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Tenerife

Tenerife

How (not) to rent a car in Tenerife

We got off the plane at Tenerife – South Airport shortly before midnight. In front of us was a long bus journey to Puerto de la Cruz on the other side of the island. A bus had just left and the next one wasn’t due for another hour. When planning the trip, we had thought of renting a car but found out that when one of us didn’t drive and the other had a driving license only for three months, it was not possible. I became reconciled to depending on buses. Ben had not. As I began nodding off in the middle of our luggage he disappeared and then reappeared triumphantly waving car keys above his head. It appears he had simply walked up to the nearest car rental desk, presented his driving license and ID card, and waited to see what would happen. What happened was that the Spanish official was not able – or could not be bothered to decipher Czech documents. So Ben, after narrowly preventing the man at the desk putting the name of Ben’s place of birth down as his surname on the form, scooped up the car keys along with instruction telling him to […]

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Tenerife

How (not) to catch a plane to Tenerife

Have we been sitting here too long? I wondered as I sat with a pile of luggage in Berlin airport. The departure gate still showed no signs of activity, nearly twenty minutes after it should have closed. It hadn’t even opened yet… There was no announcement of a delay either… Wait a minute, something must be wrong. Suddenly, it dawned on me. Sometime earlier I had gone looking for the toilets and about halfway there Ben had gesticulated to me to have a look if the number of our gate was up yet. I had glanced quickly at the departure board but was more concerned with other pressing matters. “Nine!” I shouted back and set off to follow the call of nature. I didn’t think about it any further. But now, after sitting for three-quarters of an hour in front of Gate 9, I suddenly got a petrifying thought: “Ben … Are we waiting at the correct gate?” Ben turned mildly green and sprinted off to check the departure board. Immediately he was back, grabbed a rucksack, and only said: “Let’s run!” And so we ran. Across the whole length of the extensive Schönefeld airport to gate 63, all the […]

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