After Friday night’s frantic packing, it’s off to the bus. Finally! The Flibco airport shuttle leaves from Luxembourg station at 9:25, so we’re up at about 8. Nevertheless, by the time we’re ready to go, it’s close to 9. Luckily we catch a bus to the station, and we make our way to the station with enough time to spare to pick up a paper and a Kakuro booklet before we head out to the Flibco quay.
Then, the weirdest thing happens. A Flibco bus shows up from the direction of the city center, and passes the station without stopping! I’m getting slightly worried here… there’s only one Flibco bus scheduled around this hour. While I’m hesitating to call (fully realising that if that was our bus, then we just missed our plane), another Flibco bus shows up and does stop at the station. Phew!
With that, our journey has begun. And what a journey! Two and a half hours by bus to Brussels Charleroi, and then another four and a half hours of flight to Tenerife! Factoring in the transition times, we’ll be traveling most of the day.
In the beginning, I try to sleep. Agnieszka manages, but I fail, to the point I pick my book (the first book in the Dresden filesseries). I’m reading, and reading, and reading… hmmms, more than halfway through… hmmms… ah, there is the airport. Finally! We
freshen up a bit and then, Aga insists on checking our luggage. We unpack our bags and wear just about everything, then weigh the bags at an unused check-in counter. Both of us are below the 10 kilo limit. Furthermore, we check the size restrictions at one of the abundant test locations. Check! We’re compliant with the insanely strict cabin luggage requirements, so next we go through security. Aga insisted, knowing that they’re checking bags right before boarding, and charging the hell out of you if you’re not complying. After security, I spot several officials doing exactly that! They’re checking carry-on luggage for size and weight — Aga was right, they’re playing dirty here! Luckily, we’re prepared for their tricks :)
After security, we grab a bite at the overpriced airport catering, and I check the tax-free stores. Hmmms, more books! That might be a good idea. I find one which is not too lame, but the queue is too long for comfort, so I give up. We make our way to the plane, and get with the last remaining passengers. For me, quite a change from normal. Turns out to be quite a relief — especially since we’re flying with RyanAir. The incessant jingle is not played to annoyance, merely since after we’re comfortably seated, the plane leaves within 5 minutes.
Aga and I make fun of the safety demonstration by predicting and copying the moves. Oh, the personnel always means well, but after traveling 4.5 hours, we’re in a silly mood :) Soon after take off, I take my book… … … and finish it. I try to make some head / tails out of the simplest of Kakuro, but it’s different than the one I have on the DS (in layman’s terms: no can do without cheating :s).
Eventually, we land. Since we’re only packing cabin luggage, and as we’re seated near the back door (being amongst the last passengers in), we’re actually surprisingly quickly off again, and we soon find our bus. This is the first time I witness Agnieszka’s proficiency at Spanish. From the sound of it, it comes to her far more easy than English (caveat: I can be notoriously anal about English). Half an hour later, we get off the bus in Los Cristianos, and we try to find our way using a google maps print out. Luckily, I suck at reading maps, well, at least right then and there. After a nice touristic stroll through the area around our apartment, we find we took the most indirect route possible (I kid you not). From the bus to the apartment took us about 30 minutes, but on the way back we pass the bus station within 5 minutes…
Well, walking 30 min with all your luggage is fun, no? ;-)
We check in, and they want/need to keep our passports for 20 min — I guess to make copies. I hate that sort of thing, it is my identity document. I feel sort of naked without it, but okay, let’s first explore the apartment. The man at the reception said it would be a tad large. It is. Check out the sights and the movie! Yes, you saw that right: two balconies! EAT THAT!! Man, we’re in Spain, off the coast of Africa, the weather is fine, and we’re ready to relax!!
And we do. After freshening up for a while, and changing into more appropriate attire, we head out for dinner, picking our ids up on the way. After a short confusion, it turns out Aga had a specific restaurant at Playa de las Americas in mind. If you check the map, you’ll spot the non-negligable distance from Los Cristianos to Playa de las Americas. That caught me off guard. After clearing that one up, and having a pleasant stroll along the seaside before dinner, we find the restaurant.
Aga surprises the waiter by offering the 2 euros she was short last time she ate here. The waiter surprises us by speaking Dutch with me. I surprise Aga by being ebullient, and so we’re all surprised. After a nice meal by the sea side (Aga found her favourite dish, with the obligatory Canarian “papas” (potatoes), I had something mediocre — but the wine was nice), I didn’t feel like walking back. So we went away from the beach, looking for a taxi. When we hit main street, Las Americas, there were all sorts of inviting sounds from the various bars. While I didn’t feel like a long walk, I could definitely sit down a bit on our first night in Tenerife with a drink and some life entertainment!
At one point I spotted a karaoke sign, and I was convinced. Karaoke is like the surefire guarantee of amusement — as long as you add a dash of alcohol and a lack of inhibitions and shame :) Of course, we came as spectators!
And what a view it was. There was a drag queen on stage, making no effort whatsoever to hide the masculinity of “her” voice. “She” was hosting the karaoke fun, and as that function requires in a bar full of half-drunk English, “her” speech was rather… uncouth. “I’ll put you through a window with that filthy mouth of yours, darling!” :)
Well, if that doesn’t raise a smile, I guess you had to be there.
We didn’t stay too long, but long enough to enjoy us. There wasn’t any really terrible performance — a bit of a letdown, if you ask me. Karaoke should be drunk people that really don’t want be reminded of what they did the day after. Nevertheless, we had a good time. Aga even threw the rose she was given at the restaurant to one particularly well-singing singer. Of course, the drag queen picked up on that and heckled the next singer: “The previous one got a rose thrown at her — you reckon you’ll get some fruit?” :)
After that, we were tired, so we took a taxi home and turned in for a good night’s sleep (remember those words: a good night’s sleep. See the next day for how that turned out…)