I went out to a former colleague's retirement do last night, and although I managed to limit myself to 4 drinks during the evening, it still made getting up this morning more difficult. The alarm went off at 7am, and, although it was a bit of a struggle, we left the house promptly at 9am (strictly in accordance with Claire's timetable), and soon found ourselves arriving in Manchester way ahead of schedule.
I've realised today how much I dislike Manchester Airport. I dislike all airports just because they are full of people and queues and mean customs officials, but Manchester is my most disliked British airport. It's horribly dingy and out of date, and I think if you were arriving in Britain for the first time you'd probably take one look and wish you hadn't bothered. Unless you'd come from Somalia or some other poverty/pirate stricken country. It's also the first airport we've been to recently where you don't get free wi fi. Even in China the wi fi was free although I suspect you may have got shot for using it.
We booked everything separately for this holiday. The flight was with Monarch and was obscenely complicated. It took Claire about an hour to figure out what all the unnecessary extras were and then another hour to take them off the bill after Monarch had somehow managed to sneak them back on. The queuing system at the airport was confusing and somewhat random and to top it all off, Claire got quizzed by an over zealous Monarch employee about why her passport looks weird ("because I spilt baby oil on it"... Obviously).
The plane was like a sardine tin and I had to keep checking that the man in the seat next to me hadn't died. Honestly, I've seen more healthy looking dead people. Fortunately we were only on it for 3 hours and I didn't have to put any of my first aid skills to the test.
We managed to battle through the Portuguese public transport system and saved ourselves a small fortune using the bus and train to get to our apartment instead of a brush with death in one of the local taxis or shuttle buses.
We saw loads of water birds out of the window on the train. I'm not sure what most of them were, although there were definitely some flamingos! I can say this with some certainty because I don't think there are any other big pink water birds with U bend shaped necks.
The area where we are staying is in a nature reserve as it is a sort of estuary sand bar area. I've actually managed to remember my bird book, plus Claire has made me a personalised geeky Portuguese Bird Card to tick off! Can't wait to get started tomorrow.
Our apartment is nice and comes complete with two pet lizards who live on the ceiling. One of them is quite big (although not as big as Russell, our Australian lizard friend). I like them but am a bit nervous about one of them getting in bed with us in the night.
Tonight we've had some good local food and wine and a drink that was on fire and made my eyes water. Tomorrow we're planning a local day involving quite a lot of lying on the beach and more local food and wine.
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Location:The Algarve, Portugal
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