Day 7, Spanish Spree: Are you in Ibiza? Cuz I'm in Ibiza!
Need to catch up? Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6
Today was our last day in Barcelona. Most of the tour group went on a bike tour of the city, which I would’ve done if I had any clue how to ride a bicycle, but I don’t and I didn’t think today was the day I needed to try learning.
On the way to the city center where the group would start the bike tour, we stopped at La Pedrera, an apartment building designed by Gaudi. Whoever wasn’t going on the bike tour could get off here if they wanted. I did because like I said yesterday, I didn’t feel like I had maximized my time in Barcelona.
I’m so happy I did. The building was gorgeous. My photos don’t do it justice. Gaudi really was a man ahead of his time. His sense of style and innovation in design are incredible. The view from the roof was amazing. The way he designed the rooms to take in all the natural light, his use of wrought iron, etc…
Below: A couple of interior shots of a replica apartment in La Pedrera. People do still live in the building. Part of it has been converted to a museum, but the rest is composed of residences.
After taking a bunch of photos, I headed to La Rambla to see if I could get some shopping in, but most stores were closed because it was Sunday, but that was all right. I got in some quality people-watching time. Maybe I should have figured out how to get to the beach or something, but I didn’t, so onward!
Next stop: Ibiza! We went to the airport and got through security with no problems, but they do things differently at the Barcelona airport or maybe it was the airline. I don’t know. What I do know is we weren’t assigned a gate to depart from until about 40 minutes before the flight took off. Umm, OK.
I was starving by this point. While roaming Barcelona, I couldn’t decide where to eat and I really didn’t want to go the McDonald’s route. That was a promise I’d made myself before leaving for the trip. Confession: I did use the McDonald’s bathrooms a few times over the two weeks I was in Spain. The place was always packed, so clearly other people were not at all concerned about falling into the American fast food trap.
Also, in case you were wondering, the fast food joints I saw the most in Spain were McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and Subway. One more aside: thanks to my tour mates, I now know that Aussies call McDonald’s Mackers (you have to say it with an Australian accent). This is the important cultural stuff you learn when traveling with people from all over the world.
BACK TO THE TRIP: I was starving. I ended up having some seriously unsatisfying pasta Bolognese. I ate it because I was starving, and I paid for it, but it was dry and flavorless. This was one of those times when I would have been better off going to McDonald’s.
By the time I finished eating and wandering through a few stores at the airport, a gate had been assigned for our flight. However, they don’t do boarding groups. They did have us line up in two lines based on seat numbers, but all that did was allow the gate attendants to scan two tickets at one time. And because there were no boarding groups, boarding took forever because of the bottlenecks created by the lack of boarding groups.
Anyway, we left 35-40 minutes after our scheduled departure time, but the flight was only 30 minutes long. Best flight ever!
We took a shuttle to the hotel. After checking in, Chrissy, one of my tour mates, and I went down the street and ate pizza at one of the restaurants by the pier. The food was good, and the waiter was nice. He talked about moving somewhere else, and we were like, “Dude! You live in Ibiza!”
We scarfed the pizza down because we had to get back to the hotel. Why? Because we had to get ready to go to Space!
Before the trip, a tour mate posted something on our group web page about how we would be in Ibiza for the Space Opening Party, which had gotten pushed back a week. My reaction was something along the lines of “Umm, OK?” I asked my BFF Mr. Google what the big deal was. Apparently, Space is the stuff of legend and the Opening Party is even crazier. According to Ms. Wikipedia, “It was awarded "Best Global Club" at the International Dance Music Awards in 2005, 2006, 2012, and again in 2013.”
From another Space website:
“Every year the Space Ibiza club put on a show of ridiculous proportions, completely transforming the already cavernous club into a festival of music.
The biggest difference to the club is the erection of a massive open-air arena which adds well over 7,000 extra capacity to the club making a total capacity of around 15,000 for the Space Opening Party 2015! This new arena is called the ‘flight arena.’
The flight arena often has the biggest DJs playing and is open from the afternoon until Midnight – when the party doesn’t stop but continues inside to the rest of the club. Every area is open and alive with different music. It’s like a maze inside Space and you can get lost in the music for hours!”
So yeah, that’s where we were going. We’d bought tickets to the party earlier in the day and headed to a bar down the street from Space because the drinks were cheaper than those sold in Space. I downed the strongest mojito I’ve ever tasted at the encouragement of my tour mates.
Space was insane. So many rooms. House music. Packed bodies gyrating and inhaling Lord only knows what. All was well until I went to the bathroom, and I came out and my group was no longer where I’d left them. Luckily, a few other tour mates had also gotten separated from the larger group, so I wasn’t totally alone. Eventually, somehow (remember there are at least 5 rooms packed with thousands of people) I found the larger group. We danced for a few hours to some trippy house music which really isn’t my thing, but I’m glad I went.
I mean how often do you get to say you went to the Space Opening Fiesta in Ibiza?!!
After we left, we went to a restaurant across the street. I was just going to have some fries and call it a night, but then I saw this chicken/ham club sandwich on the menu, and I had to have it. Oh. My. God. It was sooo good. Like sooo good. I want to fly to Ibiza just so I can eat that sandwich again. Seriously.
A taxi ride later, we were back at the hotel. I’d survived Space.
Photo of the Day:
That's Nicole, one of my tour mates, on the shoulders of someone in the tour group at Space
What's next? Day 8: Even more fun in Ibiza!