Sunday, November 16, 2008

Spain - Part 1

Video capture. Still from little bros footage
East Midlands to Alicante

If you enjoy flying you will know someboy who doesn't. There are a lot of people in this world who really don't enjoy flying. I'm one of them.

Boats and ships are fine. I can take the ferry to the mainland anytime. No bother at all. But when it comes to flying I'll start getting twitchy and agitated a couple of weeks before. As much as my knowledge of physics and accident statistics tells me that flying really is the safest form of travel my mind just won't have it. So my brother dragged me on a plane because ferries take to long.

With some alcohol inside me, I found myself travelling at around 500 miles an hour, 31,ooo feet in the air. THIRTY ONE FUCKING THOUSAND FEET IN THE AIR. People say there's no sensation of height when flying and I agree. But my mind still knows that I am 31,000 feet in the air and that this is not normal. I think my facial expression reflected that, even after beer.

When we touched down in Alicante I was elated. We were on the ground. There is no passport control or customs to pass through, we just headed straight out of the airport and went for the bus. I was glad, as I all nervous flyers are, to be on Terra Firma and heading for the safer transport of a bus.

Like all mainland western European countries, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of a highway code in Spain, and most of the cars that passed our slow bus were covered in dents and scrapes, even the brand new ones, cars weaved in and out of the lanes, narrowly missing each other and our bus.

Some of the landscape almost made me feel like I was in a Sergio Leone western. If it weren't for the modern fencing, I could have believed it. And there are too many mountains for a vertigo victim. I was hoping the bus wouldn't go on any roads which ran alongside sheer drops. Time for more beer. This wasn't so much a holiday as a test on my adrenaline glands.
An hour after landing we arrived at our destination. It made a change to be staying in a hotel instead of some dodgy hostel where thefts are a daily hazard. I was, of course, delighted to know that we were staying five floors up and had to get there in a glass lift (elevator). Still, it could have been worse, we could have been on the sixth floor. Soon it was time to sample the night life.

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