Nice and IBIZA Club Life

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Well here I am, sitting at my desk in SF, my second day back in pharmacy school, and as pleased as I am to be back in the US where the livin’ is easy and nothing seems too far out of reach..I can’t stop reminiscing about all the amazing places I’ve had the opportunity to visit in Europe and the wonderful people I met along the way. I wish I could transport myself back in time just for a moment, to feel the ease of lying on la playa in Barcelona, trying to sip down an ice cold mojito before the summer sun tries to melt it away..Ahhh, I would give anything just to go back for one more day! Buuuuut since I can’t, I figure the next best thing for me to do is to recant my tales to YOU! So here it is, the latest update to the BROmance Abroad European Voyage (I’m extremely curious to see how much I can recall).

Our train from Rome rolled into Nice on Tuesday 8/30/11 around 7pm local time...more than 2 hours after it was suppose to (according to our conductor, there was a train stuck in the tunnel about 45 mins outside of town resulting in our delayed arrival). Unfortunately for us, 7pm also meant that the international ticket kiosk at the train station was closed and we were therefore forced to wait till the am to try and book a ticket to Barcelona..Beaz was kinda stressing since, we HAD to be at the Barca airpuerto at 10 am in two days to catch our flight to Ibiza where we had already bought tickets to clubs and booked a hostel for two nights. I reassured him, we would rent a car or hitch-hike if we had to..we were NOT going to miss our plane to Ibiza and that was that. After walking for a half-mile in the wrong direction, sweating like pigs, we finally found our “Villa” Hostel, checked in and decided to have a pretty low key evening facebooking and emailing with friends and family. Cheap crepes and beer hit the spot before deciding to go exploring the town at night for an hour or two before heading to bed. After walking down to the beach we stopped in at a McDonalds (“McDos”as they call it in France) and Beaz ordered an ice-cream “cone” only to be handed a “coke” instead lol. Afterwards, we decided to call it a night and headed back to try and catch some shut eye. Beaz had the bed by the door (open, close, open, close repeat) and I was woken up at 3am by a 17 yo girl from Sweden informing me I was sleeping in her bed (instead of simply taking the open bunk below me..silly) -- Not the best night’s sleep needless to say. In the morning we were on a mission to A) Book a train to Barca B) Get some coffee (McDonalds of course) and C) Hit-up the beach before our departure..success! We were starting to get a hang of this. We juggled a soccer ball around on the boardwalk for a while and went for a swim (or float I should say, the Mediterranean is crazy salty)..Nice is B-E-A-utiful, and despite the fact that their beaches are made of stones, it’s a perfect place to vacay and just spend a few days relaxing under the French Riviera sun. However, time was of the essence and so we said “Au revoir” to Nice and bounced on our 2pm train to Barcelona..Our dinner: 2 bags of chips and 2 “Ham n’ Cheese” sandwiches at the airport in Barca (they actually give you a sandwich where one triangle has only ham and another triangle has only cheese..more like a ham OR cheese sandy not ham AND cheese lol). A 20 Euro ($30) taxi ride and 10 hours later we checked into our hotel by the airport, took a fresh shower and passed out. Ibiza was just around the corner..God help us!

Ibiza:

Waiting to board our plane at the airport the next morning, Beaz and I were PUMPED! I kept telling him that the plane probably has a bangin’ set of speakers and a DJ dropping beats, but this was unfortunately not the case haha. Instead our flight was delayed because of us! We brought an inflated soccer ball onboard which the flight attendants wanted to deflate since they said it was explosive, fact..but we didn’t have a needle, and after a drawn out jumbled conversation in spanglish and an unsuccessful attempt with a pen, we convinced them to let us keep it under our seat haha..I was laughing like wtf? After a turbulent flight we screeched into IBIZAAAAAAAAAAAAA airport and were immediately greeted by promoters selling tickets and handing out flyers for clubs..haha Hawaii gives leis..Ibiza sells you tickets to the best clubs in the world..diggin it! On the bus-ride to the hostel, you get a feel for the island (which is about 200 miles off the Barcelona coast): inland Ibiza reminds me of a desert town you expect to see while driving through Arizona or NM, not a lot around, a few run down places, warm, sunny and dry..and just about every turn or curve of the road there’s a new set of billboards advertising for that night’s clubbing event/DJ playing somewhere, or a beach party or even for parties in other countries..even for parties in Las Vegas! Beaz and I kept looking at them, and then looking at one another. You could easily read our minds: “THAT would be SO siick to go to!”
Once we checked into our hostel, Hostel Giramundo, on the Ibiza town side of the island, which was actually “quite (as my British friends like to say) pang!” Our own private room with a balcony..but the catch was we had to move rooms the following day, which turned out to be a pain in the ass. Anyways, we were drenched in sweat and after throwing our stuff down we immediately bought a couple beers, some fresh fruit, and hit the beach up…MUCH better than the beaches in Nice or Rome! Coarse sand, warm water, gorgeous people, and a view of planes flying over the salty green ocean before us…THE life! After catching some rays we booked it back to the hostel to shower and get ready to plan our evening. We filled our bellies (for a pretty penny) with some incredible Italian food at a restaurant overlooking the shore: chicken Cesar salads and seafood pasta, stuffed..just as I learned in my many years playing ball, pasta gives you some serious energy and we would need every single calorie that first night. After killing half a bottle of Jim Bean we were feeling pretty ready to rage. We caught a taxi (which is not as simple as it seems in Ibiza) and headed to Club Amnesia for a night with Chris Lake, Calvin Harris, Sander van Doorn, and Above & Beyond. The drive took about 10 mins and when our taxi pulled up to what looked like a small shopping mall next to a cow pasture in the middle of the desert, I started to wonder where the hell we were. “Are you sure this is the club, Amnesia?” we said to homeboy at the wheel. “Si, discotech, Amnesia,” he said. We got out and he drove off leaving us in a cloud of dust..not a soul around. “Dude, this can’t be right.” Well, as it turned out, Homeboy WAS right..only we didn’t realize we had arrived an entire hour before the club even opened! Haha, yep it was 11pm and the show didn’t start till midnight. The funny thing was that we didn’t even realize this until after a good 45 mins of wondering if it was possible that since the club doesn’t open till 12am (technically, the next day), our tickets were actually for the show that was last night…they were for “yesterday’s” event or early this morning’s event and that the Pacha tickets we purchased for tomorrow were actually for tonight haha ahhhh…straight TRIPPIN! lol Luckily we were wrong, and immensely relieved to see them open the doors at midnight and the party rockers just pack it in. The bass was trying to slap the grin off my face (impossible) the second we walked into two MASSIVE two-story stages, easily could have been a mall. Within an hour the place was jumpin with people -- all there to do one thing: DANCE their asses off! Yes there were go-go dancers, some of the hottest women I’d seen all trip; people were even carrying around balloons filled with Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) with signs that said, 3 Euros/balloon haha! The vibe was perfect and the DJ’s were playing all the anthems, Beaz and I were singin our hearts out and dancin like there was no tomorrow…heaven for 6.5 hours straight! Sander van Doorn and A&B were easily our favs of the night! Proper! Absolutely exhausted afterwards, downed about 3 huge bottles of water each and made it home just in time to watch the sun-rise from our balcony. My feet were throbbin as I tried to fall asleep and my eardrums reverberated to the boom of the bass. An epic night indeedy!

After sleeping for a solid two hours we had to wake up, pack up our things, checkout, and then check back into a different room after waiting about 30 mins for them to prep our new balcony-less room..it was rough to say the least. By that point we were starving and decided to get some grub and spend the rest of the day napping on the beach. Around 5pm we headed back to our hostel and got another four hours of quality shut-eye, before heading to dinner and getting ready for our last night in Ibiza. The menu: the BBC Radio 1 king himself, Pete Tong and the master of groove-house, Felix-da-Housecat, all taking place at PACHAAAA, another legendary club on the island, this one within walking distance from our hostel and located next to the marina. We were so excited we practically skipped to Pacha. We wondered if it was going to top the night before…if that was even possible. The anticipation was killing me!

Immediately upon walking in, it was obvious Pacha and Amnesia were completely different. First off, Pacha was much smaller in size. Amnesia had the feel and theatrics of a smaller EDC, but indoors haha. Pacha’s vibe was much different: more low key, dark with tones of red house lights; a vip lounge area and everyone was dressed fairly nice as you would if you were going out to a club here in Cali: collared shirts, women in dresses etc. At Amnesia people dressed down, tank tops and shorts, etc. Pacha seemed like a more mature crowd, not necessarily older, just more sophisticated. The music styles were most noticeably different. Amnesia was a lot of big production trance/house while Pacha was almost all low key, minimal house, where the DJ seemed to be creating the beats live up on stage and every once in a while throw in some siick acapella vocal on top of the track (e.g. Adele – Rolling in the Deep) and everyone would go crazy. Pacha played music you can groove and vibe to. It’s sometimes difficult to dance with girls to the stuff Amnesia was playing, but with Pacha it was a whole different story. The bassline at Pacha was so strong it rattled your insides, and the BPM’s followed your “natural human rhythm” making it honestly impossible not to dance to. Jonathan Cowan, Felix-da Housecat, and Pete Tong absolutely killed it! Beaz and I danced our faces off and every now and then, just as the DJ would drop it, a huge plume of cold fog would shoot out onto the dance floor reviving our souls, giving us the energy to dance into the early morning again. Another night for the history books! The following day was spent lying on the beach and recounting moments from one of the best nights of my life, before our 6pm flight back to Barcelona for a third straight night of partying..little did we know, this too would be an unforgettable night. When the plane landed at the airport in Barcelona, I woke up and didn’t even know we had taken off yet haha. I loved IBIZA! Little did we know we were about to fall in love all over again. Viva la Barca!

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