Tag Archives: Spain

Europe 2023 Day 3 – Ibiza

Posted on by
Reply

Third day in Ibiza, and woke up at 3pm because of the night before 🙂

Started the day by going to a beach at the south part of the island, Es Cavallet (took a taxi from the hotel). It is a clothing optional beach, but I would say 3/4 of people were wearing clothes, and it was family friendly as well. At the beach, there were drinking bars, so we got a couple of drinks there, then chilled on the beach for an hour.

After, we took an hour long journey to get a taxi. This is because instead of doubling back we tried to take a shortcut, which ended up going to a road with no taxis. That is, until we hit the main road, where someone who claimed to be a taxi stopped by and gave us a ride back (a little sketch, but walking for an hour in the heat and trying to make a dinner reservation got us desperate). In short, taxis are always available at the touristy points. It’s harder to get one in the middle of nowhere.

When we got back to the hotel, we made it to our dinner reservation at Il Palazzo. Details can be found here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/07/26/il-palazzo/

We then made our way to San Antonio (30 minute taxi ride) so we can catch the sunset at Cafe Del Mar. Details can be found here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/07/26/cafe-del-mar/

After grabbing drinks at Cafe Del Mar, we walked along the boardwalk, which had restaurants and bars. Stopped by for ice cream. Also, we walked all the way to O Beach. Unfortunately it was wrapping up for the night.

So then we headed back to Eivissa, where we checked out Calle de Virgin again. Grabbed a drink there, and then hiked up to Ibiza Castle. It is open 24/7. Along the way up there are shops and restaurants, which is why I can see why they are open late. The view up at the top of the castle looks great, but would probably look better during the day time.

After, we went back to the hotel to our favorite late night sports bar for hot dogs, pizza, and ice cream.

One place I do want to visit next time is O Beach. Also, if in Ibiza on a Monday, apparently there is a place called Casino for a good G party.

Europe 2023 Day 2 – Ibiza

Posted on by
Reply

Slept in until 1pm, but still had a super productive day.

Started off the day at the resort’s buffet for a quick lunch and sparkling wine. Then got a taxi to the part of the Platja d’en Bossa where I would get my ticket for the Oceanbeat boat party (they said to meet at a place called BXXCH Club Ibiza for tix, but it ended up being just a stand that was near the boat dock).

The boat ride itself was actually pretty chill, with melodic house being played for the first half, then deep house on the ride back. The route stayed to the east side of the island. We stopped for 40 minutes for people to jump in. FYI, the only drinks that was included beer and sangria. A shot is whisky was 20 euros (I got two for free since they didn’t give me the correct change when I paid for the remainder of my ticket). Next time I would do the VIP package, since you get shade, a bottle of champagne, and also the people in the VIP section seemed really chill. Also on the boat ride I met some people from California that were staying in the bungalow part of Ushaia. I would say half of the boat was Americans, and half were heading to Tomorrowland after.

After the boat ride, walked through the town back to the hotel (not to be confused with Ibiza Towne). There were some restaurants and bars I would check out. They also had KFC and Burger King. I stopped by a Supermarket (that’s what they call grocery stores here) to get Ballentines and water.

When I got back to the hotel, we had reservations at a restaurant called Portofino. You can read about it here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2023/07/25/portofino/

FYI, at all inclusive, you need to always should prioritize reserving restaurants when you land.

After dinner, took a Power Nap, then pregamed for Eric Prydz. Left the hotel at 1:30am to Hi Ibiza. We were able to catch Christoph before Prydz. For Prydz, I felt the set up was a bit backwards from the regular shows. I thought the 3D ness was inward, as opposed to outward (compared to hide regular Holo shows). After Prydz, caught a bit of Adam Beyer, then went to the side room where they were playing some chill tech house.

We concluded the night by going back to the only restaurant open 24/7 in the resort, the Sports bar.

I will say all the popular tourist spots have taxis available, so I see why Ubers are. It a thing on the island (but available mainland).

Europe 2022 – Madrid Day 1

Posted on by
Reply

Arrived in Madrid from JFK at 9am (took 6.5 hours). What’s great at arriving at 9am is that it’s 12am in SF, so could either check into an Airbnb or get a day hotel and sleep for 3 hours to help adjust.

The airport is 20 minutes from Madrid city center (Sol – Gran Via), which most consider the city center).

So checked in around 10:30am. Airbnb was renovated, so seemed pretty modern.

Probably didn’t start making moves until 6pm though. First did a grocery pit stop at a local mart called Dia (seems like a chain). Got some jaman (aka ham), power ade, and most importantly water.

After, we explored the Sol / Gran Via area out. Stopped by a Tim Horton’s (connected to a Popeyes lol) to grab a latte with French vanilla syrup.

After walked into. Huawei store (first one I’ve been to), which is the flagship store in Spain. Gotta way, they’re smart watches look really nice, but the OS on their phone is super under performance (scrolling perf is bad. OS looks a lot like a meld between iOS and Android).

After, we went to a rooftop bar called Gymage. Can find the details here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/07/26/gymage-terrace/

We stayed at the rooftop bar until sunset, after which we were ready to get some food. We still stayed in the Sol area, where there was a bunch of shops like Zara, an Apple Store, and street performers (also, the main access point to the city, Puerto de Sol, which has a horse status and building we walked by).

We ended up going to this really good (and cheap) tapas place:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/07/26/matador/

After, we walked around to see if we could find a club that played house music. We found a lot of clubs, but none that played EDM (there were a lot of Latin type music clubs). There were lots of people of all ages trying to promote various random places. After asking around, finally found one called “Fucking Monday”, which was conveniently 2 blocks from our Airbnb.

Some interesting things about the club is that there were definitely 14 year olds there (now the show Elite from Netflix makes sense). But music was good. The main room was top 40 EDM (which they called commercial music). The smaller “boiler room” was called (EDM, which was mainly big room house (think fisher / Oliver Heldens).

Ended off the night going to McDonalds (we wanted the Taco Bel to be open, but it wasn’t open at 5am unfortunately). One thing this McDonald’s had was wedges with bacon and cheese (first McDonalds to have that.