My long awaited return has arrived at last and now I am back I can tell you of my travels.
So Thursday morning we awoke to a fresh new day. A day when I didn't have to go to work. I don't know about anyone else but getting up is always less painful when you don't have to go to work..
Anyway, Reece and Vicky drove us to the airport, we kissed goodbye to Anya and boarded our plane. The flight was fairly good. It seemed to go quickly and we didn't have to sit next to anyone which was nice.
We arrived in Sunny Spain to be met by Steven. Let me tell you something about the way people drive in Spain. It's scary. Let me give you an example: you know how in this country you always leave a space between you and the car in front just to be safe? If you do that in Spain then someone will fill that space. They truly drive like lunatics by English standards but somehow (and I can't explain how) it works. It's like it's chaos but it's organised chaos.
So we arrive at Steven and Laura's apartment. For clarity I will mention now that Steven's flatmate is called Laura. This might get confusing since my wife's name is Laura as well so for the duration of this post I will refer to Laura's flatmate as Laura2.
Their apartment is sweet. It is huge. It is on the top floor of a 14 floor building so the view is amazing. There will no doubt be some pictures on my website soon.
We spent the afternoon by the pool (oh yeah, they have 2 pools which are private to the apartment block) just chilling and swimming which was nice.
That evening we met up with Steven's brother Frazer and Steven's girlfriend Rachel. We went to a restaurant first where I had a pretty nice steak. There was a power cut just after we had finished eating and the live entertainer had to stop playing which was a shame since he was basically just playing a playlist written by Steven.
Then we moved on to a bar called "The Rock" which was pretty cool. The drinks were really cheap and Steven seemed to know everyone there (bar staff and customers alike). They have a really cool quiz machine as well with a Star Trek quiz on it. It's just a shame that it wasnt the kind of quiz machine that pays out but we did top the high score board several time over :-)
So we played some pool and had some drinks and by the end of the evening we were totally wasted. It became fairly apparent that there is something not quite right about Steven and Rachel's relationship. We would be quite happily chatting or playing on the quiz machine and he would suddenly say that he needed to go and spend a bit of time with her so she didnt get pissed off. It was really weird. Here was a friend who was visiting him for the first time ever and he kept having to go off and keep his girlfriend happy...
Anyway, we arrived back at the apartments and Steven's girlfriend asked if we wanted to join them for a glass of wine in her apartment to which Laura cleverly replied "no, we're going upstairs to have sex" before promptly passing out as soon as she got into bed. I dont think that went down too well with Rachel but I'm not too fussed.
So we awoke on the second day hideously hung over. I dont really remember doing anything that day. I think that must have been the day we did nothing all morning and then went to Tivoli world while Steven worked the radio station. Tivoli world is basically a theme park much the same as England's theme parks only much worse. None of the rides appealed to us enough for us to spend money riding them. I won a couple of soft toys for Laura on the grabber machines which was kind of fun but apart from that we just wandered around for a bit before going over to the radio station to go watch Steven on air.
It was a little weird. He puts on a voice when he is on the radio and doesnt sound like himself at all but once you get over that it is kind of cool. He let us pick some tracks and push some buttons and stuff.
That evening we met up with Rachel again and this time we also met up with some of Steven's friends. Unfortunately Laura was still knackered from the night before and this had a knock-on effect to myself. Coupled with the fact that Steven was still pandering to Rachel and we got a taxi back quite early on. Oh must mention that there was this girl there called Tasha who was drop dead gorgeous. These things need noting.
So after a relatively early night me and Laura woke fairly early the next day. We went down to the pool and had a bit of a swim and then Steven picked Laura2 up from the airport. They came back and we swam some more. I even had a water fight with Laura which isnt like her as she cant really swim, has a fear of water and usually has a panic attack as she is getting into the pool (possibly a slight exaggeration but you get the idea).
While Steven joined his mum for a birthday bash, myself, Laura and Laura2 went for a meal which was really fun. Laura was worried it might be a bit weird but it was pretty cool and we had a good laugh. Oh, we went to this bar and there was a guy with a microphone singing. Several glasses of wine later and Laura goes to the DJ to ask for the karaoke menu. He kindly replies that there is no karaoke on that evening and the guy on the dancefloor with the microphone is a professional singer...oops.
So after that we headed over to the casino. Anyone who has read my blog from the beginning may remember a reference to a roulette system I used at the fateful weekend away with work. I say "fateful" because of the whole golf cart thing that happened. If you are still in the dark then read my archives. So anyway, this system worked back then with fake money and I was eager to use it with real money.
I have a theory that you should never go to a casino or indeed gamble at all unless you can really spare the money. It's too much of a risk. The odds are designed to take all your money so you should always consider your wager to be the cost of playing. That way when you go home with nothing you can just say that you have paid for a good night out. If you go home with some money then you can consider yourself lucky.
Anyway, I had quite a lot of money since Spain is so cheap and I figured I could probably spend 100 euros without breaking a sweat and with the system I play 100 euros would last all night. I started by changing 50 euros (as did Steven) and started playing.
I'll go into a bit more detail now about how my system works. If you arent interested then skip this bit:
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You may have heard of it before. I certainly didnt invent it. Everytime I tell someone about it they say they have heard of it. But here we go anyway. Say you want to win £1. You bet £1 on red. If you win then great you have you won £1. If you lose then you bet £2 on red. If you win then you have won £4, spent £3 to get it and are £1 up. Basically if you lose before you win £1 then you double up and if you win then you start again at £1. I'm not sure if I've described it very well but basically the more money you have and the lower the amount you are trying to win, the better the odds. If you want me to describe it to you a little better then let me know. It's mathematically sound - you aren't guarenteed to win - the odds are just in your favour because of the system you are playing.
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So, 15 minutes later Steven was out. He wasnt playing a system. 2 hours later I had doubled my money. Its slow. You dont win much. But 2 hours later I had won 50 euros. I reckon thats about £35. Do you earn £17.50 an hour? I dont. At this point I could have doubled my bet, carried on with the same odds and potentially doubled my money again in another 2 hours. Alternatively I could have carried on with the same bet and carried on with double the odds. By this stage though everyone else had run out of money ages ago and the old saying also weighed heavily on my mind "quit while you're ahead". I had already had one worrying moment when red came up 5 times in a row while I was betting on black which nearly wiped me out so I left the table a happy man.
After that we went back to Steven and Laura2's apartment. We drank a lot. Steven and Laura2 even took a pill each which isnt something I particularly agree with but it was pretty funny watching Steven jump up and down on their sofa at 5 in the morning.
I retired at 6am but the others stayed up until about 9am. Early risers we were not.
Sunday we got up around lunchtime and headed over to a nice little English restaurant who did a Sunday lunch. It was absolutely gorgeous and the restaurant just happened to be owned by Tasha's parents so we got to see her again ;-)
The rest of the day was pretty boring really. We went shopping and Laura2 cooked us some food that evening. We met another of their friends who was pretty nice and we turned in pretty early looking forward to going to the aquapark the next day.
Steven and Laura2 didnt get up until lunch time so we had to forget about going to the aquapark. I was pretty disappointed since I was really looking forward to it but such is life. In the end we went to the pool for a bit and then hung out at the apartment while Laura2 cooked some food for the evening. That evening Naomi and Alistair came over as well as Paul Vetter (DJ superstar extreme...). We ended up drinking a lot and playing some poker. It was telling that only Steven was down on money by the end of the game...
By the time Naomi and Al left I was well worked up for a night of it but unfortunately it was 3.30am. Being drunk I wasnt having any of that "everywhere is closed" rubbish so when everyone settled down for a quiet game of who wants to be a millionaire on the playstation i slipped out of the door and legged it.
I went for a walk on the beach and by the time I got back everyone had gone to bed (apart from Laura2 who didnt notice me come back). Steven had texted me saying that he was sorry that my stay wasnt everything I had hoped it would be which I think may have been a bit over the top. In any case he was totally wrong. I had a great time and I will be going back again probably before the end of the year.
So Tuesday we packed and had a quick lunch before jetting back off to England.
It was great to see Anya again although she cried when she saw us - probably couldnt quite work out what was going on :-)
She has made so much progress while we have been away. She is almost crawling now and it wont surprise me if she can crawl before she gets to 6 months. Also if you wave at her then she waves back and if you hold out your hands to her then she reaches out to you. It's pretty cool being a dad.
So that was the end of our holiday. Its a bit of a shock to the system going back to work but such is life and at least I enjoy my job. (although technical support is a bit of a drag. damn lusers)
I hope you have enjoyed todays programme, it was brought to you by the numbers 3 and 7 and the colour green.
