Slightly worried today that all the shops would be closed. Thankfully, it’s not the case. Plenty of small shops open. I didn’t try the big supermarkets.
Went for a long walk to see what a white building was, across the water, that we could see from our side of Gouvia harbourside.
Pavements are intermittent here to say the least. We didn’t see another person walking, in miles. Everyone drives a car or rides a moped/motorbike.
We found the building and it’s a church. The “Church of Ipapanti”, to be precise. I’m an atheist, so there’s three random points to note about this particular walk/visit. Continue reading Corfu – Part 4→
I wouldn’t fancy driving around here much. ALL the cars have dents in. Some have lights or bumpers missing too, but a big dent is the absolute minimum.
Technically I think they’re meant to drive on the right, but it doesn’t seem like a rule they stick to very strictly. Lane management on corners is especially poor.
There are lots of mopeds and motorbikes too. Today I saw a total of 5 people wearing helmets. Maybe it isn’t a legal requirement.
The maximum people I’ve seen on one scooter so far is 3 (two of them children, none wearing helmets), but I’ll keep an eye out for more. Continue reading Corfu – Part 3→
Saturday
This morning, we got up, showered (including intermittent water), brushed teeth again with tap water. Note: Must get some bottled water.
We then went to small shop round the corner, where a Dutch man was talking to a Greek woman. Both speaking perfect English, but with their respective accents.
Water, milk, croissants, and that’s breakfast owned (we bought our own teabags from the UK. They don’t weigh anything, so why not). Continue reading Corfu – Part 2→
This trip started from home in Bristol, but because I couldn’t find any last minute deals from Bristol, we travelled to Gatwick, and flew from there.
Due to some unfortunate timing requirements, we ended up arriving at Gatwick 4 hours before our flight. Still, never mind.
Interestingly, for all the times I’ve shunned cheap flights from other airports because they’re going from “London” and “it’d be awkward to get to from Bristol”, I was surprised to discover that Heathrow (Gatwick coach goes via Heathrow en route) is only 2 hours from Bristol by coach. Considering how much extra choice it gives you (and how coach/train/taxi/lift/whatever is still required to get to Bristol’s miles-from-anywhere airport), I won’t be so quick to rule it out next time.
Sadly, it’s another 1.5 hours to Gatwick, but still – a lot more choice when you include London airports in your searches.
The bus is about £50 return, each, but the saving outweighs that in my price comparisons. It could be even cheaper going Megabus, but the Megabus doesn’t go to the airport directly, and worrying about extra transfers and train changes isn’t something you need when traveling.
We had 15kg max of hold luggage each. At weigh-in, 7.something and 9.something. Good news. Well thought-out packing saved us dragging heavy suitcases around.
I’m not the most confident flyer it’s fair to say. Nor a very experienced one. Prior to this, I’ve left England on a plane only 3 times (and returned each time too, obviously). Continue reading Corfu – Part 1→
On Sunday, I got a puncture. Or maybe I didn’t. I was driving along, could smell rubber, stopped and the tyre looked flat. I moved about 20 metres to somewhere sensible, and it no longer looked flat. I searched through my car to find the details for my breakdown cover, and discovered that it ran out the day before. What a bit of bad luck (is NOT what I said at the time).
After I’d spent a couple of minutes swearing, I decided that this gave me two basic options:
Admit defeat, and admit that I’d never before changed a wheel, and phone a breakdown company without being a member, and incur their charge to help me; or
I was browsing the web this morning, one thing led to another, and eventually I ended up watching airline safety announcement videos.
This reminded me that when I flew last (Nov 2010) with First Choice, they had a really really bad safety announcement. It wasn’t done by humans, but a video. And the video was bad. Imagine if a primary school made an airline safety video. That’s exactly it. Continue reading Airline Safety Announcements→
At the end of last year, I went to see Frankie Boyle in Birmingham. I wrote about it, saved it as a draft and never posted it. Why? I didn’t think it was very good (yes, there is some quality control on this blog).
I’ve had a few days of seeing other people produce relatively poor work. First, someone sent me a link to this page, which is all a video Samsung produced, which uses actors, masquerading as non-actors, to promote a product. My first thought when watching the video though, was “wtf is wrong with the sound?!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jXY1x_tTcY
My EARS! How does a technology company produce something that poor?
What a journey back.
This morning I felt terrible. On the short coach ride to the airport, I thought I was going to vomit.
Then we stopped and picked up some noisy chavs from another hotel. The kids were loud, and the dad kept over-yawning in a ridiculously over the top manner. Irritating.
On the way out, I got checked at the airport by the handheld scanner, so it’s only fair that my girlfriend get scanned on the way back home.
We boarded the plane, and they were showing music videos on the tv screens.
What would be the most inappropriate thing to show on a plane (with audio over the PA system, that you can’t turn off), before taking off?
How about Cheryl Cole’s hit “Parachute”?
Quote:
“I don’t need a parachute
You’re gonna catch me
You’re gonna catch if I fall
Down, down, down”
On a plane!
Unbefuckinlievable.
Take-off was smooth, flight smooth, staff superb. Incredible really that you can travel 6 miles above ground, at 400mph (they announced it), and it feel like you’re barely moving.
Some of the passengers were really annoying though.
Two chavvy Bristolians ended up behind us, choosing to sit in a manner which meant every movement they made, knocked the back of our seats.
My girlfriend thought they were really tall so couldn’t help it, but when they got off at the end, we realised they were just arseholes. And short-arses.
Also, for the entire flight, the guy in front of me with his stupid quiffed hair couldn’t decide whether he wanted to read his book, or put it away in the overhead lockers, or wear his coat, or put it in the lockers, or sit on the other side of the plane, or sit with his mate. Just sit down and sit still for fuck’s sake! How hard is it?
My girlfriend got a vegetarian lunch that she said was quite nice. As I wasn’t feeling well, just the smell of mine was turning my stomach, but it looked nicer and possibly more edible than the breakfast on the way out.
A few other random comments
Thomson/First Choice’s safety announcement video sucks.
I told them as such (actually I used the word “unprofessional”) in the customer survey they asked me to fill in on the return flight.*
(* I also mentioned their poor choice of a song called “Parachute”, and marked the flight food as “poor” – I’m amazed they have a box for “excellent” at all.)
It’s like the normal safety video, which tells you about reading the safety card, and where the life jackets are, except it’s presented by primary-school-age children.
I shit you not.
One primary school age girl telling another primary school age girl to store her teddy bear in the overhead lockers.
I don’t especially like children on tv anyway, and for something as serious as a safety announcement, I want it demonstrated by someone who is at least old enough to have had the relevant safety training.
Considering how competent their actual staff are, I think it does them down too. Is it all so easy that an 8-year-old can do it? Of course not.
I may write them a letter about it.
Ibiza is very clean
Most of the rubbish is natural – like leaves.
They have not just bins, but separate recycling bins – everywhere.
There is practically no dog mess anywhere. There are lots of dogs, and lots of bins for waste of said animals, complete with free bags.
Sadly, there are quite a few cats, which don’t seem to be owned by anyone. Crazy cat people put out food for them, so you’ll be wandering down the street and happen upon a load of cat food all over the place. Cat shit to follow shortly after.
Checker cars taxi service
£27 fee (each way), but the price is agreed before you go anywhere, and drivers friendly.
It works out marginally more expensive than parking my car for a week there, but with the added bonus that I don’t have to drive to the airport at 5am when I’m not really awake.
There are cheaper ways, but split two ways, it’s not that bad. It would have been £10 for both of us to get to Temple Meads via the airport bus, then we’d have to get home with all our bags and whatnot. A recent test suggests it’s about £10 from Temple Meads home, by taxi. There isn’t a direct bus.
For the extra money and convenience, it’s worth it.
Up early, but not early enough. We missed the bizarre land train by minutes. Balls.
Turns out the stop is substantially further from our hotel than I thought.
My girlfriend had already told me this apparently.
Might have another go tomorrow.
After a quick trip to buy some bread, we caught the bus to Es Canar, home of the famous hippy market. Literally everyone bangs on about it. It’s on every poster which mentions Es Canar. They’ve clearly never been to Glastonbury – all manner of hippy tat available there.
Luckily it wasn’t on, but what we hadn’t realised is that there isn’t much else in Es Canar. If where we’re staying is Tenby, Es Canar is Brean. There’s a few shops, a fairly average beach, and more British chavs than you can shake a stick at. That’s it.
We decided to walk up the coast a bit. Then a bit more. Then round some cliffs. Then a bit further.
We bought a couple of lemonades and some cake on a beach. Then walked a bit more.
We walked further than any human should, in sandals. Through pine forests, and all sorts.
Then realised we were a bit tired, so as we passed a bus stop, my girlfriend convinced me we should get the bus back to our hotel.
Spot on time, a bus appeared.
Back in town, we discovered another area where our hotel is ripping us off, by visiting an Internet cafe. They charged €1 for an hour (our hotel is €8 an hour), and apologised repeatedly about the slow speed, but that they had a line fault at the moment.
It was much faster than my home broadband ever is.
For dinner, in amongst the normal food of the all-you-can-eat buffet was “squid rings”. They’re like onion rings, but in the middle is octopus.
I took one.
It’s like a bad cod, which is also incredibly chewy. Not very nice at all.
Not horrible enough to be vomit-inducing, but unpleasant enough I couldn’t finish it.
We retired to our room to watch .nova – a Spanish tv channel.
They love their soaps. There’s loads of them, and if you think Eastenders is violent and depressing, you’ve clearly never seen La Tormenta.
In the space of 10 minutes of this, it went from a couple having sex, to a group of cowboys torturing and beating a man to within an inch of his life. And it starts at 19:30. We switched over when they started removing his fingers, one-by-one.