The Best Damn Holiday Ever

Two years ago I went to San Antonio in Ibiza with my mental family; me, my best friend, Katie, my brother, Jamie and his girlfriend at the time, Naomi, who incidentally, Katie and I were calling 'Jaomi' by the end of the holiday, my step brother, Josh and his girlfriend at the time, Laura (Loshua) and of course, the wonderful people who made it all happen and spent a ridiculous amount of money on us, my dad and step mum, Helen. The reason I want to blog about it is because being there filled me with happiness and warm fuzzy feelings as I realised how much I love my family and friends and we did so many exciting things...some not ending very well......oooo suspense!! Of course, my step sister, Beki was very missed! I had visited Ibiza twice before this but this time was 100 times better. We stayed in a hotel that I annoyingly can't remember the name of but it was great because each couple (Katie and I count as a couple) had their own apartment complete with kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and balcony. 

Me and Katie have always wanted to live together so we got a taster of what it would be like! I can safely say that if we do live together eventually, neither of us are allowed to cook because we thought we'd be productive and cook some eggy bread but we were having too much fun and forgot to turn the extractor fan on so before we knew it, the whole room was full of smoke and the fire alarm  was going off.....oops! We opened the balcony door and someone was banging on the door so I answered it and a Spanish lady was stood there looking all panicky and when peered over her shoulder, I saw that everyone had evacuated their rooms and were just staring at me (apart from my family who were just laughing at us..) and I'm pretty sure I'm never going to live it down!

Here's a photo of me lighting the stove just before it kicked off.......note that the extractor fan is RIGHT THERE above my head...

When we arrived in Ibiza in the early hours of the morning, we had to trek across town, through all the drunk antics to get to our hotel. On our arrival at the hotel, we were absolutely shattered after a long journey and no sleep so were looking forward to going to bed but oooohh no, little did we know that our rooms weren't free until the next morning. The receptionist kindly said we could put our luggage in the store cupboard for the night but we'll have to sleep by the pool so yes, this is what we did. We all thought it would be fine because it's so warm outside so we wouldn't get cold...how wrong we were! The following morning, we woke up shivering because it was that cold!! All we had to keep us warm were our swimming towels. We had to hang around for another few hours until our rooms were ready at which point we just flopped on our beds, but not for long of course as there was swimming to do and ice cream to be eaten!

Another highlight of the holiday, well I say highlight but I actually mean a very memorable traumatic experience, was parascending.

This is parascending if you didn't already know (this is off the internet, it's not us and I didn't take the photo).

I hope you're sitting comfortably because this is quite a story! I had been parascending before with Jamie and Josh on a previous trip to Ibiza and I loved it so much so I spent a lot of the holiday trying to persuade Katie to do it and eventually she agreed! Jamie, Josh and Laura weren't too keen on the idea of doing it again so they decided to go on a speed boat that handbrake turns and all that jazz. Naomi didn't want to do either but agreed to accompany Katie and I on the boat without going up in the air while my dad and Helen stayed by the pool back at the hotel. So off we whizzed on our boats excited about our little adventures (well Katie was more nervous than excited at this point). There was a little boy and his parents also on the boat who went up before us and came back down with big grins on their faces and wanting to do it again which eased Katie's nerves! Then it was our turn...

We got all strapped in and we were ready to go so the boat sped up and off we went. My heart is racing just writing about this!! I had warned Katie that they like to dunk you in the water but only up to your knees so it's fine. After about 8 seconds of lifting off the boat, we were dunked up to our knees which I thought was strange as they tend to do that when they bring you back in. Next thing I know, suddenly my face is under the water and I had swallowed a load of sea water! I brought my head up out of the water to see that the parachute was on top of us at which point I panicked because I couldn't see anything, not even Katie who was strapped to me a second ago. The men on the boat pulled the parachute back on to the boat and to my relief Katie was right next to me and Naomi was on the boat. Katie and I were both still attached to this metal bar so one of the guys shouted "unclip yourselves!!" in a very disconcerting tone and we both said no  because, I forgot to mention we are both petrified of deep open water miles and miles away from land. As we both refused to unclip ourselves from the bar, the man jumped in the water and unclipped us himself which slowly caused us to drift away from the boat, both in a complete state of panic, practically in tears, saying stuff like "If I die..." and I will never forget what Katie said "If I die, tell your dad and Helen thanks for the holiday." :') I couldn't help but laugh at this. Meanwhile, as we're saying our last words to each other, the boat guys were casually sorting all the equipment out, you know, just taking their time!! I then spotted a very fast boat going past us and noticed that Josh, Jamie and Laura were on it so we waved and shouted "HELP!" but they just waved back and couldn't hear us, apparently they didn;t even know it was us. After about 5-10 minutes of treading water, they finally started driving back towards us and tossed a little ropey ladder over the side so I grabbed it and started climbing up but the waves that the boat was creating meant that Katie couldn't get to the boat as they were pushing against her. I turned my head and saw her manically trying to swim to the boat saying "Gaby, I'm getting pushed away!" so I hopped back in and told her to go up first...what a hero I am ay? ;) We woddled back to the benches on the boat where Naomi had a look of terror on her face and was checking that we're ok while this other family just looked completely shocked! It wasn't until this point where we suddenly realised that we had really hurt ourselves; I had braces at the time and on of the ropes from the parachute had rubbed across my lip very tightly causing my lip to press against my braces so hard that my lip bled, I also had a rope burn on my nose between my eyebrows, I had lost my sunglasses and a bracelet. Katie had terrible rope burns all over her legs where she had got tangled in them and we both had pounding headaches from bashing heads with each other when we hit the water. Jimmy, who was driving the boat and owned the company (Jimmy's parascending) just said "Whoops, had a bit of an accident there girls! hahahaha!" Normally I just laugh to be polite but this time, I was not amused. Also, he didn't waste any time in asking us if we would like to give it another go. Now, although we weren't exactly desperate to try it again, we decided to do it anyway so that our 70 euros each wouldn't go to waste. This was the worst possible decision we could have made!! It was HORRIBLE. When we got up there, it was incredibly windy and we both felt like we were going to fall out of our harness things an plummet to our deaths, we even ended up praying to god while we were up there even though neither of us believe in him...but we were genuinely scared for our lives. I felt awful and like the worst best friend ever because there I was all day saying that there's nothing to be scared of, it's very unlikely that something will go wrong and half an hour later, we think we're going to die! We were later informed that a 50mph wind is what caused the accident as it pushed us straight back towards the boat as soon as we went up. We went back to the hotel where we saw dad and Helen and of course we told them why I had a fat lip and Katie looks like a cat has scratched her all over her legs and naturally, my dad felt like a failure of a parent, especially as he was responsible for Katie, but of course it wasn't his fault. Throughout the entirety of the holiday, I hurt my lip 3 times! the first time was parascending, then I banged it on the bottom of the pool when I dived in then Katie whacked me on the lip when she was putting her jumper on! It got to the point where no one felt sorry for me, it was just like "oh, Gaby's hurt her lip again and it's bleeding."


One day, dad and Helen went on a party boat trip with Helen's sister, Sue and Sue's partner, Jeff while us lot stayed back at the pool and went around town a bit. I think it was a birthday present for Jeffers. It was quite depressing really because the oldies were going off partying! Anyway, we all agreed that we'd meet them at Ibiza Rocks bar later on. We got the bus over but they weren't there when we got in so we just ordered some drinks. It didn't take long for them to stumble through the doors, dad dancing like...well a dad which was mortifying and Helen stinking of beer because someone had poured some all over her! We had a fun night which involved Helen fashioning a smile out of onion and putting it between her lips, Jeff crushing Jaomi with a hug, buying Ibiza Rocks plectrums on necklaces because we can but best of all, buying tickets to a Dizzee Rascal concert in Ibiza Rocks Hotel!

Please excuse the horrible skin...

When the day of the concert finally arrived, we were soooo excited! I had taught Katie the lyrics to Holiday by Dizzee Rascal so we were ready to rock! We arrived at Ibiza Rocks hotel about 4 hours early which seemed like a good idea at the time as we thought there would be plenty to do there and could just order drink after drink completely oblivious to the fact that instead of just buying the drink, you had to buy a token shaped like poker chips for 5 euros each with which you could buy a soft drink or a WKD. Us girls bought WKDs while the two boys had a pint because they didn't want to be seen sipping on a 'girly drink'. This didn't keep us going long mainly because WKD does not taste very nice after you get halfway through but also because 1 drink for 4 hours doesn't really work out. We went in to the Ibiza Rocks shop which sold looooaaads of merchandise but was generally all too expensive so we just bought wristbands (like festival wristbands) for 5 euros each which worked out well really as Katie and I were collecting bracelets throughout the holiday. Basically we were standing around for ages right by the stage so that we would be as close to the front as possible. Although my feet were killing due to the fact I was wearing massive heels, there was some entertainment to keep us going......

This legendary drunk guy. Awkward that he spots me filming him at the end!!

And these not so legendary drunk guys.........

As you can see by that video, the waiting all got a bit much and we started to go insane but luckily it wasn't long long after that that Rizzle Kicks, the support band came on. Rizzle Kicks are obviously very well known now but back then, nobody really knew who they were but funnily enough, Katie had told me that she'd heard a song by them (Down With The Trumpets) that she thought I'd like at the start of the holiday before we had bought the tickets! They were very good and very entertaining! By the time Dizzee came on, we were soooo tired and soooooo hot and our feet were killing us but we had waited so long to see him so it didn't stop us from dancing! Annoyingly, Katie and I had been pushed further back from the group by big sweaty men grinding women in front of us. Although Dizzee was really good, the atmosphere was immense and we knew the words to all the songs, the experience was made unpleasant by a woman peeing in a cup right next to us and someone fainting at the front and being thrown over the barriers to the security guard. Something that will always stand out about the concert is when Dizzee got the whole audience involved by singing the music to Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes and "let's go fucking mental, let's go fucking mental la la laa la! EY! la la laa la! EY!" 

I have never felt so claustrophobic than after that concert when everyone was squeezing together to try to get out and it was boiling hot and everyone was pissed. Josh told us all to hold hands and that he'd lead us all out, thank god!

I have soooo many memories of this holiday, Naomi and I are discussing it right now on skype and the list in endless! I'll start with the moron glasses. So, before the holiday, my dad and I had gone shopping for new clothes etc. We were looking at sunglasses for him when I spotted some red polka dot ones for little girls and of course made him put them on. I said they were quite fetching actually and forced him to buy them as a joke. We decided that we'd play a trick on the others when we got to Ibiza. While everyone was sitting down to breakfast, my dad said that he'd left his sunglasses upstairs.....I knew exactly what he was about to do! He came back in the pretty sunglasses and everyone just looked at him and paused their chewing and I think Josh even coughed out the drink he'd just sipped while my dad nonchalantly wondered back to the table. This was followed by laughter and a lot of questions hahaha! It was clear to everyone that it was just a big joke but I must say, I learnt that my dad is very good at keeping a straight face! These glasses became a  necessity of the holiday and it was decided that whoever did something moronic had to wear the glasses instead of their own less stylish glasses ;) It is safe to say that Naomi was the main owner of the glasses and to this day still has them in her house. She was crowned, Queen Moron. 

And there she is, Queeny in all her glory 

A few days in to the holiday and we had been loving the scorching heat and glorious sunshine but suddenly one afternoon, the sky went grey and Katie and I heard a huge rumble that sounded like a trolley being pulled across the concrete next to the pool or something but we went out on to the balcony and there flashed a huge bolt of lightning in the distance shortly followed by another loud noise of thunder. We starred at it for a while and although we weren't scared of it, we sang 'These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things' just because you can't sit through a thunderstorm without singing it! We then went down the corridor and knocked on Jaomi's door who were also watching from the balcony. We were all very excited like toddlers hyped up on sugar! After about 20 minutes of the stormy weather, the sun was shining once again and everyone went out to the pool. This day turned out to be so fun because the whole family got in the pool when it was usually just me, Katie, Naomi and Josh! The others just liked to sunbathe all the time except Jamie who just stayed in the shade and read books mainly. We started playing piggy in the middle which was so fun and made me so happy! At one point, the ball got thrown over the edge of the pool so I jumped out to get it in an attempt to get it before the piggy and instead of getting back in like a normal person, for some reason I decided to do a combat role in......this did not end well because instead of hitting the water, I landed  on top of Jamie's head. I came up from underneath the water to see him in tears which made me feel awful and I must have apologised about 20 times while he got out the pool. Naomi went up to his room with him and everyone else got out. I felt so bad and upset because I felt like I had ruined the family game and everyone was annoyed at me, especially Jamie. Later on, I saw Jamie and said I was sorry and he accepted my apology but I think Naomi may have influenced him in that because I don't think he would have forgiven me otherwise....thanks Omi! 

Another memorable day was when Katie and I walked in to town to explore the place and we ended up buying a pizza from a place called Capricci........

......and a massive slice of watermelon each. We took them back to our room and scoffed our faces! I was so delicious and we found ourselves craving them again and again for the rest of the holiday and still do back in England!! After our food had gone down we were straight back in the pool with Loshua and Jaomi! We went to the shop and bought a double lilo because it has become a bit of a tradition to buy a fun inflatable. Most years it's a dingy but not this time. The lilo gave us endless fun; flipping each other off it, jumping on it from the side so you go flying across the pool and of course riding it like a surfboard. Every year, we spend a lot of money on these inflatables which just end up having to be donated to the hotel or wherever we're staying because we can't fit them in our cases! That evening, Katie and I went to Jaomi's where we played card games and Naomi taught us a new one called 'tongues' which was really fun and addictive! Also, Katie and I played a game called Black Magic which took about 2 hours for Naomi to figure out although she did come up with some very good solutions! Eventually, Jaomi said they wanted to "sleep" so we went back to our room. As usual though, we were really hyper so decided to cook these super noodles that we bought in the shop which looked more like pot noodle.......

....THEY WERE HORRIBLE. I don't know if we added too much boiling water or we skipped a step or something but they were really really disgusting. After a few mouthfuls, Katie said "I'm growing on them" and I, looking confused, said "Don't you mean they're growing on you?" and we just burst out laughing and I said struggling for breathe said "I'm just imagining lots of little Katies growing out of the noodles!!" and Katie replied, also trying to speak through her laughter said "I'm imagining loads of noodles growing out of you!". This probably won't be the slightest bit funny to you but we laughed so much that my stomach was hurting afterwards. 

On the last day of the holiday, myself, Katie, Jaomi and Loshua got the bus to Playa d'en Bossa to go to the Radio 1 concert in the hotel, Ushuaia. 

We had been looking forward to this for days because there were loads of famous musicians and Djs performing....

However, we were also a little sceptical because it was an event for people who are at least 18......I was only 14 and Katie was 13. The others were 18 and 19 so we just hoped that by being with them, they'd assume we are the same age. We queued up for ages to get in and eventually we got to the front. Katie and I went first just in case they didn't let us in. They checked our bags for any liquids or food and probably weapons or something! Luckily, we got away with it and they let us in. We walked on and when we turned around we were amused to see that Naomi had been IDd even though she was the eldest of all of us! It was hilarious but she wasn't amused for some reason ;) The inside of the hotel was really cool and exciting.

The first sign of a famous person was Professor Green who came on stage when it wasn't that busy yet and sang a song.

Then, Example came out which was very exciting for me as I was in love with him at the time!

Similarly to the previous concert we went to, we had to wait around for hours before anything else happened and we were so dehydrated and couldn't afford bottles of water which were 8 euros for a 300ml bottle and we couldn't afford any food because they only had burgers which were about 12 euros each or something. Josh bought a burger and Jamie bought a bottle of water but it wasn't enough to keep them going so eventually, Katie, Jaomi and I decided to just leave but Loshua wanted to stay. It was such a shame because we were really looking forward to seeing all those people but it got to the point where we were feeling faint! 

I've just realised how extremely long this blogpost is so congratulations if you read this far, I applaud you! 

I won't explain any more memories in detail but there are just SO MANY wonderful ones from that holiday and I could write about them for hours (as I just have). I have so much more to say like when my dad stood on a disposable barbecue bare footed, jumping off a cliff in to the sea with Katie, the song that Katie and I made up about the trip and keeping Naomi in a 'lock' when we were in the pool. 

Ibiza had a couple of mishaps like the parascending incident and the unpleasant experiences at Radio 1 and if we were slightly annoyed that the hotel didn't allow late night swimming in he pool and that we aren't old enough to get in to clubs but all in all, it was the best damn holiday ever.

BYE!! xxx

A quick video to sum up the holiday