These LinesMy Way With Words

It is very easy to forget we are in a different country, so many elements of Eivissa are familiar from previous adventures. Getting safely in our hotel was an adventure. We arrived at Gatwick airport very early and launched into a feast of duty free shopping. Our flight announcement was delayed and five minutes before it was due the entire airport was evacuated. Standing in a cold concrete jungle listening to hordes of English moan about not being able to smoke is not something I will want to do again, ever. 

With the fire alarm quelled we got on board our plane and were finally on our way. Our flight was very rowdy. It was easiest the loudest flight I have ever been on. Imagine a school trip in a plane on the way to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The enthusiasm is infectious and made me smile, a lot. Have you ever been on a plane when people cheer as it lands? Given the miracle of flight we should probably cheer every time we land and take off.

Immigration was very laissez faire, there was no customs clearance. Eivissa wants people to come and stay with little fuss. We then hopped on board the largest shuttle bus I have ever been on. It had like 200 seats(small exaggeration). Our bus driver neglected to take us to our hotel so we got the added bonus of seeing all of the region we are staying in. He was very apologetic. It was 3:30 in the morning.

First impressions. Well, Eivissa is very isolated and barren. It looks like an evergreen desert and the rocky outcroppings on the coast remind me of Koh Tao in Thailand. The Thailand comparisons do not stop there. there are a lot of scooters and quad bikes on the road. We shall definitely be indulging in those. There are also a lot of funky restaurants with concrete floors, plastic furniture and exotic names.

It is amazing what regular sun light can do for a people. I have found all of the Spanish and ex pats working here very friendly and welcoming. Reading Spanish everywhere is strangely familiar, it is a blend of Italian and French just better eh El Fuerte.

How awesome to walk into a clothing shop and see a wall of Dance CD’s inside a glass cabinet? I buy all of my music digitally now, but I fondly remember buying CD’s but they slowly disappeared in New Zealand along with the boom from the early 2000’s.

Funniest moment so far?

Well catching the bus to see Carl Cox left us walking a very lonely path across country. One of those moments where you are left wondering what the hell are you doing.

 The highlight of the trip so far?

Well we got to see Carl Cox playing funk, soul and disco beats on the beach. Carl was in good form really putting his hair on.

Most beautiful moment?

Last night we went to see the sun set at Cafe Del Mar. It is one of those things that you have to do and I am glad we did.

Today we are going to rent a car and drive off into the hills. We have a loose plan for the next couple of weeks but enjoying every moment is top of the agenda.

Adios.
 

Last Friday attended a very worldly flat party in Hammersmith put on by a school friend of Anna’s. There were Australians, Spaniards, Germans, French and other murky characters. There were sadly no Swedes for me to banter with. I improvised with a lot of cider and was soon swearing in French, German, Spanish and Australian.

There was no ice in the house. The brave New Zealanders decided to venture out to the local Tesco to find ice. We found ice and Michael Barrymore. He was in the queue in front of us. He was nursing an arm in a bandage and some provisions. Now please excuse me, my cider ailed vision did not twig to who he was straight away. In fact, I did not know who he was until a lot later. It might have been because he was not in a suit and he was not singing or dancing. Anna’s friend invited him to our party, but he had to take his groceries home. Being friendly, affable people we offered to walk him home and then take him to our party. Michael was quite chuffed to be taking some Kiwis home.

He was probably quite chuffed to be taking some men home. I thought he was harmless enough, a bit touchy but as far as people to go home with from a Tesco on a Friday night on a whim he seemed alright. We were soon scaring the two people he had at home and meeting his Jack Russell terrier named Jack. Some drinks were made and I slowly started to realise who we had gone home with. Another friend turned up who was very English and was not very comfortable about gatecrashing Michael Barrymore’s flat in Hammersmith. I let slip to Mike that I was married and the magic moment started to fade away.

I did leave Mike one of my cards with the address of the party on it. I also got to tell him to keep his shirt on. Some great Zen Kiwi philosophy there.

The worst thing about meeting Michael Barrymore? Going back to the party and no one knowing who he was. Even the mighty El Fuerte does not know who Michael Barrymore is. Quite a hard person to explain.

Thrice now I have made London a place of habituation. It remains a bubbling world class city ever so slightly spoilt by its inclement weather. Maybe I have been spoilt by the French and Italian summers? It has rained every day since we have arrived, and I think if I was working I would be feeling a bit more out of sorts than usual.

Sub note (I should not take so long writing things. We have had two very nice days in a row)

We have been relishing living in a house. I have learned there are two sides to me. There is the diligent adventurer who loves exploring on foot with notebook and camera in hand. There is also the reclusive dragon who loves to sit amongst his trinkets and treasure writing up stories from excursions. I think that in the last year my adventure/life balance has been so heavily tipped towards adventure it was hindering my health. It is so nice to wake up in a bed that is not rocking in the same place every morning.

Let me now take time to reflect on some of the simpler things that I have spied upon about the last week.

Commuting,

When your daily commute is from your cabin to the deck of the yacht, it is well quite short.

The evolution of the seasoned London traveller works something like this,

Catching Taxi’s
Catching the Tube
Catching a Bus
Riding a Bicycle
Working from home & going online for shopping

The Pale People and the Great indoors

The limited sun light has meant I have felt my carefully crafted sun tan fading away by the minute. Such was the despair felt on Thursday that we booked an eight day holiday in Ibiza, Spain. In the mean time I will be staying in doors as much as possible. I have noticed people on the streets are at worst down right angry and at the best deeply melancholic. Maybe this is just working nine to five in a big city?

Step inside however and things change radically, people are cheerful and pleasant, YMMV. London has a wealth of things to do indoors. Why just this Tuesday night we went and saw Phantom of the Opera. It is impossible to run out of things do do. In fact the only part where my theory falls apart is when you see very cheerful drunk people on the streets. They of course got drunk inside pubs so I guess I can let that slide.

The Worldliness of it all.

Again I have been living in a continental bubble. I am having to travel from the very familiar Putney to the exotic melting pot that is Tooting. Tooting is like stepping into down town Bangalore or what I imagine Bangalore to be like. It is only a 20 minutes bus ride away but there could be a transcontinental seamless wormhole along the bus route.

We are going to a party this Friday in an exotic creative place called Shoreditch. I was told by a knowledgeable Australian I met out of a million people at the Notting Hill festival, that to fit in we should wear three completely random pieces of clothing and look interesting. No problem.

Warning this could be a long one. I hope it was worth the wait.

Well what a week! I expected great things from this journey and it was an interesting peek into a sub culture, society, social experiment and a great laugh.

The expedition to Biarritz was an arduous one. A torrential down pour in the Cannes region last Saturday left the umbrella sales men very happy and travellers labouring to get anywhere. My train was stuck in Cannes for 1.5 hours on Sunday morning. I was left with my iPod and a copy of great expectations. Waiting and expecting I soon found the stomach to write up my Friday night experience and we were finally under way at 10:30 am. Two thirds of the train ride was very boring. The land directly after St Raphael to Toulouse is a flat very fertile farming region. Nothing that I have not seen before. In a theme that was to reoccur during my trip I reached a transcendental state fasting and waiting for a food salesman to appear. I was very happy when one did appear at 2pm.

I did feel a bit of anxiety when 3:30 pm passed and therefore my connecting train in Toulouse left the station. I made it into the Toulouse at 4:20 pm and was very lucky to get on a train to Biarritz straight away. The train was very full. It took me a couple of stops to get a seat and again I started to get very hungry. I did actually get off the train and attempted to use a vending machine during a stop but this proved fruitless as there was barely enough time to get money in the machine before the conductor blew his whistle and I leapt back onto the train. It was almost a teleport as I was very scared to lose my luggage.

Thankfully the scenery started to get a lot better and I took some high-speed iPhone photos that I know you have grown to love. The ones with light reflecting back from the window and motion blur.

I was nearing Biarritz. I was almost there!

Now late last year Uncle Phil left us to return to Sweden for Christmas. He left the boat in a snow storm. All of the trains were stopped. He was left stranded in a small Italian town and sent me a txt saying.

“hi Dan, trains and planes are grounded. I am in now stuck in bum fuck Italy. Prego”

I found this very funny and poetic justice was served to me when my train ran out of electricity in Bayonne one stop from Biarritz. At least I think it ran out of electricity, that is all I could understand from the very nice conductor lady. She was sure I would get robbed or murdered and actually walked me all the way out of the train station to the taxi stop. I think the taxis had run out of fuel. I waited for a long time, shared a phone call with Uncle Phil letting him laugh at my predicament and even had time to eat a kebab before a taxi turned up.

I eventually made it to the promised land. The Biarittz camping ground is situated on the south side of Biarittz, it is about a ten minute walk to the nearest beach. The camping ground has great facilities, catering to camping, motor homing. it even has cabins a large pool and ping pong tables.

I was to be staying in a Swedish fortification. The Swede who runs the surfing camp lives a charmed life. He spends three months in Biarritz three months in Hawaii and the rest of his time in Sweden. I was welcomed with open arms and was soon getting to know Filip’s closest friends and soaking up a lot of Swedish ambience. With a lot of Swedish conversations bubbling away in the back ground I was soon learning new words and picking out old ones. I think if I lived among Swedes for a few months I would have some basic level of Swedish which could be useful in some far off future when Vikings rule the world again.

Swedish surfers on holiday are very peaceful. I soon found myself in a routine of sorts. I woke up, ate and showered and waited for Filip to wake up. Filip was battling a fearsome disease the entire length of our stay. I did my best to medicate him better but my attempts were only short lived. With Filip asleep I got to know the other camp people reasonably well. I certainly lead an interesting life. It is full of stories to tell and for that I am glad.The next section will introduce some of Filips closest friends and the profound impact they had on me and this review

Our first beach expedition was very exciting. Chris Pontius Party Boy aka Mr T aka Snus Man aka He Who would make love to a Midget aka Poodle really took it upon himself to live up to his reputation as a stand out person.

Chris is in the middle of growing the hair on his head for 1000 euros. A wager taken with another hair grower who was strangely absent in Sweden. The first person to cut his hair will pay the other 1000 euros.

Andreas is the Faceman of the A-Team. He has a reputation with the ladies. he is certainly very good at conversing with them. Someone did try to explain this for me during the week. Swedes have a reputation for being great lovers on account of Swedish Pornography, the thing is is that Swedish pornography is all produced in Denmark. Swedes on holiday are quite happy to further procreate this fallacy,

In fact, Andreas told me a very lewd Biarritz story about a successful outdoor romance that was almost foiled by some unsightly dog refuse. I will let your minds fill in the blanks.

Witness the beach wrestling session. Notice making the ring and Chris pulling up his pants took longer than the actual wrestling match. Hence I do not have any photos of the actual wrestling.

Shortly after the wrestling Chris made a small slip up which would haunt him for the rest of the holiday. He called a puddle a poodle. He told Andreas he was stepping on the poodles on the beach. Naturally his very curly hair, friendly nature and curious ways meant Chris was thereafter renamed the poodle.

We made a certain cafe with free Wifi our regular stop for free internet. they served a very passable mojito. It was here that we started planning the next leg of our journey. Andreas loves to plan things. These cafe sessions proved largely ineffectual on a part of the very good mojitos and the very good exposed breasts on display outside in the sun. Swedish men pride themselves on their breast finding radar and are literally incapacitated when it kicks in.

We had a very good impromptu party on the way back from the internet cafe at the base of some stairs. My JBL speaker system got a very good workout on the holiday. We went through three sets of batteries. It was here that Chris started chewing on straw. Something that suits him very well.

Chris needed some grooming before dinner. Andreas was only too happy to indulge him with some on the spot trimming.

The weather was good the next day but the surf was bad. We went back to the cafe and then went shopping in the town. Our grand plan was to visit the Casino. Chris was not wearing any shoes or a tshirt so he had to have a shopping session to clothe him appropriately.

We had a nice very late lunch and discovered that only Andreas and I had any ID. The Casino expedition would have to wait until night time. We would go to the Casino and go clubbing with our winnings!

A tent of Austrian girls had sprouted up near Swedeland. Chris was only too happy to invite them out with us. They were extreme Austrians setting up a tightrope in between two trees.

One of the Austrians wore a very fetching top. Hi Chris Peel!

The Casino expedition went very well. I did quite well turning my 50 euro investment into 95 euros. We stopped for a kebab on our way to a bar and a very odd thing happened. We had been talking about going to Vegas and Vegas weddings and…….

Chris proposed to Andreas!

At this point I started to wonder what more could possibly happen?

More happened. We drank in some bars and then went to a nightclub. The nightclub had passably bad music, but we made the best of the bad situation by getting really Viking on everything. I met my first person from Finland. He was a disappointment, he overly enjoyed talking about fighting and stabbing people. In a strangely lucid moment the DJ played cotton eyed Joe, it was time to leave.

The 12 hours directly after we left the night club are a very hazy memory best left for the subscription only version of my blog. That means donate!

The strangest thing occurred on the following day. I was slumbering in my tent in the after party haze that always follows parties. A small poodle ran up to the front of our tent. It popped its head in as if to say hello and ran off. Weird? Definitely.

Let us leave Filips very entertaining friends alone for now, I am sure they will pop up again in some shape or form.

Sidestepping the inexorable march of capitalism, Biarritz remains a top notch surf town. The bay of Bisque dishes up nice waves. Biarritz close proximity to Spain gives the French town a slightly less French atmosphere. This is not to say the French are happy to see Swedish frog dances in the middle of the day on the side of the road.

I really enjoyed camping in Biarritz. Everything was very easy. Sadly Chris and I did not have towels but everything else was provided by the camp organiser. We even had mains power. Something that my overladen donkey worth of gadgets did appreciate.

Since leaving Biarritz I have spent a night in Paris and am now in London. It seems another world away, and I suppose it is. It has taken some grit to realise I am not camping any more. Somehow Chris and I have kept travelling together, but he is off to Amsterdam tomorrow. Whimsically enough camping in Biarritz reminded me of home. My fondness for all things Sweden is probably kindled by an unconscious longing for home. In a pinch Swedes make for pretty good copies of New Zealanders. They are good natured, fun to have around and have an inner child not far away which I feel very at home with.

Good bye Swedish Surfing Safari. May we meet again.

You may have read I am going to Biarittz soon for a week of relaxation with Uncle Phil before I see my wife. Biarittz is on the Atlantic coast of France. I have it on good authority that it is like Cannes but with surf. I am very fond of surf. A long time ago when I was at high school me and 5 other surfers went to a surfing competition north of Whangarei. I think we got time off school to attend and we went with the physical education teachers blessing. There was one slight problem….

A storm out to sea had rendered the surf so good it seemed a waste to spend it on a crappy competition. So we spent the whole weekend surfing our little hearts out. We returned to school very happy, it was a shame our teacher did not share our enthusiasm.

You may have thought I was simply invited on this surfing safari by Uncle Phil. I was, but the real reason was this heart felt letter from Uncle Phil’s mum.


Dear Dan,

I miss reading about my son on your blog. I know you are a free lance writer. Can you please infiltrate his surfing camp and write me detailed intelligence on what the little tyke is up too. I will pay you handsomely.

Love Uncle Phil’s Mum

Naturally I could not turn her down. If I look back over the past couple of years some of my happiest periods have been when I have been writing about new things. Who else would be the ideal person to ingratiate himself in a Swedish Surfing Safari and report back?

I have numerous questions

What goes on, on a Swedish Surfing Safari?

Will we eat meat balls on a stick?

Who are Uncle Phil’s friends?

Does Swedish surfing involve posing with a surf board for long periods of the time?

What does Uncle Phil look like crawling out of a tent at 7 in the morning?

Sound like fun? I am sure it will be.