Beaz' European Adventures: February 2007

Spain was quite the adventure over February break. I left Coventry on Friday the 9th and return on Sunday the 18th. My friend Stew flew in from Saskatoon during Spring Break to join me in London, Alicante, Granada and ending the trip back in London.

Friday:
Air Canada takes the cake on this one. First day of our trip and Stew's flight is cancelled due to mechanical failure. So he had a nice 27 hour lay over in Calgary while I roamed London Solo. I decided to go check out the London National History Museum and the National Portrait gallery. Even though i've been here for 6 months, the architecture still floors me every time. My favourite displays are the marble statues; every detail down to precise forearm muscles are captured in the stone: very impressive!! I headed to the Maple leaf Pub for dinner and caught up with my Canadian news - I had NO idea that Ralf Klein was finally finished being the Premier of AB!! I did a little dance in the pub and cheers'd a pint of Canadian in celebration. The night concluded watching Ugly Betty in my hotel room and getting well rested for the trip to come:)

Saturday:
Went and met Stew at Heathrow Airport. It's nice being in such a big city - the tube takes you everywhere a guy would want to be. Who needs a car!? I had to wait 2 hours for the late flight, but I was on holiday so there was no rush. Instead I snuck into the employees cafeteria for some cheap lunch and flight attendant eye candy, and then went off to relive some "love actually" moments as people reunited at Heathrow:) After Stew arrived it was our mission to kick his jet lag in 24 hrs. So lights out had to wait until at least 10 pm British time. We spent the afternoon roaming the big sites of London - Trafalgar Square, Soho, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Canada gate, horse guards and ended up at a top notch Turkish restaurant - wasn't until then I discovered Stew's more conservative diet - but give him credit as he attempted most of the Amazingly Delicious Tapas (this also meant more for me to chow down!!!) That evening met up with my Friend Heather who used to kick some serious ass performing at UVic during our Music degrees - I guess that's why she was a performance major, now has her masters and is a freelance Clarinetist in London... (Heather rocks). With a night cap down the hatch Our first day of Vacation ended in a good nights sleep.

Sunday
Woke up and had breakfast with this lady from Sweden. (We stayed at a B&B). She was quite friendly and interesting, although totally a blueberry jam hoarder- leaving me only one packet... grrr lol. Flew out of Gatwick Airport and Arrived in Alicante. Full day travelling - before bed we had a wicked thin crust Pizza and Stew discovered his passion for Fanta pop. He states it's like orange crush but "better". I think upon returning to Canada Stew had to declare atleast 10 bottles of the stuff:P We checked in to our guest house in Alicante, but unfortunately the hot water was broke soooooo.... they moved us into the downtown CONDO!!! yipeeeeee. On the bus from the Airport we also came across 3 Canadian girls, one studying there and the other two visiting for Spring Break. What a small world eh?? Well not so small - since a bird also managed to crap directly on my suit case while waiting for the bus.... We ended up hanging out with the Canadian girls for the next couple nights and it was great to have a Canadian Tour guide as well:)

Monday - Thursday

These days mushed into one as days consisted of sleeping in and staying up late. Our first full day we went and explored the old Moorish Castle in Alicante. It was build out of the mountain overlooking the Mediterranean Sea - I kept wanting to say Ocean.. but really not a big deal. I guess there was an elevator that took you up to the mountain top - being adventurous Canadians we decided to scale the side of the mountain instead. he he he. I fondly remember telling stew that picking cactus berries might not be the best idea, as Stew was stabbed and prodded by the tiny little spines that dug into his hands and feet for the remainder of our climb.... At the top, which included serious navigation around crumbled walls and staircases - we had to scale the top wall - this involved me pushing Stew's feet over and then him pulling me up. Luckily we didn't end up in a body bag.

Another highlight of our Alicante stay was definitely the beach. We went skinny dipping here with the Canadian girls, played many hours of beach volleyball, worked the tan and even watched two Spanish girls hump each other in public?? The last point was a bit bizar - perhaps its a Spanish thing and what girls do when they're drunk in the sand?? I also truly realized what it's like not to be able to speak the language what so ever. I could always fudge my way through speaking french - Spanish showed me how to clearly make hand gestures, nodd intensely and smile. On Valentines day Stew and I had our Mid week crisis as he was pick pocketed by a local thief. All he had left was his passport... a bit of a down fall as we were also in the 4 day clause of overkill being around another person 24 hrs a day. So Valentines was sort of a day to cool off and discover quite time:)

Thursday
We headed to Granada Spain by bus. This was a 6 hour journey and initiated the end of the overkill clause previously mentioned. Luckily I had space on my Visa, and so in one way Visa became Stew and my Sugar Daddy. We arrived late into Granada but never too late for dinner. It was crazy how many African street peddlers are in Granada. During dinner we were asked Minimum 10 times if we wanted to buy stacks of Cds; they were unyielding.

Friday
We had booked our Skis, bus tickets and I even bought snow pants in preparation to ski Sierra Nevada - pretty much a crap version of Mount Norquay just outside of Calgary. Our bus arrived at the slope around 8am even before the lifts opened. Then at Nine o'clock they decided to postpone opening the lift until 10 due to high winds......... at 4 pm our bus picked us up and we never got to go skiing. This sounds pretty disappointing, but stew did climb all the way up the slope for one 45 second run - and after all the stress/intensity of Wednesday, it was kinda nice to just sit in the sunshine and relax. We went to the local grocery store, bought some cheese, bread and beer (very European) sat in the sunshine and had a relaxed day.

Friday night:
Friday night gets it's own paragraph. After returning our ski equipment stew and I await the airport bus. It seems a bit late arriving but finally we get to the airport 30 minutes before our flight. We arrive at the Ryan Air terminal (Ryan air is like low low low budget West Jet to the max) where they say we've missed our check in time... Hellz NO with a bit of persuasion (I felt like I was on a episode of The Amazing Race) we get our bags checked late and ran to the security section, then booked it to our gate just to find everyone else waiting an extra 45 min for the delayed plane... arghhh so after sitting around for about an hour we finally depart for London Stansted Airport (this is our third different London Airport during the trip) At customs in London - I presented my passport and work permit. Now, when I arrived in the UK last Sept I came as a visitor because I didn't have my work permit on me and didn't want the hassle... WRONG MOVE..... So after checking my paper work and making me sit for about 2 hours - I was inches from getting deported back to Canada because A) I was deceptive coming to England the first time stating I was visiting when I had the intention of working, and B) my work permit was illegitimate because the Canadian Customs didn't stamp it into my Passport.. I had no Idea I was suppose to do this.... My only saving grace was that I had applied and received dual citizenship in November. So at 3 am they received confirmation of this and decided to allow me a 2 month grace period in which I could get my paperwork sorted... "insert headache here".... We finally get to our hostel at 4am to discover it's totally a rundown cesspool. As soon as my head touched my 'rolled up blankets in lieu of my non existent pillow', the fire alarm rang at 9am... what a turn of events eh!?? We decide to go for breakfast at the corner shop - guess how much two bottles of water and two pastries costs us................ £10 - that's like $24 Canadian for two bottles of water and two pastries!!!!!!!!! Some parts of London can be a total rip off. You just need to know where not to shop. We checked in early to another B&B and then spend the majority of Saturday sleeping.

Saturday night
Our trip wrapped up nicely with an excursion to the theatre where we saw Boeing 747 - starring Get this GET THIS Frances De la Tour (she was the super giant witch in Harry Potter) and Roger Allam who was the TV guy in the movie V for Vendetta. It was a great comedy and putting me back into a peaceful mindset.

Sunday morning I departed on the Train for Coventry and thus wrapped my Vacation. Stew Stayed one more night at a hostel in London before flying out Monday morning from Heathrow (no delays this time:)

It was a great learning curve first vacation - I've discovered it's almost an art to organize a quality vacation. I do like to think that practice makes perfect, and with that in mind I'll look forward to my next one!!!!