May 7, 2008. I’m back to running, which is nice. David went to soccer practice and we (the parents and grandparents) watched. I spoke Spanish with Jose, my 70-year-old friend. We’re off to Mallorca tomorrow and the weather forecast calls for rain the entire time! Should be great.
May 8, 2008. We left for the airport this morning, late, to go to Palma de Mallorca. Instead of Easyjet, the discount airline for our trips to Geneva and London, we used ClickAir. The European skies are filled with these discount airlines, some are better than others. It turned out that ClickAir was far superior to Easyjet which means we got on the flight, it wasn’t crowded, we had seat assignments, and there was no push to get on the flight.
Arriving on time in Palma, I took my car rental certificate and tried to find the company I booked with. Turned out they didn’t exist. It took about an hour to rent a car, mainly as a result of the mistake on my part (travel agent!). After we finally got a car, we walked out to the lot, and they gave us the wrong car. About an hour later I received a cell call to that effect, but it was good enough and didn’t smell of smoke; generally a problem renting cars.
The beach was nice, but it was windy and almost cold as a result. The boys and Anne settled in for some soccer, best played with swim goggles to prevent sand from entering the eyes. I went for a long run on the beach, and got to the next town down, which was pretty ugly and unimpressive despite the boardwalk redesign/rebuilding that they recently appeared to have commissioned.
We found the hotel with little problem, and it’s on a beach that is populated by similar hotels which I would classify as family-friendly, cruise-ship feeling.
In fact, as part of the deal I got (and the first real deal I’ve gotten while traveling in Europe), I got a travel agent rate that included breakfast and dinners. All you eat.
So, speaking of eating, we went down to the buffet and they sat us at a table. We ordered our waters and the kid at the table next to us had what I believe was mid-stage TB. It wasn’t a problem, apparently, for his parents who didn’t bother to tell him to cover his mouth when he coughed up the germs and such and spread them throughout the place. After about 10 minutes, it was just too disgusting and we moved tables. The food was okay.
Anne and I were discussing Mallorca and how it compares to other places we know. It’s similar to Maui, yet drier; it looks like Florida but it has mountains. The only way you know you are in Spain are the piles of trash everywhere. For some reason, the Spanish are slobs and there is no public awareness that littering is bad.
May 9, 2008. It’s raining today. That’s expected but not terribly welcome with two boys on a beach vacation in Mallorca. There is an annual reenactment of a battle between the Moors and the Christians staged in a town about an hour from where we’re staying called Port de Soller. We drove over there, through picturesque towns including Bunyola and Santa Maria and a three-kilometer-long tunnel, in a heavy rain at times. The island is carpeted by volcanic mountains and has tons of narrow, serpentine roads many lined with stone walls for kilometers attesting to the age of the civilization. Some of this stuff must be more than 20 years old. Every inch of ground seems to be cultivated, with stone terraces on the steepest hills. The rock work everywhere is impressive, with steps and walls everywhere.
In any case, we found Sóller and neighboring Port de Sóller and the tourist information place only to find out the annual reenactment of the battle actually takes place this coming Monday. I asked the woman who seemed bored who was likely to win the battle, which she thought was funny and told me we’d have to see to find out.
There was a heavy rain most of the day, which makes travel difficult and makes a beach vacation a horror.
May 10, 2008. It was very cloudy this morning on our “Mallorca Beach Vacation”. Cold too. Nonetheless, we went to the beach this morning and I went on a run to the Nature Reserve next to our hotel, which was full of German bird watchers. This place is pretty much German, a few Swedish and very few English. I got back after about 1:20 and it started to rain that very minute so I helped Anne return to our room from the beach at which time the sky opened and buckets of rain came down.
We ended up playing the day for whatever sun we could get, eating lunch during the main downpour and then getting out to the pool during the periods of sun. David especially liked the kid’s pool that dumped a huge bucket of water every 4 minutes and 51 seconds on whoever was standing below.
We ate our “cruise ship dinner” and attended the kids play right away. Joshua mentioned that it was puerile and David noted that it had a Milli Vanilli issue.
May 11, 2008. Mother’s Day is today and we managed to call both mothers from here using our cell phones. The boys and I gave Anne a nice card and each made other cards for her. Even though the forecast was only 20 percent chance of showers, they are here (again). Everyone is so desperate for sun, that the minute it comes out the pool is populated by white European people ready to get a tan, albeit to no avail since the rain comes within minutes in this weather system.
It’s getting pretty tiring but we have lucked out so far with our vacations, so it was inevitable. In any case, we are enjoying our time and it’s a really nice place – Mallorca. We are all getting pretty good at ping-pong, along with some of the other guests, who are turning out to be Scandinavian and German, it seems, for the most part. We are the only Americans, I believe.
We are entertaining ourselves by eating (a lot). It’s a buffet and you can go up as many times as you like. There are people clearing your plates every minute or two and you are not discouraged from eating as much as possible. Every night is different, sort of, and it’s always a fun surprise. It’s how we imagine a cruise ship to be, without any experience. As for experience, the only thing close is eating at the Azouz’s house in Aspen with Caroline cooking.
I went for another long one hour long run into the wet nature preserve and jumped puddles. There are tons of “birders” or bird-watchers, which must be a big thing to do there.
May 12, 2008. It looked like another rainy day but we managed to get a morning at the beach until about 1:00 when I went for a run and as I departed, it began to rain (again). David and Joshua have enjoyed not just the beach, building sandcastles and such, but also the pools and especially the children’s pool with its bucket that dumps water every 4 minutes and 51 seconds. David tried to get hit by the bucket of water and turned out to be the entertainment, with Joshua reminding him that he had a big audience.
May 13, 2008. We are leaving today so predictably the weather improved. On the way to the airport we stopped in Valladamosa, famous for Georg Sands and Chopin’s winter of discontent. He had TB, she an attitude, and the locals thought they were just horrible. She wrote a book which was essentially her lengthy complaint about Mallorca, made the place famous, and so the town became a huge tourist magnet. And it was.
Back in Barcelona, it rained here too. They needed it but they have a water problem that they are trying to solve with many solutions, all of which are costly and it’s very confusing to try to figure out what they are doing. Our taxi driver told us it was all a ploy to get more money, since water is privately provided here.