David has sent another amusing story about his first attempt at his job as a tour guide......I must say that after visiting both the fountains and Montserrat this year I found David's story really funny!
Thank s David!!!
Hi Again Jackie
Gave you all a rest during the summer from my ramblings, but kept a regular eye on the blog, good old Mariano kept us happy with his super collection of old propaganda.
Anyhow....when I first arrived in Lloret during the early 70s I wanted to be a holiday rep but no one was interested without some sort of experience, so after a few weeks of knocking on doors I was offered a part time job guiding coaches for English speaking groups during the summer period. This meant a quick learning course of all the various trips on offer, so for a couple of weeks I went on all the different trips, many times with dear Malachi to Montserrat and other trips, I must say he was a super guide and I learnt a lot from him and later during my courier life I tried to emulated his professional style.
Well after a couple of weeks training I was offered my first job (solo) I was excited I had been on all the trips except the Saturday night trip to the famous dancing fountains on Montjuic in Barcelona but I was ready for anything!!
You guessed it? My first job was Saturday night the fountains, I got my papers in the office and was introduced to my coach driver Manolo from Andalucía who had arrived new to the Costa Brava that week looking for driving work, and they said in the office “I could help him out if he had any problems”!!!!)
Late Saturday afternoon we set off with a full coach and believe it or not it was great, we got to Barcelona parked up for an hour or so at Plaza Espana for shopping, went on from there to the harbour for a quick trip round and then on to the fountains.
THEY WERE SHUT!!!! Without notifying anyone the council had boarded up 8 foot high boards all round the fountains for cleaning works, the fountains were working, you could see 18 inches of coloured water jumping up above the boarding. Manolo said if we went down to the bottom of the Place Espana we might get a better view, he then proceeded to drive our coach down streets barley wide enough for a car, the passengers were ohh and ahhs as a balcony was missed by millimetres, Spaniards grabbed chairs from the street wondering why this Andaluth nutcase had come down their street with a bunch a gawking foreigners.
It was a better view down the bottom of the Plaza Espana, not a lot but if you stood way back you could see the general idea but as they were only on for half an hour we only had a short time left. So all back on the bus for the final item of the night which was a visit to the dancing horses who practiced on a Saturday night just along from the fountains but this meant we were down the bottom and we had to get up the top for the horses, Manolo scratched his head and in typical Spanish bravado said “no problemo” by now it’s pretty dark and we race off to catch the horses – right into a dead end cul-de-sac, now a 50 seater coach and residential streets don’t go – we did a 17 point turn and gently tapped 4 trees all to the bewilderment of the passengers, we raced on to find all the other coaches had parked outside the horses venue and all my lot raced off to catch what they could of the spectacular, but by the time the last one had got off the coach the horses had finished.
IT WAS QUITE A QUIET TRIP HOME? The passengers all got their money back and I decided perhaps I would make an all out effort to get a job as a courier.
