Another European adventure in the books for Sophia and I. This year we have chosen two countries to explore, Spain and the Netherlands. Join me as we learned about the culture and history of these countries. First stop, one night in Barcelona.
Having family in different parts of the world is pretty lucky. I was so happy to be able to see my cousin Paola again. She is a piece of my heart. We were only able to stay one night in Barcelona and it was spent shopping! I had a few more articles of clothing I was in search of for my time in Ibiza and Amsterdam. The fashion world in Spain (Europe) is different and unique. I fell in love with hoops, tassels, and ruffles.
I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for, a beach dress. After a few hours, we joined Paola for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant, Addis Adeba. I have never had Ethiopian food and I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. I would feel bad if I hated it. They brought a colorful plate for us to share and told us to eat with our hands. Wow. I was amazed by everything we had. The food was delicious and our Claras were refreshing! A Clara is a lemon beer that Sophia fell in love with. The neat thing about traveling, especially in places like Barcelona, is that there are many opportunities to discover different cultures and food.
We walked into a bar at a nearby square and had an Aperol Spritz, a mighty strong one. We went over our itinerary and Paola had taught us some Spanish slang that would come in handy in our travels. I’m well versed in Spanish, but you have to remember that every Spanish speaking country and region will have it’s own dialect and lingo. Google translate won’t always be correct. We learned that beer is “birra”, a shot is “chupito”, “chismosa” is for gossip girl, and many more. The next day we packed our bags and took the next flight to IBI(TH)A !!
Party Time!
When I was twelve, my cousin Paula and I would talk about how we would travel the world and party in Ibiza. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make this trip due to life and hard decisions. This post is dedicated to her for when she visits this crazy place. The first thing that got me excited for the upcoming days was the fact that I sat next to an Australian couple. I asked what they were going to do in Ibiza, and they had no idea. Wow, what a life. There were other families on board, which wasn’t surprising because Ibiza isn’t only for the party-ers, there are different parts of the island that are family friendly. If you have more time to explore the Balearic islands of Spain, I recommend checking out the caves and beautiful beaches all over.
It took us about 30 minutes to get to our hotel, Apartamentos Playa Sol I. This is a great spot to stay a few nights if you are on a budget. We enjoyed our time here and if we had a few more nights we would have taken advantage of the pool facilities and other discounts for places to visit around the island that they offered. If you have more money to spend, then I would recommend staying in a hotel closer to the clubs or in the club hotels to get the full experience.
We dropped our things, changed and zoomed to our first concert, KYGO! The concert was at Üshuaia, an Ibiza party hot spot. He played his singles and dedicated a set to Avicii, who had past away a few months ago. What a great time! We then tried to find a way out of the club/hotel to get something to eat. We ended up meeting Kygo! He took a selfie with us!
That was my highlight of Ibiza, afterwards, we got some pizza and made our way across the street to Hï Ibiza for afterparties. This was a mini amusement park for adults. There were different DJs in every room, an area to rest, and even the bathroom had a DJ! Talk about a party island experience. Sophia and I became fans of Jonas Blue and Federico Kay. We partied till 5 am and dropped like flies when we got back to the hotel.
We woke up at 12pm and got ready for the beach! I found a cute swimsuit cover-up in Las Ramblas back in Barcelona. We were in search of a nice beach we had heard about and took a boat searching for it… and we couldn’t find it because we ran out of time. We had another Ibiza concert to go to that night. We did end up visiting Ibiza town, eating paella, and enjoyed some tan time. I even dipped into the Balaeric sea.
We showered and got ready for night 2 with Mr. David Guetta! I remember jamming to Guetta’s singles since I was thirteen. This was a good time in the sense that I relived those songs from way back while in a different country. It just felt right.
We grabbed another pizza and headed to Hï Ibiza for round 2. Cathy Guetta was hosting the club that night and she went full on reggaeton. I was really digging the Latin vibes! I danced the night away and truly partied till I couldn’t feel my feet.
The next day we packed and took the next flight to Madrid!
Voyage Checklist 