I got on a plane with nothing but my wallet, passport, and phone. No hotel reservation, a very weak itinerary, and a $38 plane ticket.
On a rainy day last September, my best friend and I landed in Barcelona. We have been awake since 2am, we were exhausted, but we are on a mission. We had two hours to check-in to our stay, change our clothes, and get back to the airport for another flight… easy enough?
Mercifully, we flew in from Portugal and we had already gone through customs when arriving there a week prior. Since we already entered the Schengen Area, we did not have to go through border control or customs again (thank the lord).
Trouble was, check-in to our stay wasn’t until 3pm. Also, either one of us had ever set foot in Spain before that day. Alas, we collected our bags from baggage claim and away we went to find our ride!
We pulled up just down the street from the hotel and bid our uber farewell.
On the walk to the entrance, we prepared ourselves to grovel at the feet of the front desk to let us check-in early. The gentleman working in the hotel was SO NICE AND FRIENDLY, but he could not understand our urgency to check-in. Why were these two girls on the verge of tears? Could they not just leave their stuff in the provided lockers until check in at 3pm? Why is their Spanish so bad?
The real question is, why were we SO SHY to tell him about our insane excursion? As soon as we told him that we actually only have an hour to get back to the airport because we have a flight to Ibiza for the night (and would not be returning until the morning) he practically shoved us up the stairs to our room yelling after us “IBIZA? WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME SOONER? HAVE SO MUCH FUN IN IBIZA!”
20 minutes later, dressed and packed (albeit, LIGHTLY) we made our way back to the lobby. The hurricane that went through our dorm room would have to wait until tomorrow. With a smile and two thumbs-up from the manager, we were off to the airport for the second time that day.
Have you ever been to the Barcelona Airport?
For those of you who have never been to the Barcelona airport, it is the biggest airport I’ve ever been in in my entire life. Oh, you’re boarding at B-gates? B-1 or B-100? Roll the dice and see, because they don’t announce it until 30 minutes before boarding.
After the quickest bag check to date, and being searched for drugs by security, we made our way to the dead center of the terminal. When our gate was announced, we planned to sprint to our gate. 30 minutes later, “Gate B-50. Ibiza, Spain.” was displayed on the informatics board, and what dumb luck! That is exactly where we were sitting.
*One hour later*
We’ve landed in Ibiza! What on earth have we done?! It was in this moment as we walked out of the airport to catch a ride, that reality started to set in. We were IN THIS now. After some currency conversions and a few checks of the uber app, it was determined it was going to be WAY cheaper to take a cab to the other side of the island, and take a cab we did.
Now would be a good time to talk about what exactly brought us to Ibiza, Spain on this fine day. I started following this pair of DJ’s known as Altégo on Tiktok some months back. I saw that they were based in the UK, but were gearing up for an international tour in the coming months. Since I was already in the midst of planning this trip to Europe, I wondered where they would be while we were there… Lone behold, they were performing in Spain when we were there in September! The tickets were only $20, what a steal! It wasn’t until after currency had been exchanged that I realized these tickets were not just in Spain. After further inspection, they were on an island off the coast of Spain… and our excursion to Ibiza was born.
After our arrival at the beach, we finally got some food in our stomachs. A HUGE mercy given the day we’ve had at this point. After we were well and fed, we made our way to the Marina to wait. Did I mention this DJ set was on a boat? I’ve never been sea sick before, let’s hope today isn’t the first.
At this point, our decision to come here started to settle in even more.
This was a three hour set that ended at 9pm… Then what were we gonna do? As I mentioned before, we did not in fact book a hotel for the night. Turns out the promoters had already taken this into consideration for all attendees. Upon boarding the boat, we all got handed two cups of sangria, and two wrist bands. One for entrance to the night clubs after and one for the beach clubs the next day.
We made fast friends with a group from Ireland, they were on holiday and were staying at one of the hotels nearby. They asked how long we were staying in Ibiza, to which we responded “Just for the night.” They thought we were insane, but who could blame them, we definitely were. We drank our sangria and danced, screamed the lyrics of songs. As the sun was going down, I took it all in. Here I am, experiencing this right now, watching the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen, experiencing all this for the first, and probably the last time. A core memory.
A few hours later…
We made it back to shore and parted ways with our new friends, with a plan and promise to meet them at the club later. They were going back to their hotel to take naps before going back out, we of course, were going to eat again (no rest for the wicked). We found a pizza restaurant near the beach, got a Margherita pizza, and drank what was probably the best basil limeade I’ve had in my entire 25 years.
Something I will say about Ibiza, Spain, It has the best people watching. Everyone walking to the right of us were headed back to the hotel and everyone walking to the left of us we could tell were headed to the clubs for the night. There were people in the streets selling fake sunglasses and purses, club promoters handing out fliers, and believe it or not, parents with their young children. The last thing I expected to see in Ibiza was people on a family vacation.
We made it to the club around midnight, the line was wrapped around the block.
After a quick bag search, we walked into the entrance of another reality. Everything was GLOWING, there were plants all over the room, and a huge conversation pit surrounded by pillars sunk in the middle of the room. That was the dance floor. We found our new friends again, and off we went for the second time to dance, drink, and dance some more as DJs performed their sets.
We hit the wall around 3am. My head was heavy and I felt like I was going to collapse from exhaustion. It was time to call a cab back to the airport. Our flight was at 7am that morning, better to be early to the airport rather than late, right? We fell asleep in the cab back to the airport. When we made it back to the other side of the island, it was a ghost town. We walked up to the entrance of the airport and were promptly met by security to check our passports and our boarding passes. They UNLOCKED the airport doors for us, and off we went to find a place to hunker down to rest for the night… morning? It was all blending together.
4 am the next morning…
There we were, just two gals sleeping on airport benches, with only a pashmina each to use as blankets, FREEZING under the airport AC. When security opened for the morning, we again went through and were checked even more thoroughly for drugs, had our bags searched, and headed to the plane back.
I don’t remember a single moment from when I sat down in that plane seat to when we landed back in Barcelona an hour later. Actually, I don’t remember much of anything until we woke up again that next NIGHT in our dorm room beds.
If I did it again, I would do it differently, but this time around, I wouldn’t change a thing.
How’s that for 12 hours? They say you only live once, right?
– Hay
