It’s a function of having gone to Paris in August once too often when the surly indifference of the average Frenchman is at its height and you feel the full weight and responsibility of over a thousand years of mutual hatred between our peoples that your attitude towards the French is fixed at one of irritated impatience at their sheer foreignness.
Each British traveller abroad knows that every French person is quite able to speak fluent English but, out of sheer perversity they choose not to. So our hapless fellow countrymen flounder about in a mish-mash of half remembered schoolboy French while the impassive eyes of the French person listening to this farrago of nonsense hide their cruel delight as Les Boeufs are reduced to stuttering imbecility.
Our long cherished and assiduously nurtured stereotype of the arrogant, unhelpful Frenchman was obliterated by the attitude of the charming, courteous, personable, unassuming and of coursed completely unbelievable Frenchman who ushered us into a ludicrously convenient parking space next to the sea front in Calpe yesterday.
Explaining that the space he was vacating was for the disabled he further went on to indicate that other members of his family were going to leave an adjacent space which would easily accommodate our car.
When this antithesis of the national stereotype finally drove away with my heartfelt “Merci beaucoup!” ringing in his ears we were able to stagger a few steps to an excellent restaurant where we had a reasonably priced menu del dia which started with carpaccio of salmon and got better!
In a gesture which earned him an extra tip the waiter when he brought my usual drinks order of vino tinto and gaseosa he also gave me a large jug filled with ice and with a slices of orange and lemon in it. He assumed that I was going to make my own form of Sangria and that was a good thought.
Calpe was all the more welcome as we had attempted to get a meal in Benidorm previously. We had gone down to La Nuria to look at a school that Jennifer thought could be a source of employment. The school is a new build in beautifully kept grounds at the top of a mountain and, on the surface; it looks like an excellent place in which to work.
After driving through the long urbanization of the place and buying a Christmas lottery ticket we headed for Benidorm as a source of plentiful restaurants for lunch.
It was horrific. High-rise hotel after high-rise hotel; chaotic roads and hordes of foreign tourists was bad enough, but the complete lack of parking spaces meant that we came in, drove around and drove out.
Calpe is altogether more relaxed with a dramatic chunk of mountain terminating the view at one end of the shallow bay on which it is built. By the time we had eaten our meal we had just about managed to forget the slow moving crane behind which we had dawdled on the one lane coast road getting to the place and we were sufficiently restored to face the journey home.
Where we faced another horror. Quite apart from the signs of barbarity in the streets which were prepared for the cruel ludicrousness of bull running (this is Valencia and not Catalonia after all) we decided to visit a pub which had John Smith bitter but also karaoke. At first the music was merely loud and since we were sitting in the street and not inside it did not affect us too much. Gradually as the pub began to fill up with all those British types whom one does not want to meet on holiday: the talentless kids who are encouraged to sing and do so determinedly out of tune; men wearing sleeveless vests and black cowboy hats; women of a certain age wearing relentless makeup; old men dancing like praying mantises and singing obscure karaoke songs too well; the inevitable bloke-type bloke wearing shorts with ENGLAND emblazoned on his bottom – it all got a bit too much.
A steady stream of clientele indicated that the barbarity in the centre of the town was at an end and so we were able to make our stately progress to a restaurant in the centre for the fiesta menu del dia.
Although we tried to ignore the detritus of bull running which was all around us, it was impossible not to feel contempt for people who relish the panic of a cornered animal. We tried to focus on the number of tables set outside houses on which was spread a meal which generations of families were seated. This was fiesta that was acceptable; the metal grills with poles wide enough for a person to squeeze through to get out of the way of a rampaging bull made furious by the sickening taunts of the depraved – this was fiesta which was totally unacceptable.
Today, I would say “refreshed by a good night’s sleep” but that would be a lie, we made our bleary way towards Denia.
Yet again we were ludicrously lucky in getting a parking space. As we were making our desolate way round a full car park for the second time, a group of English speakers passed us saying, “We should sell our parking space!” As we had the windows open and as we laughed the young men indicated that we could take their soon to be vacated space – and they even gave us the ticket that they had purchased which gave us time to after five in the afternoon if we cared to use it! I put such consideration down to the fact that I am travelling in a car with two blonds!
Denia at last saw me purchase the ONCE tickets for Friday which means that my tasks are now complete and I can relax and enjoy the rest of the holiday. That means that I have one evening left.
As we are in Valencia (home of the odious creep Camps who is the spiv-like president of this part of the world) we feel that it would not be taking the holiday seriously if we do not have paella. The dish is supposed to have originated in this area and I have been ordered so taste paella here so that I can say with experience that the paellas in Catalonia are better! So much of what I do seems to have an agenda to which I am only partly aware!
Although we have only been here a few days we have packed in a fair number of odd excursions and even odder meetings to make the experience memorable.
The only problem is that the extent of the alcohol abuse means that I am only partially able to contemplate the arrival of the Pauls tomorrow with anything approaching sobriety!
I think that I am going to have to rely on the “hair of the dog” to get me through!
I am now trying to avoid even thinking about packing for the afternoon flight tomorrow.
I wonder what I will forget.
Each British traveller abroad knows that every French person is quite able to speak fluent English but, out of sheer perversity they choose not to. So our hapless fellow countrymen flounder about in a mish-mash of half remembered schoolboy French while the impassive eyes of the French person listening to this farrago of nonsense hide their cruel delight as Les Boeufs are reduced to stuttering imbecility.
Our long cherished and assiduously nurtured stereotype of the arrogant, unhelpful Frenchman was obliterated by the attitude of the charming, courteous, personable, unassuming and of coursed completely unbelievable Frenchman who ushered us into a ludicrously convenient parking space next to the sea front in Calpe yesterday.
Explaining that the space he was vacating was for the disabled he further went on to indicate that other members of his family were going to leave an adjacent space which would easily accommodate our car.
When this antithesis of the national stereotype finally drove away with my heartfelt “Merci beaucoup!” ringing in his ears we were able to stagger a few steps to an excellent restaurant where we had a reasonably priced menu del dia which started with carpaccio of salmon and got better!
In a gesture which earned him an extra tip the waiter when he brought my usual drinks order of vino tinto and gaseosa he also gave me a large jug filled with ice and with a slices of orange and lemon in it. He assumed that I was going to make my own form of Sangria and that was a good thought.
Calpe was all the more welcome as we had attempted to get a meal in Benidorm previously. We had gone down to La Nuria to look at a school that Jennifer thought could be a source of employment. The school is a new build in beautifully kept grounds at the top of a mountain and, on the surface; it looks like an excellent place in which to work.
After driving through the long urbanization of the place and buying a Christmas lottery ticket we headed for Benidorm as a source of plentiful restaurants for lunch.
It was horrific. High-rise hotel after high-rise hotel; chaotic roads and hordes of foreign tourists was bad enough, but the complete lack of parking spaces meant that we came in, drove around and drove out.
Calpe is altogether more relaxed with a dramatic chunk of mountain terminating the view at one end of the shallow bay on which it is built. By the time we had eaten our meal we had just about managed to forget the slow moving crane behind which we had dawdled on the one lane coast road getting to the place and we were sufficiently restored to face the journey home.
Where we faced another horror. Quite apart from the signs of barbarity in the streets which were prepared for the cruel ludicrousness of bull running (this is Valencia and not Catalonia after all) we decided to visit a pub which had John Smith bitter but also karaoke. At first the music was merely loud and since we were sitting in the street and not inside it did not affect us too much. Gradually as the pub began to fill up with all those British types whom one does not want to meet on holiday: the talentless kids who are encouraged to sing and do so determinedly out of tune; men wearing sleeveless vests and black cowboy hats; women of a certain age wearing relentless makeup; old men dancing like praying mantises and singing obscure karaoke songs too well; the inevitable bloke-type bloke wearing shorts with ENGLAND emblazoned on his bottom – it all got a bit too much.
A steady stream of clientele indicated that the barbarity in the centre of the town was at an end and so we were able to make our stately progress to a restaurant in the centre for the fiesta menu del dia.
Although we tried to ignore the detritus of bull running which was all around us, it was impossible not to feel contempt for people who relish the panic of a cornered animal. We tried to focus on the number of tables set outside houses on which was spread a meal which generations of families were seated. This was fiesta that was acceptable; the metal grills with poles wide enough for a person to squeeze through to get out of the way of a rampaging bull made furious by the sickening taunts of the depraved – this was fiesta which was totally unacceptable.
Today, I would say “refreshed by a good night’s sleep” but that would be a lie, we made our bleary way towards Denia.
Yet again we were ludicrously lucky in getting a parking space. As we were making our desolate way round a full car park for the second time, a group of English speakers passed us saying, “We should sell our parking space!” As we had the windows open and as we laughed the young men indicated that we could take their soon to be vacated space – and they even gave us the ticket that they had purchased which gave us time to after five in the afternoon if we cared to use it! I put such consideration down to the fact that I am travelling in a car with two blonds!
Denia at last saw me purchase the ONCE tickets for Friday which means that my tasks are now complete and I can relax and enjoy the rest of the holiday. That means that I have one evening left.
As we are in Valencia (home of the odious creep Camps who is the spiv-like president of this part of the world) we feel that it would not be taking the holiday seriously if we do not have paella. The dish is supposed to have originated in this area and I have been ordered so taste paella here so that I can say with experience that the paellas in Catalonia are better! So much of what I do seems to have an agenda to which I am only partly aware!
Although we have only been here a few days we have packed in a fair number of odd excursions and even odder meetings to make the experience memorable.
The only problem is that the extent of the alcohol abuse means that I am only partially able to contemplate the arrival of the Pauls tomorrow with anything approaching sobriety!
I think that I am going to have to rely on the “hair of the dog” to get me through!
I am now trying to avoid even thinking about packing for the afternoon flight tomorrow.
I wonder what I will forget.
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