The Forbidden Experience

I've only gone and done a Shirley Valentine. Except that the man in question does not have a large moustache and he doesn't say 'I want to make fuck with you'. Not quite, anyway.

To be honest, the beginning of our much anticipated Moroccan holiday could not have gone much worse. After spending a small fortune on new summer clothes and every lotion and potion in Boots to get us 'beach ready', F and I arrived at the resort. Unfortunately, on first impressions, it reminded me of places I dimly remember seeing in news reports about Eastern Europe in the early 80s – all grey concrete and pot holed roads. Could this really be the popular beach resort described by our travel agent, we asked ourselves. It was. 

As I wrote in my last post, we were imagining sophisticated cocktails by the pool, blue skies and long afternoons spent reading glossy magazines on the beach. What we actually got was grey skies, and a beach that looked a bit like Blackpool (but not as clean) that could only be reached by walking through a large car park full of overflowing rubbish skips. To make matters worse, we soon discovered that the hotel had an over-active entertainments programme which meant that the pumping music by the pool didn't stop for even a minute between ten in the morning and ten at night. No lie-ins for us then! But hey, who needs a lie-in when there's always some kind of fun activity being pushed on you by the hyperactive 'animation' team? We never did find out what the intrigingly named 'spoon game' entailed.

By the second day, we each had a serious and buttock-clenchingly awful case of diarrhoea (which we christened 'The Forbidden Experience') courtesy, we think, of the salad bar. Even Immodium couldn't fix it. Sitting on the toilet sweating and shaking whilst being forced to endure Blue's 'Breathe Easy' from the poolside PA system for the fiftieth time was not the experience I had in mind when I paid the travel agent five hundred hard earned notes for an idyllic holiday. To make it even worse, the hotel staff were generally unhelpful and unpleasant and the bank refused to change our money, saying it was 'too dirty'. It did not look good.

Things picked up on the second day when we met some boys who owned a surf camp near the resort. They took us clubbing a few times, bought us loads of drinks and let us hang out with them back at their place. One of them (who I'll just call S) seemed to quite like me and said that he would like to see me again. This will be somewhat difficult as he lives in the UK and I will be moving to Bucharest in a couple of weeks time. I am very cynical, as I can't believe that anyone as gorgeous as him would fancy little old me but also because Holiday Siani is very different to Normal Everyday Real Siani. I really don't believe that he would still like me if we did manage to meet again.

Holiday Siani is brown and relaxed and likes dancing to hard house music whilst swigging vodka. She likes to stay out until 5 am and has an array of brightly coloured dresses, and nicely matching jewellery. Holiday Siani is full of confidence and doesn't give a shit ('scuse the pun) about what people think of her. Holiday Siani is a carefree, fun person. In contrast, Real Siani has grey hair and is moody. She is in bed by nine and hates hard house music and clubbing. She's pasty white, has cellulite and lacks self-confidence.

On holiday, I was happy to party until five every morning and existed on very little sleep, vodka and spaghetti sandwiches (bread and pasta being the only safe things we could eat from the 'Buffet of Death' as F named it). But Real Siani is very different. Real Siani is more restricted, more stressed, more demanding. Real Siani has issues.

I had an emotional goodbye with S at the airport and we talked regularly on the phone in the first few days after I got back.  Initially he seemed very keen. But now I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach because it's been a good forty eight hours and there's been no contact. Even though I'm a cynical hard-bitten woman of almost thirty two who knows that it was just a fling and not going anywhere, I'd still like to hear his voice. I know it's crazy to feel such an attachment to someone I only knew for a week. I know that I should forget about him and move on. Where could it possibly go?

At home in North Wales, sitting in my tracksuit bottoms watching 'The Antiques Roadshow' with my Mum, I wonder, was that really me? Who sat chatting on the beach until five in the morning and who wasn't tired at all despite having only about four hours sleep every night? Was it really me who danced like a mad thing for three hours straight, stopping only when it was time to go home? Was it me who wore a floral play suit and heels out in public? (Btw it was, the evidence is on Facebook...)

And was it me who said good-bye to him so carelessly at the airport, confident that I would see him again? It seems like a different person. It seems like a different world.

 

Mind you, Real Siani's not all bad. For a start, she doesn't have chronic diarrhoea.