather beautiful.

We get to Alexanderplatz and take a seat by the fountain - where we had sat when we arrived on Wednesday afternoon. We've covered a lot of ground since then - and, I suppose, our lives have actually changed quite a lot in the space of three days. Having said our goodbyes to this fun city, we jump on the airport bus and start to make our way home.

The flight is just as smooth and pleasant as on the way out, and we even get some extra free booze from the staff on board (I think, mainly, because we were sat at the back of the plane and they wanted to get rid of the stock). When we land, I engage in a bit of a race against time as I leave K on the tube and head for Euston. Since I have to be in Manchester tomorrow for the England v Australia ODI cricket match, I had (perhaps unwisely) booked a cheap train up to Manchester for tonight, right after we land. The Victoria Line is busy, as is Euston, but I arrive in good time and manage to buy a bit of dinner and a couple of cans of Stella for the journey.

Too exhausted to read much, I drink and listen to a few podcasts - finally arriving in Manchester at around 10.15pm. Manchester city centre on a Saturday night is absolutely not a pleasant place to be; full of horrible chavs staggering and shouting between the various shitty pubs and nightclubs - it's a northern city cliche come to life. Despite the animals, I decide to use my walk to Sam's bar to pick up his house keys to call Mum and tell her about the engagement. She is suitably thrilled and we talk for a while as she guides me, from memory, through a city she lived near around 15 years ago.

I meet Sam outside his bar - I'm not allowed in because I'm wearing shorts - and grab his keys and directions to his flat in the south of the city. The bus takes absolutely ages, mostly weaving through the same scary Mancunian bastards I had to dodge on the streets, but finally I arrive at his flat and crash out on the reclining leather sofa. It's hard to believe I had woken up in Berlin this morning with my new fiancee, and now I'm in a student flat watching Futurama, trying to sleep over the traffic noise. But here I am.