Oct 2007

Well I came, I saw, I conquered and I survived. I survived a full season of the Ibiza madness, I might not have come out better health wise then when I entered and lost a few million brain cells in the process but fuck did I have a good time or what!
The beach, the babes, the booze and the banter along with the rollercoaster of highs & lows all combined to create the most craziest summer of my lifetime.

Ibiza in itself is it’s own little world, things happen here that don’t happen anywhere else I know of…but it works. The security relaxed approach to everything except cameras, being able to go clubbing morning, noon and night 24/7, getting a beer at the hairdressers and something that doesn’t happen ANYWHERE else……Space mornings, my god I’ll never look at Sunday mornings the same again, forget church!
But even Ibiza can have its problems. This season there was a terrorist bomb alert, police shutting down 3 major clubs (which later re-opened), an oil spill and the weather being a bit shady towards the end. But in all of this you have the Spaniards which do have to put up with a lot of shit and still show a friendly face & continuously chirping ‘Holla, Holla’, maybe it’s the fact that your paying double the price of everything compared to the rest of Spain.

It wasn’t all highs though & by the end of the season I was well and truly ready to leave the island and had honestly had enough of the parties and everything that went with them and too see mates turn into something and someone else by the end of the season was truly unbelievable. With that came peoples reliability which disappeared & selfishness took over by the end. The later of which I did get caught up with. Sure everyone always says that it’s a bad thing to be selfish. But I’ve come to realize if you’re not selfish, even just a little bit you get nothing and seem to go nowhere, well at least not to where you want to go anyway. If you want something why not have it or at least trey to get it, but of course you can always take it too far. I think there is a healthy balance somewhere, a balance I think I’m getting better at over the years.
But we all help each other out through the tough times even if it is just a guest list here & there for a mate with no cash and the mates I’ve made here are just top notch, maybe because we have seem the ‘good & bad’ sides of each other, so to speak. That’s goto build a strong friendship but deep deep down I think we were all ready to leave at the end.

The memories, fuck the memories here. The things I’ve seem, done and being here are things I use to dream about and imagine and I promise you I’ll never forget the first time I walked into Space, the atmosphere, the people, the tears. Unbelievable. Just wish I hadn’t lost everyone on the way in!!

Towards the end of the season I came to the realization that I had not a Euro to my name and how the fuck was I going to get out of here. I was trapped in Ibiza!!!
Well like everything it all works itself out and while plans of going to Ireland were scrapped, then doing a ski season in Andorra were put on the backburner, I ended up meeting a captain of a yacht through a good mate and has taken me onboard showing me the ropes and what not so hopefully should be cruising to some exotic location in the next month or so.

So the big question. Would I come back?
Well for anyone that has known me for an extended period of time knows that this is me to a tee and has being for a very long time and as much fun as I did have I have had more fun elsewhere, which I found really interesting. Perhaps its my personality traits kicking in with the fact that I can’t stay in one place for a long time even if I am enjoying it. The weird thing about the whole thing is that I love it so much and can’t imagine my life without this music, having it day in and day out, every night, every morning, it just looses it touch. Doesn’t seem to make it special anymore & that’s what I want to keep, the specialty of it, when it makes you cry with joy and smile so much you face hurts from smiling too much, that’s what makes it special and that’s what I want to keep. But going from this last week I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon as any recent tune jogs memories of somekind of randomness and am finding it hard going out….it just ain’t the same as Ibiza!!
So in short, I can’t see myself coming back for a full season but can never rule it out, but will definitely be back for a holiday some time…..a long one! as there is nowhere else where electronic music is celebrated so much in such a small place.

Adios Ibiza, you treated me well

Peace

Favorites

Favorite Club: Space
Favorite Party: Tiesto @ Privilege
Favorite Club Night: Carl Cox @ Space
Favorite Moment: Looking round when Tiesto was playing at Privilege and everyone smiling ear to ear.
Favorite Food: N/A
Favorite Drink: Fanta Naranja / Oakey Banana Milkshake
Favorite Place: Sa Trinka / Dalt Vila (Evissa Castle)
Favorite Beach: Cala D’Hort
Priceless Moment: Beach parties with mates
Scariest Moment: Realization of having no money and having to leave in 3 weeks
Amazing Moment: Falling ever so slightly in love for the most amazing girl,
Song of the season: Love is Gone - David Guetta
Quote of the season: Give love….Get love back (Lucky, 2007)
Jobs: Minimal Bar, FunKafe, Pago Pago, Hed Kandi, SpinClub, The Zoo Project,
Wonderworld Festival, Milk ‘n’ 2 Sugars
Lost: My hearing (even more), my senses, my money, my towel, one sock, my mind.

Check out the pics here >>>
Month 1 - http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/2966657
Month 2/3 - http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/3148295
Month 4/5 - http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/3561327

Well after getting back from Switzerland things got a whole lot better in Ibiza. Not sure weather it was down to just taking a break from it all after being here for 2 months or just the whole situation changing but whatever it was it was a good change.

So what’s being going on since I’ve being back. Well I did make it back to Spain with no immigration problems, although we’ll have to wait and see what happens when I go to leave the EU.
The parties have being going on thick and fast with not that big of an income, I can only wonder how I can afford to go out so much. Tiesto came and conquered the island with a party that was just beyond belief. Talk about bringing out all the guns; there were singers, fireworks, ridiculous amounts of ice cannons, one gigantic video screen and two fuck of f big colour lasers. I swear there was no one there that didn’t have a smile on there face the whole night & being the biggest club in the world definitely did it justice. Then there was cream, Carl Cox, Roger Sanchez & his live sex show, Manumission & the list goes on and now with all the closing parties taking place it’s all starting to come to an end!!

The housing situation has being a bit up and down with all of us being evicted from our apartment with one hour notice. Basically what happened is the guy we were paying our rent too & who we through owned the apartment turned out that he didn’t own it and found out when the actual owner turned up to get 2 months rent which hadn’t being paid to him by the guy who he thought was staying there, the guy we were paying rent to!!
Anyway one thing led to another and we wouldn’t pay the 2 months rent that we had already paid and got booted out onto the pavement. Since Mel had already left a couple of weeks earlier it was just Laura, Jayne and me to find a place. Well we all split up to different places and Laura went back to the UK soon after. I ended up staying with my mates Nati & Coti where I got evicted from after a couple of weeks after the owner found out & am now staying at Ben’s apartment until I leave the island.

Another wicked thing that I’ve got into over here is the Couchsurfing Project. I’ve been a member for the last year or so but it hasn’t being until Ibiza that I’ve really started to get involved in it. Basically it’s a website that travellers round the world use to meet people & stay at there places where they are living. It seems that there weren’t that many young host in Ibiza so ended up meeting some fantastically wicked people who stayed in our apartment. Now I’m not sure if I’m a really bad host or if it was just bad timing but managed to make there stay all the more ‘exciting’ The first one was Melissa who came from Barcelona for a couple of days, lovely girl & was all going well until the day before she was planning to leave. Basically we just use to leave our key outside as we had managed to lose all the other key sets. Anyway we all seemed to have forgotten to put the key out and all ventured off to various places for the night. So poor Melissa has come back to the house for the night only to find that the key wasn’t outside and all of us were all round the island & not a single Euro of phone credit between us.
Long story short. None of us could call her back and I totally forgot she needed to go to the airport in the morning, but what can I do with the keys locked in the apartment?? Well it all seemed to work out as she made friends with the neighbours, stayed there the night and went to the airport……without her bags in the morning! Felt so bloody bad, she was quite cool about it all though and when I eventually arrived home; hungover like you wouldn’t believe, Ben kicked the door down, thought about what we had done and went to the beach. Bad host???
Another bad host story if not worse was with another Spanish girl from Denia, Monica. Fucking wicked girl, possibly one of the most loveliest girls I’ve ever met. She wanted to stay in Ibiza for one week, I was like yeah that absolutely fine as were all the other flatties. She’s arrived & we’ve gone to see Laura who told us that we were getting evicted in a couple of days. Oh bugger! Surely it won’t be this week I reassured Monica. Well one sunny Saturday morning while Monica & the rest of the crew where at Space, the landlord knocked on out door and basically gave me an hour to get all our stuff out. Now being the only one home and having to pack up an apartment along with four girls accumulated clothes and assorted shit, I had the whole house packed up and on the pavement with time to spare.
So there I was having no idea where the fuck ill be staying little lone poor old Monica who I’m meant to be hosting. So there was that big thing, then when I gave her bags back there was stuff missing and messed up with the other girls clothes. Then I temporarily lost her bag with all her money in so she couldn’t be buy a ferry ticked home, then I also managed to temporarily lose her bag with here house key in; which she realised once back on the mainland!! Am thinking I’m not the best of hosts, although quite good at taking them out and partying on down at the best parties and doing my wicked Space tours….but not accommodation host. Although I did managed to introduce Monica to Vegemite & Pot Noodles, both of which didn’t go down well, but did manage to re-house Monica & myself and it all worked out in the end; made for an interestng trip I say!

To check out Couchsurfing follow this link >>> http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/redmonkey

Has being a wicked journey out here though, with a few mates coming out from London & meeting some amazing people out here. Managing to destroy mine, Jaynes and my brand new camera and then topping ioff the season with a trip to neighbouring Formentera Island which has the most beautiful beaches in the Mediterranean; riding round on bicycles and chilling out before it all wraps up.

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/3561327