A long way home

Sunday 21st March

This was the last day.  There wasn't much being done today except sitting by the pool.  But of course I couldn't do that, so I headed off down to see if I could watch some football in a pub.  Once it was over it was back to check out and go to the airport.

The flight home was almost as interesting as the one out.  This time it was Thompson not Easyjet (it was a lot cheaper getting 2 one way tickets instead of a return from either).  Rather than me being one of the oldest on the plane, I was now one of the youngest.  This was the OAP express.  It was amazing.  I think I was also the drunkest after a pint in the airport.  But it was a fairly standard, if slightly long, flight home.  The only problem came from the time it took to unload everyone off the plane.  They all moved so slow.  Getting through customs was also a nightmare, there was nobody on.  If only planes flew to timetables so they could plan when loads of people were arriving from outside the EU.  I almost missed the last train home, which would have annoyed me with work in the morning.

Crazy Sport

Saturday 20th March

Today was a sporting day.  The family went out for what might become an annual event, the family crazy golf challenge.  This was quite an event, and I can't actually bring the results as there was a scoring dispute.  Ultimate highlight was the out-of-bounds shot by Mo, immediately followed by her hole-in-one on the same hole.

After that it was lunch watching some premiership football, and then back to the pool.  In the evening the main focus of attention was the rugby (well it was supposed to be the nice restaurant for dinner, which was not the all inclusive at the hotel).  Ireland were still in with a chance of winning the 6 nations.  Finding a pub showing it was not as easy as we had thought.  Our scouting of Irish pubs had been based on the premise we would be going to a nice restaurant up town, but that was booked out, so we went local to our hotel.  Unfortunately that was in a nice part of town, so not many pubs were showing it.  In fact none of them were, but we found one with a TV showing basketball and persuaded it to turn it on.  We shouldn't have bothered, as we lost to Scotland.  Still it saved us from a dilemma, if we had won we might have had to stay to see if the French lost to the English.  But we didn't win, so we didn't have to stay and anyway the French won.

After that was a nice meal in a restaurant on the beach front, watching the sunset, and back for more free drinks.

Whales ahoy

Friday 19th March

Today we got up, and after a large breakfast (all inclusives - not great for the waist), and then we headed down to the harbour for our whale watching trip.  The boat was a big catamaran, holding about 90, and with a bar.  So even if there are no whales its a nice trip.

But of course there will be whales, the crew know exactly where to go.  It only took about 20 minutes to get out to the deep where the whales lived.  These were pilot whales, which are about 5 metres long.  They are pretty cool, there must have been about 50 of them, and we did get quite close to them, at one point they were less than a metre from the side of the boat.  But it is pretty hard to get photos of them, as they don't really jump out of the water.  But once you get used to them (and use the repeat shutter on the camera) you can get some decent shots.

After that it was off to a nice secluded spot for some swimming, which I of course didn't do, mostly because I can't swim, but also because of about 3 or 4 cans of lager.  It wasn't even midday.  We got some nice views of the island as we sailed back (we had gone straight out so there weren't any then) and got back in time for a late lunch, in the all inclusive.  The afternoon was spent sitting by the pool, so of course I got bored and went for a walk.  I didn't get to go up Mt Teide (the highest mountain in Spain) mostly because it was too cloudy to get any good views.

In the evening it was more food and drink (seriously these all inclusive resorts must have some impact on global obesity levels) and then we met an unusal couple from Cork.  After that the lads decided to head off down the town to pay for beer.  Ostensibly it was a scouting expedition for Irish pubs to watch the next days rugby in.  We tried the Temple Bar, which was a nice typical Irish bar, and then we tried another one, which looked a lot rougher.  Also nearly everyone seemed to be Northern.  So we ended up in another bar playing pool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_whale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teide

Surprise

Thursday 18th March

The day started off very early, with a 5am taxi ride to the airport.  I might have been able to make it on public transport, but didn't want to take the risk.  The journey was a slightly interesting route, about twice as long than as the crow flies, but I guess the driver knew what he was doing as we got to Gatwick in time.  Only when I got there did I realise that the little train that links the two terminals is being rennovated, so using the train (which stops at the South Terminal) to get to the North Terminal, would have been even tighter for time.

Anyway check in and security were pretty handy, and after a quick breakfast stop, I reached the gate.  There I realised that my first trip on Easyjet would not be the same as other fights.  There were at least 2 hen and 3 stag parties on board.  I was fairly sure I was in the oldest 10% of passengers.  Even on the bus out to the plane (which drove for more than 10 minutes, it felt like we were driving to Tenerife) the blokes were already trying to chat up the girls.  Once we got onto the plane I got a decent seat, although I did wonder about the people who paid for priority boarding, because it seemed like all that did was get them on the bus first, not the plane.

Once we took off it was a fairly OK flight, except for the amount of drink taken.  Now remember this is a 7am flight, and yet more drink was drunk on that plane than most nights in Gibney's in Malahide.  The cabin crew couldn't keep up, and ended up just serving from the front like a bar.  I was a bit worried when the seatbelt signs came on for turbulence towards the end and the crew didn't seem to bother getting people back in their places.  I don't care if one of them gets injured, but they could quite easily hit someone in their seats.  Anyway eventually the crew must have made their bonuses for selling alcohol, as they tried, and almost failed, to get them to sit down.  Seriously airlines cannot complain about passenger behaviour when they serve so much booze.

Anyway once in Tenerife, and with only carry on baggage, I was out and to the taxi rank fairly quickly.  I got a taxi to the hotel, although the bus seemed a reasonable option, as I wanted to send texts to the family to see where they were.  Before I could though, I got one from mum, asking how things were in London.  I answered they were fine, for all I knew it was.  But I didn't say I wasn't there.  Anyway the text didn't raise suspicions so I was able to get to the hotel and check in.  There was a nervous 15 minutes in reception hoping nobody walked past, but I was able to get into my room and changed without anyone seeing me.

Once sorted I headed out to find the family.  I decided to head for the big pool, which was down about 10 flights of steps.  It turns out the hotel was built on the side of a mountain.  I got to the bottom, and lo and behold there were Ian, my brother in law, and Paul, Clare's boyfriend, sunning themselves.  So I jumped out and said "where are the beers".  They were a little startled by the nutter jumping out, and took a couple of seconds to work out who it was (my hat and sunglasses were a good disguise).  But they recovered quickly and were suitably impressed with my slight of hand.

After that we planned how to sneak up on the parents sitting up in the shade.  In the end we decided the simple thing was to just have me walk up behind them.  So we did, and although I didn't jump out this time, there was still a few minutes shock.  Although dad was a bit less surprised than he should have been, I think he had a sneaking suspicion I'd be turning up.

So all that was left were my sisters.  They were off at the shops, so we decided I'd hide before they got back, but I wasn't quick enough when they got there but they were still suitably surprised.  However again it wore off very quickly.  I guess in this day of cheap air travel flying 4 hours unannouced someone just isn't as surprising any more.

After that it was on with the holiday.  As an all inclusive there was plenty of food and drink, but of course I wanted to head out and walk.  So the lads headed out to organise a boat trip for the next day, and a few pints.  These pints were dirt cheap, 1 euro, which was so cool, even though the beer was free in the hotel.  Which of course was where we had dinner and more drinks later.  You can see a pattern when it comes to all inclusive hotels.

Tenerife - Why would I go there?

Wednesday 17th March

Yes, its St Patrick's day, and instead of being out drowning the shamrock, here am I packing for a quick trip to Tenerife.  Why am I going there, and why am I bothering blogging about it.

Well to answer the second question first, I decided that all trips outside of the British Isles will go on this.  And so even though this isn't really the sort of travel I normally do, its getting blogged.

As for the reasons why, well basically the rest of the family had decided to fly out from Dublin to go there for St Patrick's day.  As it isn't a bank holiday in the UK, it would have been more holidays for me, and there were other work reasons which meant at the time I couldn't go.  But I sorted these out and actually booked a trip out there, but didn't tell them.  So its going to be a surprise. 

But its also not really the type of holiday I usually do, the hotel is an all inclusive one, and its Tenerife, which may not be as bad as Benidorm, but it is a magnet for that sort of holiday maker.  It will be different to the usual type of travel.

P.S. As usual I have left it until almost my next holiday to put in this one.  These were written close to the holiday, but I just never got around to hitting publish.