Working aboard – what did I miss?

Before the dust settled on my passport I spent 6 summers working aboard. No SKY TV not even Freeview and in some apartments I lived it no TV at all.  All there was to watch (if I was ‘lucky’) was Spanish/Italian Jeremy Kyle style shows and the news.  The only show I could understand was Friends, as I knew what was going to be said after watching them over and over again. So it didn’t matter what language it was in, as ‘¿cómo te va/come stai/comment tu fais’ was just as funny. 

I did spend a summer working in Florida and after being promised cable TV, ‘lots of channels’ was what my then boss lied to me, but ended up with 20 – 10 of them were news or shopping channels. The only shows on offer were Jerry Springer and Roseanne.  However the positive points of my time in the good old US of A - I watched my first Bones episodes and have good memories of Sunday nights watching Rock of Love on VH1 (Series 1), it took over my life and then the lives of my friends who didn’t even know who Bret Michaels was.

It wasn’t all bad living in the sun, having a busy social life and spending my day off on the beach nursing a hangover with my friends or Monsieur X (it was the shocking low pay and terrible exchange rate which brought me home). Of course I have the memories and the photos on Facebook, but even watching TV can make me think back to the good old days.

My TV Travel memories.

I did look away from the TV sometimes on my travels.

IBIZA 

ER Box sets 1 and 2, passed around the office, scratched beyond repair especially the Storm Drain episode. In return I borrowed Shameless Series 1 and 2 – back when it was good.

PUNTA CANA - Dominican Republic

Armed with a portable DVD Player, living in a empty apartment in between two brothels I watched ER Series 3, a few episodes of Prison Break, thinking this looks good and never watched it since and weirdly Johnny English as it is became Monsieur X’s favourite film that year.

SALOU, Spain

A dodgy DVD copy of Desperate Housewives Series 1 where the sound was so low I had to have put my laptop near my ears to try and listen.  And Lost Series 1 and 2, already watched Series 1 before but watched it again with 'Lost Virgin' Monsieur X and then watched Series 2 together rationing the episodes to two a night so that we wouldn’t run out of things to watch.

ORLANDO,USA

Rock of Love – see above and Roseanne when my workmates christened me with my new name.

CARIBBEAN

Hiding in my Barbados hotel room, away from the angry guests watching the end of Lost Series 3. Catching up on the Desperate Housewives in a hotel room in St Kitts and the Rock of Love Final in Antigua.

SICILY, Italy

Beautiful view from my apartment balcony, but living on 2 euros a hour and with the flat/work mate from hell, hiding in my room was my only option. I watched 24 Series 1 within 3 days and became addicted to the power of Bauer. Spent most of my office time bidding for Series 2 and 3.  

Being away from my family, cats, home and just as importantly my Sky box, there are a lot of programme I missed out on and now that I home and bored I have started to catch up on past shows, such as Cold Case (I’m up to series 3 now) and The Wire (Series 1). Maybe if I ever have a spare month or two I might try the Sopranos and Dexter.

My Mount Eta balcony view every morning

Mad Dogs - Te Amo Ibiza

Every time I watch Max Beesley, I always think about the Take That concerts back in the early 1990’s, seeing him banging away on his bongos.  So with a very small Take That connection and Philip Glenister – the coolest British dude in TV land Mad Dogs was obviously going to be good.  I didn’t think ‘the Dogs’ could come back for a second series. I thought the boys would live happy ever after back home with their stolen Euros.  So very excited when the second series started, more excited when it was set on my favourite Island Ibiza (even thou most of the drama is filmed in Majorca). 

Oh I so miss Ibiza .Three summers on the white island were brilliant, made new friends, fell in love, damaged my liver and aged about 10 years due to drinking too much, lack of sleep and lack of sunscreen.  I lived and worked in Ibiza Town but spent most of my time in the West End, San Antonio and Playa den Bossa. My West End memories included drunk dancing with my friends most nights (my Scottish pals made me do it), meeting Monsieur X by actually falling into his arms (too much Blue WKD that night) and my Playa Den Bossa memories consisted of drunk singing in Murphys Bar (whisky in a jar-o is my personal favourite) and usually dealing with the after effects of the drink by walking it off at 4am (bar to home around 3-4 km would take me an hour –ish) or spending my day off nursing my headache on the beach.  This was the Summer of 2003 and 2004, I was there for Summer 2005 but by then I had enough of the long hours, crap pay and paying 5€ for a ‘cheap’ alternative to Smirnoff ice.

It’s still my favourite destination and a few years ago I went back for Radio 1 weekend, it had changed – new Bus Station, few new shops and bars, but when I returned to the same San An Heavy Metal Bar, I basically lived in for 3 years it wasn’t the same. It was the same staff, decoration, music but not the same vibe.  Then on the 2^nd August 2009 (4 years to the day I met Monsieur X in there) I finally realised I had grown up a bit and moved on. Or maybe it was because I was only there for 3 nights and could only party for 2 of them that might have had something to do with my decision that I had become a little more mature.

Te Amo Ibiza – I’ll be back