16 March 2014

Palma de Mallorca is for old people

John and I spent a week in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. We get to spend a lot of time together when we're not on vacation, but my early bed time puts a damper on our together time as I have to squeeze in my 7–8 hours of REM before catching the 6:45 am bus. I'm always exhausted during the week, and more exhausted on the weekend when we spend all day skiing. This vacation was perfect for going to sleep together, waking up together, and doing a whole lot of nothing together.




The last day was the only day warm enough to pass on the beach. We wasted no time walking the whole 2 minutes to the beach from our apartment in Cala Millor. Even the sun was out, the wind was still slightly nippy so we warmed up with some Warrior sequences and beach yoga poses. The delicious sea breezes and warm sun rays were the perfect treat to the last hours of our vacation. 


This picture above is how the locals do things around here, I suppose.


Poor John got sick on vacation. He got the strep throat the night we got to the island. The first half of our vacation was me reading his grunts and moans since his throat hurt so bad he could not speak. I even read his mind. We played rounds of 21 Questions where I never even came close to guessing the object. He was a trooper. He fought it for 3 days until it got the best of him. We went to a doctor after walking a mile between doctor's offices because "the doctor will be back in half an hour" is the local custom in Palma. Finally, he got his medicine and was so much better. Here he is after drinking a cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice.
 

On Day 2, we rented a motobike and rode through the center of Palma. We found a free museum of Spanish Contemporary Art, which was awesome. So much Picasso. We walked to the great cathedral of Palma, which seemed as large and monumental as the Notre Dame in Paris. We bought post cards for our Wall of Post Cards at home. And ate McDonald's for lunch. It's the only thing substantial and affordable in Europe, ok? We took the moto further and ended up at a construction site for wickedly huge mansions on their own private lagoon that empties into the Mediterranean Sea herself. We hiked up and around the lagoon's edge and found a little shack where we imagined our own mailbox and lots of sandy children passing their days in the sun and on a boat. The day finished with the prettiest sunset I have witnessed in a long time.










Have you ever seen a cat climb down a tree?


My favorite thing on vacation is breakfast. At home I never have time for a decent breakfast. John usually shoves a granola bar or half an apple in my hand as I walk out the door to hurry to the bus stop. So I definitely indulged in breakfast for the past week. It is my favorite meal of the day. Every morning we laid out the spread of milk, cereal, bagutte, jam, cream cheese, chamomile tea, avocado and baguette, and oranges.




On Friday, we took a bus to Los Cuevas Drach, the Dragon Caves. They are limestone? caves made up of THOUSANDS of stalactites and stalagmites. Also a live classic orchestra doing all Mozart covers while floating on a boat on the underground lake. It was very, very cool. There were no tour guides to explain why caves look like this, so we consulted wikipedia afterwards and learned some very, very cool stuff. Afterwards, we walked to the center of Cala Millor and had fish and chips for lunching while watching the Paralympics. They were so inspiring! After lunch, we walked up and down the street and found this naughty beach towel that was so absurdly ridiculous we had to take a picture of it.



7 days of vacation is l.u.x.u.r.i.o.u.s. We spent it with each other as well as every senior citizen of Germany. It was wonderful and I'd do it again, but first I gotta make a difference in the world and work and be productive and stuff.

Hasta, Palma.

xoxo