"I love this crazy place!" Ibiza

Ciao or should I say Hola!

I last left off when I was leaving for Ibiza! It was in my top 3 trips here so far on my studying abroad adventure. It was relaxing and just a good time all around.

I left on thursday after my class and took a bus from the Florence train station, with the other people on the trip that I went with, to the Pisa airport. There we hopped on a plane over to the island of Ibiza. It was the strangest airplane right that I have ever been on. Well, I probably shouldn't use the word strange because that can sound bad, the flight was actually fine and so was the plane it was a normal boeing 737 or whatever (it had 3 seats on each side of the plane). So what I mean by this flight is more that it was wild! It was so loud the whole flight, there were constant announcements going off on the overhead and the people on the flight as soon as the seat-belt light went off would just roam around the cabin and sit backwards on their chairs so that they can talk to their friends behind them. The girls (Alyssa and Jess who I stayed in the hotel with) and I were just shocked by the way that the people acted on the plane ride. Then when the plane had landed they played some mexican music saying that we are one of the 90% of "ryanair" (which was our company) flights that landed on time and then everyone clapped and cheered, it was very interesting to say the least. So we landed safely in Ibiza, got off the plane, OH and to get on and off these planes there were no gates so we had to walk to and from the plane to the actual airports. So we grabbed a cab and us 3 made our way to the hotel. There were a group of 12 of us from my program in total that went this weekend. We all took the same flights there and back but we were separated throughout Ibiza in 3 different groups, my group of 3, one group of 4, and another group of 5.

When we got to the hotel it was very clean and nice, we had a 4th floor room overlooking the pool and beach. My group of girls knew that we wanted a hotel that was on the beach so we were so happy to get there and have the beach literally be a foot outside our hotel. So that night we just got some dinner at a restaurant that was across the street from the hotel and started to get ready to go out for the night. That night we had gotten special club tickets so that we could go to Pacha, which is a world famous club, and see a famous DJ David Guetta. We first went to a bar around our hotel and met the bartender there, he was really nice to us and gave us a great deal so we were loving it haha. Then we took a cab to meet the other people from our program in whats called the West End. There it is what I expect New Orleans looks like for Margi Gras it was crazy! There were just people dressed up everywhere and it just went on for what looked like days and days of bar and club one right after another. There were so many promoters on the street trying to sell you deals like I will give you 2 for 1 and this and that on the side for 5 euros! So we went into some of these fun little places and then met up with everyone else. From there we took another taxi to Pacha, we were able to get in right away which was nice, but once we walked in there was no moving anywhereeee. It was soo over packed it was crazy I felt like a sardine. So we went into the mash-pit of people for just a little bit so that we could snap some pictures of David Guetta, but resorted to the sides of the dance floor so we could actually dance. It was such an experience to be in a club like that but I think that it would of definitely been a much better time if there weren't SO many people in the place. Every person that we talked to after that night and we told them that we had gone there all had the same first reaction of oh wow how did you like feeling like a sardine? or about how they fill the club too much.

We woke up Friday morning around 10ish and got some breakfast and went to work on our tans at the beach. This was the best beach that I have been to here so far, it reminded me of the Caribbean/Florida. The water was crystal clear even really far out where i couldnt stand and there were fish swimming all around us. After soaking in the sun and going into the ocean about 4 times, we took showers and got ready for some dinner. We again just ate around the hotel at an Irish bar/pub. Then we went back to our favorite bartender and off again to the west end. This night we just stuck around the bars there and didnt go into a warehouse type of club in a different part of the island. It was again so amazing the way that people dressed there in all of these cool and strange outfits. The promoter girls would be wearing really cool outfits with the names of the clubs "tattooed" on their bodies. I would definitely love to go back again just to go to the West End. 

On Saturday again we slept in a little, got some breakfast, and then laid out on the beach all day long. The beach here was nice that there were people but you were not laying on top of each other. And like all of the other beaches that I have been to here there were topless women and men in speedos. We also noticed that at all of these beaches in Europe it doesn't matter what size or what age you are all of the women wear bikinis. It is not always the best look for these women, nor is it fun to look at an old women topless too. But the men here in Ibiza were different, I guess because most of the people in Ibiza were like us, tourists/travelers, and were not like our usual italian men, but they were more into working out. The guys in all of the previous beaches or should I also say in day to day life in Italy do not work out or have visible muscles. But their were a bunch of "meatheads" in Ibiza. Also most of the people or really all of the people there spoke English, and not because of American tourists, actually there were not too many American tourists, like you find in Florence. But everywhere you turned there were people from England, Ireland, Whales, etc. The whole time I did not feel like I was in Spain, instead I felt like it was an island off of the UK.  So anyway, this night we again had dinner around the hotel and we had to wake up early the next morning so we just went to the bars around our hotel too. We called it a pretty early night and just went back to the hotel and us 3 girls chatted and shared stories for awhile about our friends, family, and just home in general.

We woke up early to get to the airport for our flight back to Pisa. This flight was not as rowdy as the first one, which was nice, I guess everyone just gets so excited to go to Ibiza. We again took a bus back from Pisa to Florence and I was back at my apartment at around 4 pm. I just relaxed the rest of the day, watched the sunset with Nicole on the roof of my apartment and went out to dinner with Nicole and my other roommate Carrie. At dinner we met these 4 Americans from Boston and they were so nice they paid for our wine with dinner. We talked to them the whole time (since there were not that many people in the restaurant and we were sitting at the table next to them we were not too obnoxious!) and they were just in Florence for a couple of days doing a European trip. We hung out with them that night and brought them to one of the bars in Florence called The Red Garter where they have a karaoke bar. We unfortunately were too late by the time that we tried to do karaoke but it was still a lot of fun to hang out with new people.

Monday was the start of my last week of class, and I was drained from the traveling and going out that Nicole and I took Monday as a day of rest. And I went out to dinner with Alyssa before calling it a night. Tuesday I went to class had a great lunch at this placed called the oil shop that makes the best and cheap sandwiches and went back to Alyssas apartment to study for our final (which was today Wed). Last night (tuesday) I just stayed in and made dinner with Nicole and studied. Today I had my last Art History class and final. After class we went to the ONLY diner in Florence and got breakfast it was nice to have semi-American food. Then Nicole and I went shopping a little bit and were SWEATING soo bad. It was 95 degrees here and we were walking around the city, I came back and took an ice shower and now sitting here writing this blog I am again sweating!

I am going out to dinner tonight with Alyssa and Jess the two girls I went to Ibiza with and Nicole. Then we are going out for our last night out all together here =( Tomorrow I have my last class here in Florence and have to give a presentation in my management class about Facebook. And then la mia familia will be here!!! I cant wait to see them! I can just picture my mom crying when she sees me now!

I just want to say from this trip it has really made me appreciate the friends and family that I have. All of the people that support and love me. Being here without my friends have made me appreciate them and made me realize how important they are to me and how special I am to have them in my life. If I can explain this correctly, this trip has made me realize how/why I am friends with my friends and how our relationships work. Not everyone gets along with everyone else for extended periods of time and being without my closest friends it has made me realize that they are in my life for a reason. As for family, well you have to love me =) I mean who doesnt! haha

Talk to you soon! Love you all!
Michele