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Tenerife
Dec 29, 2015 10:11:58 GMT
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Post by tunkejazz on Dec 29, 2015 10:11:58 GMT
On the way to Tenerife with the family, Ember is packed in my hand luggage for the next two weeks :-)
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Dec 29, 2015 10:30:39 GMT
Lovely. Are you going to Las Americas? I did a stint of work there two Suumers back with a Soanish group. We even played out on the beach.
Las Americas is the touristy place and a lot of fun, but watch out for Timeshare gangsters. They're a pain. Also, Africans selling watches. During a meal, I was visited 22 times and the restaurant owners do nothing to stop them for fear of causing trouble!!'
After playing on the beach, I felt quite guilty because I got quite annoyed with these sellers and one came up to me in a restaurant and gave me a watch to thank me. He didn't speak English but signed me to just pick one I liked, so then I felt guilty and paid him!!
I was living in a house further into the country. It was beautiful, with my own swimming pool and some amazing deep sea fishing not too far away.
It's a nice temperature there at the moment as well. Not too hot in the south. If it becomes too hot, you just need to go north, if you have a car to the other side of the volcano and it's much cooler. Cars are really cheap to hire as well.
Have a good time.
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Tenerife
Dec 29, 2015 10:58:07 GMT
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Post by tunkejazz on Dec 29, 2015 10:58:07 GMT
Hehehe thanks for the tips. We will stay in the north, my father has a house there!
Do you travel there often?
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Dec 29, 2015 11:37:53 GMT
Been there a few times.
Did a Summer fest there, playing in Las Americas which is a mad place and some recording over in Spain. Scary job because very often, I had no idea what was going to be played, live ..... and we just made it up. The Spanish guys just got on with it because they're used to working that way but I found it stressful!!! Especially live on the Las Americas beach where they were playing all kinds of Spanish stuff and Santana numbers, which I actually knew. Lots of dodgy people though. I was glad to get away after work to my hideaway at the bottom of the volcano.
You might be close to that water park. My daughter nearly knocked herself out there. Loro Park. First time she ever got a big black eye by going the wrong way up a water slide. The lifeguards brought her over to us and her eyes weren't focusing. She was right out of it and looked at me with a big twinkle in both her eyes and said, 'Oh, hello daddy..... ' She hadn't a clue what had happened. That place is lethal.
The volcano is just amazing. Planet of the Apes was filmed there as well as other films.
Diving is just incredible. Because it's volcanic, the sea just drops away like a huge cliff into deep sea and you get Mantas the size of tables there and these scary eels that come out of the cliff face to have an argument. Not to mention whales further out and the Dolphins.
My daughter also met the biggest cockroach I've ever seen in my life in the middle of the night. She woke up and screamed the house down. I ran in and screamed as well!! It was like an alien. My wife stuck a fork through it. She's braver than me.
The car got covered in dust from the Sahara.
However, I loved the place. The people were really friendly.
If you go there often, you'll know what it's like though. Lucky you ... A house there. Is it in the port at the north east? Santa Cruz? Lovely. Weather is less oppressive as well. We never stayed there but wanted to. It looked lovely when we drove past on that high road that goes around it inland as we went on to Loro Park. The TF1. I think quite a few English people live there as well.
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oldson
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Post by oldson on Jan 8, 2016 17:45:44 GMT
i need a holiday
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Jan 8, 2016 19:20:35 GMT
Well, I'll be doing Florida again in the Summer. Try playing in that sodding heat!!!!!
I did a bar in Key West quite a few years ago. They said, 'Don't worry, we have air con so you'll be fine'.
When I got there, it was indeed a big bar with a music stage. Beautiful. Bloody hot. The air con was the fact that they took the glass frontage away and had fans blowing hot air down onto my head. I played topless in my knickers!!!
Opposite was Ridley's odd museum where they had a two headed stuffed calf, looking across the road at me. I'm sure it was laughing on both heads. There was also a nasty shrunken head, absolutely pissing itself with laughter!!!!
Following that job, I had to go up north. So cold that I could wear a suit. It was 34 degrees up there but somewhere around 45 down in the Keys.
I also did a night club in Miami close to the Spanish speaking area. Went shopping. The wife went in a shop and I stood outside minding my own business. Within 30 seconds, some cops turned up in a wailing car, ran in a shop and ten seconds later, had this black guy in cuffs. They took him to the car and banged his head on it, stuffed him in the car and drove off. All this before my wife even got out of the shop with a daft souvenir.
I stayed up the road from Miami, in a place called Homestead. It was the only place I really got annoyed with a restaurant. I ordered pizzas to take away on the phone. I don't think the woman could understand me and she kept repeating who they were and where they were. She said it so many times, I actually swore at her, telling her I know where I f***ing am, I'm coming down there NOW!!!!!
I stormed in and she ran to the back of the restaurant and hid from me. Eventually, she came out and said that she didn't know who I was and she was really sorry. Turns out, someone had heard me at the motel doing my nut and had phoned them when I hung up and threatened them. He did some translating for me and they got really frightened. Even the chef came out to apologise for his idiotic member of staff!!! I found that talking with an American accent helped them understand me in the end!!!
I love Florida.........
Especially the country bumpkins. They're hilarious. They take themselves so seriously as well and hate being laughed at!!
Place is mental.
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Post by tunkejazz on Jan 8, 2016 21:48:13 GMT
If you go there often, you'll know what it's like though. Lucky you ... A house there. Is it in the port at the north east? Santa Cruz? Lovely. Weather is less oppressive as well. We never stayed there but wanted to. It looked lovely when we drove past on that high road that goes around it inland as we went on to Loro Park. The TF1. I think quite a few English people live there as well. Sorry Ian, I never saw your reply :-) The house is quite isolated in the mountain, close to a town called "Tegueste" (which is close to La Laguna). From the house you can see the sea at the end of the valley, on the north face of the island. No crazy tourists around there, only Germans that hike a lot :-P The lovely part is that we have orange and avocado trees right outside the house so we have been eating freshly pressed orange juice every morning from those oranges that we just picked in the morning! Similarly with the avocados, but the season is almost over (last few on the trees).
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Jan 8, 2016 21:51:05 GMT
Beautiful. I really loved the place. Some real fruit cakes as well as really nice friendly people. Las Americas is nut house town but up in the mountains, they're really nice people who live really simple, uncomplicated lives.
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Crispy
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Post by Crispy on Jan 10, 2016 20:38:04 GMT
I did a bar in Key West quite a few years ago. They said, 'Don't worry, we have air con so you'll be fine'. When I got there, it was indeed a big bar with a music stage. Beautiful. Bloody hot. The air con was the fact that they took the glass frontage away and had fans blowing hot air down onto my head. I played topless in my knickers!!! Not a pretty sight I'm sure I have never wanted to go to Florida but always fancied the Keys, just the journey puts me off 9+ hours tooooo loooooong for my liking
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Jan 10, 2016 21:22:16 GMT
I've done ot many times and every time, it's the return journey that gets me. Jet lag kills me stone dead and by the time I arrive, I'm like the walking dead. Going out is no problem. You gain time, so you jave a really long day. Going home, you lose time and normally, the plane arrives around 7 in the morning which is 2:00 am in Florida, so you feel awful with a whole day ahead of you in the UK.
You just sit there, with mp3's, films, flight films, meals, wine...... It's ok. Now you can see why daps and portable gear are important to me. I still havent really found a decent portable, closed headphone that folds away yet.
Generally on planes, I use a Sennheiser noise canceller. Even without cord or music, it's nicer to lose the roar of the engines.
Done so many airplanes, that it feels like getting on a bus to me tbh. It's the other passengers that can get me down.
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Post by hifidez on Jan 11, 2016 10:54:35 GMT
My youngest son is married to a Tenerife girl. Well, half Tenerifian anyway; her Mum's English and lives in Tenerife with the Dad.
I know I wouldn't enjoy that long flight to Florida. The longest flights we've endured have been sub-5 hour ones to Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus, Fuertaventura and Gran Canaria. Because we only go overseas for the superior weather (which promotes and facilitates lying on a beach for a week) we've made the decision to only do shorter flights from now on. If you don't want to experience the culture and you're travelling just for fun, sun and sand then, after a while, all resorts look and feel the same wherever you go. Well, in and around the Med. they do.
So, last year in October we took an easy two and a half hour flight to Mallorca. Piece of cake. And the resort and hotel were so good that only yesterday I booked another stay for mid June this year. 5 Months to wait and then it's setting the alarm for 3:00 a.m. :-)
Travelling, I use my Android tablet loaded with two or three movies and a selection of classics and jazz recordings to see me through the week's reading and sun-bathing. My Kindle, an Android tab, Sennheiser HD 219s and my my invaluable little Topping headphone phone amp is all I need. The 219s are just fine at suppressing the plane cabin noise and useful even with no music playing because they ***le (edit... why did pro-boards censor the word 'm-u-f-f-l-e'?) the sounds of grizzling kids or fellow travellers who think you enjoy overhearing their annoying conversations. Once had to endure a loud-voiced scouser for 4 bloody hrs! Non-stop it was. He spoke 'at' and not 'to' one of the cabin crew for the whole flight. How she endured his attention for so long I really don't know.
On one of our shorter flights (Menorca IIRC) a woman complained to another woman about her child's running up and down the aisle. A classic 'chavvy' row ensued which resulted in the aircrew having the more agressive woman escorted from the plane by Spanish police when we got there. The arrested lady (lady?) actually turned up at our resort later that day looking very subdued. Didn't hear a peep out of her all week.
My fault really for travelling on downmarket tourist airlines but I can't affford better!
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Jan 11, 2016 12:16:40 GMT
Last time I was in Spain, I had a nutter all the way. He wouldn't shut up. Kept nudging me on evry sentence and got drunk on the plane. He got worse and worse all the way home until he threw up on himself while I did a runner.
The worst two hours I've ever had on a plane.
I sometimes use my Sennheiser hd239, but it doesn't block out sound.
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