From then until now... or not

OK, I would say that this post is likely to be extra long, but then again the lengths of my posts recently have been fairly long themselves, so it's likely to be about that length or so I guess. But then again it might not. We’ll see how it goes.

So, first I wanna apologise about my not being online much in the last 2 and a bit weeks. (or 4...) I do actually have a valid reason for the first week I wasn't online... I wasn't even in the gorram country!! Not that I’m complaining you have to understand, I mean, HELLO! week in the sun! It was amazing!

We got to the airport and all checked in and everything nice and easily, and coming from me that is a big statement to make because I hate travelling. OK, that's not true. I don’t mind the actual journey; I just hate the build up. Like waiting at the station for a train or waiting at bus stops for a bus, or checking in and then waiting for the plane to arrive etc at airports. Honestly, I’m hopeless!

So yeah, we were on the plane for 9, and in the air for half 9. And we got to Faro in about 3 hours, which is pretty much normal for that flight. So we landed at about half 12, had to wait for about 5 minutes or so to get off the plane, then had to get through passport control, so we were at the baggage claim for about quarter to 1.

Now, this was the day of the first England match of the World Cup that kicked off at 2, so mum figured we still had plenty of time to collect the bags and get to the apartment where we were staying which was bout a half hour drive away. Only Faro airport must work under a different space-time continuum than the rest of the world.

It took about 45 minutes for them to even start loading up the bags onto the reclaim, and then they loaded then up 3 or 4 bags per minute. At least that's what it felt like. Anyway, because I had gotten up early (at least that's the excuse I’m using!) I was feeling a little teasing. So it got to about 1-ish and I started doing that sing-song voice thing to mum of "you're gonna miss the match!" until she pointed out that it was only 1, and so we still had a whole half hour to get our bags and be on our way.

So, at about 20 past and the bags still hadn't started I started up again with a "you're gonna miss the match!" and got a "shut up" from her... so I did...

Oh oh oh... there were these golfers on the flight. (I know they were golfers because they had matching t-shirts with "Consett golfing club" on them) and they were a variety of ages, from about 24ish to about 55ish. Anyway, we're waiting at the baggage reclaim and after about 30 minutes or so of waiting, the younger members of the golf club started having this competition thing. I guess the closest thing it was to was dodgems. You know the trolleys that you get at airports for your cases so you don’t have to carry them around the terminal? They each had on, and were sitting on them where the cases usually go, propelling themselves along with their feet. It was hi-larious! (Sorry mark, I’ll work on getting permission to use that word from you next time I see you...)

ANYWAY... EVENTUALLY we got our bags, and went off through customs without any hassle to meet the nice taxi guy mum had organised to meet us at the airport.

(It should be mentioned here that that was the last successful call mum has managed to make form her house phone. She called me up to test it out for her but I was online at the time. So we figured that that most likely meant she wasn’t still connected to Portugal from the previous day. Anyway, it should also be mentioned here that at the time mum still had dial up. So after she hangs up, I figure I’d ring the house phone from my mobile to see if I can get through. So I ring it and it comes up busy. Uh-oh... not good, the phone line is in use. How can that be?! I managed to get on the internet alright so that means that the line... is busy because I’m still on the internet... yeah... Slight case of "um...ooops" from me there...)

Going back to the holiday...

We got in the van, had an uneventful trip to the apartment, and arrived about 10 minutes after kick off. Mum then spent the rest of the match, well, watching it. After that had a look round. Was really nice. Kinda wished I took my camera... OK, I did; just not any film... Nice and spacious, 2 bedroom, kitchen, lounge/dining area, veranda, pool. So yeah, was really nice. Because it was an apartment on a block, it was a shared pool, but at the end of the day so what, a pool is a pool.

It is something that everyone always seems to want to get me in and I spend as much time as I can out of it. It's not that I can't swim, it's just well to be honest, I don’t enjoy it all that much. So the fact that Judi and Mark didn’t come with us had an extra bonus for me. They like to drag me into the pool. They enjoy it. And hey, I have no problem with other people enjoying swimming or having fun in the pool, I just prefer not to go in. Something which they don’t seem to be able to grasp. And they, especially Judi, always want to go to water parks at some point when we go away. And I ALWAYS try to come up with valid reasons why I don’t want to go. Though I did end up going to one in the States last year. Ah well.

I've come off the point again. I'm going to keep doing that. My mind wanders.

Right, back to the first day... spent the afternoon watching the match, sunbathing and then we went out in the evening to "the strip"... basically it's the main street in Albuferia where we were staying where all the restaurants are situated.

(Ok, bear with me… I wrote that on Monday and it’s Tuesday now, I’m not sure where I was going with it…)
Suffice to say we ended up at this really nice Indian restaurant just down the road from Linikers bar. And by the time we got back I had blisters on my feet because of my shoes. Portugal have these sorta mosaic tiles that they use for the paving, and I don't know exactly why, might be the stone they are or something, but they are incredibly slippery. So not only do I have blisters on my feet, I then have to walk back and not fall over and crack my head open, cos let’s just face it, that hurts!

Oh, talking of pubs, there was this one just opposite the turn in for the apartment called “The Gerodie Pride”… It’s official… we’re EVERYWHERE!!! MWAHAHAHA! Oh, going out to the pub tonight with some folk, meet up have a chat, might do the quiz. Should be cool.

Where was i? Oh yeah. That was pretty much it for the first day back. Sunday spent the day lounging by the pool. I should inform you all that this does not mean that I am completely tanned. When I say spent the day lounging by the pool, it means I spent the day doing nothing but reading and some cross stitching, and some of that occurred by the pool.

Went out in the evening again to this really nice grill restaurant. It wasn’t on the main strip, just off to the side of it, and it was really really nice. They had this new machine thing for when you ordered, it was like a tab only electrical, and the guy sewrvoing us hadn’t used it before, so that was fun, watching them try to work out how to use them. They sorta looked like house phone handset things ish… dunno if they have them here, have to ask Mamo bout that…

ANYWAY… that was Sunday.

Met one of the mats of te guy who owns the apartment we were in on Monday. He came up and saw me on the veranda and asked I was a friend of Ken and Cyndy… Well, actually, no I’m not. I’ve never met them in my life. My mum knows Ken, but doesn’t really know Cyndy… understandable really. So yeah, that was kinda fun. After he left I just looked at my mum and went “ok… who was that?!” lol

Did a morning trip down to Villamora on the Wednesday. It’s another coastal town where we’ve stayed the last 2 times we went to Portugal. Wow… I’ve been to Portugal 3 times in the last 6 years… that’s a fair amount for us… Anyway, the guy we were renting the apartment off had a boat down in villamora’s harbour, so we went down to see if we could find it. There’s also a lot of shops down on the marina too, so yeah, that was fun. Looked at all the really nice boats that people with more money than sense get etc, and checking them out, seeing which one we would have if we fell under that category. Eventually saw a really really really nice one, but we couldn’t find what she was called. At least not from where we were standing.

So after seeing these boats we started looking for his boat, because we were told it was the first one you come to. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that statement depend entirely on the direction you approach the marina from?! Because his boat is not called “Jupiter 1”, and that was the first baot WE came across!

Left earlier than planned because it rained on us. And not just a few drops and then its over… but full on rain pouring and everything. So we weren't too amused by that. I mean, the last time we were there the country was in the midst of a drought… it hadn’t rained for something like 2 years or so.

Watched The Blues Brothers on the Tuesday evening after going out for a meal. Mum hadn’t seen it and it was there and there wasn’t anythingn else to do, so yeah, that was cool. I watched the sixth sense on the Thursday when the England match was on. It wasn’t on on the TV that we had in the house, so she went out to the pub to see it. She went into the Geordie Pride but IT WASN’T ON! So she went down to the strip istead.

(Please bear in mind the following events are what I was told after the match…) She was standing at the bar with a drink and this guy comes over with this other guy, about 35ish. But this other guy didn’t exactly have a lot on… Apparently he had these tiny shorts, suspenders (kinda like Mal’s) and a dog collar with a leash. So the first guy is literally leading this other guy around. He comes up to my mum and says “congratulations. You’ve won him.” And my mum is like “wtf?! What do you mean I won him?” So the first guy says “well, the group over there (points out a group of about 24 guys) have decided that you have won him for the duration of the match to do whatever you want with.” So she says “sorry, not interested.” And then the guy in the dog collar goes “What? Am I not attractive to you or something?!” So she looks him up and down, and says “Look, sorry, I’m not interested. I’m sure you’re very attractive, unfortunately, I’m a dyke.” And then she gets a couple of od looks. Eventually the guy goes “what?” so she just calmly looks at him and says “Yeah. Sorry, but im not interested because I’m not into guys like that. Sorry.” So he shrugs and wonders back to his mates who are all like “well? What happened?!” and he goes “no good. She’s a dyke!”

At the time all this is going on, one of the party had come up and was about to start talking to her but then took a step back and was like “you’re not are you?!” and sh admitted she wasn’t, just didn’t want to hurt the guys feelings. Kinda wished I had gone to meet the stag party now. (come on… you had to have guessed it was a stag do, right?!)

So after her telling me all this when she got back, we went out for a meal again, and we were walking downt the road when we saw the group of lads she had been talking to. One of them comes up to me and says “ah so you must be the daughter!” so I said yes I was, nice to meet you etc. and he asks where I had been for the match. So before I can answer that it wasn’t that big deal to me, mum comes in and says that im not really into football. Which isn’t exactly true. I will sit and watch a match or whatever, its just not the end of the world for me if I don't see it. Of course the guys thought this was one of the biggest crimes of the century. The guy we were talking to looked at me like I had just crapped on his shoe. So yeah, that was fun…

(Right. It’s Monday now. I said I would have this up by now, so sorry about that.)

That was pretty much the extent of the events in Portugal. Had meals out every night. Saturday-Indian; Sunday- grilled fish; Monday- we had some really really nice fish. Mum had some sole that had been deep fried I guess? Anyway, it was GORGEOUS! It literally fell apart on your tongue. And I had some fish in a cream sauce with pasta, so yeah, that was nice. Tuesday we went to this Bistro place, where I had a steak and egg and chips. Proper student meal! Lol. And then had dessert, and then a coffee, and then the guy who ran the place gave us a glass of port on the house. I think that was the first time I’ve had port, and it was actually really really nice. Wednesday we went to this really nice Italian place. And the food there was amazing. I love Italian food… On the Thursday we went to this traditional restaurant, where we both had beef stroganoff, because I LOVE that dish. Then went to an ice cream palour for dessert. On Friday we went to this Australian restaurant. You had some normal dishes like spag bol, spare ribs etc… and then you had things like crocodile steak, and kangaroo steak… very bizarre… But the food there was nice again. So yeah, everywhere we ate the food was really nice.

Came back without any hitch. Well, once we got to the airport anyway. The guy who picked us up had another stop to make before heading to the airport. So I’m feeling a little stressed again, because mum had decided to get a taxi at the time the check in opened because it didn’t take that long to get to the airport. But then this other family that were getting piked up took forever. We must have waited for them for about 20 minutes or so. So now I’m really beginning to panic a bit. We get to the airport without any problem thank god, and get checked in. While we’re being checked in, one of the airline representatives comes up to ask us how many there are because they were missing 4 passengers. So yeah, we were 2 of the last 4 people to check onto the plane. But then once we were checked in I was fine again. Bought more chocolate to replace the bar that the cleaners had chucked out before we left. Bloody cleaners… it was PRALINE too! My FAVOURITE kind of chocolate, and the goram cleaners toss it! GRRR!

Ok, im calm.

So yeah, got back to Newcastle at about 4ish, and was out the airport within 30 minutes.

OK… so I realise that this only takes me to the 17th June, and I could carry on with this post if I wanted, but then it’d be at least another week or so until it got posted, and it’s fairly long already, so I’m posting this bit for now. Look out for the rest of it soon.