For the first time I realised that I hated being abroad. There were many factors that attributed to this repulsive feeling: the heat, the fact I burned. my. feet., the lack of my little brother, the lack of social interaction, the lack of entertainment! Basically, the lack of everything normal to me. This frustrated me. Immensely. And to make matters worse I had my parents nipping at my heels for me to do something productive.
Over the course of the holiday I tried many things to amuse myself: sunbathing, swimming, shopping, walking, talking but there was simply nothing to do. Nothing could compare to the simple pleasure of a friends company. I seemed to find myself thinking that holidays away are strangely abstract things. They take effort, planning, money and really I just didn't see how they're worth it in the end. My idea of a perfect holiday would be one that was easy, cheap, relaxing and required little though or planning ahead: my parents would be out at work, I would relax with some TV by myself maybe, I might then later on have a few friends over, or go out to someone's house, even go into town, possibly to some event. The possibilities are endless but just having allies with you makes it so much... better.
After arriving home I spent the rest of my summer making memories I would like to remember. The majority of my time was spent with three of my favourite people, Sammy, Jill and Kyle. Together we did many things. Many, many things. Some were hilarious and others were... just as hilarious but made us look all the bit more stupid. We even attempted to bake cookies. Can you imagine? Once all of the mess was contained and the treats baked the final product was... unconventional, to say the least. Unconventionally shaped, unconventionally coloured... Green. And every single one of them looked like mint chocolate chip ice-cream. I personally thought that they tasted rather scrumptious but Jill claimed that they “tasted of green”, and despise the obvious deficiency of logic in that statement this is still her claim today. But who knew, blue food colouring makes green cookies?
The rest of my time was spent divided among other people, Lewis (my boyfriend) being one of them. We did many things throughout the weeks, including bowling. The final result was one of a gob-smacking nature: me coming in third out of four. I. Was. Thrilled. I suck at bowling but luckily we managed to snag a lane with bumpers up otherwise it may as well have been written in stone that I would come in eighth.
I was also able to rediscover a video classic that had been lost to me for many years, me and Lewis managed to find and watch the first and best Pokémon movie. It was surprisingly bad. As in it was so bad that it was actually good. What a fun night... salted popcorn, gummy sweets and two large bottles of Irn-Bru to last us the night...
However that's all over now, and it was worth it. Yet again I have school every day and none of us have very much time to spend doing to things we do in the summer, I mean in between revision, exams, homework and everything/anything else we're committed to there's barely any time left at all. Every year time and time again, I try to make the most out of the seemingly short time I have away from school and work, especially considering how much I've taken it for granted every other year. Although I really do believe that the two week trip to Spain was a bit of a waste of the valuable time I had, I find myself in the position of only going abroad with my parents this year if I am allowed to take Kyle with me. I think that I'm getting just a bit too old to frolic at the beach or paddle in the sea but I'm just too young to be able to do as I please. I'm approaching the age where soon I'll be going on holiday just me and my friends to have fun and my parents will be going on their holidays to relax. Years down the line I may be taking my own kids on holiday to repeat the cycle that I've grown to loathe and I'm sure that they will eventually too. I'm sure that one day I'll miss being at this awkward 'in-between' stage, I may even feel sad at not making the most of it but for now I just want to grow up. I want to have independence and freedom but most of all I want to be able to do as I please and enjoy life the way I choose.
