Blimey, it’s the last day of the holiday already. We’ve got to be out of our rooms by 10 am and then hang around for the rest of the day until the coach arrives at 6.30 pm to take us to Gerona
Well we always knew it was going to be a noisy resort and it was and we consequently always knew that it might be a noisy hotel and it was but when you only get two or three nights of uninterrupted sleep something begins to crack. During the day it was not so bad, most of the rowdier element are sleeping it off but come 5 pm then it starts. Ritual chanting, shouting and whistling from one balcony to another. The same chants, the same whistles, the same shouts over and over and over again. And it’s the foreigners that do it. I haven’t yet heard any of it in English, in fact all the English people here seem to be in family units and keep themselves to themselves.
There are notices all over the hotel asking people to be quiet between the hours of midnight and 8 am but they’re totally ignored by the minority yob element and if you’re unlucky enough to be within two or three rooms of them then at times, life can be hell. Once the 5 – 8 pm chanting rituals are over they’re out until 4 am and then the real brain-dead mentality starts to show through. It starts as soon as they get out of the lift, shouting to each other, whistling, laughing, banging around down the corridors, then it’s more noise as they stand outside someone’s room shouting and laughing again, banging doors and making more noise at 4 am then you would expect if it was 4 pm in the afternoon. No attempt to be quiet, no realisation that at 4 am most people in the rooms are asleep or trying to sleep and no consideration whatsoever for anyone or anything other than themselves.
On a couple of occasions Pauline has had to ring reception to get someone up to quieten them down and move them along but last night was one of the worst disturbances ever from people in the room next door and people in the room opposite.
Well, last night was our last night so this morning it’s pay back time.
We were up at 8 am to pack so we turned MTV on at full volume. I opened the door to the balcony and Pauline and I started shouting to each other. We had to, to make ourselves heard over the noise from the TV. As we were packing, every time we needed to go in and out of the bathroom we slammed the door. I even found that I had to go next door to Emma and Camille’s room an excessive amount of times for no apparent reason just so that I could slam our door and Emma’s as I left and entered again. It was soon breakfast time. It was 8.30 so we went down to breakfast having left the TV on in the room still belting out MTV. On the way out Pauline removed all the ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs and finally, as we checked out of our rooms completely I daubed whitewash crosses on their doors.
That should confine the bastards to their rooms for a few months until the management realise that the Black Death hasn’t re-emerged after all.
The coach arrived on time to take us to the airport. Pauline asked the rep if the flights were on time and he said something like, “As far as I know but don’t worry we’ll keep you amused and entertained on the journey.” Bloody hell, this was the last thing I wanted to hear and because we were doing more pickups on the way home the coach journey took 90 minutes compared to the 40 minutes it took when we arrived.
After about 40 minutes of driving and pickups the rep down at the front of the coach suddenly blew into the microphone and shouted, “Right we’re gonna have some fun now. You’re all still on holiday aren’t you?”
One tiny voice managed a “Yeah”.
The rep shouted back, “Come on. You’re still on holiday aren’t you?”
Two tiny voices managed a “Yeah”.
“That’s more like it,” the rep shouted at the top of his voice, “Now what I want you all to do is this. You know that bloke Leslie Neilson in the Naked Gun?”
One tiny voice managed a “Yeah”.
“Well, what I want you all to do is, when we pick up these last passengers and they’ve sat down, after three I want you all to say ‘Guess who we just saw, Leslie Neilson from Naked Gun’.”
I looked at Pauline. She looked at me.
“OK folks? Now let’s practise shall we? After three. One, two, three. Guess who we just saw, Leslie Neilson from Naked Gun.”
One tiny voice repeated the mantra.
“Oh, come on, it’ll be really good. After three. One, two, three. Guess who we just saw, Leslie Neilson from Naked Gun.”
This time he had about five people tagging along with him.
I was just trying to figure out why saying this was going to be a lot of fun when he suddenly shouted in hysterics, “OK, we’re here, this is the hotel. A quick practise,” and then he went through the entire pathetic routine yet again.
Then the people got on, sat down and the rep stood up. He coughed for dramatic effect and said, “One, two, three.” And with a smug grin on his face waited for the five morons to say that phrase again.
It went down like a lead balloon. Well obviously it did. How could it do otherwise? It didn’t make any sense did it? We just saw Leslie Neilson? What’s it supposed to do to these people? What’s it supposed to do for the rest of us? Drive everyone into gales of hilarious laughter? During the deadly silence that followed, the rep said to the people who had just got on, “How are you, all right? Not scared are you?”
And that was it. Routine over. It still doesn’t make any sense does it?
Then the rep suddenly said, “We’re picking up Stacey next, she’s a rep that most of you know by now.”
We didn’t.
“She comes from Barnsley and she sounds like that programme Hi-De-Hi.”
What the hell is he on about now? Sounds like a programme?
“So when she gets on I’ll say Hi and I want you all to shout out Hi-De-Hi. So quick, before she gets on let’s practise. I’ll say Hi and you shout….”.
Jesus Christ, what’s this bloke on?
As the coach was slowing down to pick up Stacey the rep suddenly panicked and said, “Oh no, it’s not Stacey. It’s Stephanie, we can’t do that. Tell you what though, Steph broke the strap on her rucksack the first day that she got it so when I say Hi Steph I want you all to shout, “How’s your bag?”.
Bloody hell eh? We’re on the cutting edge of comedy here aren’t we?
Stephanie got on and the rep said, “Hi Steph” and looked down the coach with a knowing grin. He got no response whatsoever from the rest of us so it was just him saying to Steph, “How’s your bag?”
Having got no response from that one you could see him trying to recover and he suddenly shouted, “How about a quiz to pass the time?”
No response.
“OK, here we go, first question. One of my favourite actors is David Hasselhoff”
What?
“What’s the full name of the character he plays in Baywatch?”
Some sad person shouted out the correct answer.
“Correct,” he shouted, “Question two, name a teletubby.”
Another sad person shouted out a correct answer.
“Correct,” he said, “Question three, in Friends which character….”
By now my brain was shouting ‘Let me off, let me off’ when I suddenly heard him say, “Great, that’s the end of the quiz. Five correct answers so that’s five Pringles each.”
Jesus, now what’s he on about?
“You’ve all won a crisp.” he said, “And the lady with the crisps, Stephanie, will be bringing them round.”
At this point I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep until jolly Stephanie had finished moving down the coach with a smile and a jest for every crisp she handed out.
After this brief respite he came on the bloody mic. again and as he was shouting, “Now I’m going to tell you a story and what I want you to do folks is, cheer at the good bits and boo at the bad bits…..”,………I shot myself.
And guess what? It all went quiet. But I wasn’t dead, he’d just stopped talking. But before that he’d said, “Right folks, I’m going to be quiet now and let you all have some peace and quiet for the rest of the journey.”
And you’ve guessed it. He got the biggest, loudest cheer of the whole journey.
Well, we had to wait around for ages at the airport as usual and we just happened to be sitting very close to a pay phone. This bloke came up, put loads of coins into the slot and just started talking. This was the gist of his one-sided conversation and I promise that I am not making any of this up.
“Hello mum? Yeah, I’m at the airport. All right, yeah. I’ve been on the booze but I’m really smoking like mad here. It’s the others. I can’t help it. I’m getting all this shit in my lungs. Yeah, went to a German bar the other night. Which day? The day I was arrested it was and it’s been wet here. Well it was a bit when I went in but by the time they let me out it was soaking. Yeah, the German bar was good. You know you can tell how good the red wine is here by the number of bits left in the bottom of your glass. Yeah, it’s true. What? Nah, lots of things are in Spanish so I dunno.”
And there you have it. An Englishman abroad. He was even wearing a bloody football shirt.
Once on the plane we were just relaxing into the flight when a woman sitting in front of Pauline suddenly poked her head over the back of her seat and said, “Sorry to bother you but you look the spitting image of our Vanessa back home. Can we take a picture of you?” She made Pauline’s day by also telling her that Vanessa was a lot younger than her. Well, well, well, small world eh?
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