Us in front of the Palma Cathedral.
Because I'm an American teaching British english, I have started unconsciously starting using some of their vocabulary. Saying I'm "on holiday" rather than vacation is one of them. I got to put my british english skills to work this weekend when I went to Mallorca. Mallorca is one of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea (off the coast of Barcelona) and also one the hotspots for the English to go "on holiday". It was extremely strange to still be in Spain yet the majority of the shops, restaurants, and bars were owned and operated by English speakers! I don't think I spoke Spanish to anyone for the entire weekend, which was weird. However, Mallorca was absolutely gorgeous! The crystal blue beaches were surrounded by cliffs and mountains making for photo ops everywhere. We stayed about 20 minutes outside of the capital city Palma at a beach called Santa Ponca.
Tory, Allison, my friend Lauren from frisbee and I arrived at the Palma airport on Friday morning and took a bus to our hotel. Our hotel was kind of like the hotel in Dirty Dancing where they planned activities for the hotel guests during the day. However, it was like the hotel hadn't changed since about 1975 which was both hilarious and creepy. But hey it was 7 euros a night so I wasn't about to complain. We were active participants in the hotel activities doing everything from rifle shooting, to bingo and trivia. After we ate and got some groceries on Friday it was a little cloudy and cool for the beach so we decided to head into Palma to explore. I was surprised at how beautiful the city was, the buildings reminded me of Sevilla but less colorful. We got off the bus on the shore near the cathedral which was amazing and gothic like all Spanish cathedrals. After taking lots of pictures around the cathedral and the surrounding gardens we had a drink then explored the surrounding streets. We saw the Plaza Mayor and went into some of the jewelry shops because Mallorca is famous for their pearls. I didn't buy any pearls but Tory got a beautiful silver bracelet with the Palma city symbol on it. After we saw some of the city we walked along the coastline which was really beautiful. We got back to our hotel just in time to play trivia and were 2 points away from winning.
The next day we woke up to join the hotel staff leading rifle shooting hahaha. Well, it was actually a BB gun but it was really fun! I was really lucky the second round and hit the target so I ended up coming in second in the competition! After rifle shooting we packed some sandwiches and heading for the beach because it was really warm and sunny. We spent the whole day relaxing by the beach and enjoying the scenery. To cool off we walked back to the hotel pool which had a slide!! We couldn't resisted going down the slide a couple of times (more than the kids at the pool). Then we showered off, ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant and then hurried back to the hotel for bingo! I secretly think we are turning into 80 year old women. We were really close to winning but a 9 year old kid walked away with the 34 euro prize. We stuck around for another round of trivia but didn't do as well as the first time because it was on 80s and 90s songs in which you had to name the title and artist to get full points. After a great weekend we were really sad to leave Mallorca and go back to the real world. On top of that, hearing about more of the volcanic ash cloud everyone was secretly hoping our flight would be canceled and we would be forced to stay another day (bummer, I know). But, we made it safely back to Madrid where it was raining and cold. Coming up I will be doing a lot of traveling with frisbee tournaments and my brother Jack coming to visit me!!!
Testing out my rifling skills.
Santa Ponca Beach.
Tory, Allison, and Lauren in Palma.
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