All I do is party, ah ah ah
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2009
1
69
137
Trip End
Nov 08, 2010
Where I stayed
Sant Antoni de Portmany, Balearic Islands, Spain
Monday, June 14, 2010
Party town is here my friends. You should be too.
Our Ibiza trip was very last minute. We knew we were going at some point, and when we met Robin originally in South America we'd talked about it with him, and he said he goes every year and would be happy to go with us. Someone who knows all the clubs, beaches and their way around? Yes please! So we'd been in contact with him in London obviously but it all got left a bit late and when we started looking at flights and car hire there weren't any bargains left. We briefly considered pushing it back but when wanted to go had an excellent selection of opening parties, so we bit the bullet and worked it out the best we could. Robin's flights were expensive I think, but flying out of Zurich rather than Paris helped keep ours lower, even though it is further away. Doesn't make sense to me either, but there you go. Robin knows a really excellent hotel on the beach that had rooms available and includes free breakfast and dinner for €28 each - we've stayed in a couple of hostels more expensive than that! Robin sorted out car hire too (Really he organised most of the trip and we just showed up, lol) but had a bit of trouble with that. The first one he reserved got cancelled two days later since they didn't actually have the car. By that point all he could get was some minuscule crappy thing. But this story has a happy ending - when he showed up to collect the minuscule crappy thing, they gave him an almost-brand-new (700kms) 4-door instead! Model of this car? An Ibiza. Perfect.
We got up at 5:15am for our 7:20am flight and made it there with heaps of time to spare, since we were only an 8-minute tram ride from the airport. Which is absolutely gigantic. We had to connect through Barcelona but it was all quite easy and we made it to Ibiza before 11am. We trundled off to our assigned baggage belt and waited patiently. And waited. And waited. We waited until the belt stopped and everyone else had collected their bags and gone, in fact. And when it stopped we turned to each other in horror - where were our bags?
Our sad faces went over to the baggage window, where an exceptionally bored person asked us if we had checked belt 8. No, since ours was supposed to be on belt 3, so off we trudged, through two sets of doors into a completely different section. And sitting forlornly on belt 8 were our bags!! I've never been so happy to see that backpack in my life. I know I complain about dragging it around everywhere, but I do really love it! Turns out there was a separate process for people not arriving from the EU, even though we'd connected through an EU city. We were the only ones, of course. But phew! I know it's pretty lucky that with all the plane flights our bags have always shown up reliably at the other end, but I'd like it to stay that way.
After the minor drama, we finally made it out and found Robin, who thought he had missed us. He'd had a much worse night than we did, since he lives a long way from the airport and had to get up at 2am to make it. After driving for half an hour, he'd realised he'd forgotten his phone and had to hare all the way to his house and back, eventually making it to the airport 5 minutes before they closed check-in. He had only arrived about half an hour before us, so he'd fetched the car and stayed to pick us up.
Our hotel was excellent. We got spacious rooms next door to each other, our own balconies and the staff were great. Every time we came out of our room, even if it was only to go downstairs and use the Internet for an hour, we'd come back to find it clean. The cleaners must have psychic abilities! Our 'double' bed was two single beds pushed together and made up with double bed linens, but apparently that is very common on the continent. Of course, when we arrived, we cared about none of this and all gratefully fell into bed for a nap.
The We Love Space 10 opening party officially started at 3pm. We were never going to make that, and never going to manage to stay up all night if we did, so we left considerably later. We drove (for future reference, whenever I say we drove, I mean Robin drove - since he doesn't drink, he did all the driving) through Sant Antoni to see the town and pick up tickets after our late lunch. We were getting the hang of Spanish eating times already!
We arrived at Space at 8pm, but went across the road to Zanzibar for cheaper drinks until 9pm. Australia vs Germany was on their TV, and a few Aussie supporters stood up to sing the national anthem near us, but otherwise it was all German fans. Which, for those who know how that game went, turned out to be very bad! After almost an hour, it wasn't difficult to slink away to the club! Inside Space, the main room was still closed off because it was early, but it was still amazingly huge. Space has three dancing rooms downstairs, each with different music, a downstairs chill out room with lots of seats and couches, an upstairs dancing room that was smaller than the others - the 'Red Box' - and an upstairs terrace for hanging out. There was a giant tube with holes all through the sides to climb in and out of and a padded inside - it was the most interesting couch I've ever seen.
(After dancing in the Red Box)
Robin: Let's go back down to the main room.
Amanda: Hang on just a sec... *disappears around corner* There's a free space in the tube!
So we sat in the tube to relax for a while partway through the night. Because it was awesome.
Robin gave us a tour of what was open when we arrived, and we danced in one of the downstairs rooms until somewhere between 11 and 12, when we got hungry. That's a late dinnertime even for Spain! We used our passouts and slipped up the street to a random restaurant for an hour and a half, which allowed us to get more cheap drinks! Aaaah, delicious cocktails. Drinks in the club can go up to €20, and even a small bottle of water is €7. So we only bought one or two drinks per night in the clubs, mixed with red bull to keep us going (and since I never drink red bull, you can guess how awake it made me!). On the bright side, there was never a line at the bar to be served since people drank so little.
When we got back to Space, everything was open. We danced in the upstairs room, chilled out in both the downstairs room and in the tube on the terrace, and ended the night dancing for ages in the main room. The music was mostly progressive trance, which is too repetitive for me, so although the club was great and I had fun dancing I didn't like the music that much. Ben appreciated it more.
We finally called it quits at about 6am. The club didn't shut until 8am, and Robin is a complete machine who could go all night, but Ben and I were pretty tired from our long day and broken sleep. And for those who are true machines, there are after-club clubs that open when the others shut! We got back to the hotel and collapsed into bed, sleeping through the free breakfast and only dragging ourselves up in the early afternoon.
Robin beat us up, but we all went out for lunch together down the street. The weather was terrible - overcast and raining on and off - so our lovely plan to laze away the day on the beach was dashed. It would rain now that we're in beach country! We went to the free dinner at the hotel that night, and it turned out to be an excellent buffet. It even had a dessert bar! Ben was pretty stoked, but he's dangerous let loose in buffets as he has eyes-significantly-bigger-than-stomach syndrome pretty badly. But he tried to restrain himself, so it turned out okay. Dinner was followed by a nice (and necessary) two-hour nap to prepare for more partying!
Pacha had their Swedish House Mafia opening party with a Masquerade Motel theme on that night. It was definitely the best party we went to. The club itself wasn't quite as big as Space, but it had one enormous downstairs room, another smaller dancing room, a chill-out room, and a terrace hangout upstairs. The terrace was only half-covered, so the rain and cool night meant it was easy to get a couch (under cover) when we went to relax. But we spent most of the night in the main room. It was amazing. All kinds of people appeared on stage to entertain. Strange skimpy masquerade-themed costumes (there were even some guys, not just the usual all-girls!), girls swinging around on disco balls, a rotating dais with girls doing strange poses in glitter corsets, girls and guys in skimpy faux-tux outfits scattered around the room.... and of course, Swedish House Mafia! The house music was about a thousand times better than the previous night, with some old popular songs thrown in, and even remixes of parts of lots of different types of music (think Coldplay to Daft Punk). Thick sparklers sizzled off the main chandelier. Streamers and glitter confetti and all sorts burst from the ceiling. The music was so loud it slapped the air against you with the bass, and everything vibrated in time (Robin was the smart one, he brought earplugs). Crazy coloured lights, green lasers and bright flashes all meant your eyes had no idea what was happening. Cold fog rolled out thickly, obscuring everything for the brief periods the machines were on. We danced and danced and danced in the midst of all this craziness.
Swedish House Mafia finished and Pacha closed at 7am, and everyone stumbled out into the day. Some people were ridiculously drunk or high or just completely zoned out - it was quite funny watching some of them as we piled back into the car and tried to figure out how to get back. We went through a bretho on the way, and they had caught quite a few people from the looks of it. The hotel's breakfast began at 8am, so we waited for half an hour and fell on the most incredible buffet of pastries, breads and spreads, bacon, eggs, hash browns (Ben was super excited, but said they were overcooked), grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, cold meats, cereals, fruit.... I could go on and on. It was pretty much everything you could ever think of for a Western breakfast, except pancakes and waffles. Lots of the other guests were up, looking all bright and perky and morning-y in a way I doubt I will ever achieve even with a week's sleep. And I certainly didn't look it then, after being up all night!
Delicious breakfast was followed by delicious sleep. Beach plans were again ruined by bad weather, but we walked into Sant Antoni for some more exploring, went to the sunset strip for a couple of drinks and caught the ferry back to the hotel. There was nothing really excellent on that night, so we decided to have the night off.
The next day was our last full day on Ibiza. Overjoyed by the sun peeking out in the morning, we set off to a nearby beach. It rained. We had lunch there instead of swimming, and made a last-ditch effort at a beach holiday by going to Bora-Bora, near Ibiza town. It rained. So we walked up and down the beach, and sat in one of the beach bars nursing a couple of drinks. Aaaaaaaaaand as we sat there..... the sun came out!! So we set ourselves firmly on the sand, soaking up all the lovely warmth (and in the case of the boys, admiring all the topless talent).
Eventually we walked back up the beach to the actual Bora-Bora bar, where there were heaps of people who seemed to have magically appeared with the sun. Loud music and a large space meant a party atmosphere. With lots more topless talent! And every time a plane went over, which was quite frequently, the whole crowd cheered loudly. Ben's eyes came close to popping out of his head, and he grabbed the camera and took photos of all the girls in bikinis without even a pretence at subtlety. To 'prove what it was like to the guys back home'. At least he didn't photograph the topless girls, I suppose. But if you were wondering why there are all these photos of random girls in bikinis, blame Ben!
So our afternoon ended very well. We had dinner and a nap at the hotel before our last night of partying, at Eden's Reclaim the Dancefloor opening night. Eden was very close to us, so we just walked there after our usual hotel bar pre-drinks. There was one main dancefloor, one small dancing room and a chill-out room, and overall it was much smaller than either Space or Pacha, but still much bigger than clubs back home! The music was a bit mixed, as there was an excellent DJ who got everyone dancing followed by someone who played dubstep, and nobody was interested. Luckily there was a smaller dancing room with a different DJ so we vanished in there for a while. Ben spotted a stand selling laughing gas! They would charge up a balloon and sell it to people. We couldn't believe that was legal here! Robin and I didn't want any, but Ben tried one.
Ben and I went home early, since we had to get up for our flight the next morning. We left at 4am, and got home around 4:30, which let us get a good 3 hours of sleep. Robin stayed until close at 7, and still got up to take us to the airport! Which was extremely nice, since he'd only been asleep an hour. We had our last delicious breakfast, and regretfully said goodbye to Ibiza. Just to mock us, the sky was clear and the sun was shining brightly, in an utterly perfect beach day. We will just have to go back and try again sometime!
Peace, love and bad sleeping patterns,
Amanda and Ben
P.S. If any of these photos look arty, good or even in focus, Robin took them. He said I could put some on my blog, and I've pretty much stolen them all apart from a few truly awful ones that you will hopefully never see. Which will only happen if you don't have a Facebook!
