Fine fine fine, the weekend as it happened.FridayFriday was my birthday, although I like to keep this hidden from most people so I don't feel forced into any sort of celebration, take things as they come.I had organised a meetup of some old friends that night (Dave, Luke and Stears), although the fact that it was my birthday was entirely coincidental, it just being the first Friday night that people were free to go for a few quiet drinks.This started off as one of those evenings where we sit down over a few slow beers, and talk about geeky things like code, our mobile phone and OS preferences, what we're doing at work, and our recent hijinks, as we rarely see each other there is generally a lot to catch up on.At about 10pm, we had moved into the territory where bad jokes start getting told, and the conversation becomes normal enough for non-programmers, so I called up Ben and grabbed him, and texted some students to make sure they were in the metal-bar across town before we began the trek.As we had hardly been drinking enough to really justify three hours dancing wildly in a metal bar, it was decided that we would catch up with ourselves by going through Back of Beyond's more than adequate supply of Sambuca. Rounds were bought with 2-3 sambucas each in them, and at least five of these were purchased.It was safe to say, that this was the turning point of the evening.Somehow, we made it to Facebar, were we rendevouzed with a horde of "people that I know". I don't remember much about Facebar, only that it was a lot of fun and that I kept falling over. Somebody suggested doing some strawpedoing and apparently I managed to succeed in this for a change. Probably not good in the long term however. Somewhere between here and home I managed to pick up a facial injury which is a bit embarassing - but oh well these things happen!At about 3am, it was decided that we would head back to Dave's, and drink Jägerbull as he had a lot of Jägermeister at his house. So we set off, resolving to pick up a large supply of Red Bull from Murco's, our trusted all night petrol station in homeward adventures. We head back to Dave's for Jagermeister and The National, everybody is happy so at 5-30am we retreat to our homes for a good night's sleep. Or rather, a few hours...SaturdayWe get up at around 10am and resolve to a day of chilling and possibly even a chilli in the evening. Given that I got my face damaged the previous night, I sacrifice the vegetarian stance I've been maintaining (for variety rather than ethical reasons) and set up some bacon and brie sandwiches, buying some really nice and well looked after bacon for this brief lapse. Ben pops around to the house and Stears him and I decide to spend a day down at the cinema, and head down at about 15:30 for this purpose. I get some replacement glasses from specsavers and we go to watch Kung Fu Panda. The woman who sells us the tickets mis-hears us and we don't realise until we're at the screen that actually, we're going to watch Hancock. Ah well, it was entertaining I guess.We head out for a coffee, and discuss plans, perhaps it would be funny to go fly somewhere on Sunday and grab lunch, possibly Greece, or Italy. This idea is investigated on Stears' phone a bit, and then we head back to the cinema to watch Wanted. Absolutely hilarious movie, recommend it to anyone.We arrive back at my house after going via Tesco, at around 10:30pm and I decide to look at some flights. Greece is too far away, and Italy is too expensive. At 10:50 we decide "Hey, let's go to Spain and grab some spanish food". AWESOME. Ben runs to get his passport from his house, and Stears and I feel smug that we keep our in our laptop cases. I book three tickets to spain at 5:40am, and we RUN to the train station to catch the final train to the airport which leaves at 11:34pm.We spend the morning pissing about at the airport, drinking coffee and setting our Facebook statuses to comical things like "Gone for lunch"We are relieved on checking in, to find that I have booked our flights correctly and that in a few short hours, we'll be at Alacante drinking beer and eating Paella.SundayWe arrive into Alacante and grab a taxi to "the beach". The beach it is and we are amused at how our random adventure has gone so far.We buy some shorts and towels, and head onto this beach to do some... lounging around and perhaps a bit of sleep. Ben and I go for a swim and are pleasantly surprised by how warm the water is. At 9am, the ambient air temperature is 25 degrees Celcius, so we know we'll be in for a hot day.I realise I've left the country without bringing a bobble to tie my hair back, and after not showering for 24 hours and in this heat, my hair is going to stick to my face and make me incredibly irritable (I want to do murders where I'm irritable), so we set about looking for a shop that sells bobbles. In this overly-religous country however, the entire town is shut down because it's Sunday morning and everybody is at church.I improvise by tying my tie around my head like a bandana, and feeling like a prat for the rest of the day. Oh well, I looked like a prat wearing the tie in the first place, so this is probably an improvement.The rest of the day is spent just pissing about, drinking beer, eating paella and swimming. Ben and I play with his camera and use the long lense to 'snipe' random passers by doing their general activities. We spent the entire day drinking beer, and slowly learning the local lingo. We have an awesome time, but it's one of those awesome times that is hard to put into words because the good time is being generated from just being there and talking nonsense over beer whilst people-watching. 12 hours later, we're a bit worse for wear through tiredness and beer - and in my case almost drowning and we say goodbye to the city and make our way home.We arrive back in Reading 6am, having left 36 hours beforehand. We're dead on our feet. We've witnessed the sunrise from Gatwick airport twice in a row and are getting dangerously sober.MondayA few hours sleep is had, getting up once more at 10am to fix the boiler, and get some work done. Life is back to normal but photos need uploading. What a weekend eh?
The un-edited photo set can be found here. The flickr set can be found here
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