Benidorm

My travel compadres

Oh Benidorm, you sly minx.  From watching all the travel videos and reading websites about you, I thought you would be a nice oceanside retreat.  What I learned is that you are place where Brits go to drop off their dignity and have no intention of ever picking it back up again.  It is like the British version of Vegas but much, much trashier.  Don't get me wrong, it was really fun for 2 nights but 3 nights is way too much.

Just having a rough go at life.

We arrived at 'the strip' to have some drinks with our friends that were there from the UK.  This is a hotspot for bachelor and bachelorette parties (or Stag Do & Hen parties as they call it in the UK).  They don't take these parties lightly, either.  This is no feather boa and lollipop bouquet party like we see in Nebraska.  This was a professionally made shirt, everyone in a costume kind of party.  It was like Halloween every night that we were there, except everyone in a party would be wearing the same thing. 

Hey, why not?

During the day I spent my time at the pool or the Mediterranean, which made me not completely hate the town.

My home away from home for a few days. 

On our last night, I decided to make the best of it and we went down to the beach to watch the sun come up.  We played music from my phone and just talked about everything, it was great.  While we were laying there, Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" came on - if ever there was a perfect moment for that song, this was it.  I ended up being the only one to see the sun come up and I spent it dancing around in the ocean and trying to take as many mental pictures as I could, knowing that this was the last time I would ever see something so beautiful in Benidorm.

This made it all worth it. 

A few other things to mention about the trip to Benidorm: 

1) Moving my bed out to the balcony was the best idea I ever had, minus all the bug bites I fell victim to.   We called it the Seaside Villa. 

2) If someone invites you to see the "Sticky Vicky" show, be warned that it is not a lady named Vicky eating maple syrup. It's much, much worse.  

3) The downside to the ocean was that there were about 3 stretches of stairs you had to take to get back to the hotel.  Spaniards love their stairs.

My Seaside Villa

Only a small portion of the stairs we had to take to get
back to our hotel from the beach. 

Time for a quick nap and a trip back to Madrid. Good thing I stayed up all night to watch the sun come up...