The Bouncy Egg
Waking up feeling surprisingly refreshed the next day I felt happy. Work was sorted and luckily all my money had come into my bank account so I could pay the landlord off before having to brainstorm how me and Ellie could pay him in kind (definitely joking!). Seeing as I was in such a chipper mood I decided to spread the love and pay the landlord off in full for myself and Ellie. She promised she would soon start work (she works freelance in the west end) so I knew I would soon have the money back. When I arrived back in at the apartment Ellie was delighted to have the weight lifted off her mind so we all decided to start planning Tony’s birthday party for the next day. He was feeling a little down; a mixture of missing things from home and being messed around with his job because he was struggling to get the right paperwork for his NIE together so it should be a special day for him to let his hair down! We decided a flat party with a mini buffet and cakes and presents would be sufficient, but as typical workers and in general anyone in Spain we decided to leave it till tomorrow, mañana mañana. (Which just happened to also be our landlords favourite phrase when it came to anything but paying the rent!)
Me and Ellie spent the rest of the day touring our favourite daytime haunts for drinks with people she had known for a few years. One of these was in the West End and over the last few days I had started to get quite close to the bar man. He liked how I often put my foot in it, with him taking what I said completely out of context. But even with all the laughter pointed my way I still found it very enjoyable to sit and chat with him in the bar, whilst he failed massively to do his crossword, and this would become my almost daily routine for the next five months. In fact I made a huge amount of great friends sitting in this bar enjoying a pint of the worst beer on draught ever, so I really can thank Ellie for taking me there and introducing me to him.
The next day we all woke up late so we had a bit of a mad dash to get ready for the party. Luckily Tony was out, (I think back again at the police station with his boss trying to sort out his NIE), so me and another friend decided to go to the nearby Chinese shop and see what decorations we could lay our hands out. For anybody who has never been in one of these Chinese shops and needs a random item whilst in Ibiza I would definitely advise it; they have literally every item known to man and that day we returned with happy birthday banners, streamers, some mickey mouse ears, an egg shaped bouncy ball and lollipop with a bubble gum in the middle. We also went to Erosci and stocked up on supplies for the buffet.
By the time we returned the party was in full swing and most people from the block were popping in and out. This open door policy set to continue for the rest of the season and probably can only be compared to halls in first year of university. It’s a great way to meet people though, and I’d advise anyone who did a season in Ibiza to do this. You meet some great people and really there isn't any reason why each and every one of them shouldn’t become a lifelong friend.
The rest of the day started to get very messy and one of my last memories is realising I had the second day of my job trial in only a few hours. At this point I was in absolutely no state to get ready, so luckily a friend stepped in and showered me and another chose my clothes and did my make up!
As I staggered to work that night I was gutted everyone else was still at the party, they were planning on heading to Mambos for the sunset shortly followed by drinks in the West End and it took all of my strength to not stay with them. But if you are going to last in Ibiza one of the bad things is that sometimes you have to miss the party for work. Although it seems like a 5 month holiday to those who meet workers, you do still have to work, and bloody long hours at that! Well luckily, in this case, I didn't! When I arrived at work that night the boss had double booked a trial and another girl (coincidentally from my block!) was already there working. He told me to come back the next day and well, due to the amount of alcohol I had consumed, I pretty much went crazy at him. After me letting off some steam he agreed that I would come back permanently and not on trial the next day. So off I skipped back to the party, with my tail wagging behind me.
When I got back to the party all hell had broken lose. Only in Ibiza can 30 minutes away from a party result in such chaos. Most people had headed towards the beach but those still at the flat told me that, as the most sober (I’d just about managed to half pass as ‘sober’ by now!), I had to speak to the landlord. Apparently while I had been gone the Bouncy Egg present we had bought Tony had been launched off the balcony into the road and the landlord had given us our first eviction notice after less than a week of living there! The egg had been a joke present as the previous day someone had thrown a real egg off the balcony and the landlord had gone mental. After failing to track the landlord down I decided to stop worrying about this responsibility and rejoin the party. The rest of the night got extremely messy and my next recollection is waking up on the balcony. It was the next afternoon and apparently Tony had been and cleared the air with the landlord. Phew, so under no threat of eviction we did what all self respecting workers would do and went and bought some beers and drank around the pool for the rest of the day!
When I went back to work the next day I was in full PR swing and all the usual PR lines started to flow out of me. My favourite of these was to tell every group of guys passing that it was my trial and I would get sacked if they didn’t sit down for a drink. And you would be amazingly surprised at how many times this worked!! One of these occasions I got chatting to one of the guys whilst they were sitting, he seemed like a really nice guy so when he left and asked for my number I thought why the hell not! It turns out they were also here for the season, but took pity on me by buying a drinks deal. His name was Alex, and the opposite of my normal tall, dark and handsome type. But with a cheeky grin, and Southern accent (I may be northern but have never been able to resist the southern accent), I couldn’t really say no! Could this be the start of a season long romance? What happened next there is a story for another day!