Tenerife recap: It's all Eric's fault.

Ahh, Tenerife... Where do I begin?

You see, Tenerife was lovely and I have some great stuff on my camera, but the problem is that I honestly don't remember what the hell I did there, and at one point, I didn't even know who I was.



So yeah. There's me on what I'm told was my second or third day in a hospital in Tenerife, on oxygen with IVs in each of my hands and cuts and bruises from head to toe.

I do this shit with styyyle.



Me a few (eight) days later, reenacting the cause of all the memory loss. But what happened to me, dear peeps of the web? Did I pass out from the SEARING EFFIN' HEAT at the top of some CONCRETE stairs, fall down, smash my head on EVERY step before finally ending the fall on my FACE?

Bloody hell, that was a good guess.



I'd been by the pool for all of thirty minutes (did you know that pretty much every building in Los Cristianos, Tenerife has an outdoor pool? York has THREE, and we're real proud of that. I got schooled.) when it got too hot and we started up towards the apartment. The gate to get out of the pool area was locked at the top of about ten stone steps and I was waiting for someone to unlock it when I just blacked out. Or white-ed out. And when I woke up, I wasn't the person I thought I was.



Seriously. I could not remember who I was. I could just remember the book I'd been reading just before I fell, and I put two and two together and got 15.

Yeah. I thought I was Sookie Stackhouse.

I scared the shit out of my mum when she asked if I remember what happened and the first thing I said was, "Did Eric send us here? I never got hurt before I met Bill."

Which led to people asking me questions about what my name was and where I was from and who the hell Eric and Bill were.

It was my little sister who supplied everyone with the answers to the last question (she's ten years old and she watches True Blood with me every week... disturbing) and went on to say "What page number are you on, Nicole?"

"37. Nicole?" And that's when it started to come back to me.

I was Sookie Stackhouse for all of ten minutes, and I didn't even get to see any vampire action in that time. There is something wrong with the world.

I earned the title of 'vampire' anyway because after I got burnt the day I fell down the stairs, I refused to leave the apartment until nighttime because my sunburn was chronic. Beyond peeling, I was blistering and splitting all over the place. Bleurgh.



After I was sprung from hospital (somewhat literally) I spent the following four nights getting sympathy from gorgeous waiters who would take one look at my big, beautiful (black, due to landing on the face) eyes and line up free drinks.

In every freaking bar and restaurant I went into.

I was VERY merry.

You know how you have to be 21 to get served in bars in the US, and 18 in the UK? In Tenerife you can be all of 5 and get a drink. And I know this because I actually had a five year old with me who ordered my drink.

I shit you not.



Tenerife was total hormone hell. On the plane I was in the throes of pure teenage hormonal rage because I had to sit next to my sister in a sealed tin for five hours and ohmygodwouldyoushutthefuckupplease? and then when I got down to the beach there were topless, tanned rolling abs everywhere.

As in, e v e r y w h e r e.



I do have my concerns around the yummy Spaniards though. There were lots and lots and lotsandlotsandlots of topless women everywhere, and these men didn't even blink. Not even a tiny bit. It makes no sense. Even if you are used to people walking around half naked (I'm totally used to this, you should see the centre of York on a Saturday night) you should at least get a little kick out of the woman in front of you taking her top off and jiggling about all wet in the sun. I cannot count the amount of times I found myself willing some guy's shorts to make an appearance. I wonder if they're all just secretly dysfunctional in that area. I was getting a bigger kick out of it all that they were, which is saying something.

Getting back to England was something else entirely. I almost cried with happiness when it started raining, freezing cold in Leeds-Bradford Airport. And then the day after I went to a BBQ where people were admiring my sun-worshipping mother's tan.

...And then they saw me.

"Christ Nicky where have you been? You're as pale as ever."

You see, I thought I was tanned and nice, but apparently I'd just tanned to the normal human colour, rather than my usual pallor.

Well, fuck. All my poolside suffering was for nothing.

Conclusion: Next year I'm going somewhere nice and cool like Norway and Finland and I'll just hope to hell that I don't fall off a fjord or something.