The Holiday (Segunda Parte)

As I was booking the flights for our next holiday I couldn’t help but tell myself I should write this second part of our last one before it gets outdated. I thought after finishing working at the restaurant I would have more time off and be able to write more often, but the truth is I have been busy, and most of all, not in the writing mood.

The first part of this story was written in Spanish, and I want to keep doing it in both languages. I know some people prefer just one or the other but not both. Too bad, this is my blog, haha. If your browser translates correctly you’ll know how the flights were, as I told that in The Holiday (part one). This part will be about our whereabouts in Northumberland.

As I said previously, I think I did, this time I was completely oblivious of anything concerning this holiday, I just knew where and when, but I didn’t take charge of anything else. So the car rental, the hotel and of course, the plane tickets were my partner’s business. It was all like a gift. Or at least it felt like that.

The first day it was about getting to the hotel and having a bit of sightseeing close to it. So that’s what we did. I must say the accommodation was very good. We had a bag for breakfast with some goods inside, and a clean room and facilities. I can say this has been the best hotel we have been since we started travelling. Plus it was very close to the bars and the City centre so it would be perfect to go out at nigh and go shopping during the day.

One of the things I like the most about Newcastle, and I guess it is not just something that is exclusive to that city, is the way you can be walking Chinatown and suddenly you find a cemetery from the thirteenth century. You walk by ancient walls and then you find one Five Guys. Or you can go through most of the city without leaving the shopping center, all indoors. That for all the commercial areas.

So the first day we just walked and then got early to the hotel so we could enjoy the next day.

Friday we visited the discovery museum, which took us most of the day, and then we went out for some drinks. I must say that kow I understand why the brits get hammered everytime they come to Spain. I ordered a Malibu and lemonade, as it was something they used to order when I worked at the restaurant and I wanted to try it, and since I don’t usually drink alcohol I thought a normal would be fine. I could barely taste it. So I decided a double could be fine. After all I was on holiday and walking back to the hotel. Nothing. I mean I could taste the Malibu this time, but that was it. I had around 5 of them and still nothing. Then here in Spain you get one and it is strong. By the second I would be on the floor. My friend Sara told me England has that issue with drinks. She said to me to try something different next time. Which I did.

The Saturday was the wedding.

I had been waiting for that day for weeks, since I had to go and buy a waist coat and a shirt to be fancy for it. Honestly I made a lot of effort although I was just the partner of the uncle, but I wanted to look smart. Even the nails were dope. I painted them black, and except a couple (2) of bad reviews, the rest of the people liked them polished. We got ready and left although we didn’t expect the traffic to be such a mess and arrived late to the official ceremony. To be fair, getting married in a touristic town on a bank holiday wasn’t a good idea, but we made it. Although we crashed a bit the entrance. Literally everyone stated at us since we entered the room where they were getting married as they were finishing saying their vows. Then pictures and it was done. Some confetti as they left the place and we headed for the place where the dinner would happen. We had more than an hour to reach Blyth from Alnwick.

Since the day before, me drinking had been a failure I decided to go for something more strong. It was a wedding and here it is mandatory to get drunk, plus I wasn’t driving that night, nor any other time, it always scared me how teet manage to do it on the other side of the road. I decided to go for cider, since beer is not my favourite, and this time try the red/black berries version. I had lots of them and even then I didn’t get too hammered. I was happy and it made me less shy so I could talk to the guests although I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying. Fortunately I had a very good translator,although he doesn’t like to talk to people, he had to because I needed someone to explain to me many of their expressions. Honestly the accent was very complicated. I felt like stupid most of the time but thanks to the drinks it didn’t matter.

I must say I hadn’t been to a wedding in ages, and I had to skip my friend’s one in July because of work, so it was, like most of that holiday, something new to me, or at least as if I had forgotten about it. In the end they are not as different as the one si had been in the bast, a long time ago, either in Spain or in France. Except this one didn’t last forever. I would say by hafl past nine most of the guests were about to leave. Most of them were getting more chatty and it felt nice to have them getting interested in us. We were probably the only gay couple in the venue. It went all very natural. I was worried about that but it was actually better than I thought, we had a lot of fun, or at least I had, and also a lot of compliments on our clothes.

We didn’t go out that night. By the time we got to the hotel, it was past eleven, and we were tired. Plus we could use the early night to get sooner out in the morning and enjoy the city, Sundays there is the market by the river and it is always nice to see. Go for a walk and see all the stalls, cross the Tyne on the Millennium Bridge and have some food there.

After having lunch by the river and the walk along it, through the market, we went back to the shopping area, and passed another cemetery, tombstones were from the 1700s. It was a nice day to visit around and also enjoy the good weather. I must say we went from 32° in Spain to barely 22° there in the middle of the day, and still it felt amazing to be able to walk around without sweating like crazy.

Monday we had planned a visit to Whitby, as I insisted I wanted to see the village depicted on the novel Dracula by Bram Stocker. It was a Bank Holiday so we expected it to be crowded. We didn’t count on the parkings to be packed and people being so dumb. Someone will have to explain to me why some of them just get into their car, they see we are waiting for them to leave and instead of saying anything they just sit there for ages until you give up realising they are just sitting in their car and not going to leave anytime soon.

We decided to park by the old Abbey, up the hill, and it was worth it. Already the views and the mood were amazing. Plus we had clouds and a bit of rain so tt made it even more mysterious. This first part of the visit was really great. I felt like I was in the book, although I haven’t read it in ages so it was all I could remember from then, the tombstones, the stairs and the view of the city from up there. It was amazing. I was expecting Mina or Lucy to appear somewhere.

We then went down to the old town and the ambiance was different. It reminded me somehow of Annecy, but with way more people and so many dogs. I think two out of three groups of people had a dog. There we saw that every single shop said that canines were welcome. No wonder why there were so many. It was fun to watch. Many shops. Lots of people. Billboards informing not to feed the birds, seagulls are vile. I didn’t expect to see first hand what they meant. We were having lunch in a restaurant, indoors, when we could see a big bird that took off of the hand of a woman on the street whatever she just bought on a chip shop. In a blink of an eye it grabbed it and flew away. This is why you should not feed them, they learn and they steal food.

I solved one of the mysteries in that restaurant. First I must say that even though fish and chips are good in the UK, the ones I have tried here in Spain have nothing to be ashamed of. They are pretty tasty here, and portions are bigger. Same that happened with alcohol, as I said previously. The other thing I learned is why they drink tea with milk, which always seems weird for me, I tried and I loved it. Lesson learned. We went then back through the small streets back to the stairs and then up for a last view of the town, now with the high tide. Then we left to visit Robin Hood’s Bay before returning to the hotel.

The last day, just before going back to the airport we decided to visit the coast, the beach from Newcastle, we went to Tynemouth. It was windy but sunny so even though people would be on the sand and even in the water, I was very happy to have a jacket with me. I live on the Mediterranean and here we have very small tides. When I lived in Africa we had some bigger ones but still nothing like what I saw there. It was amazing to see how big some beaches were and suddenly how fast they would disappear and get submerged by the coming seas. Plus we got to see some places where the series Vera has been recorded.

For me every moment of that holiday was amazing. I enjoyed every single minute and it felt like coming back to life after all those years suffering with the pandemic and crisis. I was very happy to go away, to visit again my partner’s land, to share with him all those memories and create new ones. It was the best holiday, and not the last.

And just like that I was travelling again.

August 2022, written September 2022