The Sunburn special edition
So I fell asleep on the beach here in Ibiza today...and now must shun the cursed daystar before I do anymore damage to my skin. The worst part is that, unlike last time, there is no reward for my stupidity in the form of a hot girl rubbing aloe vera on my skin.
sigh
Stupid Continents.
Anyway I´ll do a much longer post (with flair!) when I get to a computer which I can connect my camera to. Until then I present to you this special edition I call the story of Fairy and Johnny Martini.
So I´m in Formentera, staying at Las Banderas (give a man a link, and he´ll clutter his blog, teach a man to link, and he´ll really clutter his blog). Scratch that, in the fine tradition of those two individuals I am moving in a different direction.
Las Banderas is an amazing place. See what happened is that we had no room (long stupid story you´ll get in the next post...probably). And so we are directed to "try down the road". We head along the beach and can just make out some fluttering banners (which explains the name). We arrive at this place and sit down a moment in the shade of the cloth covered area (I just got too much sun people...I don´t have my full brain on yet). The dutch man (who´s name was "travel" or something similar) pours us some beer and brings a bottle of water and then points out Leah, the owner, who informs us that they might have a room available, but the phones are down at the moment so she won´t know for certain for another hour. We sit drinking some spanish beer (no, not San Miguel) as a breeze hits us and the speakers play some old 80s stuff. I´m dehydrated, exhausted, and exactly where I want to be. The Mediteranian (not going to spell it properly) is about 50 metres of white sand beach away from me. This, I solemnly declare, is where I want to spend the next two days drunk. JP disappears around beer number 5 or so and reappears with a key. We get one night in this place, since they are confirmed for tomorrow.
When we left (I will talk about what happened there as well, I promise) we have a nice breakfast, clean up and head to the bar. There is almost no one about. At this point we owe them 100 euros for the room, and another 70 in bar tab. I ask JP if we should just leave the key in the lock and they can charge it to the card he gave them. JP gets this odd look and says "I didn´t give them a card." And then it hits me.
We´ve stayed at this amazing place, cheerfully billing beer and food to the room, and no one has batted an eye. Neither Leah, nor her staff, so much as indicated they were in any way concerned. It was a surreal moment for me, and also a brilliant one. But that´s really how this place is. The bartender went for a swim in the ocean at 7pm because he felt like it, with instructions to grab anything we needed if he wasn´t back in time. And they didn´t even have our names...
But I digress. Back to the story. So Thursday night I decided to have an early night. Some food, a little wine, and asleep by 11. Now keep in mind that people here start dinner at 10-11 near as I can tell, so that was an early night by local standards. Dinner is ok, it´s gizpatcho (again too lazy to look up spellings...and yes I did want to say "Go back to Russia!" when Anna brought it out, but managed not to) and then a nice spaghetti with tuna and a little crab in the sause finished with gelato. I´m about two thirds (stupid spanish keyboard and the weird symbols on it) of the way through my bottle of wine and headed to my room to avail myself of the facilities when I realise that the patio I cut across to get to my room is occupied. There is a couple (this post will be rife with links when I get my photos in) having some wine and lazing about. When I say realise, I mean that the man says "Hello". Anyway I stop to chat, and get invited to join them for a glass and then we proceed to sit about and talk. The gentleman is a fellow photographer, from London, who goes by Johnny Martini (aka Johnny White) the lady I only know as "Fairy". She apparently is the funder of this expedition and in case you hadn´t guessed their both pretty definitively hippies. We swap stories for a while, pausing to refresh our wine supply, before heading towards the beach to meet up with JP at the beach party. We never make it since Marco´s wife (who´s Marco? I have no idea, he´s from Belgium, works with light to improve productivity, and they know each other some how) is turning 40 today. A couple of shots later, and some light conversation during which I cheerfully avoid mentioning that the studies relating lighting to work performance are flawed and considered to be unreliable (it seemed to be against the spirit of the occasion) and I realise that it is 1am, that I have had an hour of sleep the entire day, and that I am done.
My favorite story was by Fairy, who told me about the time she was in Sicily with the man she loved (who it turns out was not JM, which he took very well since she thought it was him) and they wandered down the beach and found a little bar shack in the middle of nowhere with a single man behind the bar. They had a couple of drinks before leaving but were assured that there was a party there that night. When they returned they found that the population had doubled as there was an Albino from Rome there with an electric keyboard and they proceeded to dance the night away to his accompaniment.
Is it true? Who knows. Does it matter? Not in the least. I like the imagery, and it costs me nothing to believe. The last words JM said to me were
"I will see you the next time I see you."
sigh
Stupid Continents.
Anyway I´ll do a much longer post (with flair!) when I get to a computer which I can connect my camera to. Until then I present to you this special edition I call the story of Fairy and Johnny Martini.
So I´m in Formentera, staying at Las Banderas (give a man a link, and he´ll clutter his blog, teach a man to link, and he´ll really clutter his blog). Scratch that, in the fine tradition of those two individuals I am moving in a different direction.
Las Banderas is an amazing place. See what happened is that we had no room (long stupid story you´ll get in the next post...probably). And so we are directed to "try down the road". We head along the beach and can just make out some fluttering banners (which explains the name). We arrive at this place and sit down a moment in the shade of the cloth covered area (I just got too much sun people...I don´t have my full brain on yet). The dutch man (who´s name was "travel" or something similar) pours us some beer and brings a bottle of water and then points out Leah, the owner, who informs us that they might have a room available, but the phones are down at the moment so she won´t know for certain for another hour. We sit drinking some spanish beer (no, not San Miguel) as a breeze hits us and the speakers play some old 80s stuff. I´m dehydrated, exhausted, and exactly where I want to be. The Mediteranian (not going to spell it properly) is about 50 metres of white sand beach away from me. This, I solemnly declare, is where I want to spend the next two days drunk. JP disappears around beer number 5 or so and reappears with a key. We get one night in this place, since they are confirmed for tomorrow.
When we left (I will talk about what happened there as well, I promise) we have a nice breakfast, clean up and head to the bar. There is almost no one about. At this point we owe them 100 euros for the room, and another 70 in bar tab. I ask JP if we should just leave the key in the lock and they can charge it to the card he gave them. JP gets this odd look and says "I didn´t give them a card." And then it hits me.
We´ve stayed at this amazing place, cheerfully billing beer and food to the room, and no one has batted an eye. Neither Leah, nor her staff, so much as indicated they were in any way concerned. It was a surreal moment for me, and also a brilliant one. But that´s really how this place is. The bartender went for a swim in the ocean at 7pm because he felt like it, with instructions to grab anything we needed if he wasn´t back in time. And they didn´t even have our names...
But I digress. Back to the story. So Thursday night I decided to have an early night. Some food, a little wine, and asleep by 11. Now keep in mind that people here start dinner at 10-11 near as I can tell, so that was an early night by local standards. Dinner is ok, it´s gizpatcho (again too lazy to look up spellings...and yes I did want to say "Go back to Russia!" when Anna brought it out, but managed not to) and then a nice spaghetti with tuna and a little crab in the sause finished with gelato. I´m about two thirds (stupid spanish keyboard and the weird symbols on it) of the way through my bottle of wine and headed to my room to avail myself of the facilities when I realise that the patio I cut across to get to my room is occupied. There is a couple (this post will be rife with links when I get my photos in) having some wine and lazing about. When I say realise, I mean that the man says "Hello". Anyway I stop to chat, and get invited to join them for a glass and then we proceed to sit about and talk. The gentleman is a fellow photographer, from London, who goes by Johnny Martini (aka Johnny White) the lady I only know as "Fairy". She apparently is the funder of this expedition and in case you hadn´t guessed their both pretty definitively hippies. We swap stories for a while, pausing to refresh our wine supply, before heading towards the beach to meet up with JP at the beach party. We never make it since Marco´s wife (who´s Marco? I have no idea, he´s from Belgium, works with light to improve productivity, and they know each other some how) is turning 40 today. A couple of shots later, and some light conversation during which I cheerfully avoid mentioning that the studies relating lighting to work performance are flawed and considered to be unreliable (it seemed to be against the spirit of the occasion) and I realise that it is 1am, that I have had an hour of sleep the entire day, and that I am done.
My favorite story was by Fairy, who told me about the time she was in Sicily with the man she loved (who it turns out was not JM, which he took very well since she thought it was him) and they wandered down the beach and found a little bar shack in the middle of nowhere with a single man behind the bar. They had a couple of drinks before leaving but were assured that there was a party there that night. When they returned they found that the population had doubled as there was an Albino from Rome there with an electric keyboard and they proceeded to dance the night away to his accompaniment.
Is it true? Who knows. Does it matter? Not in the least. I like the imagery, and it costs me nothing to believe. The last words JM said to me were
"I will see you the next time I see you."
posted by Bne | 9:40 AM
3 Comments:
What is is with men and forgetting sunblock? I have a lovely photo of a Malcolm/lobster hybrid from his Australia trip. I hope your burn is recovering, and you are continuing to have a wonderful time. Got your postcard, btw... Thank you so much. Take care, and be well.
In my defense it wasn't so much that I forgot the sunblock as that I missed key areas. There is an almost bandit style swath across my eyes, and a neat little square on my back.
Oh, and everyone please note that not everyone *threatens* me when they get the news of my trip...some people aren't savages!
There is a subtle, but important difference between "threaten" and "chastise vigorously".
Ass-tard.
(snicker)
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