Thursday 8th August 2013.
I stayed up to 4am savouring the spectacular joys of a Friends marathon with mi hermano and enjoyed a one-on-one farewell party with everyone's favourite chinchilla.
I rose from the crypt (Kelly's boudoir) at 10.30am. After groaning about my tiredness for 30 beautiful minutes Gag arrived to take us to the airport (in our car nonetheless, but it meant he could return the car back home...blah, frivolous adult worries about robbery and such). We squeezed into the smelly tango red Ford and arrived promptly at the George Best Airport (named after one of our few famous folk who had nothing to do with the Titanic...an alcoholic with two liver transplants...another failure for this glorious nation to be remembered by).
There were famous footballer-type people with France on their shirts, looking pretty bored, as they waited to check in while sipping coffee from Costa. Not a looker among them. That's how I knew they were footballers.
We also made some silly mistakes at the airport. Twofold.
One: Dad left the bags lying about and the twitchy airport attendants had to remind him to take his bag.
Two: Aerlingus thought they'd be cool and offered to take our handluggage for free into the cargo hold.We got excited and gave them half our bags. We then realised that the wrong bags had been given. We'd given my bag which had my money in it. We had to go back through security and get our bags in the depot. It was a dusty warehouse-y type place. People kept coming to get their things. Mainly backpackers and metalheads. It turns out (through later seeing guys with t-shirts) that Bloodstock in Scotland was on, hence the masses of band tees. Bloodstock is like Pigstock except less punk and more metal.
When we eventually got our bags we went to the Bushmills Bar and ate soggy chips and i slurped coffee with six sugars like a pro. Mum had wine and Dad had beer, Ryan sipped coke, and I realised that we're all really mind-numbingly predictable when it comes to drinks.
Next came the flight. My pen exploded in the plane and ink managed to stain my hands, arms,face and diary but luckily not my pretty pink dress. I have decided that said pretty pink dress is magical and immune to ink and bad luck.
When i wasn't wiping ink of my fingers I was listening to Xmen:First Class in one ear and writing in my diary like a fancy lady.
The flight was short. Only two or so hours. The taxi to the apartment was even better. Very short. It always seemed so much longer when I was a kid. I was mesmerized by the passing mountains, olive groves and the foreign billboards. I saw the Torro on the hilltop. There's 50 of them scattered about the province. I read about it somewhere.
Once I was in the apartment I changed of of my dress and into something less sweaty. We skipped down to George's Bar (a restaurant about five minutes walk away) and I had a plate of nachos with glorious guacamole. The cheese was quite bland but you eat nachos for the dips, not the flavour. Then I had an iced coffee made by the caffeine gods. It was basically a scoop of chocolate icecream with yummy sauce and a whorl of delicious, melted coffee icecream. It was sublime. A hundred days of sugar. But it was worth it. Nestle iced coffee is definitely better than any of the stupid stuff we have back home. Cost about 65 euro for the four of us to eat and drink. Mum had her sangria.
Then, to end the day, Ryan and I watched Friends until 4am again.
Friday 9th August 2013.
Our first proper day in Spain. It's always weird to be back there again. The place where it always seems to be sunny.
I ate a weird sandwich at Cafe Plaza for dinner. It was an early dinner too. It was spinach and mustard with no crusts. I kinda like crusts too.
Nobody even noticed my spy pics.
Swam a little. More Friends. Explored the Night Bazaar at the Princess Diana park which sounds fancier than it actually was. They were selling cool Hindi t-shirts but I recalled how Miss Samasundruum (old art teacher from Indonesia) said religious t-shirts were offensive and the elephant was Ganesha, after all. Plus they were 15 euro. Got the usual at the Supermarcado: tortilla, biscuits, lemonade, ice lollies.
It was a pretty laid back day. Dad keeps giving off about my half drunk drinks everywhere. You think he'd know me by now!
Saturday 10th August 2013.
I seem to be getting all my life lessons from Friends on this holiday.I am now comparing situations and people in my own life to the episodes I have seen. I think I wont make the holiday with my sanity intact if I don't figure out which of my friends is Chandler or if I'm more of a Phoebe or a Monica, or if Kelly is a Rachel or not. Rohan is clearly Joey. That's all I know.
Today we went to Calahonda and explored the little tourist shops there. I sweated like a beast. I had cafe bombon in Cafe Zoco and lemon cheesecake. I bought some postcards and then proceeded to write said postcards and even a letter for Kelly. Hopefully it makes it to Thailand alright. Writing in the sunshine is difficult. I had to keep getting drinks and sunglasses. What a hard life I lead.
We went to the local Chinese for dinner. I sipped Jasmine tea like a cool cat. I got mixed veg and fried rice. It was okay. Not great. We had to wait for ages too. It was really busy.
I went back to the Night Bazaar and we got something for Kelly.
Ryan and I watched The Golden Compass and played scrabble. The match lasted so long that we played the movie again. I won. For the first time.
the good fortune that would soon befall me?
I WON SCRABBLE! YAY! WOHOOOO. I KNEW IT. I KNEW I STUDIED ENGLISH FOR A REASON!
Sunday 11th August 2013.
Went to Calahonda and visited the Spanish Domingo market. It was like a car-boot sale of sorts, minus the cars, but they did sell shoes. I bought neon coloured bracelets for Karen (not second hand, some of the stalls were like the familiar market seller stores). Got necklaces for her and Smurph too. There's something nice but stressful about picking gifts. I really try not to get anything too tourist-y.There were a really nice pair of leopard print shoes that Kelly would have stabbed me for. They were 45 euros though. There was also Dior shoes at the same stall - so the leopard print shoes were probably designer too. I found a lovely Moorish lamp with a chicken motive and really intricately beaded hats and a peacock bag. All of them expensive - likely designer and vintage -and all really pretty. There was a lovely rose necklace pendant I was going to buy for 5 euros but one of the stall owners overheard the price and doubled it.I think he saw the ten euro note and wanted to chance it. I said no and walked off. He claimed it was an antique, but I think he was more interested in the note in my hand than the age of the piece. There was framed documents from the 1800s for sale too. I figured Kelly would like them, and went to take a picture, but realised I'd left my phone and camera charging.
In place of photos of relevant things,
have this man dying of lightning.
Mum, Dad and I went to the local Spanish Supermarket Cafe. Cafe Zoco. It was great. The guy serving us was very friendly, though he didn't speak any English (or very little, at least). I had a lemon cheesecake and a cafe Bombon. For those of you who do not know the glory of the taste-indulging passionflower that is this cup of coffee it's a shot of espresso and hot condensed milk in a glass with sugar you can add if necessary (it's always necessary to add MORE SUGAR). The result is a drink with lots of sweetness and lots of caffeine. I had churros.
From the previous day at Zoco.
I was very impressed that Mum made it down. It was about 12 O'clock when we headed back. I was restless after a couple of hours of nothing and decided to go on a walk to find the area of shops around La Venta (a restaurant my grandparents worship)
I remembered that the way involved palm trees in the centre of the steep road. Unfortunately this includes 95% of the roads in the Costa Del Sol. So, surprisingly, I got lost. I spotted some nice white house things in the mountains and I suffered from dehydration, but I couldn't find La Venta. I found Miraflores' Tennis and Golf cubs. After 90 minutes of villas and crunching grass I decided to quit and go back. I wandered down another hill, figuring it might take me somewhere familiar, and gazed dreamily at the cyan ocean that streaked across the horizon. I was feeling proud of my independence but disappointed that I still hadn't found La Venta.
Here's a pretty moth I named Fernando. He spend most of his day sunbathing.
Silly Fernando!
After five minutes of walking I looked behind me I saw that I wasn't alone. There was a middle aged man, with a towel wrapped about his waist, and a horrible tan. His hair was slicked back with either sweat or gel. I continued down the endless hill, figuring that Towel Man would pop into one of the villas or apartments. After another few minutes, I checked again, and Towel Man was closing in for the kill. I kept walking. I smiled, feeling assured that he'd found his way to his apartment and/or a swimming pool of teenage girls to gawk at.
The villas were replaced by hedges and I figured things were safe. He'd gone. I went to sit down at a bench, perhaps enjoy flicking through my camera, and rest my legs. Then I turned my head and he was there. Towel Man was still there. Waddling. The towel was draped over his shoulders now. I continued walking. There were two options: keep going forever until you reach the ocean, with Towel Man either following or eventually going away, or turn down the nearest street. A corner appeared and I turned and walked down it. I figured I would hide by a car and see if he passed. Then I realised that he would have seen me turn down the street and if he turned down too and found me hiding behind a car... it wouldn't end well. I'd have to get out of here before he followed. If he was following. I used my remaining strength to run down the street and out of eyeshot of Towel Man if he turned down it. I kept walking until I found my way back to the apartment.
We went to George's bar for dinner and I had enchiladas and an iced coffee. A fitting reward for my day's endeavours. The air conditioning is barely working in the room I sleep in (it works fine in Mum and Dad's room) so lack of sleep and lots of heat must be working together to turn me into a perfectly sane human being. Or maybe it's side effects from all the Friends.
Monday 12th August 2013.
I rose from my puddle of drool and readied the troops. Mum could only travel at the speed of 0.5 miles and hour, so we had to leave early for the bus. It was the first time in about three years she'd attempted the bus.It was twenty five degrees with the air conditioning, but at least it wasn't too hot inside. I was the one who bought the tickets."Cuatro personnes por Fuengirola," I said.
"Six twenty," he replied.
Whenever you speak in Spanish it's a bit of a slap to the face when they reply in English and you smile sheepishly and hate yourself inside. It never happens to Kelly. I'm just lucky. Clearly I do not match up to her linguistic superiority. Stupid Thai traitor.
Mum's ridiculously slow pace was matched by my earnest commands for her to "go slower" as I ran into the sunshine - fearful that this would be my only chance in the town with slow poke and the two dudes in tow. There wasn't much shopping or frolicking, but lots of sweating and grumbling. Ryan and Dad were bored stiff by the shops. I begged them to go away. Eventually they did. I went to the indoor markets with Mum and a really intense Indian man tried to sell Mum a shop worth's of jewellery while giving us advice about staying safe in the Costa and being wary of thieves. Mum got a necklace and left. We also went to Bershka where i got myself a really nice guy's t-shirt and I bought a bunny top in the Factory shop. I kept looking for something crochet but everything that was crochet was super expensive.
We ate at a restaurant called La Gondala. I had tomato soup, chicken curry (which wasn't curry and was kinda awful) and strawberries and cream.
We got the taxi home and went back to our late night TV adventures. Anything from Costa Del street crime (THE IRONY) to Unexplained Mysteries (THE UFOS). The music channels are also amusing. Ryan and I keep finding the same three songs. I'd also forgotten how awful music and music videos are. Our song of the holiday was "Blurred lines" a modern cover of a Prince song. It's really ridiculous and exploitative of women. It appeared about thirty times over the holiday. A present music video fad is dead animals. I don't get it either but when you're tired everything is amusing.
Tuesday 13th August 2013.
Everyone else was determined to "rest". I was frustrated by the general apathy. Dad and I had a falling out as we were supposed to skype Kelly. I put two euros into a computer before I realised its headphones weren't a headset. Dad tried talking to the Spanish woman at the cafe but she spoke no English and had no idea what he wanted. Anyway I paid for a new computer with a headset, set it up, and left Ryan to play with the other computer. Dad told me to be quiet and that I was annoying the other people in the cafe. I decided to go on a walk to get away from Dad.I walked to Calahonda and explored the thrift shop there. There was a really nice oil painting for 20 euros and a Sailor costume for 15 euros. I was doing my independent walking about alone thing again.I'd even figured out the colour coding of the keys (sort of).
The pretty oil painting.
An actual painting, not a print, pity I couldn't ship it back.
Sailor Rebecca!
What's not to love?
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