I am back from my first family holiday in 25 years

I am back from my long holiday with my family and this was an unusual experience for me to say the least. You see, I usually travel either on my own for work or with my husband - the closest I got to 'traveling' with my family was when they visited me three years ago in London but then again, I was at home hosting them. The last time I traveled with my sister on holiday was probably 1990 or 1991, once she became old enough to travel with her friends she didn't want to travel with her parents and annoying younger brother. I saw this as an opportunity to reconnect with my sister, get closer to my nephew and of course, get to know my brother-in-law a lot better - that was important for me as he is a part of my family and this was the most time I had ever spent with him. I was posting photos and videos on Instagram for at least the first half of the trip but it got to the point where I just couldn't keep up; I could have spent an hour or so every night posting on Instagram or I could just talk to my family. I chose the latter, so the Instagram content will be coming through slowly over the next couple of days. So, I am just going to share with you some of the more interesting experiences I had on this trip.

Most people still don't know where the hell Singapore is. 

Oh this keeps happening everywhere I go: we were in this shop in Zaragoza when the shop keeper asked us where we were from and I said 'Singapore'. He had this blank look on his face, "China? Japan?" And I replied in perfect Spanish, "somos de Singapur; no somos Japoneses y no somos Chinos." (We are from Singapore, we are not Japanese and we are not Chinese.) The Spanish shopkeeper looked totally confused and said, "Tokyo?" Since I speak Spanish fluently, I explained to him that Tokyo is in Japan and I had already told him, we're from Singapore, we're not from Japan and Singapore is another country quite far away. And he asked me where Singapore was - well, just let me jump to the punchline: in his mind, there was China and Japan on the map of Asia, then there's just this big fucking void between China and Australia - even if they realized some countries may exist in this void, they know nothing about them. I had to eventually explain that Singapore was somewhere between China and Australia, but closer to Australia. At least he knew about the existence of Australia, but my sister and nephew were rather perturbed by the fact that he had never ever heard of Singapore - I had to point out to her that I have gotten used to it by now. Sure there are the well-educated elite in Europe who would know plenty about Singapore and have even been there, but walk into a shop in a place like Zaragoza and the chances of the shopkeeper having a mental map of Asia with more than Japan and China is so tiny. So either Singapore really isn't that well-known in Europe or the average Spanish person is quite ignorant - probably both!

We met some super nice Chinese people!

Oh I am usually quite hostile towards people from China on my blog but on this trip, some of the nicest people we met were Chinese migrants in Spain and Portugal. Let me start in Puigcerda, which is a small town high up in the Spanish Pyrenees right on the French border. We had arrived in the town very late and I had asked some locals where I may find a restaurant that was still opened. The lady explained (in Spanish) that there was a really good Chinese restaurant in town and that I may like it - at first I thought, well did I come all the way to the Pyrenees for Chinese food? Turns out, that was a fantastic recommendation as the restaurant was an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet complete with massive piles of salmon sashimi, fresh oysters, lobsters (yes they were so fresh they were still alive before the chef put them on the grill) and an insane variety of authentic Chinese food. We were so thrilled to find such a welcoming place with friendly staff after an extremely long drive up from Barcelona that we kept eating until I realized, oh dear, would the shops still be open now? It was nearly 11 pm - I needed to get stuff like milk and bread for breakfast. So my sister chatted nicely to the boss and he gave us a whole baguette for free - then he offered us a bottle of milk and my sister insisted that we should pay for the milk, so he sold it to us at cost. I later realized that a bottle of milk from the local shop would have cost even more. I guess the staff were rather surprised to see a bunch of tourists from Singapore turn up speaking Mandarin in a tiny town (the population of Puigcerda is just 9,000) high up in the Spanish Pyrenees but they could not have been more friendly.

The second nice Chinese man we met was in Lisbon - there is an Asian town area with plenty of Chinese and Indian/Bangladeshi businesses in the Martim Moniz neighbourhood. We stumbled upon his Cafe 'Ren' the morning we arrived there as we were looking for breakfast. He offered delicious xiaolongbao  小笼包(steamed Chinese dumplings) and a Chinese pancake wrap, along with extremely good coffee which cost just 0.60 euros a cup. He had a full bubble tea menu as well so we kept returning to his shop during our time in Lisbon. I had problems with my AirBNB check in lady - you see, the apartment was stunningly beautiful and the guy I communicated with spoke English perfectly. But I never met him, he outsourced the whole checking in and cleaning process to a fat lady and she spoke no English at all, we communicated in a mishmash of Portuguese and Spanish and I didn't trust her. She left some cleaning products out after she had cleaned the flat - including the bucket and mop in the corridor! She was meant to have turned the Jacuzzi on before she left so the water would be nice and hot when I got in, but she forgot. And on top of all that, I had left some food in the kitchen and she conveniently 'cleared' that away as well; I bet she was so fat she couldn't control herself the moment she saw anything edible. As we had a very late flight from Lisbon airport on the last day, my AirBNB host said we could leave the bags with the fat lady so we don't have to take our luggage with us sightseeing but at that point, I just didn't trust that fat lady anymore. Instead, we went back to the Chinese cafe and I asked the boss nicely if I could leave our luggage there - the boss there said it wasn't a problem at all and he kindly stored all our bags in the cafe's storeroom.

Somehow I just instinctively trusted him after having chatted with him -  we shared one thing in common. We were both Asian migrants who had come to Europe, he was originally from Zhejiang province and had been in Portugal for over 20 years whilst I was originally from Singapore and had been in the UK for 23 years. I respected him for having established a highly popular business in Lisbon and that was why I would gladly leave my luggage with him despite barely knowing him. I simply couldn't say the same thing about the fat lady - sure it would seriously piss off that AirBNB host if we couldn't get hold of her when we needed to, but I really didn't want to risk missing my flight by putting that much faith in her. So, were these Chinese people nice to me because I am Chinese and spoke Mandarin? Well, I suppose there had to be an element of that in the equation. My sister did ask the restaurant manager for bread and milk in Mandarin, I thought that would be far more effective that if I did it in Spanish or English. But then again, I am also more polite than most people. So I would say things like, "老板请给我一杯咖啡，谢谢!" (Boss, please could I have a cup of coffee, thanks.) Whereas I noted that some of the other customers barked orders at him like, "我要一杯咖啡!" (I want a coffee!) So I think I did buy some of that goodwill in the way I was very polite and friendly with the boss of that cafe as well, whilst many of his customers weren't polite at all. After all, he knew I was a tourist about to leave Lisbon that day (and I have no idea when I might return), so he had little to gain from being so helpful - and that conveniently brings me on to my next point.

Just trying to get him to say the word 'please'.

Okay, this is where I part company with my family on this issue. I am a harsh uncle, my nephew already has two sets of grandparents who dote on him plus such loving parents and it is simply not in my nature to be the kind of uncle who overlooks mistakes. So when we visit a restaurant or a cafe and find the menu entire in Catalan/French/Spanish/Portuguese, I would translate the menu for my family and they would tell me what they would like, I would speak to the waiter (who often doesn't speak more than a few words of English). So my nephew would say things like, "I want chicken" or just "chicken" when I ask him what he wanted to have and I would make this stern face and glare at him. Then he would realize his mistake and say, "Chicken, please." I made it clear that I would insist on him using the word 'please' in that situation not so much because I think somebody has got to teach him such social skills. Perhaps you might say, he's your nephew after all, why are you so formal with family members? You might use polite language with strangers or at work, but with family members? I believe that this is a habit he needs to get into because even towards the end of the trip, he would still forget and I would have to give him the death stare instead of translating what he said into Portuguese. It was extremely hard for me to try to get him to do that because his parents: my sister and my brother-in-law never use the word 'please' either - they would say to me, "I want steak", but because they're grown adults, I wasn't interested in correcting them or teaching them manners. Nonetheless, the fact that I let them 'get away' with it made it harder for me to try to teach my nephew this lesson as they were setting a bad example for my nephew. Likewise, I was also focusing on other things like table manners - I had to teach my nephew how to eat/drink silently, I would snap at him the moment he made any kind of sound when he ate or drank, or if he didn't hold his knife and fork properly. Frustrated, I thought, "why haven't his parents taught him any of this? Such basic social skills are so important!"

But as I spent quite lot of time in my favourite Chinese cafe in Lisbon, I witnessed plenty of Chinese people barking orders at the staff of the cafe, like "我要一杯咖啡!" (I want a coffee!) And then the locals who come in and order in Portuguese would be far more polite. They would say, "queria uma café por favor", "eu gostaria uma café por favor" (both mean the same thing: I would like a coffee please) or even simply "um café por favor" (a coffee please). This demonstrates a stark contrast between European languages and Chinese: it would be unthinkable in Europe to order something at a bar or cafe without using the word please (which in this case, is por favor, in Portuguese). So to be fair to my family, yes they come from a culture where saying 'please' is not the norm and so they are not used to it, but at the same time, we were traveling across four countries in Europe: Spain, France, Andorra and Portugal. Only someone with very bad social skills would be totally oblivious to the fact that different social norms exist in different countries and whilst it may feel totally normal to say things like, "I want a coffee" when ordering in a coffee in Singapore or China, that does come across as abrupt and very rude in Europe. Part of having good social skills is developing this awareness of your surroundings, being sensitive to others around you especially when you are not in a familiar environment. I simply don't accept the argument of "I am a tourist from another country, so it gives me the right to behave like a bull in a china shop because I am only visiting." This is why tourists from China are dreaded by people from around the world (including Singapore!) because they do exactly that and come across as extremely rude. I certainly didn't my nephew to become one of those very rude Chinese tourists and as an uncle, thus I felt it was my duty to instruct and help him in this aspect.

聪明 vs小聪明

Did I succeed in getting my nephew to say please? Well at least he did some of the times, other times he forgot. He certainly didn't bother saying 'please' with his parents and they let him get away with it - that was a line I wasn't prepared to cross as I wasn't going to tell my sister how to bring up her child. At least he got the message loud and clear that he would get the death stare from Uncle Alex if he dared to say something like 'I want chicken' to me - if he didn't correct himself, I would've probably said something like, "you're not getting anything to eat until you learn to speak politely'. My nephew will be getting his O level results next week, so obviously he is very nervous about it and the one message my sister and I tried to get across to him was that the results don't matter at all - I went as far as to tell him that it doesn't matter if he failed his exams as I don't believe in the value of a degree these days. My sister told him this story and whilst he did listen, I don't think he actually changed his mind on the issue so I shall share it here instead for my readers. The title of the story is 聪明 vs小聪明 (book smart vs street smart). This was a few years ago when my sister's company took on two interns: let's call them Andy and Brian (not their real names). Andy was your perfect Singaporean student: he had brilliant results, he was super hardworking - if you gave him a piece of research to do, he would work every waking hour to produce the best possible results for you. But he was shy and quiet, he kept to himself and wasn't sociable. Then there was Brian - he didn't have the kind of perfect straight-A results like Andy, but he was very sociable. He went out of his way to befriend all the staff, offering to do favours for them like helping with various projects whilst Andy was very passive in that aspect. Andy would passively wait for instructions whilst Brian would be proactive, "can I help you with that please?" He went as far as to offer to help get coffee and breakfast for the managers and getting to find out ldetails like which schools their children went to or even what TV programmes they liked. Andy did none of that - he wasn't sociable.

So when there was an opening for a permanent position, it was obvious that the job would go to one of the interns. The director asked the staff to vote either for Andy or Brian, because the director knew that the team had spent a lot of time with both interns and knew them very well - that it would be the best way to pick a new member of staff who would fit in well. The team unanimously voted for Brian despite the fact that Andy had much better results and had essentially done nothing wrong - even my sister admitted that he was super hardworking but Brian was so likable because of his social skills. And thus in the competition between 聪明 and 小聪明 - it was pretty obvious that the latter clinched the deal for Brian despite the fact that he wasn't as smart as Andy. After all, the team were looking for a new member of staff who would be pleasure to work with, they were not some kind uncle looking to reward a hardworking student like Andy for getting excellent results. Did this story surprise me? No, it just confirmed everything I already knew about the importance of social skills: I did write a blog post about some Singaporean friends of mine who were academically brilliant but really sucked in the working world because they were only good at performing well in exams and there wasn't a single company out there who was willing to pay them good money to be students. I was far more concerned about my nephew's inability to instinctively use the word 'please' in everyday conversations than whatever grades he was going to get. To be honest, I do worry that my nephew is always going to be the 'Andy' when competing against the 'Brians' of this world - that he is always going to lose out when up against someone with better social skills. I could only do so much in 11 days with my nephew and admittedly, he still has a lot to learn about vital social skills and I am not there to help him.

So how did the skiing in Spain go? 

Oh I was so stressed out about this that I actually wrote a blog post on this topic before I went on this holiday. Well, it was stressful for me because I wanted to make sure everyone had a good time - it was my idea to take them skiing after all, I was dragging them along to do an activity that I loved. My brother-in-law was reluctant at first, he wanted to go off and do something else whilst the rest of us went skiing - then he tried to bargain, like can we only do one day of skiing? I told him that it was not an easy sport to pick up, even two days is barely enough to grasp the basics so he agreed to spend two days learning. We went to the resort of La Molina in the Spanish Pyrenees. After they have had a lesson where I presume they were taught the basics - we took my family up the easiest slope on the resort. My nephew did make it up and done that slope a couple of times with little fuss, my brother-in-law made it down that slope just once because he was only to stay upright for no more than about three seconds each time. Then my sister basically gave up halfway she was tired of falling down every time she stood up, sat down on the side of the slope and took out her mobile phone: she had had enough at that stage and was replying to work emails. And to make matters worse, she started getting cramps in her feet because it was really cold - we stay warm during skiing because it is a very physically demanding activity, you're burning up loads as you ski and I often sweat a lot when I am skiing even if it is way below freezing. But if you're just sitting down in that winter weather, you will get cold quickly. There was so much drama as my sister was in a lot of pain, she couldn't even take off the ski boots. I blamed myself for having dragged her to the ski resort when she was obviously not having any fun at all. She was in much pain, she was crying, she just wanted to get out of the cold and I felt very bad for having put her in that state since this was not what anyone would want to have to experience during their vacation.

I then had a long conversation (in Spanish of course) with the lady at the ski rental shop whilst my sister was getting changed - I told her that I had the best of intentions, I had been skiing since the 1990s and I have so much fun skiing. I wanted to share my passion with my sister, I wanted her to experience the joy skiing brought me for the first time - the thrill of flying down the piste surrounded by stunning mountain scenery. Instead, I had put her through nothing but pain and suffering and I felt really awful about it. The Spanish lady reminded me that skiing is bloody difficult, some people have a natural ability to ski and can pick it up in a matter of hours whilst others require weeks and weeks of lesson before even mastering the very basics. My sister had struggled on the first day, that was completely normal - most people spend their first day struggling and falling over all the time, so perhaps my expectations for her to 'enjoy' her first day were somewhat unrealistic. I then spoke to my sister that evening when we got back to the AirBNB house we had rented, sigh - there was little I could say, she was just so pessimistic and downtrodden. I suppose for her, she had seen her son make decent progress skiing, they had the same lesson together with the same instructor - my nephew was able to respond to the instruction whereas she simply couldn't and we really don't know why. There was an intense frustration within her because she couldn't do what she was told and she wasn't able to deal with that well: after all, she is so used to being in control at work (as she holds a very senior position within her company), so to be taken out of her comfort zone and try to do an activity where she struggled, where even her son could perform better than her, this was not a situation she was used to. I did wonder if I had built up her expectations unrealistically - having encouraged her that she could try skiing.

Okay, so I was totally wrong about how easy it was to learn skiing.

Anyway, I wasn't even sure if she was going to ski the next day, I thought she was just going to get the cable car to the top of the mountain and read a book whilst sipping coffee at the cafe there. But she actually did join her family for a lesson, but the instructor told them that their standards had diverged so much by then: my nephew had clearly mastered the basics - let's just say he could ski down a very gentle slope at that stage without falling and needed to focus on making turns to regulate his speed, whereas my sister and my brother-in-law were still complete beginners at that stage. So my sister decided that the best thing to do was to let my nephew progress since he was performing well, she did go to the mountain top cafe with her husband whilst my nephew had his private lesson. That was a good decision as my nephew did get the attention he needed from the instructor then, because he had spent most of his time helping my sister and my brother-in-law up after they had fallen down. So at least for that morning, I had enough time with my husband to explore the entire ski resort and finally have some fun without worrying about them. So that afternoon, I was able to take my nephew up the second easiest slope in the resort and we did make our way down that slope several times. He had been able to make enough progress to figure out the balance, but he still struggled with turns and would sometimes fall when trying to turn at speed. Still, I think my sister and my brother-in-law learnt and important lesson that afternoon. My sister actually told my brother-in-law to go with us to that slope to help take care of my nephew so that I wouldn't have to give up my afternoon of skiing to be my nephew's ski instructor. That was a very 'mum' thing to do but what she didn't realize was that my brother-in-law still couldn't stay up for more than say 5 or 6 seconds max on his skis.

Oooh boy. My brother-in-law really, really struggled on that slope, he fell so many times and had barely progressed 15, maybe 20 meters or so from the top of the slope that he had taken off his skis and had began walking down the hill. There was a massive bruise on one of his shins as well, it sufficed to say that he was truly bruised and battered from all that falling. This was when I had to tell my nephew, "don't worry about daddy, he can take care of themselves, you just have to focus on your skiing." As I saw my brother-in-law take yet another face plant in the snow, I did think, "did you think you were going to be able to help your son out here when he is actually a much better skier than you?" So each time we got to the bottom of the slope, my sister would ask my nephew, "where is daddy? Did you see daddy?" And we had to tell her, "yeah he's walking down slowly, he's going to take quite a while walking down that slope carrying his skis. Daddy自身难保 lah!" I guess this might have been one of the first times in their lives when they realized that their son is growing up, that they have to let go, loosen the apron strings - that they are unable to run after him (or in his case, ski after him) even if they wanted to look after him. I have this memory of my nephew from when he was much younger, he decided to go for a bike ride and both my sister and my father ran after him down the road as they didn't dare let him out of sight even for a brief moment. Well, this was one time when he was truly out of sight and they just had to believe me when I told them, "oh yeah, he'll be totally fine, even if he falls down he will just pick himself up and continue skiing. You really don't have to worry, you just have to let him get on with it on his own. He is not a kid any more, he's nearly 17 lah."

Learning to let go as parents. 

Some overprotective parents may freak out at this stage: he's skiing for the first time, he's in a foreign country where he doesn't speak the language, I cannot fight my instinct as a parent to run after my child. But no, my sister actually took it all in her stride and was quite content just waiting at the bottom of the slope, hoping to get some nice videos and photos of my nephew each time he came past her. There was an element of motherly pride as well - she took great joy in seeing her son make good progress in the sport, having realized just how difficult it was. That did bring a smile back to her face, I could see how happy she was just watching her son ski and that did bring a lot of relief to me. Furthermore, I was a very strict skiing instructor, each time my nephew fell, I would simply say, "are you okay? Stand up, let's continue." I never fussed over him and to his credit, he simply said, "sorry, sorry" each time he fell over instead of kicking up a fuss like a frightened child. Now he has come a pretty long way in that aspect as well - perhaps I am being incredible sexist here (and forgive me please if I am), but I do believe that teenager boys of his age need to be extra tough when it comes to sports because it will prepare them for national service. You can't go running to your mother when things get tough in the army and so I believe pushing him to pick up the basics of skiing within two short days is great training for him in that aspect. His skiing was pretty much where one would expect after just two days of instruction, I wouldn't claim like he was talented or a great skier - oh please, let's get real here. He's a decent beginner, let's put it that way. But at least he tried very hard and credit to him for having a good attitude when it came to the whole learning process. So even if his parents didn't learn much at all in those two days, my nephew certainly benefited a lot from that those two days of skiing in Spain.

Would I say that things turned out well? Not really, I am so realistic - I think happy endings only exist in romantic comedies. I put up my hand and admit that I was wrong, that I had misjudged the situation when it came to how fast my sister could pick up skiing. Unfortunately after two days, she still can't stand up for more than a second or two on her skis and she probably would never ever ski again - she would probably go back to Singapore and tell my other sister to stay the hell away from skiing because it is too difficult. My husband told me, "I really did try to teach your sister but there was just this look of sheer terror every time she stood up on her skis because she knew she was going to fall imminently and she was just anticipating the fall instead of trying to ski. There was nothing I could do or say to reassure her." But did my sister and my brother-in-law learn something from the experience? I think so (even if it had nothing to do with skiing): it was an important lesson for them to learn to let go as parents and allow my nephew to run off and do his own thing, to trust him without worrying about him. My nephew certainly wants to go skiing again and my brother-in-law is happy to let him pursue this without having to personally take care of him on the ski slope. I suggested that they take a family holiday to Sapporo in Japan, with ski slopes under 4 km from the city center and a great public transport system which can get you from the city center to the ski slopes in 15 minutes, my sister and her husband can easily take my nephew there at 9 in the morning and leave him at a ski school, where he can get lessons for the whole day. They can easily then go spend the day shopping or at a Japanese spa in town, returning only to pick up my nephew at 5 in the afternoon. Given that they have been to Japan a few times on holiday already and love Japan - that seems like quite an ideal holiday for them.

One last thing: am I being unreasonable? 

You see, I've not lived under the same roof as my sister since May 1997 - that was an awfully long time ago. I have changed a lot as a person since I have moved to Europe in 1997, but when I am with her, we do revert back to our childhood selves, so naturally I would speak to her in a mix of Singlish Mandarin and Hokkien, just like when we were kids. But two instances do stand out for me on this trip: the first was when we were in Zaragoza - I spoke to our AirBNB host entirely in Spanish as she was an old lady who didn't speak a word of English. She had assumed that I had lived and worked in Spain for many years, hence the very high standard of my Spanish and that my family were merely visiting from Singapore. But when she realized that my Spanish was totally self-taught, that I had never ever had a single formal lesson of Spanish in my life, her jaw hit the floor and she was astonished - she even said that she had tried for years to try to learn English but to no avail, thus what I had accomplished was nothing short of miraculous. In short, she thought I was fucking brilliant. Then the same thing happened in Lisbon - remember that nice Chinese cafe owner who helped me with my luggage? Well same story - initially, he too thought that I lived and worked in Lisbon since I spoke Portuguese and he was surprised to learn that this was only my second visit to Portugal. And he was like, "你只是游客？ 那你为什么会说葡萄牙语呢?" (You're just a tourist? Then why are you able to speak Portuguese?) Likewise, when I spoke French in Andorra, the hotel staff assumed that I was from France and not the UK or Singapore and when I spoke some Catalan in Catalonia, the locals thought I lived there, because hardly any foreigners have any knowledge of the language. Then I met some Russian and German tourists on the train and started speaking Russian and German with them as well. So you get the idea - yes, I know that am truly fucking brilliant with languages and impressed the locals everywhere I went.

Now as a reader you may say, stop it Alex, you're being a fucking arrogant prick now, stop boasting. But I did feel that my sister didn't really notice any of that - I didn't speak that many languages when I was growing up in Singapore with her. In fact, she was the one who was brilliant in Chinese whilst I sucked at it, so when we were kids, it was the complete opposite - she was the one who did Chinese as a first language at school and French as a third language; whilst I was the idiot who sucked at languages. Now the tables have completely turned as I reinvented myself as a hyperglot (that's a hyper-polyglot, someone who is fucking brilliant in speaking an insane number of languages) and she can't remember any of her French from her school days. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I wasn't prepared to take care of my family on this holiday by acting as the translator and 'tour guide' - it was my pleasure to do so. But sigh, I grew up in a family with uneducated working class parents who had absolutely no idea what I got up to in the working world. They were never ever able to offer any kind of praise for my accomplishments as an adult because they simply have no freaking clue what I did or what I had achieved - they just aren't educated enough to understand any of it, so I just let them off the hook on that aspect. But surely my sister is educated and smart enough to see how far I have come as an adult, I am not only spouting all these languages as a local - I am also an excellent skier. I couldn't do any of these things in 1997 and there was a part that did wonder if my sister (or my brother-in-law) even noticed any of these things because I thought they just assumed that I could speak practically every European language out there and that just wasn't praiseworthy or special.

Don't get me wrong - they were grateful for all the effort I put into organizing this trip across four countries for them and they did show their appreciation in thanking me, but that's still not the same praising me for being fucking brilliant. Perhaps I should have raised the topic with them, perhaps if I had asked for praise, they would have given it happily, perhaps they were impressed but just didn't say so. Another thing on my mind was that I was in the presence of my nephew who was worried about getting his O level results imminently, so demanding praise for being so exceptionally brilliant at every darn thing from foreign languages to social skills to sports would be in really bad taste at that point in time, so I simply bit my tongue and said nothing. Perhaps this is why I offend so many people with my blog when I have the audacity to say things like 'I am so fucking brilliant' because I had grown up in an environment where I simply got no positive feedback, my parents couldn't praise me at all when they had no freaking clue what I was doing in school as they weren't educated enough to even have the foggiest idea what the hell I was doing. And as I explained, having grown up in that environment, even my sister wasn't that forthcoming with praise or positive feedback when I truly impressed all the locals I met. That's why I feel, fuck it, if my family isn't going to tell me that I am fucking brilliant, then I am going to tell myself and the world that I am fucking brilliant and better than everyone else. What's the alternative? I see how my sister constantly puts herself down and has low self-esteem as a result of the way she was brought up and I'm like, fuck that, I'm not prepared to go down that road, so I shall do the complete opposite at the risk of coming across as an insufferable fucking arrogant asshole. So my sister did thank me a lot for organizing this whole trip, but saying "thank you very much" is not the same as saying, "you speak Spanish fluently despite never having taken a lesson in your life? You're amazing."

Okay, so that's it from me on this topic. Family holidays can always have an added layer of stress of course, especially in my case since I've not had a proper family holiday in 25 years (not counting day trips to Johor or Batam, or when they visit me in London). What do you think? Have you ever visited Spain, France, Andorra or Portugal and what were your experiences like there? How did you cope with the language barrier? How do you deal with stressful moments when going on holiday with your family? Have you met some extremely nice locals when on holiday? Do you remember the first time you tried skiing? How much did you learn in two days? Finally, am I unreasonable in being disappointed that nobody seemed to notice just how fucking brilliant I am - or am I once again being the fucking autistic moron here? And finally, I will be uploading the rest of the photos & videos from this trip onto Instagram this weekend, so look out for more on my Instagram soon please. Do let me know your thoughts please, leave a comment below - many thanks for reading.