The Longest Schlep – Still Schlepping

As a Floridian, I’m used to it being hot in December. Wearing shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops on Christmas day wouldn’t be surprising at all. This year my December got off to the best start ever…on the beach in the Canary Islands.

Let me first start off by re-capping my first ever traditional Thanksgiving dinner away from my family (last year doesn’t count, we ate chicken instead of turkey), which is what led to my impromptu holiday in Spain. The day itself was a bit sad because I had to work, but I did at least make an attempt to watch the Macy’s parade online even though the server was jammed with traffic and all I ever really got to see was a group of people standing around a phone booth in Times Square. I had made a couple of pumpkin pies to bring in to work to share with everybody and they went over really well! One guy, Jeff, had three slices, so they couldn’t have been that bad. For almost everybody it was their first ever introduction to pumpkin pies; the tentative looks on faces before taking a bite were priceless. I guess trying a vegetable-based dessert for the first time would make me little wary, too.

Saturday was the day of our big Thanksgiving meal. We had everything – sweet potato casserole, turkey, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, gravy, cranberry sauce, chicken and dumplings, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, cranberry freeze, sweet tea, and we would have had biscuits if I hadn’t screwed them up (how I did that, I’ll never know…I’d made 6 practice batches prior until I had the recipe perfected). We had 8 people total for the meal, which was the largest group of people I’d ever cooked for. All in all it went great! I even bought an American football online so we could toss it around in the street that evening. It was one of the best Thanksgivings ever and one I’ll always remember. And no one even suspected that I used sweet potatoes out of the garbage! Oops…

After getting up at 6:00 am on Saturday to start cooking and working on only 4 hours sleep, I was dead at the end of the day. All day Sunday I just wanted to sit on the couch and stare at the wall. I can’t remember the last time I was that tired. Kevin and I were sitting on the couch and I commented that I could do with a vacation. I had been fantasizing about going somewhere during my down-time at work, checking out last-minute deals online to hot, sunny places, but I don’t think I had ever been seriously considering going anywhere. Then, after that one comment, I found myself searching through late deals on teletext on the TV and phoning up travel companies to see about booking a trip! We couldn’t find any straight away for the days we wanted (I had three days off work last week), and Kevin had to leave to go to a soccer match, so he said he’d look more later on when he got home.

I got a phone call at about ten ’til eight that night. It was Kevin, saying, “Do you want to go to Gran Canaria tomorrow morning at 7:15?” I really didn’t have any trouble coming up with an answer.

I packed that night (after hanging all my newly washed clothes on the radiators to do a rush drying job) and made it to bed in time to get about 5 hours sleep. I had to be up by 4:15 to get ready and get a taxi to Victoria Station since the Tube didn’t start running until about half past five. I met Kevin there and we caught the Gatwick Express to the airport where we checked in smoothly and browsed through some travel books in the airport shop before our flight left. We were the world’s worst tourists. We didn’t know anything about where we were going other than that it had a beach and it was way warmer than it would be in London. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t even know where in the world we were going. I had a vague idea, but I’ve never stood a chance of winning any geography awards. Less than twelve hours from when we booked the trip, we were on a plane, in the air, heading to some islands off the coast of Morocco.

When we got there it was overcast and a bit drizzly. I really didn’t care at all though since it was warm and there were palm trees. I hadn’t realized how much I missed palm trees! We waited forever to get our bags and had nearly given them up for lost when they finally came through. I was enjoying watching the other people whose bags had been delayed sticking their heads through the flaps at the end of the carousel, as if that would speed up their bags’ delivery, but I was happy to have my stuff and get started with my holiday. The tour operator took us by coach from Las Palmas to our resort in Puerto Rico called Eden. Our hotel was nicer than I’d expected, with a kitchenette, a living room, and a balcony with a view of the ocean. Yeah, the TV was coin-operated, but the only available channels in English were sports or the Cartoon Network, so it really didn’t matter much anyway. Besides, we were there for the sun and the water.

It rained off and on most of the afternoon when we first arrived so we mostly stayed in the room and I used the Internet to e-mail work and explain why I wasn’t in that day. I’d called my agency to let them know on Sunday night before I left, but they are absolute crap and can’t be trusted for anything. We looked around the town a bit that evening and I was a bit appalled to see how disgustingly touristy everything was. All the shops were full of tourist junk and the restaurants had identical menus translated into about 8 languages, and fish and chips and a full English breakfast was never more than a few steps away. We were both dismayed and wanted desperately to find someplace without a neon sign and chavtastic clientele where we could go for dinner.

It was lucky for us that Kevin had traveled for 8 months in Central America and speaks nearly fluent Spanish. Whenever we got into a cab he’d start chatting to the driver to find out where to go and what to do – it was both extremely impressive and sexy. I could follow along and catch the gist of what they were talking about, but for the most part I just rode along, enjoying the winding roads through the volcanic terrain and the amazing water at the bottom of the cliffs.

The first night we were there I woke up to the wind howling outside and torrential rain beating down. It wasn’t just strong wind, it was bordering on hurricane force wind – and trust me, I know all about hurricanes. The next morning the sky was blue and it was a beautiful sunny day. I was talking to Kevin about it, who had slept through most of the storm. When we went to the front desk to ask about the quickest way down to the beach, the tour rep looked at us like we were crazy. Turns out that the strong wind from the night before had actually been a tropical storm passing through and the beach was closed due to an ongoing watch. Go figure. 4,000 plus miles away and I still can’t get away from the storms. All worked out in the end, though; we took a taxi to a resort in another part of the island and spent the entire day on the beach. The water was cold, but felt really great once we got in, provided we kept moving.

That night we actually made it out of the touristy area and found a real, authentic bit of Gran Canaria to have dinner. It was extremely authentic, in fact. Our taxi dropped us off at this little place that looked more like a big patio off the side of someone’s house than a restaurant, apart from a little bar and a big ice cream freezer. It was 8:30 when we walked in and the guy washing down the tables sort of looked up at us, obviously confused and/or surprised by our presence. He then told us that the place didn’t open until 9:15. Gran Canaria is like a little slice of England transplanted (except it’s sunny, warm, and has palm trees!), so I’d nearly forgotten that we were in Spain, where people eat much later than I’m used to. The place was in this barren area near a factory of some sort, and there wasn’t even a bar nearby to kill time, so we ended up across the street at a community center with a bunch of old men to have some beers. The people there stared at us as we went in, and when Kevin went in to pay some little kids came up to me and practiced some of their English (which mildly shocked and dismayed me). We went back to the restaurant and were well rewarded for all our effort. We had paella, which is something I had wanted to try when I was in Spain this summer but never had the chance to. Everything was seafood, which ordinarily would have meant I would go hungry, but I was surprised that everything I tried was actually really nice. We had fried calamari, fried white fish, and paella with shrimp, mussels and squid. Everything was incredibly fresh and nice.

The next day we were back on the beach all day long. We improved our beach tennis score significantly over the previous day, had ice cream, stayed until the sun set and we were the last ones left, and then we walked back up the hill to our hotel. That night had dinner on the rooftop terrace of a cliffside restaurant where we had delicious steaks, really nice wine, and played a pathetic game of pool where I completely lost all credibility I had attained when I had beaten Kevin the night before.

Thursday was our last day, and even though we only had half a day for the beach, we made the most of it. We squeezed in a good 2 hours on the beach and topped off our nice mini-break tans. I didn’t do half bad either; I managed to get a nice golden glow in just 3 days! The high point of the day was beating the beach tennis record for a total of 33 continuous hits…not too shabby at all! It was a dash back to the hotel after that for a quick shower just in time to catch the coach to the airport and fly home.

It was rough getting back to London after my whirlwind holiday. It was cold and rainy when we got back, and I wasn’t looking forward to having to go back to work – especially since most of the fun people I work with had left to do other things (Kevin) or had moved back home (Miriam). I successfully managed to pass the entire weekend without accomplishing anything, and nearly without even stepping outside my house, so that helped cushion the blow of settling back into reality a bit. Yesterday, though, it was back to work as usual. Good news though – I was moved back upstairs with the rest of the migration team so at least now I can socialize again. Hooray!

It’s been a fun past week, although tonight was a bit of a downer as Kelly and I were supposed to be going to see Feeder play in Hammersmith and the show was canceled because the lead singer lost his voice. Ugghh! And to make things worse, the show was rescheduled in late March – after I’m scheduled to fly back to the States. Hmmm…we’ll see…Feeder might just be too good to pass up!

That’s all for now, kiddies. I’m off to explore a new route home that hopefully won’t leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere waiting for a train that will never come. It wouldn’t be the first time!

Tags: holidays, London, Spain, Thanksgiving, Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 at 1:33 pm and is filed under London, Spain, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.