A Viva L'Espania!!! Beyond Series Inspiration

As I have just returned from Marbella for a last minute holiday, it got me thinking about other Spanish holidays I've been on through my life, and I've actually been on a few now I've started to reminisce.

Torremolinos – This was my first ever holiday abroad and I was only about 8 or 9. I loved the heat, playing around the pool, entering the hotel's beauty pageant, talent contest and fancy dress competition in the kids club. I remember eating paella for the first time and thinking it was the most amazing food I’d ever tatsted (bearing in mind we didn’t eat a curry until I was about 10!) We stayed in The Principe Sol Hotel, it had all marble interior and velour seats. It felt very luxurious and was very fashionable for the early 80’s. 

We went to a bullring and I bought an American Indian style dress with tassels on its hem and sleeves and I loved it. I also bought a Spanish flamenco doll in a pink dress and a pencil case for the 1982 world cup, a blue shawl, (like my nan's because she told me it was fashionable!). It seems so vague and I really only remember the souvenirs and the things I enjoyed the most. I do recall seeing my first beggar woman and her child at a market and playing the old space invaders games in the hotel lobby.

Cala Millor – As I was a bit older this was our second holiday abroad with my parents and we had two weeks there. I’d never had a two week holiday before and we didn’t do it again. We were unfortunate enough to be caught in the hurricane season. There were tornadoes out at sea and my brother and I were so bored because it was predominately a German adult's only hotel, there was no entertainment for kids nor was the ballroom dancing and music in English, so we would go swimming in the hotel pool in the middle of the storms and at night.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, dad passed the time people watching and giving names to those who fascinated him the most – in particular I remember Helga and Herr Flick from the TV show Allo Allo who attracted his attention the most. Songs like Jermaine Stewarts 'We don’t have to' and the pop song 'Brother Louis Louis Louis' played in all the bars and these songs still remind me of that holiday. Luckily my dad found a Brits Bar, called the Sportsman, where there was nightly entertainment, including Christmas Day, which was celebrated once a week!!

It was carnival season and most hotels had put on floats to parade down the main street. I was mortified that I’d missed out on the opportunity to get on a carnival float. It had always been a secret ambition of mine since I was really young. I'd always wanted to be a morris dancer or a carnival queen because I’d get to take part in a carnival. Even when I worked for Barclays I put myself forward to be on the float and I only ended up as a walking footballer collecting money at the side of the lorry, while all the pretty office managers favourite girls got to dress up in period costume and throw sweets at the crowd. 

(Not that I'm bitter or anything!). So I missed out on being on a float, but I was fascinated by the procession as I always am.

I was sitting in a bar one early evening with my family and was fascinated by the fact that children went to school at that time, a girl opened a classroom door straight onto a side street at the back of some shops and I was amazed that the Spanish schools didn’t look like our schools back home. I know, I’m a bit mad, I bought my first imitation pink and white pearl necklace and bracelet on this shopping strip, which I thought was uber trendy.

Estepona – Our third family holiday abroad and this time it was with my Aunt, Uncle, Cousin and Gran who came with us to Estepona close to Marbella. The holiday didn’t start off well, because my dad liked a bargain and to save money. So as with most holidays he got a deal with a contact at work who had two apartments and a car that came with the holiday… A twenty year old Cortina that had trouble starting up and being able to drive it was hit and miss. 

The apartments were nice enough, but the pool was tiny and in the middle of nowhere. My Uncle however got an apartment at a golfing complex with bars, restaurants and a massive pool further up the road, so we spent most of our time there. He also got a decent hire car that didn’t breakdown in the middle of nowhere or blow out great plumes of embarrassing blue smoke! I clearly remember having to push the car down the road to get it started!!

We did a couple of trips out. One was to Puerta Banus – the playground for the rich, the famous and the infamous. This area is known as Costa del Crime and British Criminals fled to Puerta Banus with their ill-gotten gains.


My brother unwittingly had his photo taken stood next to a black Ferrari, which weeks later appear on the Cook Report, the owner was a notorious British Bank Robber who was on Britains most wanted. I loved all the expensive white yachts, one was so big it almost could’ve passed for a small ship. I had a good nosey inside and felt a tinge of jealousy as I saw a huge Arabian family sitting around eating and chatting. and I thought them so rich and exotic as I've always had a curiosity for cultures I don’t know much about.

The shops were amazing and beautiful all rich designer gear and I fancied myself on Howards Way, as it was a popular show at that time about the fabulous and gorgeous at a sailing club in a wealthy English town. I think it was Britain’s attempt at Dallas and Dynasty.  We also went to Estepona town, which was a pretty, traditional looking Spanish town.

We took a trip to Gibraltar, which was interesting going back to a British colony, but with a Spanish town feel, with red post box and telephone boxes. The monkeys were terrifying and so were the people in the town we had to drive through to get in and out of passport control at Gibraltar. The Rock is a bone of contention with the Spanish and apparently they still create road blocks and try to make life difficult for everyone there even today. 

Cala Dor – This was my first holiday without my parents. I’d just turned eighteen and my friend and I went away with her sister and friend and her parents, but they were there just as a backup, in case we got ill or in trouble! We went off doing our own thing most of the time. This generally meant sunbathing on what felt like a beautiful secluded beach, whilst we eyed up the local talent, or we sat around the hotel pool, whilst eyeing up the local talent or sitting in the Hollywood bar (our favourite) whilst eyeing up the local talent! You get the gist, I was a teenage girl on holiday abroad with three other teenage girls all mad about boys! Enough said.

Naturally I always got the friends dregs, but I didn’t care, I actually became quite proficient at brushing off over amorous not-so-pretty looking males who were friends of my friend's hunk-arama's she always managed to catch, without hurting their feelings. I even got taken on a bike ride (which I realise was totally dangerous and irresponsible) to a local tapas bar at stupid O'clock in the morning by one of the bar staff at Hollywood's. I was amazed that they worked all day and all night then partied with the other tourist workers in private Tapas Bars well into the early hours of the morning. I don't know where they got their energy from,  but I loved it.

We also were taken out on dates with two waiters from a restaurant we regularly ate in. I naively thought we were going as friends! Tsk! My friend wasn’t happy that I rebuffed my waiter date, but I just didn’t do holiday romances. I thought then, as I do now, they’re pointless and stupid. How many documentaries have we seen of Shirley Valentines getting suckered into a holiday con-man’s charms!

My first of just two girly beach holidays and although I loved it because I was young and frivolous, it’s not something I could do every year. We did manage to get a bit of culture. We booked a trip to Palma (the old city), my friend thought it was Palma Nova the party capital of Mallorca. She was mortified when I took her around an old medieval market and an impressive cathedral, although I was confused why she’d agreed to a cultural day out at the time.

Magaluf – This was the last time I went to a party town for a holiday and it was only two years ago and for a friends 40^th birthday no less. I loved lounging around the pool all day in the heat and sunshine amongst a big group of friends, which as holidays go doesn’t happen very often for me. So I loved it just for that. I spent all day writing to try and get Vampire Sorceress finished and then in the evening go out for a few drinks and something to eat. 

On the day of our friends birthday we had to go out – late – very late and go down the strip, as it’s known, all dressed as Where’s Wally! Now I’d never even heard of Where’s Wally when it was announced on our Facebook events page, so I made a sterling effort. It was good fun, one girl in our group did tipple overs down the streets until she fell over, another ended up in A&E with a gashed leg because she thought doing the splits on a nightclub dance floor full of broken glass was a good idea and there were a few surprising couplings amongst drinking friends that morning too.


I was sensible and came home early, I can’t seem to get into that kind of drunken state any more. Thank God! That was pretty much it for Magaluf. Or MegaMuff as it is now affectionately known amongst the group of friends. Heehee. Sun, sea, sand and the other stuff. Sometimes those kind of holidays abroad are good for the soul.






Marbella - And so to the holiday that brought back all these wonderful memories of holidays past in Spain and Spanish Islands. Although this was my third visit to the Costa Del Sol in my life, I had been very young the other times and so it felt like a whole new adventure for me. We visited Fuerengirola Market, a huge sprawling affair of stalls. I was disappointed though because I remember it as a food market and gift stalls with clothes and trinkets, but these days it was more like an enormous car boot sale and the junk people were prepared to sell was astonishing.

Now I've been to car boots in the UK, but this was something else! I was quite disappointed, but I tried Churro's and chocolate sauce for the first time here and I bought a tacky old Spanish dancer doll too. And I never realised that Fuerengirola was a resort in its own right, I'd always remembered it as this hot dusty city with beggars on every corner! Everything had changed these days.
We then took a bus up to Mijas, a beautiful whitewashed town, high in the hills and overlooking the coastline and landscapes was breathtaking.

 The views were spectacular and the town was just as beautiful. Winding white washed houses with lots of blue plant pots and outdoor furniture set it off as a quaint traditional Spanish town famous for its donkeys and pony and carriage rides around the area. Naturally we had to try one and I came home with my wonky donkey fridge magnet!

 Marbella was just as beautiful, besides the usual sea front, built up resort there is a quaint little old town, with squares to sit out in, street entertainment, very much like Mijas. We ate here a few times in the evenings. I'm glad I returned to Marbella and the Costa Del Sol. It has always been somewhere I'd said I'd return to one day, just didn't expect it to be so soon,
Viva L'Espania!!!

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Or my Travel Blog http://penneysontour.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/week-50-summary-of-amazing-year.html

Germany's Rhineland - Mancunian Tales inspiration

Baden Baden – Rhine Valley Black Forest

Germany was much more enjoyable than Vienna. Granted I was on a High School holiday, but the week sticks firmly in my mind for many reasons: - The first was I was away from all parental control for a whole week! We had teachers minding us, but we had about six teachers to a whole coach load of hyperactive teenagers. Besides, teaching and laws around schools and care of children in the 80's were far more relaxed than they are today and so we pretty much spent a lot of time entertaining ourselves and getting up to mischief of course.

As a group we walked around the prettiest village of Schiltach in Baden Wertumberg just outside of the spa town Baden Baden. The only way I could describe it is picture postcard cuckoo clock style wooden houses with huge bursts of flora everywhere – in gardens and flower boxes along every window and along the river Rhine's railings. Back then I’d never seen so much uniformed rainbows of colour with not a shred of litter anywhere. It was like the whole village met for garden and flowerbed meetings so everything matched.


We walked through the streets pretending to be French exchange students! Why? God knows, I was a teenager! But even at fourteen, I could still appreciate the beauty of the Rhineland and Black Forest countryside. Dinner at the Gasthof Brucke hotel was a strange affair, the boys would come in to the dining room of the main hotel that the girls dorm occupied and we’d have this gorgeous garlic chicken soup with a bit like scrambled egg in it, which I loved, but everyone else just waited for the enormous tray of chips to arrive and hands would just claw and grab at the fried potato dish.

It was like feeding time at the zoo until a teacher told everyone off for eating like pigs. But we were able to sample the local delicacies similar to the food I mentioned in Vienna. I liked it, but most just lived on chips all week. Yurgh! I was a health food freak by this time and anything fried or meat based was just gross to me. The boy’s dorms were in another hostel type hotel across the road and because there wasn’t enough rooms in the main hotel for all the girls, the teachers asked for volunteers to sleep in the less than salubrious hostel next door.

Naturally the four man eaters amongst the group wanted to share with the boys, including one of my friends, who was like “Come on, Come in the boys dorm, it’ll be a laugh.” And I was like, “Ooh no, the bedrooms are skanky and the toilets stink!” So there you have it. Even back then when my teenage hormones were supposed to be raging I still chose creature comforts over ‘coppin’off’. Haha!

I loved breakfast time because I liked to see what the other girls would come down to the breakfast room wearing for that day.

I was never really that impressed with most of the girls fashion attempts (bearing in mind this is the mid-eighties – Hair gel, blue eye-liner and candy floss pink lipstick), but one girl, to me, was a fashion icon. Her clothes were high end fashion rather than high street and her hair and make-up was just always immaculate and perfect and I wanted to be her. I was told she was an amazing singer and was destined for stardom as a singer dancer actress. Never heard from her again!

Anyhoo, I did get my first snog at the back of the school coach, although he never spoke to me again, except to insult me. So my ideas of coming back to school with a boyfriend were crushed. The same boy hung out with the coach drivers every night and got pissed. A few others in the group followed suit and nicked a crate of beer from the cellar. That night almost everyone except me, Miss Perfection and a few first years got drunk and were grounded to their rooms whilst the teachers hit the bars for a quiet night without kids. And what do tiddly teenagers do when left unsupervised? Yes. Have parties in their bedrooms and wreck the joint! Good fun, but the groups chastised meetings became a daily occurrence.

Baden Baden was fantastic though and I remember buying lots of gifts , including some German sausage for my dad, which stunk the coach out. Teachers and pupils complained bitterly, but I stood my ground and dad got his salami garlic sausage. Hahahaa.

As a spa town the swimming was absolutely amazing with hot bubble spa’s and a steaming hot outdoor pool. Granted today we have similar leisure pools in say Centre Parcs, but back in the eighties if you got a swimming pool, one made your own entertainment, which is why at 42 I can still do back flips, continuous tipple overs, handstands and dives (when Health and Safety officers allow it of course!)Tut!

But we all loved it so much we managed to persuade the prison guards to go back there for the last day. The trip to and from Germany was a 24hour coach and ferry trip which I’d rather not think about. Bearing in mind the Herald of Free Enterprise had sunk the week before and we were travelling to and from Zeebrugge on the sister ship. Never thought of it like this until typing, but both ferry trips were so seriously overcrowded me and my friends found a baggage storage room to sleep in away from the noise, sick and claustrophobia.

And I think that was due to them being one ferry down. It would make anyone shake their heads in derision these days that a ferry company lost a lot of lives on one ship because they didn’t close the doors before leaving the port and so they overcrowd the other ferries so people are sitting on floors or sleeping in the baggage hold. Could you imagine the outcry today? I did enjoy this holiday, albeit a bit bonkers, but at least I can say I went on a school holiday once. I still want to go back there, reminisce maybe. Who Knows? Maybe I’ll take my characters there in another Beyond Series of My Supernatural Books!

Bavarian Charm - The Beyond Series Supernatural Inspiration

Vienna

I was very sick when I first arrived at Vienna and so I didn’t move from my bedroom properly for two days and when I did venture the aromas of food on the Christmas markets made me gag. Lots of smoked and fried foods like the potato rostis’s, snitzel, brockwurst sausages and sourkraut. Not an ideal diet when you have a delicate tummy.

However, when I did finally feel better I took a tour of the imperial palace, once home of the Emperor and his Empress Elizabeth. It read a very sad story and I have the book at home to read, but basically in the nineteenth century any aristocratic female who had beauty and accomplishment was in firing line of the future Kings lustful advance. Sadly Elizabeth, from Bavarian stock loved nothing more than to hunt on her father’s land and rarely dressed appropriately for occasion or for her stature. 

The King shows up to check out big sister, but think Liz is way hotter so whisks her off to Vienna to make his Queen. Once incarcerated for the rest of her life there she developed eating disorders and she was probably the first recorded case of Anorexia Nervosa. Her servants were horrified when she had gym type apparatus were erected in her private apartments so she could exercise vigorously every day. 

There were a few of her outfits on display in glass cabinets and her tiny physique was extraordinarily thin. I bet I could have put my hands around her waist and my fingers and thumbs touch. There were rumours that she only ate raw meat and blood which I found an interesting concept to look into for my own Horror books one day and I'd also like to revisit Vienna and see the sights I didn't get chance to the last time I was there.

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Minnesota - Minneapolis St Paul - Demon Werewolf The Beyond Series

Minnesota

At the other end of the Mississippi River is Twin City of Minneapolis St Paul. We stayed in Eden Prairie, a lovely leafy suburb of Minnesota. Close to a group of lakes it was very picturesque and I thought it amazing to finally make it to America, which had been my dream since I was a teenager still at school. We had to stop at Chicago airport, the windy city, and then catch an internal flight from there. The flight itself was a party as we got a little tipsy thanks to free booze on the plane and we met a like-minded family on the way to Nashville who had the same idea.

We went to fort… It was a fort… with battlements and other fort stuff! We did spend a day at the Mall Of America, the largest mall in the US and ate at Planet Hollywood and went on some of the fairground rides… yes, they had a a fairground in the Mall. We found a British pub owned by a guy from Manchester (close to my home town).

I ordered a BLT, which I never really had back home and it came with peanut butter on it. It was disgusting, but I genuinely thought that was how you ate them in America so I didn’t complain. Typical British stiff upper lip and don’t make a fuss!

We spent a day around one of the lakes and had a picnic, which was great. I love picnics. I also went skating on a pair of roller blades for the first time in my and got bitten to death by the famous mosquitos there then spent a couple of days sunbathing around the house we were staying at and I got stung by an American wasp.

I asked if they could take me to a traditional American bar/diner like they have in the movies and we met Chief Sitting Bulls Great Great Granddaughter called Trudi, and we enjoyed a tornado cocktail, karaoke and the most amazing gigantic pizza.

Naturally as guests there we were curiosities and were invited to numerous parties so my recollection of the rest of the holiday. Haha. This will show how long ago it was, You Oughta Know by Alanis Morrissette was number one while we were over there and it was played none stop on MTV.
The curious spoon and cherry sculpture.

 I loved this place though, because we saw a different part of America and way of life. It was far from touristy and we were made to feel welcome by the locals even in a small town in the lakeside country.




Which was why I thought Eden Prairie in Minnesota was a perfect location for a wolf pack to live in My Book Demon Lupus. Lots of forestry and wide open landscape, perfect for long runs and wolf hunts.

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Ostend Belgium - Supernatural Inspiration for The Beyond Series

Here we stayed in a Parc similar to Centre Parcs called Sun Parcs, house lodges set in leafy forests with lots of surrounding nature. It seemed quite odd, but intriguing to me how fellow Europeans enjoy their holidays.



Well, firstly they don’t bother with evening entertainment or eat out very much as there were just two restaurants, one of which was licensed, but neither was rarely open and even more rarely stocked with a great choice of food.

As these were self-catering lodges, I’m assuming most people made their own entertainment in the evening. Naturally like Centre Parcs, all activities were geared around sporty, out-doorsy wholesomeness and swimming. I have to say I loved the swimming pool oasis. The lodges were much more basic, probably because the park was older, but we did have a sauna in there, which was cool – or hot, as the case may be.

One other noticeable difference was the adult spa area. In the UK all guests receive complimentary towels and robes and everything is all civilised and lovely. Some people choose to walk around in their costumes, but most robe up as they walk from one steam bath to sauna, to waterbed to foot spa, etc. Very Lovely.

In Belgium though, as soon as one walks into the adult spa one is immediately hit with a man’s meat and two veg swinging about between his legs and ladies puppies yapping in ones face! Naturally our little group was shocked and immediately looked away. We then told the duty staff we hadn’t been told it was a nude spa, but we were quite happy to still attend with our bathing costumes on. We were told no. All nude or no spa!

Now if I’d just been with my husband, I probably would have gone for it. No one else knew us and some of the sagging that was being carried off in that spa, well, my skin would have looked positively fresh and nubile in comparison! The only problem was my husband’s best man and his wife, who I’d only met a couple of times previously, were on holiday with us. And I’m sorry, but no matter how liberal I like to think I am, I knew I wouldn’t be able to see them or myself in the same light again if we’d all seen each other naked! So no spa in Belgium.

We walked to the tram stop just outside the camp and discovered we were right next to a beach, but as it was October it was far too cold to sit out on. We caught the tram into Ostend and it was a pretty seaside/Port town with obligatory old pirate ship in dock and a small fair that ran through the streets (probably for Halloween celebrations). I tried my first real Belgium waffle, with Belgium melted chocolate and whipped cream. Oh My! I am salivating just typing about it. Absolute sensation on the tatstebuds.

We went for a walk down the pier, which was all concrete, unlike our steel and wooden boardwalk back in the UK complete with little shops and amusements and rides. No this just had a café and little maritime museum at the very end. The promenade is similar to a UK one, but this was all pedestrianised, which was lovely. And in the evening we decided to drive out of camp and eat in a local restaurant. Weirdly, hardly anything was open.




Granted it was during the week, but even so. We did find a restaurant open in a hotel and it was lovely, although, it was the oddest tasted burger I’ve ever had! I really don’t think it was beef, but possibly proper Ham as in Hamburger because the meat was quite pinkish and there was so much herbs in it, I couldn’t decide whether it was to hide the true identity of the meat! It was okay though. Still wished we’d gone to the steak house that was also open though.

Well, I’m glad I’ve done it and I’ve even survived two trips on the Eurostar train without the train breaking down or water seeping through the Channel Tunnel !! One of the reason’s I was never travel through it before. I may even go on it again sometime, but I don’t think I’ll visit Belgium again anytime soon. It was a nice enough place, but everything was just all a bit… Mergh!

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