Last week me and a colleague from the same shop went on a work trip to Alicante in Spain. There were other colleagues who work in the other Right Price Tiles shops in Norway also on the trip. We from Bergen travelled down in the middle of the day on Wednesday. I had to work first before we travelled, so it was a long day, with me starting work at 7 in the morning until we had to leave for the airport at 12:30. Also we had to travel back early Friday morning, so it was a very short trip.
I've never been to Spain before (unless Mallorca counts), so it was nice to travel somewhere i haven't been before :D The weather was nice too, coming from rainful, cold Bergen, it was a nice change with sunny and warmish (15-20°C i think).
When we arrived in Alicante we took a taxi to the Malia hotel 10-15 minutes from the airport. It was very cool with palm trees and the beach there :D
The hotel was really nice with good view from the hotel balcony to the beach and the mountain, and the room was nice and big.
After changing clothes we went to eat at a restaurant closeby next to the boat place. It seemed like a seafood restaurant, but they also had meat and veggie options. I ordered a plate of grilled vegetables, while everyone else ordered meat or fish :x Most of the people also drank shitloads of beer, while me and a couple of others stack to cola and water. We had to wait like 1-2 hours or so for the food. While waiting we got some appetizers, most of them non-vegan. Lucky i had snacked on dates on the plane :p
After some hours it got dark and colder, so i was freezing a bit. People were getting drunker, one even fell over the neighbouring table and the children there, so was time to get back to the hotel because we had to get up early the next morning. A guy from one of the other shops and my colleague wanted to go on the mountain and take some pictures so i decided to join them. We never got that far though because they were drunk and just wanted to drink, so we eventually had to return to the hotel. I'm reminded why i don't drink from seeing all these drunk people :p it's not tempting to drink after seeing what it does to you x)
After getting to the hotel i sadly couldn't fall asleep. Long day and already little sleep from before didn't help. I think i slept like 2 hours, from 4 to 6. Alarm went off at 7. I took a shower before going yo breakfast. Should have timed it a bit better though because i only had 5 minutes to eat breakfast before the bus should leave to the tile fabrics at 8, so i just grabbed some bread and fruit and stuffed some in my mouth and some in my purse. Seems some of the guys overslept though so they had to wake them up before we could leave, so i was one of the early ones.
The tile fabrics were pretty far from Alicante, we had to pass Valencia, so it was a 3 hour bus trip. I couldn't sleep much now either, only like 30 minutes, so i just looked out the windows on the beautiful Spanish nature :p When we finally arrived at the first tile fabric, Cristacer, we had to wait a bit outside. It was sunny and warm so that was just nice :p they also had clementine trees just across the road so i sneaked some clementines :D Very delicious and totally fresh :D
In the tile fabric we got a tour where they explained all the steps of how ceramic powder becomes tiles. It was very cool to see, and everything was automated :D We get some of our tiles from this fabric; blanco mate 30x45, partenon marfil, and canada :p
So shortly the tile making process is that the ceramic powder gets its humidity decreased to like 6% then it's shaped into tiles, then it's heated to remove more humidity, then it's primered and gets a top layer, then it is burned. Somewhere in there it's also checked that it's the correct color and size and no bad stuff on the tiles. After burning they are packaged and transported.
There were like 300 tile fabrics in the area, which means shiiiitloads of tiles being produced every day.
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| From Decocer |
After the first tile fabric we visited another tile fabric, Decocer. This one we get some hexagon and devon tiles from. It was pretty much the same, except here they make more decorative tiles and they had more manual labor than the first fabric.
After we were done on the 2nd tile fabric we got some drink and snacks, then we travelled to a restaurant by the sea. It was really beautiful view outside :D
I got some grilled vegetables as pre-dish which was quite delicious :D
After eating i sat outside in the sun. Later the main dish arrived: grilled vegetables xD
I must admit it started to be quite many meals with grilled vegetables now xP Atleast it was different vegetables than the pre-dish, but I did prefer the pre-dish because it was more meal-like and less side dish-like like the main dish xD I finished eating and went back into the sun, waiting for the ride back to the hotel.
We had to travel via Oslo, and 2 people from the Oslo shops also took the same plane, so we shared cab and hanged together at the airport. In the plane i barely slept also, so me and my colleague played some cards, like we did on the way down to Spain :p I taught him well cuz he won every single game this time of go-fish :p
In Oslo we rechecked our luggages and bought some stuff for others in the duty free shop and found some food to eat. I had heard Upper Crust had vegan options so i ordered a vegan baguette. It came with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and onion. Would have been cooler with some hummus, mayonnaise or vegan cheese on, but it was nice without also :p
Then plane back to Bergen, taxi home and sleeeeeep. And my poor colleague had to work.
It was a nice trip, even though it was a bit short. Hope next time I'll go on a longer trip with more free time to look around and explore :D And eat something else than grilled vegetables :p
