Anyways, I was envisioning some fun in the hot sun, swimming in the ocean and maybe even getting a nice tan. Although there was sun, it was not very hot, and unfortunately we were hit with some rain. However, less rain than we expected which was a plus, since upon looking up the weather for our trip the forecast read rain for the whole weekend. In the end it only rained for a short bit on Friday and on Sunday. Even though I didn't come back with a tan and it was too cold to swim, we all had an amazing time.
After being a bit delaying, the nine of us including myself, were greeted by the interesting mix of signs in the airport. We would later discover these types of signs would not only be in the airport because Mallorca has a huge population of Germans and English speaking peoples. It was a bit of a shock to see signs with Spanish, Catalan, German and English all in one. My host mom mentioned there are a lot of Germans, but I didn't know they would make up a large part of the population. Not only have I never experienced such a predominant mix of people, I have never been to and island before. Overall, I decided that although it was incredibly beautiful, and the water was clearest I've ever seen, I could never actually live on and island. It almost didn't feel real the whole time I was there, like it wasn't real life. I could definitely vacation on an island, but not live there permanently. Also, eventually I think I would feel trapped, surrounded by water and only being able to use a plane as a means of transportation to get anywhere else (duh, but you catch my drift). Hmm feeling trapped and semi-claustrophobic...I wonder where that stems from. Really though, I'll have to do some thinking about that.
Yay! I've been trying to add pictures to my blog, but this is the first time it's worked :) So now if anyone actually does read this thing you don't have to just read my shitty writing, you can look at pictures as well!
This is the view from the top of La Almudaina (the royal palace), on our first day. Que bonita!
This is the train we took to the other side of the island on the second day to a town called Soller. It's been running since 1912, and you can tell not only by the way it looks but by it's speed. Even though we were only going roughly 30 miles per hour, we got to Soller in a little under an hour, just to give you an idea about the train and how small the island is, and Mallorca is the largest island among the Balearic Islands. Inside I felt like I was on the set of Harry Potter and on my way to Hogwarts. We lucked out and the weather was beautiful and we arrived to this:
A couple of my friends and I got to play some frisbee on the beach, thanks to Taylor who brought a disc. I miss frisbee a lot, so it was nice to play, let alone on an awesome beach by the ocean. Taylor and I taught our friends from Mexico how to throw a little bit since it's not a sport in Mexico, they were a bit unsure how to play but I think they had a good time.
Next day came the rain and the caves. We decided to go to a nearby town called Génova to see some caves we heard about online. Well this nearby town turned into quite an adventure. None of the bus drivers knew what or where we were talking about, resulting in us waiting at the bus stop for over an hour. Finally after calling the people who worked at the caves we got a general idea of where we had to get off the bus we needed to be on. Unfortunately, we missed the stop anyways and had to walk a bit in the rain. We started seeing some signs for the cave, but when were arrived at a restaurant we were a bit confused. It turns out the owners of the restaurant give tours of the cave as well, so an old Spanish man led us underground, and the end result was worth the wait and walking in the rain. The caves were really impressive, although our old Spanish guide was not much of a guide. I think since there was a mix of English, German and Spanish among our group he was really trying to simplify the explanations and history of the caves.
A little exhausting coming back, but a great trip with some great friends. What's getting a little disconcerting is I am quickly running out of money and time here in Europe. There is still so much I want to see with little funds to do it with. I've been doing it the cheapest way possible thus far, RyanAir and hostelworld.com have become my new best friends, but still the expenses add up quickly. So hopefully I will be able to pull off a couple more trips before I leave, here's so hoping.
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