Thursday right after class, I hopped on a plane to Barcelona and then another to Mallorca (one the Spanish Balearic islands in the Mediterranean) and then caught a cab to our hostel. The whole time though, I was concerned for what was happening with the USA vs Germany and the Portugal vs Ghana games. As soon as we were able to pay at the hostel, the game ended so I didn't get to watch any of it, but we advanced and that's all that matters!!! I'm so pumped for the rest of the world cup (I watched both games today and now am up late instead of sleeping as usual). Anyways, we just dropped our stuff off and then found a place to eat dinner. We found a place with a great deal for salad, pizza, and a drink and we just sat around eating, enjoying the summer ocean breeze and talking to our cool waiter. Then we ventured a minute to the beach and just stood there in awe. It was already dark, but it was still beautiful and the water was significantly warmer than Santander and a hotel had live music. Standing there in the water just taking it all in, "What a wonderful world" started playing to complete the surreal moment. The night ended with gelato as it should.
que bonita
Day 2 in Mallorca was all beach and food. Light breakfast, then beach for a few hours. Lunch, which was actually one of the highlights. We ate at this little place that had cheese burgers, fries and a drink for 6.50 euros and then the waiter was this man from Granada who was super happy and loved that we spoke Spanish so he kept bumping up the Michael Jackson and Madonna tunes just for us. He was such a happy and nice guy and the food was great and we rather enjoyed our time there. However we couldn't stay away from the beach too long. We were only there for about an hour when we rushed to meet two other people who had just gotten there. Timing was perfect and we met them at the bus stop to travel down the coast a little ways where we scrambled around to make it on time for PARASAILING!!!! We made it and again, the boat driver was super cool and I talked to him for a little bit about where he was from. Turns out he's from France and has been in Mallorca for about 15 years. He even thought I was from Belgium so that was actually a neat compliment. I may not blend in with the Spanish but at least someone didn't think I was immediately from the States. It was actually kind of neat to be talking to a French guy in Spanish and occasionally English. Anyways, parasailing was so much fun! It almost didn't feel real when I was up in the air. I just was trying my best to remember it all and then on the landing, tried to make sure my bathing suit bottoms didn't fall off haha! We realized at dinner, that we were in the German hot spot of Mallorca. There were Germans everywhere and they were already drunk by 9pm maybe. Another cultural mixing was having Italian food in Mallorca, Spain, while surrounded by Germans and having a Dutch waiter. We finally made it back to our quiet side of town, which we realized later how thankful we were to be staying in an area with significantly less tourists and more locals, to explore what it had to offer.
I had the time of my life up there as you can tell
Look how high I was Mom!! You would have loved it
Day 3 started off at the same cafe for breakfast then traveling to downtown Palma to visit the cathedral there from the 15th century. It was really pretty and different somewhat from the other 6 cathedrals I've seen this trip. I say this sarcastically, but I really do love to see each and every one because they all have something different to offer. This one was the super high ceilings and the beautiful stained glass windows. Then we walked through swanky downtown Mallorca which reminded me of 5th Avenue in New York, and learned about the famous Mallorquin pearls (they are actually synthetic so I became less impressed with them). After making it back to our area, we bought stuff at the market to have a picnic at the beach and then caught some sun rays until we went to catch our ride with our ocean guide, Angel. He picked us up in the only vehicle I hoped for on an excursion like this and we made it out to a different stretch of beach to go kayaking. We kayaked to a cove where we then jumped off the cliffs!! so much fun! Then kayaked a lot more through super choppy water, definitely got a good workout, and then got to snorkel a little bit around the bay. Unfortunately it was too choppy to go out too far to see prettier fish, but I still really enjoyed it. We then relaxed a little at Palma's most famous beach bar which came straight out of a movie and then had a sunset kayak back to the starting place.
It was super cool talking to Angel because I just really enjoy hearing about people's lives and this whole trip I got to talk to people from all over the world in this one small island. He is from Tenerife in the Canary Islands, but lived in Alabama from when he was 2 until 14, then moved back here somewhere in Spain where he reached professional skateboarder status and then was a river rafting guide, and has been in Mallorca for 12 years now and owns this excursion business. He told us all about how Germans and British both have their areas of the island that they vacation to in the summers because of cheap flights. And we learned about how Mallorquins know 4 languages (Mallorquin, Spanish, English, and German) and some can go their whole life without speaking Spanish due to all the tourists. That's when we all were happy to be in a super local area of town and we had very positive encounters with everyone there. We were even able to impress them with our Spanish speaking abilities which was really surprising to me. Angel even offered to drive us to the airport this morning because his excursion didn't go out until after 11. So he picked us up this morning and drove us to the airport so we didn't have to pay for a taxi or deal with the airport bus.
Sometimes you just have to be nice and talk to people and be truly interested in what they are saying. You will get so much more out of a culture like that and you'll even experience the true generosity of the human race.At dinner we all were basically falling asleep so we just called it an early night and took off for the airport early on. We packed in so many activities for only being there for a little over 2 days and I loved every second of it: the people, the crystal clear beaches, and the adventure. I'm going to return here one day on my next Spanish adventure because I loved it that much!
Hasta luego!!
P.S. I had Starbucks in the airport today and never has a white chocolate mocha tasted so good
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