IBIZA

 IBIZA.

 Last week was the best and wildest week of my life....i went to Ibiza with ESN Barcelona (erasmus student network)

Preparation - With my room mates for the week - Benedetta (italian ) Yvonne (Germany) and Pauline (french) we went shopping for some cheap alcohol not knowing what Ibiza prices would be like the result  = 8 bottles of vodka and 2 bottles of wine...  to start off

The adventures all began Monday evening, on the ferry to Ibiza. We were recommended to bring our own alcohol for the Ferry to pass the time because there would be a party on the way there. So we turn up to the port and beyond the luggage .... alcohol. Boxes of champagne, tequila, and huge water containers filled with sangria. It wasnt until about 4am that we realised we didnt have anywhere on the boat to sleep but on the tiles oh boy that sucked... imagine it 600 students drunk, lying around anywhere they could find - tables, chairs, tiles, doormats, or on the luggage so funny

So we arrived at 7am Tuesday Morning then we had to checkin... but having such great luck our room was not available until 2pm - and because i dont have a boyfriend's bed that i could crash on so i resorted to a deck chair - then got told that i had to pay to lie on it!! whhaaaaa. The hotel was great right on the beach with beach bars, a day time dj, and 2 pools.. but when we finally got our room it was not great to find out that salt water came out of the tap... you never want to brush your teeth with salt water trust me. and really whats the point in showering in salt water.. we did anyway..

That evening was the first party the WHITE PARTY - only white allowed = a little too much alcohol was consumed and it was a long night

Second night was the 'Wild and Wet Party' at Club Eden - with no dress theme we soon understood where this name came from when two dancers stripped on stage and almost had sex - hmm yes interesting

One day we hired a car and did some exploring to see what ibiza has to offer besides awesome clubs.. we found a few gems....

 



beaver tail



Thursday we had the School party at Club Privilage - this is the biggest nightclub in the world- and 800 students overtook for the night= this was a great great night!!! It ended with Yvi's boyfriend stealing a branch of a cactus bush 'the beaver' oh there were many laughs with this, beaver bashing, beaver tails, beaver bills, you name it, it was discussed!!



This is the crew i spent most of the week with



Friday was great we went to a pool party followed by a water party in club paradis afterward. This meant that from 4pm when we were leaving the hotel we wouldnt be returning until 7am ....first thought on all of our minds was "ohh we need to pack a lot of alcohol' so we did - and only to be told by the coordinators that we couldnt take alcohol into the pool party - it was a licenced venue that wanted to charge us 7euro for our drinks. So no imagine 800 students in the carpark drinking our water bottle filled alcohol then everyone stashing the alcohol to pick up later ... so everyone was drunk before entering the party.. not a great idea when your about to be swimming..

This party was great... a huge venue with two dj's, a bbq (which was shit.. Europeans are shit at cooking bbq's) and a foam party ..  A foam party that apparently can kill you says pauline.... but the boys made the most of it






the only bottle we could find to fill with alcohol to
take for pre-drinks

Saturday was the mascarade party at Space... great music me and Bene went crazy .. dancing or more like jumping around the nightclub ... but checkout was at 8am and i got home around 7am.. so no sleep ... and sleeping on tiles on the boat wasnt really possible so when i got to my bed... i was in heaven...










Results of the week

1. definite loss of brain cells and liver cells

2. a massively bruised body

Settling in

Yeah hard life im living at the moment.

 To settle into my new apartment my two housemates and i had a sushi dinner. Oh and it was splendid the sushi was a great success! In this photo is Benedetta my Italian flatmate.

For the past week i have been settling into my new 'barrio'. One afternoon as i was sitting in the sun on my bedroom balcony i acknowledged my feeling of contentness. Barcelona is home now!

I have gone for run/walks to explore the area and help sweat out the alcohol. these running routes are definitely not boring there are many interesting things i have to dodge - abstract sculptures, art installations, bums, pond fountains. I mean this is much better than the window i look out at SAF (Uni gym) while on the tredmill. the first few times i found myself stopping to inspect the bizzare buildings or installations. for example....In Ciutadella park there is a huge glass box in the middle of nowhere with water streaming down the sides of it and hanging inside is a livingroom table and  bookshelf with bedsheets twisted around it saying something..i haven't really stopped to read it

We all know Barcelona is known for its gaudi artichecture but as i run along the foreshore it seems to me as if  all the modern architects are trying to match the unique factor of gaudi .. but let me tell you it is all the glass, wood, concrete, mirrors, steel and whatever the hell else they use ... it looks weird... you don't stare in awe you stare wandering what the hell this designer was thinking.

In the process of settling into my new home.. i realised it was time that i got off my arse and bought myself some sheets for my bed.. one cannot claim to be settled in without even having bed sheets!!! This task proved a lot harder than expected... firstly there are no linen shops in Spain so where the hell was i going to go.. ahhh el cort ingles ahhh no EXPENSIVE 60 euro for sheets.. pft get real. i want the el cheapo version. IKEA.
I don't think i have been so frustrated my a shop in my life.. while all shop assistants in spain are quite unpleasant but the IKEA shop itself is a whole other level of unpleasantness (if thats a word). I walk in the shop or warehouse whatever.. and i spent 10mins trying to get into the part where the products were.. i was trapped on the other side of the cash machines.. i asked people where the hell the entrance was and they just kept pointing in all directions.. stupid people they are meant help the poor lost girl.
Well after walking back and forth i found people and decided to follow them... success! well thats what i initially thought... i was let in a bloody maze through furniture, bed mattresses, tables, all i wanted where friggin sabanas!!!!!  (sheets) and every one has whopper trollies with tonnes of stuff in them.. grrr
finally 'textiles' i find the sheet section... oh and the experience just got interesting.. sheets are sold seperately and there are no descriptions of what kind of sheets they are.. top sheet, bottom sheet, and insead of single, double, queen, king... i had to guess what measurements my bed are.

 So finally after getting through the maze, finding some sheets i had to line up behind lines of people with whopper trollies full of crap.. all i had were sheets come on people..

Futbol Fever!

The mighty clash that sends football fans insane. Barcelona Football team versus Real Madrid..... You will never see bars and restaurants as full than during this match. But rather than the one deciding game they play five games, what the?

Last night was match 4 and ow it certainly sent the city high when Messi scored that last goal it was super impressive!!

But more impressive was after the match holy moly horns were out, guys were hugging, some even crying, and everyone was singing.. but the real action was on Las Ramblas! After the game finished at around 10:30pm everyone went onto ramblas to celebrate, drinking, chanting, letting off crackers... and at 2am thousands of people were still celebrating the win with absolutely no signs of going home

This was an experience i can not even describe.. we don't have it in Australia! but to show you i took some videos to show how insane these football fans are... and some are just plane stupid!!!

Paris

Ahhh the famous Paris




 Different to the architecture in Barcelona which is unique to gaudi and Muntaner, Paris offers a style typically baroque and romanesc. It is so easy to stare at the buildings for ages and i did .

Going to paris is not a holiday it is a non-stop hussle to see as many of the attractions as you can while trying to enjoy the gastronomy. And may i say it is quite a challenge!     

In the time i was there i explored The Louvre, climbed the Eiffel Tower, wandered through Muesum d'orsay, Sacre Coeur, Arc de triumph and Notre Dame. All Magnificent!


Venus de Milo - Simpsons episode where this statue is
a gummy lolly that Homer steals from the confectionary expo



It was pretty amazing to be standing in front of famous monuments and art pieces such as the mona lisa, Picasso, Di Vinci, Rembrant, and lots of other artists who i dont know ... but produced pretty pictures or statues..

It was a slap in the face realising that my ability to recognise certain pieces of art was mostly from tv and movies (of course The Divinci Code).



It was a real treat to visit Moulin Rouge not only for the amount of boobs we saw but being in such a beautiful theatre with yummy champagne. We saw some crazy stunts where a guy juggled 8 stick things, and lifted a girl with his head.... no photos were allowed to be taken  so your just going to have to believe me




There was a big mix up with the hostel and so the group of us stayed in the red light district of paris.. and wow it was like bing in the broncs..  Seeing this before the rest of Paris made my first impressions of Paris pretty ordinary.



My first meal was in a small cafe just up the road from the hostel now the food and the cafe certainly did justice to the famous French cuisine  ehhh but the surroundings they were well not what i expected.. i counted 6 japonese restaurants from my seat, and there was a commercial grocery store next door.  But still good!  



The Canal



When the other Aussies went to disneyland i had the day to myself to wander the city and visit the tourist spots... it was great and i made some friends from the hostel up the road and later that night we went down to the canal where all the local people sit on the sides of the canal with friends eating nibblies and champagne. It was absolutely amazing to see for about a kilometre both sides of the Canal were full with people. But also it was a shock to see how many Parisians smoke EVERYONE!!

We decided to join in with the locals however we were less prepared we didn't have cups... so showing class we drank out of the bottles. woops. Didn't seem to bother anyone because they were just happy one of us could provide a light for their cigarettes.

For a light dinner we stopped off at a little french restaurant and ordered all 6 of the entrees on the menu and a bottle of wine.. all i can say is wow. the food was amazing. One dish - red grapes covered in some kind of cream cheese and coated with crushed pistacio nuts, chargrilled veg and pesto .... and eeewww duck liver pate
Afterwards we went to a disco a really trendy place with great music, house, electronic, dubstep.. GREAT NIGHT!!

On the last day i shopped... i could have bought soooo much.

 I explored the streets for 6 hours which only to confirm the fact that i am a poor ass student who can not afford the shop in Paris, but although my feet and my back killed it was worth it... the streets and The Galleries shopping centre is absolutely stunning! This is a photo taken inside the shopping centre.. fit for a queen it is!!

And that my friends was my trip to Paris...

NEW adventures

Well this weekend i started moving my stuff into MY NEW APARTMENT. i think im going to be really happy there. its right in the center of the city in the gothic areas - so think narrow cobble stone streets and big gothic doors. i love it.. im living with a mexican guy who has been living in Barcelona for 4 years and an italian girl my age. They are super nice and already i can have a laugh with them... its great

My room is sooooo lovely it has a balcony where lots of sunlight comes in and a little chair that i can sit on outside...



Oh and this is Marija



i was really excited about the fact that i don't have to take the night bus home anymore back to campus - around an hour trip.
And lastnight i got to just take a quick little cab ride home and i was in bed within 10 mins of leaving the bar wooo hooo
Last night's adventures started in vila... at 10pm i met up with the polish for a bit of pre-drinking before going into the city.... predrinking turned into 4 cartons of sangria and a bottle of vodka.. they were quite uncomfortable about leaving any vodka behind so they made one of the latin boys go get more orange juice so that we could take it for the road... his name thereon became oranges.. and thanks to Gato 'orange jews' was our topic of amusement until we could drink more vodka - racist pol

The new bar - perhaps a favourite

I did a little research and found Le Cyrano (a local told me about it when i was drunk and i forgot until a friend reminded me)

This is a great concept of a bar - you pour your own drink they give you the bottle of vodka and you pay by the amount you pour - i poured the whole glass of vodka and then had a bottle of fanta to mix and it only cost me 3 euros however it was super hard to drink and i am definitly paying for it today!!
the next best thing about the bar is that they give out free popcorn.. we had about 9 bowls unfortunatly eating popcorn is salty which im sure would help anyones hangover and eating it makes you thirsty...

RETARD

All in all it was a great night!
Today im not in great shape and it didn't help waking up with my head about to explode and realising i could hear my next door neighbours having sex.. lovely

Catalan towers

despite being massively hungover yesterday i managed to spot a group of catalan nationalists doing some traditional people building.. It was great to watch out one eye - i could only use one eye because i was dizzy.

This was towards the start of the tower



Ha ha look at the little monkey girl....



Mess

This week has been pretty average.. though i have been busy looking for apartments to rent in the city. Woo its a challenge trying to communicate on the phone i seriously sound retarded!! I plan out what i am going to say ... that part goes fine then when they reply.... ah lost!

But then last night made up for a quiet week of no parties! it surely was a messy night!

I knew it would be because it was it was at summum bar.. always is! It was a swiss party i was not at all sure what on earth a swiss party was but i was keen

Plenty of people turned up for it... no one can turn down summum. Then the shots began ... 7 down!! eek i was a barracha 'drunk' we didn't really understand why it was a swiss party and we weren't really embracing it considering we ordered 'slovenian shots' .... demanded by the slov boys they were pretty good. but by that stage i am pretty sure my taste buds were dead.

The polish arrived in style.. sneaking a bottle of polish vodka into the bar... i wish it was confiscated because that stuff tasted like CRAP!!

i needed something to wash it down straight away or i was going to throw up... so i had a shot ha ha

As everyone started to head to the disco i knew it was time for me to depart... HOME!!
I got away finding that the austrian was as drunk as me and needed to go home. We started the trek and just when i thought my night couldn't' get better.. on the side of the street i saw this big tower thing made out of toilet paper.. Air was blowing up from under a drain in the street and some bum tied pieces of toilet paper to the drain so that it created a big tower ... AND i thought it would be the best idea to run through it... so i did.... then from out of nowhere the bum runs up to me pushed me saying in spanish that i just ruined his tower that took him 3 hours to make... ha what else does a bum have to do?
he wasn't going to let me go... i was the worst person ever for breaking his piece of art... ha  The Austrian stepped in getting ready to take a swing.. but we ran away ... and of course this 60 year old guy wasn't going to be able to catch us....

The last thing i remember is coming home wearing a pink sequin head band with a giant feather out the top, a pearl necklace and a lei.. what the hell!!! i have no idea where these came from!!

and that was my adventure!!