Before kicking off The Ibiza Chronicles - The Final Chapter, allow me to make a brief announcement:

New features have been added to SportDork.com, and I'm excited about them.  In case it's not clear, they can be found on the left side of the website.  Here are a few of the things that have me pretty fired up:

1.   "The SportDork Recommends" - These are links to some of my favorite websites.  For the internet-impaired, if you click on the link, it takes you to the website.  Try it - it's liberating.  Just remember to come back.  If you have a site you think SportDork readers would enjoy, let me know, and I will have my new CWR ("Chief Website Reviewer") give it a look.
2.  "Comment Of The Week" - Each week, I will select one reader comment that will be highlighted here as the Comment Of The Week.  Just click on the link to access it.  All comments will continue to be posted and responded to, and can be accessed by clicking on the "View Comments" link at the end of each entry.  The Comment Of The Week just represents one particularly extraordinary comment that has been deemed worthy of special recognition.  Don't beat yourself up if your comment isn't selected as the Comment Of The Week.  I'm sure it was a great comment.  Somebody else's was just better.
3.   A link to Twitter.com, a website that asks people the question, "What are you doing?".  I will attempt to keep my readers apprised of my every move by updating this box on a regular basis, since I know you care deeply what I'm doing at every moment of the day.  (I have no idea why I added this, other than the fact that it was an available feature and I feel compelled to use every available feature.)
4.    Google ads.  I successfully moved them from the top of the page to the side of the page.  These ads should not be ignored, however, since I now get paid when people click on them.  I only need about eight thousand clicks a month before I make enough money to cover the $19.99 a month I'm paying for the upgraded package that allows me to make money from the ads on the site.  It's like printing money.  I can feel it.

I certainly hope that these new perks will add to your enjoyment of SportDork.com.  At a minimum, I hope they at least distract you from my next homonym screw-up.

On to The Ibiza Chronicles - The Final Chapter!!

After not straying outside of a five-hundred foot radius from our hotel for the first four days of the vacation, we decided to get adventurous on our last day and head to Ibiza Town, which is on the other side of the island.  The city is on the coast and features a rugged, mountainous terrain, with homes built into the hills and right to the edge of the ocean.  Here's a good example:



Homeowner's insurance has got to be a real bear on that place.

There is also a wall that was built around the city that you can walk along.  I don't remember when it was built or why, but it provides some great views - especially of the rooftops of all the homes.  Here's a shot of a make-shift laundry room among the rooftops:

 

I don't know if that unit has many loads left in it.

A lot of the rooftops featured chickens.  Some were in cages, while others appeared to be running around freely on the roof.  I was intrigued by the rooftop chickens.  Here is one of them in action:



I like the upside-down wheelbarrow fashioned into a roof for the chicken.  Very clever.

We really enjoyed our day in Ibiza Town, primarily because, unlike San Antonio Bay, we heard people speaking Spanish, which made it feel like we were actually in Spain rather than an English colony.  It was also cool because Mrs. SportDork spotted this guy behind me performing an unmatched feat of dexterity:



Here is a closeup:



What's he doing?  He's eating a sandwich and smoking a cigarette, but not just at the same time - with the same hand.  Take another look at my expression:



I'm in awe.  I quickly pulled out my Ibiza Travel Guide in an attempt to figure out how to say, "You are clearly a man of great dexterity who is wise to the ways of the world.  I am humbled by your talents and would like to show my appreciation by purchasing you a refreshing beverage of your choice."  The only thing I could find was, "Where is the bathroom?", so I asked him that.

We left Ibiza Town immediately after this encounter.  We needed to get back to the hotel, have a beer, and try and makes sense of what we had just witnessed.

We got back to our hotel, bought some beer for the room, and then realized we had nothing to open it with, so I bought an opener:




I show you this picture only because the opener came in one of those plastic packages that is impossible to open without scissors.  It took me ten minutes and a small amount of blood to get this thing out of the package.  I found great irony in the fact that we almost needed an opener to open the opener.

After a couple of beers, we made it downstairs for our last dinner at The Bellamar.  We purchased the half-board option, which meant that breakfast and dinner was included every day.  Both breakfast and dinner were buffets, which allowed me to execute my buffet strategy.  While Mrs. SportDork did not realize that I had a buffet strategy, it didn't seem to surprise her.  I explained that while my buffet strategy was developed through years of experience, it is based on a fairly simple principle:  food choice at the buffet is dictated by identifying the highest cost items for the restaurant, and then eating as much as possible of those items, thus exacting the stiffest financial toll on the enterprise that is supplying the buffet.  Actual food preference - such as, "I feel like a salad tonight" - is irrelevant.  The only relevant factor is making sure that when you leave the buffet, you are confident that if you had separately purchased all of the items you've eaten, it would have cost you far more than what you paid for the buffet.  If that means eating nine slices of prime rib, so be it.  That is buffet victory, plain and simple.  This strategy also dovetails nicely with a buffet truth, which is that as a guy, it is impossible to pass up a carving station.  We just can't do it.  And since the carving station is where you typically get your money's worth at a buffet, it's completely consistent with good buffet strategy.  As I explained to Mrs. SportDork, if I see a guy in a big white hat wielding a large piece of cutlery while standing in front of a big hunk of meat with multiple gravy boats standing by, I'm there.  As a man, it's embedded in my DNA, and I am powerless to resist.  The man in the white hat is my friend. 

After I cleaned out the mussels and finished off a couple plates of peel and eat shrimp, we headed across the hall for a little entertainment at the hotel bar:



You know you are big when you are simply referred to as "The Singer."  Someday I hope to be referred to as "The Writer."  The amazing thing about Fernando, besides the fact that he has the same name as our cat, is his tremendous versatility.  I don't know if you can read it, but he covers five decades, in both English and Spanish.  Now that's range.  With nothing but a microphone in his hand and a sound machine by his side, Fernando put on one of the most rousing renditions of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" that I have ever heard.

Unfortunately, our party was cut short because we had to leave for our 1:50 am flight back to England (that's right - 1:50 am.  They don't just party all night.  They fly in and out all night too.).  We undoubtedly missed multiple encores by Fernando, which was disappointing, but at least we were able to stay long enough to witness some of the magic.

Things didn't go quite as smoothly at the Airport as we had hoped.  Here I am after the fourth delay announcement:



Mrs. SportDork washed the neck pillow for me before our trip.  Look how white and shiny it is!

Shortly after this picture was taken, we were informed that we would be leaving at 9:30 am the following morning.  EasyJet didn't have a technician in Ibiza that could inspect the plane, so they were flying someone in who would be arriving in the morning.  The good news was that EasyJet announced that they would be providing us with a complimentary continental breakfast at 7:00 am for our trouble.  Score!!  After pushing two benches together and getting about an hour of sleep, that bottle of water and stale croissant really hit the spot.  By the time they announced boarding, this sign accurately reflected how we felt:



We pushed through the mass of fellow passengers yelling, "Speedy Board, Speedy Board!!" , successfully claimed our exit row seats in the second exit row (see "The Ibiza Chronicles, Part II" for a full discussion of seating strategy), and just like that, The Ibiza Chronicles had come to an end.


Anybody in the market for some barely-used glow sticks?