Difficult Visitors

Arrival of the Guests

After some time it had become too cold at the pool and I had went back to my room. I had unpacked the rest of my things and now I was sitting in my bed and (finally) watching German TV. Except the days during my christmas break I hadn't had the possibility to do that for more than 6 months now. It was releasing because I didn't have to think about unknown words and could just relax and watch series I already knew for a while. I was a bit excited and waited for a message from my Mum that they had arrived or something, but it would still take some time as they would come by bus and pass by several hotels before. For the moment that wasn't a problem for me as I liked to watch the series I was used to and to recap things I had missed, but I was also hungry and didn't want to have dinner totally alone - I wanted to wait until they arrived because they would be hungry, too. 

After a while I received a message that they were almost in Puerto de la Cruz and that my Mum would call me in my room when they had received the keys. That happened after about one hour and I went down to their room in order to accompany them to the restaurant. I was incredibly hungry and happy that they had finally arrived. Furthermore, I was happy to see my Mum again and looking forward to the food in the restaurant. We sat down at one table there and started to discover the buffet. The drinks were free and one could eat and drink as much as one wanted - the only problem was that after having walked around the dishes once, we experienced that the food wasn't amazing. Even worse - it was disappointing! 
The order and the variety wasn't the problem at the first sight, but when you really looked at the different dishes and side dishes you realized that it was incredibly cheap and bad-prepared food. The salads weren't fresh but taken from conserves (carrots, corn etc.), the grilled things (fish and meat) were empty or too dark, almost black and the other dishes didn't look very well neither. Of course, you could eat everything, nothing was really bad, but for a 4-stars hotel I had already seen much better buffets. The only thing were one couldn't do anything wrong was the dessert, but the variety was small - only 2 or 3 different things to choose from. In the hotel where my Dad and his girlfriend had stayed the food had been much better, as well as the service. 

Of course, the more or less bad food didn't improve the already strange atmosphere at the table. I was happy that my Mum was there and I really wanted to give her boyfriend a chance, but he had a kind of behaviour that I couldn't understand and that I didn't like at all. I had not told my Mum about that because I accepted that she loved him and I didn't want to manipulate their relationship. I just knew that I wouldn't try to see him as friend or anything similar - I accepted him and that was all. After the disappointing dinner we went to the hotel bar and had some more drinks over there in order to talk a bit about our plans for the next days. As expected, it was mainly me who was making plans and I told them where I wanted to go: Santa Cruz, Playa de las Teresitas (an amazing beach next to Santa Cruz) and Loro Parque (that was actually a plan of my Mum, she had loved that zoo the first time she had come to visit me in Tenerife). As we had only 4 days - the 5th would be departure day already, together, those plans would be more than enough. We just needed a car for them as going by bus was a bit annoying, especially with the handicap of my Mum's boyfriend. So we planned to ask for a car at the reception the next day and agreed on meeting for breakfast at 8 am in the hotel's lobby.

The Car Problem

The next day I was incredibly tired - I hadn't slept a lot during the night as I wasn't used to that bed and it had been very cold; there was only that thin cover but it was February and already a bit colder, so I would have to use the woolen blanket for the next night even if it was something disgusting in my opinion. We met for breakfast and I really hoped that this buffet would be better than the one from the dinner the last evening. We were lucky - it was! I have to admit that there wasn't anything difficult about a breakfast and I really enjoyed the croissants and the juice and the eggs that were prepared freshly at the show-cooking place in the middle of the restaurant. We were all happy about the good food and after we had finished we were fully motivated to start that first day of our holidays (well, my Mum and me were; her boyfriend was difficult and weird as always). We went to the reception and I asked for a rental car. As we wanted to start that morning already the woman told me that we would not have a large variety of cars to chose from but that it might be possible to get one immediately. She made some calls and told us the prices. We discussed quickly and chose a category and the woman told us that the guy from the rent-a-car agency would arrive in 15-20 minutes (which was half an hour in Spain), so we sat down in the lobby and waited.

The guy that arrived in a Fiat Panda (I really hoped that it would not be our car) was hardly 20 years old and quite shy. Maybe he was the son of the agency's owner or something. He entered, talked to the woman at the reception quickly and told us to follow him. I explained him in Spanish that we did not want to have a Fiat Panda - it was too small for my Mum's boyfriend. He said that we could come with him to the agency and he could give us a Seat Ibiza, so we entered the car (somebody with some problems) and he brought us 15 minutes away to the agency. In the car I would have almost died from embarrassment because my Mum's boyfriend started to talk to the young driver in German and asked him weird things about his trousers and where to buy jeans in Puerto de la Cruz. He didn't understand anything and just smiled and said "no, no, sorry" - I was feeling sorry for him and explained him in Spanish that it wasn't important what Mum's boyfriend was saying and that he was a bit weird. Fortunately, my Mum and her boyfriend didn't understand Spanish, so I could say whatever I wanted. I was happy when we finally arrived at the place and left the car (I am sure that the boy was more than happy, too). The woman in the office explained everything to us, my Mum signed the contract and we received the keys for the Seat Ibiza. When the car arrived and we could enter we realized that it wasn't bigger than the Fiat Panda at all and my Mum's boyfriend had problems to get into it. But it worked, and we started the way to Santa Cruz.

At a gas station we filled some fuel into the car and my Mum gave me the keys - she did not want to drive on that island and her boyfriend couldn't drive manual cars, so it was my turn. It would be my first time to drive on that island and I was a bit excited, but as I liked driving I wasn't too afraid of it. It was Europe and a lot of the other drivers were tourists from Europe as well, so it couldn't be too difficult. It was strange to drive a car again, the last time I had been driving was the 23rd of July, but it worked out quite well. I activated the GPS and went to the highway in direction of Santa Cruz. It would take us about 30 minutes to arrive there and I tried to ignore my Mum's boyfriend next to me who was talking about weird things as always.

Shopping in Santa Cruz

I was happy when we finally arrived at the Meridiano Shopping Centre where I had planned to park, as it was near to the city centre and for free. I wasn't as motivated for the Shopping Tour as in the morning because after the scene in the car with the trousers and everything, I could already imagine how embarrassing the rest of the afternoon might become. We decided to leave the parking and walk to the city centre first - the shopping centre would not run away from us, but the shops in the centre might have siesta later on. I didn't know how far my Mum's boyfriend could walk with his handicap but they told me that 20 minutes was not problem, so we started the way into the centre. While we were walking I tried to tell them some interesting facts about the city and some places but I didn't know a lot about the city's history, so I had finished soon. We walked around Plaza de Espana and finally reached the shopping street (I had already mentioned quite often in other blog posts). Almost immediately, my Mum and her boyfriend started to look for trousers for him. I was annoyed and also embarrassed every time we entered a store because every time he began to speak in German and nobody understood what the wanted to say. I translated his questions and comments as good as I could (and wanted - some things I just forgot because they were impolite) and in every shop it was the same thing: they didn't have his size.

After a while even the two of them understood that Spain wasn't the best country for finding large trousers, and additionally we all had become hungry. So I showed them my favorite restaurant in the shopping street as they had tapas and also pizza and pasta. We sat down and my Mum and I agreed that we would order some tapas for the two of us, while her boyfriend rejected every international food and wanted to have Pizza Calzone (the kind of pizza he was always eating in Germany). Our tapas were delicious and we enjoyed every piece of it while my Mum's boyfriend was already in a bad mood because we had not found trousers for him. When his Calzone arrived, he started to eat and didn't say anything, even when my Mum asked him how he liked it. It was such an impolite behaviour, but I just ignored it and continued enjoying my food. After we all had finished my Mum asked again and he said that the Calzone had been disgusting and he hadn't liked it. I was shocked about that - he had eaten it all, so it could not be that bad. Furthermore, I knew that restaurant very well and I had never found any bad dish there. He ordered some ice cream (in a very embarrassing way as always) and we stayed in the restaurant a bit longer. I was still shocked about his behaviour but I decided to ignore it and enjoy my holiday. When we left we decided to return to the Shopping Centre and look for trousers again, of course.

It took us 25 minutes to return to the Meridiano Shopping Centre and my Mum's boyfriend was already annoyed because it was hot and he had to walk. So when we arrived there we sat down and had a short break, before we visited all the store where men's clothes were available. His behaviour didn't change, he was still speaking to everybody in German and I had to translate the things. I was sure that everybody we met thought he was my father and that made it even worse. I focused on my Mum, we had some fun in the Women's Secret store that distracted me from him. Our last station on that Shopping Day was Carrefour, a large supermarket, where he wanted to buy a small suitcase as hand luggage. It took some time until we had found the perfect mixture of price, quality and size, but finally we went to the cash point, paid, and went to the parking in order to return to the car. I was tired but I enjoyed driving back to Puerto de la Cruz, I had always loved car driving and the challenge in Tenerife was something new.

When we arrived back to the hotel we went to our rooms in order to have some hours of siesta and relax a bit and have a shower. In the evening we wanted to go to the city centre and walk next to the beach a bit - my Mum adores the sea and she had not had the possiblity to go to a beach since they had arrived. So I watched some German TV and enjoyed the silence and the absence of embarrassement. Then, I had a shower and got ready for the evening - we had free food at dinner but as it had been quite bad the day before, we had decided to eat something in a restaurant in the city centre. So we met in the lobby and took the car to the centre of Puerto de la Cruz. There, we walked a bit next to the sea, enjoyed the sound of the waves and I showed them the most important places down there. As I had been living right there for the last 6 months I knew a lot more about that area than about Santa Cruz and I hardly stopped talking. When we had dinner in a restaurant my Mum and me had Paella and her boyfriend had (surprise!) Calzone again. I didn't know how one can be so ignorant in regard to food from another country, but I decided not to care and enjoyed my Paella. He was in a bad mood and didn't like the food as always, but I didn't care. I walked in front of them when we were visiting some stores and ignored him as much as possible. Finally, we returned to the hotel and went to bed. The next day we wanted to go to Loro Parque as it was a national holiday and there wouldn't be anything else one could do. I hoped that he would behave better in that attraction, I would not survive another day like that!

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