The forbidden fruit: Veronicas

Of course with any arrival of an intern, experienced thought my career, the arrival to the hotel was clunky. No one seemed to know about me coming, it was a Saturday or Sunday, and the reception where I actually was supposed to work had no idea. Human Resources did not pass on the information. And of course no one spoke English or German, it was tough. After waiting a little bit someone came to me and said I will be sharing the room with a Dutch guy and on Monday they will tell me more.

At least my new colleague was very nice and I immediately bonded with her, and she also spoke English, though not to mention my Spanish at that time, my English was also just a school English. I did have two weeks in England in the south of London once during grammar school at a guest family and a school but that was it.

So I went to the last room of the hotel, the hotel was massive about 400 rooms and lots of pools and people. I felt good but nervous and when I met my Dutch room mate, I was immediately at ease. Maurice was also an intern and he came with three others from their Dutch hotel school. We bonded immediately. But let me backtrack a little to my arrival.

One of the things the lady told me that we have strict rules, we are not allowed in the restaurants and bars of the hotel, we can go to the pool on our days off but one strict rule from our General Manager is that yes we can come and go when we want, however we are not allowed to go to Veronica’s. I was like, what is Veronica’s? Well it was the entertainment area of Playa de las Americas, with lots of bars and clubs, and a lot of drunk British people and violence.

I just had to write this before going on with my first day in a Tenerife. So Maurice was off that day and so were the other Dutch girls. And what did we do. Well we went to Veronica’s. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first but Maurice told me it’s fine they go there every day and it’s fine, we just don’t tell anyone. So we went, and oh my god that is the moment when my life changed cordber. They already had a rhythm which bars to go first and then which one next. They introduced me to everyone in the bars and the reps outside the bars who handed out discount vouchers for drinks. All of those were seasonal and also from abroad so it felt great speaking the same language English.

Very soon I knew everyone and everyone knew me, and every night was just absolutely amazing. In my three months there, only one night I did not go out the rest we were out regardless if we had to work or not. We befriended everyone, in my case I met Miranda in the hotel as she was a tour rep and she became a super great friend until now. And all the bar staff, the reps my god they all left an impression on me for life, and most were British and that was really why I wanted to move to Britain one day.

So Veronica’s dangerous, well I never thought that way. The only thing I found strange in the clubs girls and boys, or boys and boys coming out of toilets together. At first I thought it was sexual in my naive mind but soon I learned there are other things then alcohol people enjoyed when partying. Not for me, I was happy with the alcohol and most of the time we got it for free as we knew everyone, especially in my favorite Waikiki and Rags. Don’t even know if they exist still. But what a fun time we had, partying between Bobbie’s and busbies and getting super drunk either thr Irish in the Shamrock bar. There was really no night I, or we, did not party. But of course there was work too. It will come.

Back to dangerous, the only thing what happened to me once which then turned out to be a complete mess, a guy approached me outside the Sol hotel and I don’t even know what happened but later I realized my wallet was gone. Now considering I was on 20k pesetas around 100 euros a month going out every night, and it was 1997, the nightmare started the next day calling my parents from a coin phone to tell them and that I no longer had my bank or credit card. Again thanks to my sister somehow we got a bank transfer and I had money again and could party again (sorry mum if you are reading this lol).

But apart from that Veronica’s was one of my life changing experiences together with my new international friends. And my General Manager never found out.