Goodbye, Tenerife!

Saying Goodbye to the Sea

The next day I wanted to relax a bit (well, I know - I had done that the days before, too) and enjoy my holidays at the pool, but I also wanted to get down into the city centre next to the sea one last time in order to "say goodbye" to everything. I just wanted to walk through Puerto de la Cruz as I had done in my first week, see all the places I had been to with different persons - my mum, my boyfriend, my dad, some of my friends, and keep a picture of them in my mind in order to remember it later when I would miss Tenerife and my incredible time there. So after breakfast I took the Shuttle of the hotel to get down to the centre - it was a small bus with about 15 seats that made it a bit easier for all the older people (like me with my 20 years) to reach the city centre of Puerto de la Cruz, because the hotel was really quite up the hill and it was a 30 minute walk to get down - not even talking about getting up again. But the Shuttle was - as almost everything in that hotel, just a cheap solution. It went only 6 times a day into the centre and 6 times back, furthermore, it was much too small, as already at the time when I wanted to go down there was about the double amount of people waiting for it than could finally get into it. The others had to wait one hour for the next one, pay for a taxi, or walk. For a 4 stars hotel I would have expected more departures or a larger shuttle. But it was one of my last days and as I would only use it once, I didn't really care about that - I just entered and was lazy for one time. I had been walking up and down that hill for 6 months every day now, at least one time I wanted to be driven down there.

I started at Playa Martiánez where I stayed some time, watching the waves and the incredible view into the mountains and the coastline. I remembered when I had landed here with the parachute, when I had watched the Surfing competition and the many times, I had come here the 5 minutes from my apartment and just watched the water, thinking about life and missing my boyfriend. Then I continued my way along the touristic promenade with all the restaurants, the "marketing" guys in front of them and the sea water swimming pools of Lago Martiánez at my right side. I remembered the many times I had been running here, in the morning, in the evening - always watched by curious tourists that had motivated me even more. When I arrived at San Telmo and could see the sea again, I remembered the times right after I had arrived in Puerto de la Cruz, when I had still slept in the hotel that was right there and when I had been swimming in the sea several times, enjoying the sunshine and thinking about the internship before me. I even walked the 25 minutes until Playa Jardín, was impressed by the wonderful view one had to the volcano Teide that day, took one last pictures of the amazing panorama and sat down there for a while - I just wanted to enjoy this moment and have it in my mind as last real moment at Tenerife. All the other things afterwards would only be stress and anxiety, but this moment was just for myself. After a while I had finished "saying goodbye" to that place and started my way back to the city centre. I decided to enter my favourite shop because I still had some vouchers for reductions and I bought another perfume. They were just too cheap on that island! After I had found something for my mum, my dad and his girlfriend I left the store and started my way up to the hotel. As it was around lunchtime there was no shuttle (siesta), so I had to walk, and it was just much too hot actually. But I had all the time I needed, so I walked slowly and reminded myself that it would be the last time I would walk up there.

Goodbye Dinner

The next day it was my last real day at Tenerife, as my flight would be the next day at lunchtime. It was also the last day of one from the other girls, and as she was a bit addicted to attention, she had founded a Facebook Messenger group and asked for arranging a Goodbye Dinner for her. I had wanted to go out and eat something, too, but not with everyone - there were a lot of people in that group that I didn't even know. But as it was a good opportunity to have a nice last evening without planning anything, I finally thought that it might be a good idea. After I had enjoyed the morning at the pool again, I had to get to my room and pack my things. That was kind of the same problem as two weeks before when I had to leave my apartment, just a bit more difficult - now there was a limit of 25 kilos for my suitcase, and I could only take a handbag, a small suitcase and my laptop case as hand luggage (which was more than enough when you have to carry all that around with you the whole time). I decided what I would wear for the flight and put the rest of my (still too many) clothes into the large suitcase. Afterwards, it was almost full and when I had put my shoes into it, it was full. But there were still some things missing! Well, most of the beauty products I had brought from the apartment to the hotel would stay there as I had bought them in Tenerife very cheap and they were either almost empty or not worth taking them in my already quite heavy suitcase. But anyway, some things like perfumes, make-up and medicine I had to take with me to Germany and so the logistic games started.

After a while (I had almost started to cry) I had organised everything, thrown away much more things than I had planned and wanted to, but my suitcase had 24, 6 kilos and all the other things were packed into the hand luggage. I was happy about having finished the hardest part of my last day and enjoyed some free time in my bed watching TV. I still couldn't believe that I would fly back to Germany the next day, but I really would! After a while I got ready and left the hotel in order to meet the Vietnamese girl and go to the restaurant in the city centre with her where the Goodbye dinner would take place. She had told me the whole day long how sad she was that I left the next day and that she would miss me and write me many messages the whole day about work and everything, and I was really happy that I had found a friend who would really miss me when I returned to Germany.

The Goodbye Dinner was nice, because I had the opportunity to see almost everyone I had met during my six months again and talk a bit to them - it was quite a funny evening. But after a while they wanted to continue their tour to a club and as I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning the next day, I decided to say goodbye in that moment. It was a weird goodbye, as except the Vietnamese girl and two of the other girls didn't really care about my farewell, but it was okay - I hadn't had so much contact with the others and I hated goodbyes. As the two other girls went to the club, too, the Vietnamese girl and I started (as so often) our way to the stairs. We stopped at Playa Martiánez a bit, talked about our time together in the office and our experiences and what would come after Tenerife. It was a great conversation and I started to become a bit sad about my departure the next day. But quickly I remembered myself to be happy about seeing my family and everybody again, and everything was alright - there was just the excitement left. We took a taxi to get to the German supermarket (as always) and finally it was our time to say goodbye, too. It was the saddest goodbye on that island for me and I realized that I would really miss her. But as already mentioned - the excitement about seeing my Dad and everybody the next evening was so big that I couldn't stay sad for such a long time.

Photo gallery