Cyprus - Saturday 17th May 2008

Hahahahahaha, Actually, Donna arrived!

That is all.

(Apparently Andy has completely forgotten what happened today, so I shall fill you in.

It wasn’t a very exciting day – we had a leisurely start, then, after Richard had gone to the airport, we went into Kato Pafos. Kato Pafos is ‘low’ Pafos, in my mind at least – it’s the seafront bit with all the tourist-y type restaurants, the tacky souvenir shops and the horrific Anglocentric bars. Our main thought today was to head to the aquarium, the only one of its kind on the island.

Unlike most of the other places we’ve visited, the aquarium didn’t cost €1.71 – it was a solid €6.50, which filled me with both trepidation and hope. After all, if an area of ruins that covers many square miles only costs €1.71 to enter, then surely you have to offer something decent for nearly 4 times as much. Don’t you?

Well, it appears not. Roundhay Park in Leeds has a better aquarium. Hell, Pudsey Park in Leeds has a better aquarium. There were a variety of tanks, although it appeared that most of them contained catfish or cichlids, all of which could probably have been kept together, rather than spread across what must have been literally 15 tanks. There were some other quite cool fish, including one enormous angelfish, but that was about it. There was a shark tank, which contained three, approximately 2-3 foot long, sharks and some other fish, but even that wasn’t that good. The best part of it was walking round and round the tank, getting a shark to follow me and hoping it would attack me, banging its head in the process. It didn’t, I got dizzy, and that was all the interest to be found in there. There were two alligators which looked stuffed, and didn’t appear to be moving at all, and, in the final tank, the coup de grace – a solitary dead fish, trapped partially under a rock, unable even to float to the surface. Without a doubt, this was the most disappointing thing on the holiday so far, and I hope nothing tops it.

Following our look through the death tanks of Pafos, we went to wend our merry way back to the car, having a little look at bars and stuff on the way, to see if we could find anywhere for the evening, as tonight was the night that had been mooted as an evening on Bar Street – an area that Goldy had yet to wow. Unfortunately, it looked like chav central, so it was pretty much decided that we’d go somewhere quieter – the King’s Road perhaps. Especially as that’s where the waitresses worked that had been giving Mr Love-berger the eye…

Having navigated through the British holidaymakers’ neon-Mecca, we carried on towards the car. I stopped to look in some souvenir shops to pick up some more presents for people. It was at this point, after Goldy and Anna had had a brief look in some shops too, that everyone decided to abandon me, and I was stranded in the middle of Pafos with no-one to look after me. I weighed up my options, and eventually decided to head back to the car, reasoning that they’d have to get back there eventually. When I arrived back, they were already in the car, and were waiting for me. So, essentially, none of them had cared enough to come find me. I felt very unloved.

By the time we got back to the villa, Rich had arrived with Donna. We all hung about the pool for a bit, before a dinner of spaghetti Bolognese – uber-Cypriot, eh? But nice. Now, Andy and Anna were saying that, as we were just going to end up going to the pub, rather than out to a few places, they might stay in, which sounded to my boring brain like a great idea. Unfortunately, then Richard said he might stay in too, as Donna was tired and didn’t want to go out, which made me feel like a git, as Goldy was looking forward to going out. Therefore, being the stand-up guy that I am, I said that I would definitely go, as would Laura. Because of how amazing I am, Rich and the Sweeneys also fell in line, meaning we suddenly had a full compliment (barring Donna, who caught up on some sleep), and could prepare to head out.

So, a quick bit of faffing while people got ready later, and we were heading back to town and the King’s Road for an evening of karaoke loving. As Andy touched upon above, we took over the entire evening. Pretty much literally. When we arrived, there was a woman that did a couple of songs, and the compere did one or two as well, but once that woman had left, Goldy, Rich, Andy, Anna and I had about 2 hours of uninterrupted fun, which stopped only when three other people decided they were going to weigh in. It was actually something of a relief to not sing, which isn’t something you’ll often hear people saying at karaoke! However, we did get Laura to sing karaoke, for the first time in her entire life, so that was very cool.

We ended up leaving at about 1:15, despite Andy, Anna and I having said that we would probably head off at about 12, after what was, in fact, a very good night. We even ended up getting quite a bit of money off of the bill, as we’d spent the whole evening entertaining the entire bar! So, back to the villa, and pretty much straight to bed, to prepare for a day in the mountains on Sunday.