Spanish braveheart
Recently I found out that Brillig is well known among her blogging friends for her strong 'soap opera' stories. Now she invites us all together with her partner in crime, walking kateastrophe, to share our strong stories full of drama, broken hearts, emotions or actions for her Soap Opera Sunday Show.
Cool but I don't have any spectacular stories, so I thought. But this vacation period gave me some inspiration.
As a child I went always went on vacation with my parents during the summer months. We loaded up the car and my sister and I camped on the backseats. We sang a lot, I played with a doll, we waved to other Belgian cars on the road, I was following the map, ... while we were heading south. As our car at that time did not have the luxury of air conditionning, my parents always put big towels behind us on the seats. Somehow it created already a vacation feeling in the car for me. My mom always prepared her 'beachsalad' for us on the first day, so we could picknick on one of the parking lots along the highway. Those were always full of adventures, especially the very big ones in the south of France near Montpellier: hundreds of tourists, people picknicking, people refreshing themselves in the big bathrooms, all kinds of languages,... One time we were having a break on a very very hot day, when a man comes to spread out a little carpet in the grass next to us. "Ah what a great idea, I should have blown up the inflatable mattrass and have a nap in the shade outside as well", my dad said, only to realise at that moment that the man outside started doing his prayers in the direction of Mekka next to our car.
In '85 we had booked an appartment at the costa de Ahazar. We had slept overnight in the south of France and had crossed the border with Spain in the morning. In the beginning of Spain there is some kind of parking lot with a passenger hallway across the highway so that you can park on the parking going south, but cross the highway and go to the restaurant located on the parkinglot of the highway going north. We stopped there for lunch, but my parents had heard of a lot of thefts happening on such parking lots, so we parked on a spot that would be visible from the restaurant.
We took the elevator up with our big reflex camera and my parent's purses with us and crossed the highway, which I found quite exciting to see all the cars racing underneath us. While we were having lunch, we kept an eye on the car as planned. I remember that another car parked next to us and had both his passenger doors open for a while. "oh another one that is getting changed", my mom said.
All of a sudden my sister curses "Something moved in our car"
"oh it's probably the towels that waved up a bit, I left the window open a slight crack"
"No seriously, there is someone in our car"
Before we realise it, she jumps out of her chair like a launched rocket and races out of the restaurant into the hallway. At the same moment we see with our other eye indeed a guy casually stepping out of our car, getting in the other car next to it and starting to back up.
Half in panick, confused and scared we grab all of our stuff and run off as well. While wait for the elevator across the hallway we see from the window that the thief car has left and parked about 10 cars further, repeating his scenario with the open doors. 'oh damn, he is forcing the doorlock that way', my mom cursus. The elevator took ages to go up again to come and get us. My sister was in the mean time down at our car, not knowing the thief was still around.
When we finally got down, my sister was already in our car, checking whether anything had been stolen. We signaled to her that the thief was just 10 cars further, forcing another lock.
Then all things went even faster. The thief must have noticed that we were on to him and backed up with screaming tires. Once again my sister reacted fast and impulsively, running up to the thief car and clutching on to the drivers door that had its window open. For a while she could keep up with the accelerating car. Obviously she had to give up her grip and our intruder raced off the parking lot on to the highway. Her attempt to blown the horn of his car and attrackt even more attention in the hope to get help, had failed.
Within a couple of minutes the police was with us. In fact the parkign is guarded, but he knew when there was a change of guards. We had written down the numberplate but that would be of no use as he'd change his plates right away, so they claimed. Before the next toll booth, he'd have different number plates. In all our stress and confusion we'd never thought to actually take a picture, since we had the camera in our bags.
Oh well...I was shaking on my legs and incredibly proud of my big sister who got lectured by my parents though for her impulsiveness. He could have hurt her! All in all we only had a broken door lock...and a day to never forget anymore.
Cool but I don't have any spectacular stories, so I thought. But this vacation period gave me some inspiration.
As a child I went always went on vacation with my parents during the summer months. We loaded up the car and my sister and I camped on the backseats. We sang a lot, I played with a doll, we waved to other Belgian cars on the road, I was following the map, ... while we were heading south. As our car at that time did not have the luxury of air conditionning, my parents always put big towels behind us on the seats. Somehow it created already a vacation feeling in the car for me. My mom always prepared her 'beachsalad' for us on the first day, so we could picknick on one of the parking lots along the highway. Those were always full of adventures, especially the very big ones in the south of France near Montpellier: hundreds of tourists, people picknicking, people refreshing themselves in the big bathrooms, all kinds of languages,... One time we were having a break on a very very hot day, when a man comes to spread out a little carpet in the grass next to us. "Ah what a great idea, I should have blown up the inflatable mattrass and have a nap in the shade outside as well", my dad said, only to realise at that moment that the man outside started doing his prayers in the direction of Mekka next to our car.
In '85 we had booked an appartment at the costa de Ahazar. We had slept overnight in the south of France and had crossed the border with Spain in the morning. In the beginning of Spain there is some kind of parking lot with a passenger hallway across the highway so that you can park on the parking going south, but cross the highway and go to the restaurant located on the parkinglot of the highway going north. We stopped there for lunch, but my parents had heard of a lot of thefts happening on such parking lots, so we parked on a spot that would be visible from the restaurant.
We took the elevator up with our big reflex camera and my parent's purses with us and crossed the highway, which I found quite exciting to see all the cars racing underneath us. While we were having lunch, we kept an eye on the car as planned. I remember that another car parked next to us and had both his passenger doors open for a while. "oh another one that is getting changed", my mom said.
All of a sudden my sister curses "Something moved in our car"
"oh it's probably the towels that waved up a bit, I left the window open a slight crack"
"No seriously, there is someone in our car"
Before we realise it, she jumps out of her chair like a launched rocket and races out of the restaurant into the hallway. At the same moment we see with our other eye indeed a guy casually stepping out of our car, getting in the other car next to it and starting to back up.
Half in panick, confused and scared we grab all of our stuff and run off as well. While wait for the elevator across the hallway we see from the window that the thief car has left and parked about 10 cars further, repeating his scenario with the open doors. 'oh damn, he is forcing the doorlock that way', my mom cursus. The elevator took ages to go up again to come and get us. My sister was in the mean time down at our car, not knowing the thief was still around.
When we finally got down, my sister was already in our car, checking whether anything had been stolen. We signaled to her that the thief was just 10 cars further, forcing another lock.
Then all things went even faster. The thief must have noticed that we were on to him and backed up with screaming tires. Once again my sister reacted fast and impulsively, running up to the thief car and clutching on to the drivers door that had its window open. For a while she could keep up with the accelerating car. Obviously she had to give up her grip and our intruder raced off the parking lot on to the highway. Her attempt to blown the horn of his car and attrackt even more attention in the hope to get help, had failed.
Within a couple of minutes the police was with us. In fact the parkign is guarded, but he knew when there was a change of guards. We had written down the numberplate but that would be of no use as he'd change his plates right away, so they claimed. Before the next toll booth, he'd have different number plates. In all our stress and confusion we'd never thought to actually take a picture, since we had the camera in our bags.
Oh well...I was shaking on my legs and incredibly proud of my big sister who got lectured by my parents though for her impulsiveness. He could have hurt her! All in all we only had a broken door lock...and a day to never forget anymore.
Comments
(I'll add your link to the list... my post isn't up yet and probably won't be for a few hours. But as soon as it's up, I'll include this in our list. Seriously, this was so fantastic. Yay for Soap Opera Sunday!)
Can't wait to hear more!
Happy Days!