Magaluf - Going Home

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Monday - Going Home

Yet another quiet day!! We’re meant to be out of our rooms by 11a.m. At 10:30 the only person awake is one of the Old Farts. It doesn’t take us long to get ready, though - we don’t have a lot to pack - and the hotel, Aparthotel Martinique, are fine with us being a bit late checking out. They must be used to the large groups staying there being unable to wake up in the morning. We don’t fly until 7p.m. so the hotel gives us somewhere to keep our bags and, once again, it’s down to the pool to sleep off the previous night. Time for one last meal at, guess where, Arfur’s Bar, and a last round of drinks. The drinks order is

3 cokes

1 lemonade

1 orange juice

1 fizzy water

4 still water

I guess the weekend, which started with pints of lager at 5a.m. at Manchester Airport, has finally caught up with everyone! We definitely won’t be pulling any triggers today!
We get to the airport without any problem and check in. Our bags must have hardened up over the weekend because no one gets turned away for having a soft bag this time. Our flight is from Gate A but Dave leads everybody off to Gate C because he knows there is a branch of McDonalds there. I check out the duty free shop to see if I can replenish my stocks of Honey Rum but I’m out of luck. I think that Honey Rum is something found just in The Canaries, it doesn’t seem to be available on mainland Spain.

And finally…..

What’s that bit at the end of The Jerry Springer Show where he does his smug summing up??

Apologies to anyone who has accidently surfed onto my ramblings hoping to find out something about Spain. Anyone reading them could easily not realise that Magaluf is in Spain. But then, I don’t think I heard a word of Spanish spoken all weekend. Many people would describe as like Blackpool, but sunny.

I didn’t know too many of the people in the group before we set out. Our group was made up of some of the groom’s family, some of the bride’s family and a group of the groom’s friends - this group seem very close and appear to have all been friends since school days.
I had my preconceptions about Magaluf, about stag weekends and about large groups of young British tourists abroad.
Our group were quite loud and noisy, they certainly drank a lot and they had come away to enjoy themselves. But they were always well-behaved and none of them became aggressive or violent when they drank too much. We swore a lot and at times we remonstrated with each other if we were swearing when children were near. But we were always friendly and polite in the hotel, at the airport and in the bars and restaurants, smiled nicely at everyone and waited patiently. I think most of Richard’s friends are self-employed; maybe this is where they picked up the skills in dealing with people. We helped other passengers with their luggage on the airplane and I’m sure that if there had been any little old ladies in Magaluf we would have been helping them cross the road {Am I taking this too far??}. We never came anywhere near to starting a fight - the nearest we got to any unpleasantness was in the banter between ourselves and some of the hen groups where some of the comments we made didn’t go down too well!! In fact I never saw any trouble at any time while we were there - just a lot of young people enjoying themselves and mostly keeping it under control. Maybe the local police were doing a good job too!!
Finally, our group were strongly loyal to each other. Of course one of them was usually set up to be the but of the jokes but when anyone got ill through sunstroke or stupidity the rest always made sure he was OK {they let Tom suffer a bit but perhaps he’d set himself up for that?!?} . And they welcomed us old farts into the group - they showed an interest in me, a real outsider who doesn’t normally do stag parties or places like Magaluf, and what I was doing and went out of their way to make me feel part of the group. And they never pressurised us into joining in or keeping up with the pace of drinking. They seemed genuinely happy to have us along and to have us joining in the experience.

Anyway, we all arrived safely back at Manchester Airport. Nobody had been arrested, the groom still had both of his eyebrows and I think we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Next stop will be Beaune in Burgundy, France. Another tourist destination but it should be a completely different experience!

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