Getting to faraway places are great, however the one bad point of the holiday so far has, shamefully, been the airport. One word, one reason: Terrorism. Airplane companies are terrified, airports are terrified, hell even us lot are getting terrified – but this is far from surprising.
Before entering into the airport, I briefly thought to myself that I better not have any liquids over 100ml in my bag. I had a bottle of water it turned out, so the journey there I slowly slipped it until Id’ finished it. Have that airport security.
When we got to Gatwick today though, after getting through those metal scanners successfully (and after waiting 5 minutes for someone’s shoes to be checked not once, not twice, but four times that they were bombless) we got to passport control. The way there was only about 50 metres, but we easily passed about 20 different stations all asking “Have you checked your luggage?” – This, of course, referring to the whole 100ml debacle surrounding liquids these days. Just as you pass the first station, making sure that you’ve either trashed the liquid or bagged the more important stuff, you’re greeted by another sign saying the exact same thing, followed by another, and another, and yet another until you’re just about driven to insanity. This is in no part helped by the constant verbal reminder by seemingly-robotic staff asking the exact same thing as the signs did – just to double-check.
Skip an hour (and a Guinness) or two, and we’ve landed. The sight of white houses, white cars – in fact, for a good half hour I couldn’t find anything but something white – greeted me first and foremost, and I loved it.
The difference in sights here in Lanzarote compared to those in London are, quite literally, miles apart.
The people are polite – from the receptionist, to the bell hop, to the waiters, even to the pool cleaners you’re treated with respect by an individual genuinely pleased to be at your service. It’s extremely flattering, and really, really feels like a holiday.
My family’s got a timeshare in this company, and as such get access (mostly exclusive) to most parts of the hotel. To name a few, this includes a bellhop, free champagne, beer, fruit and soft drinks at our private pool, and unrestricted access to anywhere in the whole hotel. It feels great – having this freedom to do anything and everything is great; the power you hold is indescribable. The only thing is, I don’t know where to start.
Right now writing this, I’m lying on my double sofa bed, fan on full blast above me, air con full blast, water cooled in a fridge not far away, with my own 28” (or thereabouts) flatscreen TV blasting out some swimming competition in Spanish to me. Marble floors everywhere, a bathroom with my own personal shower, bathrobes, slippers, loads of funky mirrors, and a kitchen good enough to be a student’s wet dream – all while my mum and stepdad sleep next door sitting in the exact same environment. There’s so much on offer and I feel like I need to take advantage of it all. Come tomorrow, I shall try my hardest to seep everything out of my experience as humanly possible, but for now there’s just too much to get my head around.
Having said this, the best part of the holiday so far has easily (and completely non-hotel-related) my dinner. As usual on holiday, the first meal you have is usually pretty surreal; it’s not often you can sit outside at 9pm just yards from the shore sipping wine and eating a seafood pizza whilst being waited on hand and foot by a delightful young chap who my workplace would be proud to have.
However, the pizza wasn’t just any pizza. For just 9 euros (£8), I got a stone baked thin crust pizza stuffed full of tuna, mussels, calamari, prawns and olives – most of which I’ve never even thought of having on a pizza. Once last year at uni I put tuna on a pizza since it needed eating up, yet after cooking it to a crisp in the oven, needless to say it didn’t taste too good. I wouldn’t dream of putting mussels on a pizza – I love mussels, I love pizzas, but the two just don’t fit together in my mind... until today. Similarly, I’ve had prawns once or twice and enjoy them, yet even though they’re a bit of an eye-sore (and not exactly the most lucrative-looking food) they tasted fantastic on the pizza, whilst the last and only time I had calamari was when I was tricked into thinking they were onion rings on holiday over a decade ago in Australia – since then, I haven’t touched squid, yet today I felt daring, and I’m so glad I did because it truly tasted amazing. When the hotel dinner buffet costs £40 each, it’s definitely exciting to know that there’s a great pizza joint around the corner for under a tenner.
As I’ve already mentioned, a lot of places here are pretty much free to us, including the fitness club. I don’t know what it looks like, nor where it even is, but there’s a gym here somewhere and I’m dying to get my mitts on some of the machines. I had a glance at the hotel directory earlier in our room, and there’s a picture of a few weights machines all aligned in a circle around a huge sculpture of some random dude – now if this is what the gym actually looks like, I’m not sure whether I’d be in awe of the setup or laugh at the stupid space management...
Although on holiday, I still want to make sure I’m eating healthy and doing a decent amount of exercise too. Starting with a benchmark 40 lengths a day swimming (possibly 50), I’ll also find out the costs of scuba diving, windsurfing, surfing, jet-skiing, quad biking and any other sport that takes my fancy that I can’t do back home – anything to get the juices going is good enough for me.
Anyway, day one has finished and although I’ve only been here a matter of hours I already feel like I a) know the place pretty well b) don’t quite fit in just yet c) need to do everything I can to make the most of this holiday. The next nine days should be pretty damn good indeed...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Provide your opinions...