Today I flew from Newcastle to Tenerife. I’d been stuck in England longer than I planned to be so it was great to finally get away.
When I returned to the UK 12 weeks ago I only needed one thing: a new passport. At the time, I only planned to stay a month and succeeded in getting my new passport more quickly than I expected; so I should have been able to start travelling again in September. A dental problem threw a spanner in the works.
While I was waiting for my passport I began experiencing toothache and had to wait for an appointment to get a wisdom tooth surgically removed. That meant I had to extend my time in England to almost three months.Everything is okay now and I finally got underway earlier today.
Although I had originally planned to return to the Netherlands for a few months and then head down into Spain, it was difficult to find a room within my budget; so I decided to postpone my visit to the Netherlands and arranged a room in Valencia instead.
I’m the kind of guy who likes to keep his feet firmly on the ground, so I prefer to travel by bus, but finding a seat so close to Christmas was impossible. I had to fly and could only see two viable choices. One option was to fly from Newcastle to London, land in one airport, then make my way to another one, and wait several hours for a flight to Valencia. The other option was to fly from Newcastle to Tenerife, spend the night, and then fly to Valencia tomorrow. I don’t like London, and the weather is warmer in the Canary Islands, so I chose option number two.
As with all things in life, if there’s a yin there has to be a yang and I didn’t have a room arranged in Tenerife. However, I was very fortunate because I found someone who suggested I avoid the more lively area where most of the tourists go because I would be unlikely to find a room. He said San Isidro would be a much better option and even told me which bus to take. I took his advice, climbed on the bus and had a conversation with an old guy from England who’d just come from the part of Tenerife I’d been told to avoid. He said he’d been searching for a room all afternoon without success. I was more fortunate I found one straight away. I am presently sitting in a nice room with an en suite bathroom. It cost me €40. That´s more than I wanted to pay, but I paid nearly twice that earlier this year, when I arrived in Amsterdam without a reservation, and the room there was not as good as the one here in San Isidro.
They don’t do food here at the hotel, so I had to go and find a cafeteria. I wanted to try something new and ordered goat meat, chips and salad. I found the meat quite tasty, but it was on the bone—lots and lots of bones, chopped-up small—and getting the meat separated and onto my fork was quite a tedious task. Next time I order a plate of goat meat I will make a point of asking if any bones are included.
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