My memory kind-of sucks.  I like to think that I’ve learned so much that I’ve filled my brain, so every new thing I learn pushes something else out.  Perhaps there’s a Battle Royal going on in my memory banks where the new memory has to battle old memories for the honour of staying inside my brain.

As it stands, I remember some things about my first trip to Europe, but I know I don’t remember everything.  So instead of making this more difficult than it has to be, here are some random memories of my first time in Spain and Africa:

1) Every single flight was delayed, except for the one we had to run to.  Because of the delay on our flight from Deer Lake to St. John’s, we literally ran through the airport in St. John’s to make our flight to Europe (I can’t remember if we went to London for a lay-over before Malaga or if we went straight to Malaga – see, crappy memory).  Despite it sounding hectic and crazy, it was kind of fun.

2) We named the elevators in our hotel “Cletus” and “Shakey-Slow-Ass”.  The reasons for this should be apparent.  This was at our hotel in Torremolinos, which had a pool, 3 different (and unique) bars, a sunbathing rooftop, and was within walking distance of the beach.  Both elevators shook (although “Cletus” didn’t shake as much), and it was sometimes a scary trip in them, but they never failed to take us between floors.

3) I accidentally left my sunglasses on a bus in Spain.  They were great glasses (with a cat’s eye shape).  Since I was in Spain I decided to buy another pair and ended up buying rose-coloured glasses.  In retrospect this was a bad idea, since red tinted glasses don’t block out very much sun, but I liked them.

4) Man did we fail at karaoke – like seriously fail.  The “Fun bar” in our hotel in Torremolinos (as opposed to the “Club bar” and “Ballroom Dance bar”) had a karaoke night and some friends and I decided to sing a song.  We chose “500 Miles”, which turned out to be a Spanish song and not the Proclaimers (to be fair, we didn’t remember that the Proclaimers sang that song).  Then we chose “Stop in the Name of Love” and even came up with dance moves for the chorus (which I still remember to this day).  The problem was that no one knew the verse.  We basically mumbled through the verses before busting out our sweet moves during the chorus.  Ah, the joys of embarrassing yourself in a foreign country.

5) Even though I don’t smoke, I still love my silver cigarette holder that I won during a game at the “Fun” bar.  I think the game was Bingo, but I could be wrong.  The point is that I won something very cool that could hold many things other than cigarettes.

6) I still have no idea what kind of meat I ate in Tangiers.  I’d like to think that it was camel (because that’s pretty cool), but it could have been anything.  Whatever it was, it was tasty, just like that delicious, delicious bread. 

7) I rode a camel!  Yes, it was touristy and not a “real” camel ride, but I did it!

8) I still regret not buying liquid eyeliner in Tangiers.  I like to think that if I’d bought that eyeliner back then, I’d know how to properly put on eyeliner today.  While I don’t regret not buying a rug (I knew it would never fit into my suitcase), I wish I’d bought the eyeliner. 

9) We paid for our meal in Gibraltar with Pounds & Pesetas.  The restaurant my group went to accepted both currencies, and since we didn’t have enough of either currency we had to pay with both.  This involved a lot of math (which is fun for me because I’m a dork), and asking the waiters to take Pounds for these meals and Pesetas for those, but the people at the restaurant did not complain.

10) Apparently I talked my way into a discount on a wrap-skirt.  I had no idea what the guy was saying and we went back and forth for a bit before I just ended up paying what I thought the price was, which my friend said was $5 less than the actual price.  To this day I’m still not sure if I paid more or less.

11) I will always find a candy store in a foreign land.  If this is not a super-power, it should be.  Candy is awesome, especially strange foreign candy.