Working in the Canary Islands for a year. Part 2

So I spent my first week in the canaries walking around exploring Las Palmas. From Las Canteras beach with it's massive swells to the lovely little street in Triana. I was going to like this place. There was a massive night ahead because the El Classico was taking place between Real Madrid and Barcelona and the whole country would Ben watching the match. As with all store openings we had a support crew of around 50 Irish & English to train up the staff. This was great for me as we all got to know the Spanish guys really well and we all went out together. We needed to find a bar as well and some of the barmen beside our hotel offered us free drinks to come and watch the match there so we did. I met a Scottish guy called Fergal who worked in the storeroom and we became good friends. There was an Irish girl called Martina down there too and she was the female version of Liam Gallagher. Martinas quest was to get me hooked on cigarettes. She said thats all I was missing and she would start me on 3 a day. Ahhhh no thanks.

Myself Martina and Fergal with Antonio down to visit.
The three of us would do everything together and this bar Lolita was where we always ended up. Here's a picture of me under a clock. I was in work at 7am. Oh to be young again and able to cope with the hangovers.

An hour later .....

We spent every night in this bar and at 9pm there was this weird caberet act with some lad in a costume and a floating mask. He used to dance around for a while. We used to just ignore him but there were plenty of the Spanish old guys that seemed to love him.

When they asked me to go to the Canaries they told me that everyone spoke English because it was a holiday resort for the Irish and British. Yeah that was down south of the island but noone spoke English where I was. And I didn't have much Spanish. The big difference between the languages even when translated was that the Spanish pronounced the letter B as the letter V. I noticed this when I asked the barman for a vodka and coke and they stared at me blankly. When I asked for a bodka and coke they knew exactly what I wanted which I found really weird. Everything down there was Vale Vale Vale which means OK but was pronounced *Ballay Ballay Ballay.

Magaret became my Spanish translator. She loved a good pose
It was the 20th of December and it was still 30 degree's. I loved the heat and read that a snowstorm was headed for Ireland and there would be flight problems. I think I was sipping a mojito at the time on a lazy Sunday in Port Mogen. This little hideaway village was the Venice of Grand Canaria and you nearly had to drive the car off a cliff to get down. It is a beautiful spot and recommend anyone to get there while they are down here.

I received a phonecall off the mothership in Dublin to monitor events with flights as I had to get all the support staff home safely. This became the companies top priority as it had started snowing already and flights had been booked for everyone including myself on the 21st. They were getting us out of paradise to get home for christmas. Fair enough. All the support staff celebrated the news that they were heading home a day earlier with full pay. I had a cousin Trevor in Dublin airport that text me the night before telling me the airport was closed. I let the mothership know and their response was to get everyone to the airport. I did just that only to see the words Flight Cancelled. The staff were all disappointed and some were crying. Martina who came to the airport an hour after everyone else didn't really care and we shared a taxi back to Las Palmas.
Wanna drink down by the beach?
Yeah why not
How bout a smoke?
I'm not smoking you weirdo!

I let head office know that it was a failed evacuation. They were busy as bee's to get us all on the next flight the next day. So we head out that night again and hit the airport on the 22nd Dec. Flight cancelled again. It was getting serious now with the support staff getting all panicky because the thoughts of eating turkey on a beach was becoming a reality. I was despatched to the airport to see what cities we could fly to. There were 53 seats available for a flight to Madrid at 7 am. We got on that on the 23rd. From Madrid we flew to Stansted. Stansted to Edinburgh. Edinburgh to Belfast. It was like a scene from home alone catching the connecting flights. The only problem was there were only 40 seats available from Edinburgh to Belfast at 10 pm that night. Myself and Martina fancied a night in Edinburgh so we stayed behind with 7 other miserable souls. They decided to go to their hotel rooms and cry. We went out and had a great night.


Christmas eve we arrived in Ireland and it was the coldest day on record -26 degrees. It would rarely enter double digits in Ireland but this was one cold spell. Some difference from plus 28 degrees from where we were. I was freezing coming home but it was great to get home for the christmas none the less.
For a holiday

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