Tequila, Turkish tea and tears of laughter
We immediately decided that the ‘what happens in Turkey, stays in Turkey’ rule applies here. Seems better for everyone. Photos, videos, statements; we need to protect ourselves from ourselves, because of course we're going rosé all day again, which comes with a whole lot of owl sounds (the peacock is so 2018 since yesterday), neighing and pee-in-your-pants moments.
Put the entire Amayzine team on a plane to the Hillside Beach Resort and you know it will be, well, chaos squared. Although we probably could have managed that in a Centerparcs cottage at the Huttekutteheugte, but that's beside the point. If we travel, we do it in style. What we're doing here, you might wonder. Let's just say that work has become the neglected child and we're mainly working on, uh, our tan.
The days start with yoga at a beautiful little private beach. Yes, I didn't know I had it in me to do Child’s Pose, Warrior II, and Downward Facing Dog at 8:00 AM, but I can tell you: it's chill. All credit goes to our yoga instructor (Scottish and über-lovely), who sometimes sounds like a little goat with vibrato when she talks. Everyone at Hillside is incredibly friendly. Only when you've been there do you understand that Harvard University has studied the fact that the return rate is so extraordinarily high at this specific resort in Turkey.
After yoga, we slowly shuffle towards breakfast where you standardly get an error in your brain. How should one behave as a human when there are nine different types of butter and twelve different types of pancakes at breakfast? What do you do then? We opt for the grab-what-you-can tactic and it works purrrima, I can say.
Next up is a boat trip on the agenda. Correction: a freaking boat party. It all started very jet-set civilized with a glass of bubbles, but before long, the Gin Tonics, Moscow Mules, and tequila shots were flying around, after which we had the deeper ‘never have I ever’ conversations of life. Maybe a tiny bit of work was done on deck, I can't remember exactly.
What I do remember is that an hour later I was totally knocked out drooling on a massage table. I wasn't the only one, because afterwards my colleagues came out of their Balinese spa huts one by one, raving about it. ‘THIS IS THE BEST MASSAGE I HAVE EVER EVER EVER HAD, LOOK.’ Yes, me too. Seriously. The ritual ends with ginger tea and a plate of gigantic strawberries. Sigh. A blissful grin from ear to ear. Is it already time to label this as the best group outing ever? And sorry, but is it already time to book those tickets for next year? Shall we just call ourselves the Hillside Hillbillies?
Time for an Oscar moment. Thanks to Hillside and PR star Liesbeth for the amazing mini-vacation and service, thanks to Ipek for being our hostess (and what a hostess!) and thanks to May and Daan for secretly organizing this group trip. Twenty more minutes of chaos and never going home. Drop the mic.
