The sun was already blazing down by the time we had breakfast. We were both quite tired after our exertions the previous two days and so chilled for a while on the balcony.
It was a source of both amusement and annoyance for Karen at the number of towels that appear below us on the sun beds around the pool. People must set their alarms to get up early to go and reserve their spot. However most people only use them for an hour or so and then just leave the towels there for the rest of day. This is very selfish and quite petty. The fact is that are more than enough sun beds for everyone. We contemplated ways to combat this, from either leaving stern notes on post-its, to removing all towels from sun beds that had been vacated for 30 minutes, or my favourite of buying 100 towels and reserving them all myself. The real irony is that I hate laying on sun beds surrounded by dozens of other people. So I have no interest in using them myself, but I would like to have the option. Whenever I walk past the people by the pool, lying all so close together I think of sardines in a can. Although nobody admits it everyone else is really just watching everyone else. I am so much happier sitting in private on our balcony. It might be different if I fancied a dip in the pool but as the water is freezing despite the weather so I haven’t contemplated that at all.
Around 11am, we decided that Karen needed caffeine and so wandered down to Dos Mil for a coffee. The place was heaving but we found a table at the back and sat quietly for about 40 minutes. We then wandered down to Pinocchios for some lunch. It was surprisingly empty. I had the English Breakfast as my lunch for the bargain price of 3 Euros, whilst Karen extravagantly had an Omelette for 6 Euros. We both really enjoyed the food before wandering back via the supermarket.
This afternoon Norwich were playing at home against Bristol. In the apartment I managed to find an excellent TV stream with commentary to watch the game on the laptop, whilst Karen sat baking in the heat on the balcony. The stream was a few minutes behind in real time and I had a message from Barry at the game at half time whilst the coverage I was watching still had some time to go was confusing. During half time I sat out on the balcony and then went inside to watch the second half. It was very exciting although Karen told me to calm down when we equalised for the second time which had caused me to shout very very loudly and jump up and down. It was a good win in the end and got me really thinking – can we really do it?
At 7.15pm we met the others in Reception and went to Antica Trattoria for a meal. This was a restaurant that Karen & I had never been to but always fancied trying. It was very nice inside and we had a great round table which is always a favourite as you can see everyone else around it. The food was good but not great which was somewhat disappointing. Glenn was told curtly to sit down when asking for the bill which amused us all greatly.
We then all headed to Ruta 66 which is a music bar that plays music videos very loudly. It never has been one of my favourite spots but Karen was keen to go with everyone. I had another Daiquiri whilst Karen kept drinking the Vina Sol she so enjoys. One thing I do like about the bar is that there is a model train running all around the bar over everyones head. The bar is probably OK if you go there wanting to dance, but not if you want to hold any type of conversation. The music videos played are a lot of 80’s stadium rock from the likes of Def Leppard, Journey & AC/DC. My big problem with the bar is usually self inflicted. They have these stupid (in my opinion) high stools/chairs which absolutely cripple my back. For some reason I thought that this time after all the ‘strengthening and stretching’ of my back I would be OK. Wrong. I forgot to keep standing and so sat/perched for too long without moving. When we got down to leave then I was really stiff and really sore. We left around 11.30pm and it took Karen & I ages to hobble back to the apartment (as she was suffering from a sore toe as well). I kept having to stop and stretch to try and alleviate the pain. Once back in the apartment I had to try and the get my back muscles to relax rather than going into a spasm. I could just blame the bar for having stools that do that but really I should have known better.
