Party people

This is our new car! I don’t know how Mr B did it, but he managed to talk me into buying this mean machine. I’m not sure about the colour and I think it might be tricky to park, but any scratches I create will be covered up by the go-faster stripes.

Did I fool you? I’m not sorry, but Mr B is, to say that this isn’t our new car. I’m pleased to say that this one is…

That’s more like it. I don’t think it was what Mr B had in mind when he said he wanted a car that had a “huge lump of pig iron under the bonnet”, but it’s perfect for Ibiza Town’s tiny parking spaces.

Sadly this isn’t our new car either. We’ve still got the trusty Saxo.

These beauties are from the Santa Eulalia fiesta, where there were collections of classic cars and motorbikes for the gente mayor (old folks) and suped up cars that would have graced the pages of the boy racer bible Max Power, for the youngsters.

Talking about the gente mayor, they are a funny bunch and just as grumpy as their English counterparts. They are a tough crowd to please, as we witnessed when watching the local band “rocking” the fiesta. I don’t think any of them even cracked a smile.

Here’s the proof…

Apologies for the bad photography. I had to take these on the sly - you can even see one man giving me the evil eye.

The fiesta was pretty good, except we missed the dancing horses and a massive firework display that was to end the celebrations just didn’t happen - arguably the two most exciting bits. However, we did see a 1664 (a woman who looks 16 from behind, but 64 from the front) dancing to the band, totally monged out. I suppose some things in Ibiza don’t change. We were praying she wasn’t English.

The Rock God

We’re settling into life in Ibiza and are getting to meets loads of lovely people while we’re doing it. One who needs a special mention has to be The Rock God. The Rock God is an English guy who used to work in the music industry back in Blighty, but now works over here as an IT guru. We actually made contact with him through this very blog and went for a few cervezas with him last week after finding out that we were living in the same building. His story involving being caught with jazz cigarettes by the Italian rozzers at a Pink Floyd gig was particularly entertaining I have to say. Actually his scathing critiques of Noel Gallagher and Richard Park were great too.

Anyway we have been trying to set up a broadband connection for our mac and it’s been a trying experience. I won’t bore you with you with the intricate IT details but getting it to work was far beyond the capabilities of me and Mrs B. So we gave The Rock God a call and he told us to come down to his flat on the floor below where he’d sort us right out. So we trundled off to his flat offering a six pack of Cruz Campo in return for getting us online - bargain.

When we went in there was so many computers, monitors, printers etc that I didn’t know whether his flat was an actual flat or the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. Seriously I expected a Klingon to come out of the kitchen with tea and biscuits. I’m sure his flat is the reason there’s so many blackouts in Spain. I can imagine there’s a little Scottish fella in the local power station going “Captain there’s nae much poower left, she’s gannae bloow.” Anyway The Rock God did us proud and I can inform you that I’m typing this blog in our living room as opposed to being sat next to some sweaty teenager in the internet caff downstairs. So, a big shout out to the Rock God - I’m giving you the rock salute for all your hard work my friend.

Mr B

Cue the Rocky music….

I have to admit that I am quite well known for my enormous appetite when it comes to food. I’m sure you’ve all heard of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - well I’m Mr B the Buffet Slayer.

It’s just that I love the food over here so much. Everything is fresh and tastes great and is usually washed down with a few cervezas. So slowly but steadily over the past few weeks my clothes have been getting tighter and tighter and I decided that I better start doing something about it pronto before I turn into the only gay in the village. Not a good look.

So the beer is out as is bread and ali oli (a particular favourite of mine) and I’ve also joined a gym. The gym is run by the most enthusiastic woman I’ve ever met so I’ll call her The Motivator. Seriously she uses more energy running around getting people to work harder in there than what the aforementioned Rock God uses in his flat.

The gym’s over here are different to the ones in England. For one thing they’re much cheaper. Another is that no-one really uses them to do cardio exercise unless it’s as part of a class. So there’s masses of different weights machines but no long banks of running machines - just a couple tucked in a corner.

Anyway when I go to the gym I like to absolutely beast myself. I’m one of those blokes in ancient gym kit, covered in sweat with a vein just about to burst on his head because he’s done 40 minutes of hard cardio on a cross trainer before going on to annoy the hell out of the roid monkeys by getting the weights machines all sweaty. So there I was giving myself a good beasting and everyone in there was staring at me as if I was completely bonkers. A couple were even shaking their heads and doing the ‘loco’ spinning a finger by their temples gesture. Well everyone except The Motivator - she gave me the thumbs up and then promptly forced Mrs B to go downstairs and do an hour long Body Pump class.

When Mrs B re-emerged her head was so red that I thought a massive Strawberry Chupa Chup lolly had nicked her gym kit when she wasn’t looking. She’s been walking around like C3PO from Star Wars ever since and decided that Wednesday night was going to be her rest day after The Motivator informed her it was another Body Pump night and her attendance was compulsory.

We were going to continue our good living by climbing Ibiza’s highest peak on Sunday but it’s absolutely p1ssing it down over here at the minute and rain is forecast for all weekend. After 6 weeks of sun I reckon I can take a few days of rain - just..

Fiesta forever…

So we´re settled in Ibiza and looking forward to an exciting summer.  Our fellow Ibizans are feeling the same way and have thrown a huge bash in our new home - Santa Eulalia - to welcome us to the Island.  Well I reckon they would have done it anyway, but you never know.  I´ll blog about the fiesta some more when I upload some pics. 

We´re also closing in on a venue to host Los Fabulosos too.  The owner and music director seem very nice, although the venue still looks like a complete building site.  It used to be a very ropy disco-pub called Spasms.  I mean - what the hell kind of a name is that?  Seriously who thought that up?  ”Hey boys I know you´ve been trying to think up a cool new name for your club right? Well I´ve got a cracker for you- Spasms.”  And then for someone else to go “Yeah I like it.  Let´s call it Spasms.”  No wonder it went under.

The new place is called Somni or summat - I´m not quite sure.  It´s going to look awesome when it´s done though.  And we´re going to be doing every Thursday night from June 19th to September 18th - 14 parties in all.  We´ve even got the mysterious Sofrito crew coming over for the opening party which we´re properly delighted about.   Book your flights…

Now that all the preperation for the night is ticking over we´re both out looking for some part time work tomorrow.  Thanks to my incredible dance moves I think I´m going to get employed as a podium dancer at Pacha which is nice.   Mrs B is doing okay too - she has got a good chance of getting some work at local “restaurant” Mr Kebab - cutting doner meat and heating up pittas.  She was born to do it…

 

 

There´s no place like home

Our first job since arriving in Ibiza has been to find a flat - and what a nightmare it´s been. Nothing prepared us for how quick you have to be, and how much you have to pay.

We started out by visiting some estate agents in Ibiza Town, who were nothing like their English counterparts - they were friendly, enthusiastic and actually very honest. There was none of the usual “Yeah, the flat´s really handy for transport, it´s only 5 mins from the tube” when in reality it´s 20 mins up a huge hill. After looking at a couple of really grot flats we found out why they are so professional - you have to pay them a commission and it´s an entire month´s rent!

So, being northerners, and not daft with our cash, we decided to go through the paper ads and find a private let. The problem was that after only a month´s worth of Spanish lessons we were no way prepared to do this. They have a saying in Spain “trozo de carne con ojos” which means “a piece of meat with eyes” and that is exactly what Mr B was. I had to do all of the talking, and then when he did have a go the landlord´s actual words were ¡Que horror! It turns out he was arranging to see it at 4.30pm when it had already been let.

We got round the lingo problem by getting every Tom, Dick and Harry at the hotel we´re staying in to do the talking, and we´ve just moved into a place in Santa Eulalia. (You can see the block in the picture above - it’s the Moroccan-looking place in the middle that’s white and dark brown) It´s a little old fashioned - there was a fake flower decoration on the coffee table that an old woman would pay top dollar for - but it´s home.

The Sax machine…

It´s been a pretty hectic few days for Mrs B and I.  On Saturday we set off for Granada with our little car fully loaded.  Never mind the bikes on the back, Mrs B´s shoes made up for a hundred weight at least.

The Saxo took it all in its stride though.  The 200km shlep up to Granada from Almeria must have been the most pleasurable drive I´ve ever had.  The Sierra Nevadas as our backdrop, a cracking radio station playing a nice selection of tunes and seeing as the road was pretty much straight no directions were needed from Mrs B. Always a bonus…

Granada was a great city .  The funny thing is though it´s a big student town and is also used as a stag and hen destination by hordes of Spaniards.  I don´t think we´ll ever see so many pissed up Spanish people ever again.  It was proper bonkers…

The next day was the big test though.  A mammoth 500km drive up to Denia to catch a ferry to Ibiza.  I was honestly bricking it that our car wouldn´t be able to do it but it smashed it man.  No worries at all.  I´ll never perpetuate lazy stereotypes about French manufacturing skills ever again…

The drive was pretty much stress free although the services we stopped at were unbelievable.  They served a full selection of beers, wines and spirits and out of about 20 people in there we were the only two people not having a jar or two to take the edge off the journey.  Imagine that in the UK?

So now we´re in Ibiza and everything is starting to come together nicely.  I´m sure Mrs B is making up some rubbish about me not helping with the flat hunting.  It´s all lies. She´s the real piece of meat with eyes…

Bye for now

Mr B

PS A message to my little nephew BP re an earlier post.  A scrotum is the Spanish word for plum… 

 

 

 

Another barnet blog

So that’s it - the Spanish course is over.  For this last week we’ve had a couple of new starters in our class.  It’s a mother and daughter combo from Switzerland.  The daughter studied Spanish at school so is very good but her mum is absolutely rubbish bless her. She has got a rather marvelous mullet haircut though so wins exta brownie points for that.  She looks a bit like Chris Waddle circa 88.

Her husband is a bit of a legend too - he used to be a giant slalom skier for Switzerland back in the day.  I suppose that’s the skiing equivelent of playing football for Brazil.  You want to see the bloke’s legs man - they’re huge - like a couple of tree trunks.  They make mine look like a pair of twiglets or summat.  And my legs aren’t shabby either.  In fact a physiotherapist once commented on the nice definition of my calves.  It was in the line of work you understand - not in a pub or sleazy nightclub or anything.  Like a mechanic admiring a nice car. He liked my calves in a purely platonic way. I accepted the compliment and we moved on. 

Anyway I digress.  So we’re off for a few drinks with everyone at the school tonight and tomorrow we head up to Granada to check out the Alhambra and for me to try and talk a couple of stoner DJ’s from the Afrodesia club into coming over to the White Isle in the summer to spin a few at Los Fab.  We’re taking the Jameater & the Wag along for the ride too so it promises to be good fun.  Then we’ve got a monster drive on Sunday up to Denia where we catch the ferry to Ibiza. 

It’ll be about then when it starts to get serious. 

Un abrazo!!
Mr B

 

Baldilocks and the three hairs…

So this is our last week in Almeria.  I honestly don’t know where the time has gone.  We’ve been so engrossed in learning how to speak ‘el lingo’ that it only seems like yesterday when we landed.

The course has been brilliant though - the amount of Spanish we have picked up is unbelievable.  I’m nearly fluent while Mrs B can count up to five and has mastered asking for a coffee in our local caff.  Good work!

Mrs B is in the doghouse actually.  I asked her to shave my head yesterday and she forgot to put the plastic thing on the clippers.  So I’m currently sporting a grade zero ‘Jarhead’ style buzzcut.  My head looks like a huge scotum.  Well it always looks like a huge scrotum, but now it’s like the scrotum of a homosexual who gets his knackers waxed regularly. 

The wind has gone too and the weather is gorgeous. In fact Mrs B has greased herself up and is currently basting her milky torso on The Jameater’s patio. The sun is reflecting off her body so much peole must be thinking she’s putting on a laser show or summat.  Seriously you can see it in space…

So only four more days before we head off to Ibiza.  We’ve got a 300 mile drive up to Denia though and I’m hoping our new shitmobile car can manage it.  I still can’t believe how expensive second-hand cars are over here.  Seriously I reckon you could barely give our Citroen Saxo away in the UK.  If it does get us there though I’ll treat it to a few pints of oil and some lovely fluffy dice for the rear-view mirror.  It’ll definitely deserve it.

Here’s a picture of our new car ‘The Beast Mk III’. 

 

 

 

 

Photos of Almeria

That feckin wind.

You can see Aguadulce in the distance. This is about half way on our daily bike ride back from school and the spot where Mr B thinks he might have sniffed a sickly spore.

Mr B’s nude sunbathing clears the beach at Roquetas.

The Jameater runs this monstrosity. It’s called the C6 and lays oil and gas pipelines under the sea. It’s in Almeria port at the moment and the local fishermen hate it. 

 

 

 

The holiday coke

There are some things in Spain that are worse than dear old Albion - dodgy drains and a rubbish selection of crisp flavours to name two - but there are some things that are incredibly superior.  In my opinion the top of tree in this regard has to go to the humble Coca-Cola.  In Britain, Coca-Cola is so insufferably sh*te that I rarely, if ever, drink the stuff. 

In Spain however it seems to take on a life of its own that lifts it to drink of the Gods status.  It’s nearly always served in a freezing cold bottle with a tall glass, ice and lemon and tastes truly divine.  Now I concede that drinking it on a terrace of a chiringuito (beach bar) in the sunshine in front of the Mediterranean Sea does enhance its appeal somewhat, but there’s something else too - an X-factor if you will.  My brother even has a name for it - the holiday coke.  I know I’m not actually on holiday but it still tastes the same as when I am so the name stays.

The wind in Almeria is still blowing a right bastard by the way.  It’s making me and Mrs B’s 16-mile round-round-trip bike ride to school a proper mission.  The locals are dead right, that feckin wind has got a lot to answer for…