Memoirs of Travelling Wapshare - Part Three

So, a few years ago myself and my friend Laura went away to Corfu for a week. I worked at Boots with Laura for three years and we became inseparable "terrible twins"; whenever we were together at work we would be found in fits of laughter either singing about customers, sticking our noses in shampoo, or reminiscing some crazy night out we had recently had...

From start to finish we laughed and giggled and it's no surprise that a week in Corfu with Laura was one of the best weeks of my life.

I really should have asked Laura to tell the story of this week for me, as she has a much better memory and I am sure she remembers much more of it. But, there are three specific parts of the week I would like to share with you.

1. Fortis

 In hindsight, the "Fortis" story is actually slightly worrying and tells you about a rather creepy man who created a lot of laughs for us. I cannot successfully describe this in words as I should have done this years ago...

We went for a walk to find a lovely place to eat on our first night. The waiter quickly came to introduce himself: "Fortis" and he showed us to our table. How to describe Fortis? A tall Greek man, probably in his late "fortis" (yes I remember us making that terrible joke between ourselves). The food was delicious that night, and despite Fortis being slightly strange we really enjoyed eating at his restaurant. As a result of that, we decided to return a few nights later. Only this time he was a little more "forward" asking us questions about where "beautiful girls" like us would be going on a night like that; where were we staying- stupidly we told him- luckily we realised that was silly in time to not tell him, when he asked a moment later,  which room we were staying in. Nonetheless, Fortis continued to tell us that he would climb over our balcony when he finished work that night and he would bring with him a bottle of wine... we found this as funny as you probably now find this strange and worrying... The funny thing is, I am giggling this as I type... Remembering Laura make a strange squeal when we were in our hotel room later that night... It was in response to some noise coming from the balcony... that we both thought for a moment could have been Fortis... Luckily it wasn't... and we had a safe night sleep, even if we did lock the balcony door and slept in a room far too hot. Safety first and all that.

On our last night we decided that we would take Suzanne, (a lovely girl we met from our resort) for dinner at Fortis' restaurant. We thought that it would make us laugh, and sure enough... yes it did.

Firstly, when we arrived Fortis told us that he would take us to his favourite table, "69". We didn't realise the foul joke implied here at first. It wasn't until he asked our new friend her age (she wasn't actually 18 but we said she was so she could drink), and we then in response asked his age: "69". He continued all night to fit in the words "69" at any given opportunity. We were in fits of laughter amongst the disgust that a man the same age as our fathers was speaking to us in such a foul way. Even so, we had a lovely dinner, and left- never to see Fortis again. I don't even have a photo of him, so here is a photo of Laura's meal there one night.

2. Beach Bliss to Festival Fury

It was about half way through our holiday, and we decided to buy ourselves some picnic food and take a wonder to the beach. We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived, as the beach was EMPTY, like not a soul to be seen. So we picked a pair of sun loungers with an umbrella (as Laura's fair skin was beginning to complain) and we set up camp. 

We read our books.

We ate our picnic.

I think we then fell asleep, or we were reading our books or something, anyway, the next time we looked up at our empty beach, it was far from empty- there was some kind of event going on. All of the sun loungers had been piled up and moved away- apart from our own. And there were men (in very minimal swimpants) and women literally right next to us. Now I'm not talking a meter or two away. I mean, I couldn't get off my sun lounger without nearly stepping on the woman next to me. At first we just giggled in disbelief. We had no idea what was going on, and there were more people coming, they were carrying flags and it was clearly an organised event- that we clearly were not supposed to be at... Eventually we managed to pull our giggles together and escape the beach, as quickly as possible with as little interaction with the strange festival as possible. Below is a photo of each us once we had managed to get back to our hotel in one piece. You can see that we were both crying with laughter whilst telling this story back. Such a wonderful memory. I really cannot give it any justice.

3. Wardrobe

This is probably one of my all time favourite memories of all time. 

It was our last day, our transfer bus didn't leave until 11pm but we had to check out of our room at 10am. How frustrating. The crabby hotel rep (who we had named "Nicorette" because she yelled at people for smoking, and she was extremely grumpy- as if she was quitting smoking) had instructed us that we must leave our bags in the hotel lobby for the day. So that's what we did. 

Anyway, friends of ours had said that if we would feel safer then we could pop our bags into their room... We thought this was a great idea and went to retrieve our ba-"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!?!" Yells a familiar voice, Ah yes of course- it's Nicorette. She tells us that as we are no longer staying at the hotel our stuff is not allowed to go in any other hotel room and it must remain in the lobby. We abandoned the plan of moving our bags and returned to the pool.

We enjoyed the day lying by the pool messing around with our new friends. Then it comes to time to shower, and we had been told by Nicorette that we could pay to use the hotel's public showers. However our friend Stella had suggested we showered in her hotel room. Aware that Nicorrette would not allow this, we had to sneak up to their hotel and hide, so that we weren't spotted. 

Now we get to my favourite part of the story. Nicorette is snooping about by the pool, and it becomes obvious that she is looking for Laura and I, yet she can't find us. Next thing you know, there's a knock on the door... Stella quickly opens her wardobe door and tells us to hide!!!!!! So we did, and we listened to the rest unfold.

A cleaner came in to the room, and Stella told us that she looked around the room, behind doors, under the beds, asking questions... Looking for us. All the while we were trapped inside the wardrobe, you know that feeling of hide and seek when you realise you are breathing loudly... I was struggling so much to hold in my laughter... I heard a door close... Next thing Stella opens the wardrobe door and takes the following photo:

So the picture above, is the exact moment when the door was opened. When the relief flooded in that we hadn't been "caught"; when we were able to laugh the laugh that we had stifled for the whole time the cleaner was snooping around. It was a truly wonderful moment. 

Just like the entire week. That photo, for me, sums up Laura and I as a pair.