|
It had never really struck me before, but nowadays it doesn´t
matter what train or ferry you get on as you travel across Europe to Ibiza, you´ll
still be able to use your Euros. Not until you´ve got
out of the U.K., naturally. But it’s a great feeling
just pulling a few notes out of your top pocket and ordering an espresso whatever
country’s platform you’re on. In days of yore
you could do the same sort of thing with a ten bob note if you were stuck in England
and it was interesting to see the look of pleasure on Rick’s face as he paid
again. The look he has on his face now, having got here,
is a joy, though. Three days and three nights seem a small price to pay to discover
there are some of the world’s classiest cafés where the pavements
turn to sand. I’ve just arrived and I’ll tell
you more about the little changes when I’ve got over some of the big ones.
I notice everyone drinks iced water unlike the old days. I’ve just knocked
one over in my excitement at discovering barmen don´t think you are odd
if you don´t want to join the brandy slurpers in the San Antonio market
bar before breakfast. And they seem to be eating more croissants
rather than a piece of toasted bread rubbed over with a tomato and sprinkled with
olive oil. The journey becomes the holiday, I suppose,
but I’ll also tell you about that when we’ve made it back. In a mad,
impulsive gesture I suddenly heard myself saying we should drop in on Madrid on
the way back and now I´ve found out it´s thirteen hours from there
back to Paris. We never got to Malaga so I’ve missed
Denys’s suggestion about the gentle train from there, but I now have to admit
geography cannot be one of my strong points because I couldn’t work out why
we were going by an ocean hours before we got to Barcelona. It’s
all been food markets so far. There was a lovely one in Paris in whichever arrondissement
we found ourselves. The charcuterie looked nothing like the Kentucky Fried
Chicken in Euston; mind you I see they are selling their cardboard coated wings
and things with plastic cutlery all over Europe. The Boqueria
in Barcelona was having major rebuilding, but you could still that everything,
from piles of perfect figs to creatures from the deep were still just about everything
that’s in season.
|
|
| Sinclair
Newton writing his piece in the LiveIbiza office
Picture © Gary Hardy
(Friday 20th September 2002) |
And so to Sant Antoni where the Clot Mares Mercat was in full swing. Toni the
barman remembered just how I liked my coffee and never once looked meaningfully
towards the Veterano bottle. The Nescafe at the
OK Corral in the West End of Sant Antoni came in a big mug and was delicious and
Caz the landlady remembered me there, too. She seemed to remember a dusky maiden
I once brought in, but that’s slipped from my mind like so much else about
the past. This is Memory Lane with a steady hand for me
and an adventure for Rick he is never going to forget.
Sinclair
Newton
| 
