2002

Basilica Apartments, Paphos, Cyprus

The one were we got engaged.

I’ll tell you something you might not know. I was worried about going through the bag check on the way out that security might find the ring and demand to see what was in the little box in my hand luggage, especially as I’d recently read about someone who had ended up having to propose in the security section of an airport, when he was made to open the package that he had in his bag that had the ring in it. Also, I had made no plans as to when and where I’d do it. For all I knew, I could have ended up not finding the right moment and going home not having gotten ’round to it.

Still, it was a good evening in the end, I made two grown men cry, got a bottle of champagne, an evening of free vodka & Redbull for everyone as me & James spent the rest of the night DJing in that quiet bar on the strip. Also the holiday were we found the infamous M150 liquid speed drink. Some people ended up in a ‘gentlemen’s club’ and had to pay some Russian bar owners hundreds of pounds for a glass of orange juice.

Some of us went to Cairo for the day and went inside one of the pyramids. Tourist tick box.

I remember seeing rats as big as cats in the houses we drove past on the way through to Giza. The Nile Cruise that was included in the price was very odd. There was traditional Egyptian music playing somewhere and we kind of bobbled along the river in a replica of one of the old Nile barges made to feel like an Agatha Christie novel setting. There was a buffet onboard which was the first time I tried sandwiches where they added sugar to the butter in all of them. Obviously there is very little of the old Nile cruise setting left and most of the time you’re just drifting past tower blocks but, occasionally there’d be an old colonial building that added a bit of ‘olde worldeyness’ to everything.

We also got to go to the Cairo Museum where they still had the original Tutankhamen display on, I was absolutely astonished by it all. Along with all the rescued statues and mummies it was one of my favourite things I’ve done. For some inexplicable reason I was tasked with helping a flight out to Israel from Cairo with their boarding process.

It was quite an eventful holiday all in all. There’s other bits I have hazy memories of, Ella sharing a room with the lads and surprising Cuss by walking around topless, I think.