Ramblings of the travelling nature

After a hectic week in London it was time to leave and go check out the capital of Spain, Madrid!
Having heard lots of wonderful things about this city; especially the nightlife, it was time to go and see if it lived up to its reputation.

After being picked up by my good mate Monica; who I met in Ibiza, and then dropping my stuff off we headed out to a few local bars with her brother Hugo and I soon realised again why I absolutely love Spain. It’s just the Spanish people and their way of life, so relaxed, always smiling and having fun and seems to be enjoying every minute of every day, if only I could speak some proper Spanish it would be so much better.
Well I’m not sure if it was a stroke of luck or what but after walking into this club on the first night they just happened to drop ‘Heater’ by Samim which was the biggest tune to hit Ibiza last season and fuck I just couldn’t get the smile of my face and that pretty much how it stayed for the next few days.

Was staying with Monica, her brother & her wicked Granma in there flat which was just a stones throw away from the Real Madrid stadium. Now I’m no soccer fan but did a tour of the magnificent stadium which took you through the changing room, media room and the pitch. Was a bit of a shame I had no idea what I was looking at in the trophy room but going on the size and the amount of trophies I’m sure it would have been any soccer fans wet dream.

While Monica & her bro were working I took the opportunity to go and get lost in the city and find some really cool spots and places such as an Ibiza Metro station (Corny I know) before heading back home to get ready for the next night out.

Apparently Madrid is a bit of a trendy city, so the idea of changing shoes to something a bit more ‘smart’ didn’t go down too well, thought my shoes were well ; trendy, maybe a bit dirty but still trendy....right?
After everyone got dolled up I got into my well ‘usual’ clothes, we set off to have a few drinks in the park with some of Hugo’s mates before hitting the Heineken club then the absolutely unbelievable Kapital club.
Set in an old theatre and made up of SEVEN levels it’s Madrid’s biggest club and has a floor for just about every type of music (even a karaoke bar and cinema), and I have to say (even at risk of sounding like a big geek) the lighting rig was just truly astonishing. I suppose only fitting for the capital of the best country in Europe.

Next day it was up unusually early to go check out the Plaza De Torres bull ring which I was rather excited about. Not the whole bull killing thing but more the tradition of it and it being the second biggest ring of its kind in the world. Well it would have looked a hell of a lot bigger if the fucking circus hadn’t decided to come to town and erect there big top right in the middle, although seeing there elephants and lions roaming around was quite cool, with it being a bull ring and all
It was then time to head home to have a kip before venturing out into the crowds for the 3 Kings Festival which is like a second Christmas for Spain and apparently Italy, where they have a massive parade and all the kids get there presents from the first Christmas! Confused?

I have to say that Monica was an absolute champion as she managed to hook us up with guestlist or free entry every night to some of the best nights and for the 3rd night I became a honorary ‘agents de la noche’ or to the non Spanish ‘agents of the night’. Nothing crude or rude just a company that sends out ‘agents’ to take photos of people partying the night away; to bad I didn’t have a good camera or understand what they were asking for so left it up to Monica while I went and had some fun.

On the Sunday it was time to chill out and after catching up with my buddy Evan, Monica showed me a few of here favourite spots before I had to leave the next day back to France.

I had a absolute ball in Madrid and with it being my 4th visit to Spain its the country I’ve visited the most without living there and has now even got me thinking of studying there for a year or so sometime, but with things changing every couple of months these days who knows what will happen.

p.s A massive thank you to Monica & her lovely family for letting me stay with them. Next time Monica please let me at least wash the dishes won’t ya! :p

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/4143458_8aaCF#240011704_Sfq5G

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

Well where do I start, so much has happened in the last month and it’s a bit unreal. Time moves here at a really slow speed but the days are so jam packed full of things that it feels like a whole week is jammed into just a day!

Hmmm, so where to start......Well since last writing I’ve picked up more jobs & being fired from one, have moved flat, ran out of money & had some passport issue and have had a birthday.
It’s being an absolute whirlwind of emotions & issues.
I think the last time I wrote I was working at FunKafe but walked out of there [edited by request of FunKafe] and found a job PRing for a beach bar called Pago Pago which was a wicked place to work in, some nice chilled people & was a bit of fun. Unfortunately I was fired from there after a couple of weeks as I now need a permit to work on the street and as being Australian that’s never gonna happen. It’s all good though as I have a few other jobs going at the moment to keep me busy and the money coming in.
I promote a night at Space nightclub called SpinClub which is on Thursday nights with Chris Liebing, its only 2 days work a week but is easy money & the promoters are nice as. I pretty much do the same thing for a night at El Divino nightclub as well called Milk ´n´2 Sugars, just giving out discounted wristbands along the beach & streets & just generally promoting the night. The other job I do is work for the Hed Kandi label packing promo packs & cleaning the mammoth 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom DJ apartment, which takes about oooo 5 hours to clean after the DJs have partied, packed & gone home. I’m also starting to get involved with production of the Hed Kandi night through my mate Ben & can hopefully get some more work like that for Hed kandi & other events too.
So with all these jobs you would think that I’m loaded?? Well I have enough to get day to day but now without a big money (full-time) job it’s quite tight as its a bit of an expensive island & also the problem of having to save something as I've got no cash to travel on at the moment..eeek!

What else has being happening here??...well there’s being a few apartment issues. We were living in central Evissa for just under a month after Jayne & Tilly arrived from London & then Jack half way through the month. But after a couple of weeks Jack couldn’t hack it any more and decided to go back to London & Tilly ran out of cash & had to jump ship. This was all happening about a week before our rent was due & not knowing that Tilly was even thinking about leaving meant that when we did find out we had hardly any time to sort something out, which made me a wee bit angry & don’t really want to talk to the girl anymore, well at the time, am over the whole thing now.
Anyhoo the big guy upstairs must have seen what was going on and how stressed Jayne & I were that one balmy night whilst I was standing on my corner PRing and was just randomly chatting to these two girls who were looking for a place to live & just as I was about to say go & check out the local newspaper Jayne came storming down the street & dropping the bomb shell that we had to move out, NEXT WEEK!!!
Well put 2 & 2 together the 4 of us started house hunting the next day & after narrowly avoiding putting all of our combined life savings together & giving it to the Italian Mafia who were trying to rent out a house that we reckon the owners were on holiday from....we all live happily now in a 1 bedroom apartment in Playa Den Bossa where the population ranges from 4 to an average of 6. Is very cozy indeed and if there has being anytime I have craved even just a little piece of personal space, it's now.
So now I’m living with 4 English girls with the extras from Jayne being Mel & Laura, sounds like the perfect situation...Living with 4 girls in Ibiza, but am ready to go cut down a tree or something, or kill a deer with my mates, just too much girly vibes and girly shit everyday, although I have learnt some really interesting things though.

The Parties......Well I can't even explain, the pictures tell some of the story. Have being so many good times with mates & randoms like the beach parties, the villa party in the mountains under the stars, Space in the mornings, evenings & the afternoons, ahhhh.
The most random night being the night I turned into 'Rambo'. It all started off after finishing work & heading to the bar where Mel & Laura work & after polishing off a bucket load of free sex on the beaches climbed aboard the bus to Privilege where it all started to turn pear shaped. The craziness continued on the bus & after allegedly falling over a couple of times I realized that my belt bag thingy had gone missing. For those not familiar with the Belt Bag thingy, It's not a bum bag nor a man purse but simply a fabric belt with a bag on the side, so when your pockets are full you can add some more. Anyhoo knowing forewell that it hadn't come undone and that some fucker had stolen it, this sent me into a right old rage and the barstard had to still be on the bus.
So the bus pulled up to the club carpark & while all my other mates were flaffing around the floor like chickens looking for it I spotted this one dude who just didn't look right & going on this hunch I told my mate Ben that this dude had it and as we exited the bus saw this wanker unzip it behind the bus! That's when my drunken haze evaporated & Rambo made his first guest appearance.
I started piss bolting after this idiot, chasing him at full speed through the carpark and as he stumbled down this embankment tree covered I launched myself and leaped through the trees above him and landed smack on top of him at the bottom of the hill, timing!!! Now I couldn't hit the poor fella, I’m not a violent dude, think i might have slapped him a couple of times to try and slap some sense into him. Now special mention has to go out to my good mate Ben who was a couple of steps behind me right the way & who managed to chip his front tooth during the action. Cheers buddy, absolute legend!! Also Ben told me about the leap through the trees, which apparently was a 3 meter drop, and what actually happened, as I was to pumped full of adrenalin I can't actually remember doing it. So much so that I literally couldn’t open my mouth to talk for the next 2 hours & was so bloody tense for the rest of the night.
Ahhh but what a wanker though, didn't even have anything in it really, just my cigarettes, but its all about the principle innit bro
I thought I had too let you know all that as it never happens to me and nothing like a bit of action!!

So that's pretty much Ibiza to the minute. I'm writing this from Switzerland as I’m here for a week to get my passport stamped so I can return and stay in Spain for another 90 days.
I’m having an OK time here, some brilliant times with mates and that but it is still stressful with money and that and its not just me going through it. It's also quite a quiet summer here as at the start of the season 3 clubs were shut down for a month which made people cancel there holidays and now a couple of weeks back a cargo ship sunk spilling oil & 3 beaches were closed off, so might get even quieter.
Still having a ball though, its an absolutely nuts island & will hopefully be here for another 2 months, will keep you posted on the passport situation!!

P.s Am now on FaceBook, how bloody cool is it....so if i haven´t added you already send me an invite!!

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/3148295

Well this is the first of hopefully many blogs coming from the white isle of sunny Ibiza. Having being here just on a month now and what an up and down month it’s being. The stress of finding a job and a apartment while trying to keep the money low and then the excitement of the opening parties, mates arriving and the fact that it’s not just going to last for weeks, but for months!!

Jetted into Ibiza from London with a banging handover and just couldn’t be bothered doing a backpacker thing and jumping on a bus so opted for the taxi and was whisked away to Sant Antonio to my hotel where I had booked a weeks accommodation so I could settle in and find my feet, a job and an apartment....all in that week. Well I might have being a bit naive thinking that I could just cruise on in and have it all sorted within a week, sure didn’t work out that way though.

I tried not to come to Sant Antonio with any pre conceptions as it does have the reputation of being a little Britain and overrun with English chavs, slapper girls and more Irish pubs than you can poke a stick at. Although being advised to steer clear of the area I had too give it a fair go and go check it out for myself before deciding which side of the island to stay on. Well it wasn’t far off from what people had told me with the centre being packed full of English, Irish, Scottish Bars and the lonesome Aussie bar. Having arrived so early before the party season had started there where just Brit workers but even they seemed to chav it up and having witnessed a fights, vomit and random people passed out; quickly decided this was definitely not the side of the island for me; I put up with all this shit at bars back in London, don’t really need to haul myself through it again. In all fairness though the Sunset Strip along where Café Mambo and Café Del Mar are is quite nice and watching the sunset over the ocean, marking the beginning of another crazy night is a sight to behold!

So having decided not to spend my summer in Sant Antonio, I didn’t really need to look for a job there so spent the rest of the week exploring the island and just generally baking in the sun before moving over to the other side of the island and to Playa Den Bossa where I was staying in another hotel to continue the job search.
This side of the island, for me, is wicked as there aren’t too many English; mostly Spanish, Italians and Germans, most of the clubs are here and it has the longest beach on the island as well having the main town of Evissia (Ibiza Town) which you can practically get a bus to anywhere on the island from.

After a couple of days of dropping my resume off and talking to the bar managers, I managed to get a trial an Italian Bar called Bar Minimal.
I did come over looking for bar work but most of the bar jobs are either given to workers that have worked past seasons or Spanish speakers and most of the jobs on the island are for PRing, which is basically handing out flyers and trying to get people into your bar. Looking at it now I would rather do PRing than bar work as the hours are alot better as you finish around 1am and can party on down afterwards, but god it’s hard work......well for me anyways as I’m not the greatest communicator around and would have to be the worst job for me as that’s what I gotta do all night.
Well I only worked at Bar Minimal for about a week or so, it was so quite as the season still was a bit off from starting and still alot of families and oldies around, and only brought in one table all week!!! Well thinking that I was just absolute shite and how the hell can I survive with a job that for me is really hard, I geared up the job search again and found another job in Playa Den Bossa at a bar called FunKafe doing the same thing.
I’m still working there and have survived the 2 week trail, so must be doing something right and am bringing in tables even though it is still slow. It’s quite a cool bar [edited by request of FunKafe], so think I will probably stick it out there for a while, plus I get worker passes to every club so I can get in for free!!! How wicked is that!

Well in the 2 weeks of job searching I absolutely forgot about the fucking apartment search and with the original idea of me just being Mr Independent and finding my own place with some other randoms being scrapped for the much better idea of staying with my mates from London how were due to arrive in one week I had to find a place for all four of us. Jesus fucking christ, this was so stressful I think at one point I was ready to leave the island, hell Ibiza ain´t meant to be like this and here I am stressing like a mofo and still not being paid from my job and spending money on basic stuff and still costing me a fortune! Well after an endless number of phone calls, false viewings and non English speaking agents I managed to find a place right in the heart of Evissa that could fit all four of us and 8 others.
So here we are now all living in a ex lounge room on the first floor of an apartment block with our very own terrace off our room, TV, fridge, sofa and everything else a group of workers could need. The rest of the flat is quite cool, another four bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen all with mostly Spanish and Italian people which is quite cool and all secured one day before Tilly and Jayne were to arrive, fuck they definitely owe me a beer or three!

Now was the time I could start too chill out, my mates had arrived, had a job of sorts and a place to sleep it was time to see what this island really had too offer.
Having finished work, we all went out and got pissed at a Brit pub (Ironic?) on €10 jugs of vodka Red Bull before moving onto an Irish pub (Even more Ironic??) and taking a dip into a hotel swimming pool and the ocean before watching the sunrise for another day over the Playa Den Bossa. I did manage to break my camera and with there being no camera repair shops on the island have had to do an old super glue jobby, so if some pictures look way too zoomed out or vise versa, that will explain it
So much crazy shit happens over hear and it ain´t even kicked off yet, god I don’t know what’s going to happen in a couple of weeks when it’s peak time...eek!!

For those of you who are clueless to the inner workings of Ibiza I’ll give you a quick run down....
Basically people come here to get absolutely ratted for normally a week of hardcore partying at the various clubs across the island which are Space, Pacha, El Divino, DC 10, Amnesia, Privilege, Eden & Es Paradis. Privilege is the biggest club in the world and Space is open every morning and night except for Mondays and the rest are just massive.
The ´season is´ from the middle of June through till the end of September / start of October and then all the clubs except for Pacha shut for the winter, with the peak being July & August where apparently the islands population triples.

I’ve only manages to check out a few places so far as most have only just opened and some open in a couple of weeks and am trying so hard at the moment to keep my €€s down. Managed to check out Pacha on Friday night for Pete Tong´s opening party and Space´s opening party on the Sunday which was just out of this world and is pretty much the ´official´ opening of Ibiza, it only goes up from here. Imagine a 22 hour party starting at 8am Sunday morning and finishing at 6am Monday, countless rooms inside and a massive outside terrace!! You really can’t describe it, it is just madness.

So nothing too crazy as yet, although I am starting to see what I am in for and it looks fucking fantastic. I’m really glad I got here quite early as I have had a chance to check out the island before the hoards of people arrive and before I am too exhausted; it is actually quite a beautiful island and with my mates now been here and the parties about to begin this summer is going to be an unforgettable experience.

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/2966657

With the first load of passengers expected to arrive round Midday Monday morning, the morning was just finishing everything off and getting ready to finally do some serious work. Couldn't really go too hard out as we had to drag our arses out of bed at 5am to feed everyone breakfast and I’m not the best at early starts and combining it with being in the kitchen ain't a good combo. The days now are pretty much for rest as we work at least 2 shifts a day and with the pool turning more manky by the hour , normally find ourselves retiring to a shady tree drinking piss before cooking up a feed.

Tuesday night was marked as the night for an absolute bender, as most of the passengers and vannies have arrived and ready to party hard. I was quite surprised by the choice of music the DJ's were playing, expecting some kind of RnB and cheesy pop, it was indeed hard house and euphoric classics not heard for years which everyone was really getting into.
The highlight of the night would have to be when Jo & Jacquie came in behind me and proceeded to grab my arms and legs and carted me off the dance floor and as I was off my tits looking up at a sea of green leaves and people peering down, was quite the mind bend. I did in the chaos loose my camera which I was a little bummed out about but was found by a fantastic search party who searched high and low, cheers guys!!

With a 5am start the next morning and managing to crawl into bed at around 4:30, myself and just about everyone else where in no state of mind to be cooking breakfast for 1200 people, even if they were just as shady and didn’t want to digest the fatty breakfast on offer. As I was late for the morning start the punishment was to cook dinner with the rest of the late crew for a bus load of passengers that where meant to roll up at midnight. So after cooking up some kind of deep fried fish dish, we waited and waited until it was announced that the bus had run out of fuel and would be arriving at 4am, Ahhh great! And with another 5am start and opening ceremony AND a security shift it was gonna be a long day.

Well it was time for the festivities to begin, and to start it all off was the opening ceremony held out front of the town hall. I knew the Spanish liked to party hard, but fuck me it was just madness with everyone packed into a plaza drinking sangria and popping Champaign and going nuts. Wanting to get right into the thick of it we pushed our way through the streets to the back on the plaza and just as we had found out primo position the crowd surges begin.
Having pretty much lost everyone as soon as we entered with only a few of our group insight before being whisked away in a surge. It was like currents in the ocean, all of a sudden you move 10 meters forward then once regaining your foot hold you’re off again and before you know it your right in the think of it, front and centre. We were swaying at 45 degree angles with out arms pinned to our sides and trying not to fall onto the bed of broken glass and crushing feet. During this time I was trying desperately to hold on to my beloved bottle of sangria until inevitably it got wedged between two burly guys and watched as it was taken away in the current. With my attention now off trying to retain my alcoholic beverage, I started thinking that this could be the ideal place for pickpockets. With this brain fart I did the token pocket tap only too find that I had become a victim, ahhh bugger.
It wasn’t such a bad lose though as I had taken everything out and just left 50 Euro in it and had luckily left my camera with Jacquie who never managed to get right into the thick of it, so managed to retain my camera AGAIN!

Having to cut the festivities short as I had my first security shift that night, I wasn’t the happiest camper around, but turned out to be a fantastic night.
Being on security just meant that you where a friendly face who can speak English and to help people out. My first location was outside the main gate to the bar where the Spanish police where stopping people bringing in drinks which was fantastic for me as I managed to get absolutely shit faced off people offering me there unfinished drinks, although I thinking that’s where I also picked up my nasty cold.
Next it was off to the DJ box which happened to be right at the peak of the night. This is where I realised how much power a shirt saying “Security” can have, girls seem to flock to the authority that the shirt portrays, although I didn’t really have much at all except for a torch to scare people out of the trees.

Having all of the next day off to recoup the energy levels, another big night was in order and as I had my first bull run the following morning I had a bit of a conundrum as too weather to get plastered or too be in my prime to tackle the bulls. A comprise had to be mad and the plan was to hit the sack early-ish. So starting rather early I filled my newly acquired water vessel with a vodka Malibu mix which was surprisingly tasty all be it extremely alcoholic and set off to find the tent numbers which were acquired the night before.
Now my memory is not my greatest asset and being able to remember numbers definitely not my fortay, so what originally started out as two numbers has grown into 6 variations and so the only option was to search all of them for the tents I was looking for.
After about half an hour all up of searching and awaking random people the right tents were found and by far one of the most embarrassing moments endured.

It happened on the morning of the Bull Run and not having any idea of the time, was interrupted by a tour leading doing her routine wake up call at 5:30am to get on the bus. It did get worse however as we decided to continue in our bliss and upon exiting the tent were greeted to a round of applause by half her bus and when asked which bus number I was on, I proclaimed I was with ground crew. Needless to say it spread quickly through the tour leaders and during breakfast I was aptly reminded of the goings on. Thank god most of them were leaving that afternoon.

So a fantastic night, but not really the ideal starting conditions for a life or death bull race, so after donning the whites it was off to the bus equipped with my sangria to Pamplona.
So this was it, after finding our position in front of the town hall on the course, my drunken haze quickly disappeared as the adrenalin started to pump through my veins. After taking in tip from past runners we felt pretty prepared and were anxiously waiting the first cannon to sound which signalled the release of the first pack of bulls.
After the first cannon sounded we ran just past Dead Man’s Corner to wait for the first pack to go past, which they did at quite a steady pace but the first pack aren’t the ones to worry about, it’s the second pack which has all the angry fuckers in it. Upon the sound of the second cannon in which the next pack of bulls are released we started bolting down the street trying to get to the arena before they passed us. At this point I could hardly breath as the adrenalin was absolutely intense and we had no idea where the bulls actually where, all I knew is that I didn’t want to get stuck in the small entrance tunnel to the arena as there is no where to hide and with the police beating people who were trying to jump the barriers there was only one choice and that was too go through the tunnel. Turns out they weren’t too far behind at all, as after about 5 seconds of entering a massive roar went up as the pack of bulls entered the arena, but now it was time for the real fun to start.

Once the running bulls had exited the arena the gates where shut and the smaller bulls released into the arena where everyone who has ran through the streets is gathered and is trying to get away from these angry guys, as one guy was killed the day before the adrenalin was peaking out and was so intense my legs where starting to turn to jelly, so I decided to jump to the sidelines & watch the countless people being flicked about. It went on for about 20 minutes before everyone left the arena to go and party in the street…however we had garbage duty that morning  Not quite the best way to relieve all that adrenalin.

With most of the tours leaving on the Saturday afternoon the camp was starting to empty and out security shift on Saturday night was pretty sedate, except for the capture and arrest of the “Nipple Sucker” and a few mattress throwing incidents.

The next couple of days we just packed everything up and said our goodbyes before out 21 hour bus ride back to London on the Monday night.

All in all it was a good trip, have met some fantastic people along the way even if I did pick up a case of diarrhea and a hell nasty throat infection and cold.
Would I do it again? Probably not with the company I did it with, way to many power trips and just no real organization with doing things at least 3 times the norm, but definitely the way to do the festival.

Check out the pics here >>> http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/1659693