Palma de Mallorca

Last weekend, my friends and I went on our first real trip since we've been in Granada. Our destination was Palma de Mallorca in the Balearic Islands off the eastern coast of Spain. The Balearic Islands are considered an autonomous province of Spain, and Palma de Mallorca is a very popular beach town. Pretty much the only thing I knew about Mallorca before going there was that they speak Catalan and have nice beaches. 

I haven't really mentioned how travelling works from Granada, but it's honestly a pain in the butt. Granada is relatively isolated because it's near the coast yet surrounded by mountains, so it's difficult to fly in and out of the city. In order to get cheap flights on discount airlines, there is pretty much no way fly directly from Granada and the closest airport to Granada is in Malaga, which is about a two hour bus ride away. With that in mind, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that it takes FOREVER to travel anywhere. 

In order to get to Mallorca, I walked to the post office, took a taxi to the Granada bus station, took a bus from Granada to Malaga, took a bus from the Malaga bus station to the Malaga airport, flew from Malaga to Mallorca, and took a bus from the Mallorca airport to the hostel, which we actually had to walk four blocks to find. Although the buses are seemingly never-ending, the hardest part turned out to be maneuvering the airport. So far I've flown into three different Spanish airports and I've noticed a few interesting things. They all look pretty much exactly the same; they're very contemporary, open, and clean. Also, no one seems to talk in the Spanish airports. Everyone looks like they're talking, but the airports are freakishly quiet, which goes against the stereotypical loud, passionate Spanish people I've become accustomed to. 

Anyway, we wandered around the airport for a while before we found the desk for RyanAir, the sketchy discount airline we used. After we checked in for our flight, we went on a hunt for security, which is the same for all gates and doesn't make you feel like a terrorist like airports in the US. To give some perspective, we were allowed to keep our shoes on and one of my friends accidentally snuck in an entire bottle of spray sunscreen. We had a ridiculously large amount of time in the airport on the way to Mallorca because we wanted to get there early since it was our first time doing everything so we got free samples at the duty free shop and kept ourselves entertained. Although the airplane didn't have assigned seating and sounded like a rocket was taking off, our flight to Mallorca went smoothly.

Unfortunately, I caused a bit of a commotion as we were boarding our bus to go from the Mallorca airport to our hostel. As I was waiting in line with my friends to get on the bus, a man came up behind me and pushed me into the people in front of me. Everyone trying to get on the bus had swarmed towards the door so even though something seemed off when I saw him dart away from the bus, I just brushed it off, paid my bus fare, and sat down. For some reason, I went down to grab something from my purse and saw that it was unsnapped. I immediately got a sick feeling in my stomach and opened it only to find that my wallet was gone. I ran outside the bus to make sure I hadn't dropped it, but of course it wasn't here. When the man had pushed me, he maneuvered his body so that my purse was trapped in front of him so all he had to do was open it, get the wallet, and go. I called my mom immediately to cancel my credit card. Even though it completely sucked because he got my driver's license, debit card, and 200 euros, I'm fine and I still have my passport which is all that really matters. My friends were all extremely nice about the whole thing and lent me money for the weekend so I didn't starve to death. Despite my horrible first impression of Mallorca, I tried not to think about what had happened and enjoy my weekend.

When we arrived at the hostel traumatized from the wallet-knapping, we took some time to relax, recuperate, and get ready to go out. Our hostel was called Sol de Mallorca, which means sun of Mallorca, and it wasn't too bad. We had a private room for the five of us with our own bathroom. The beds were so close that I could touch the girl in the bed next to me, but it didn't bother me because I knew all of them. We ended up wandering around the area near our hostel and soon discovered that all the people there were either old, German, or both old and German. We went into the only dance club that appeared to have a younger crowd and proceeded to get hit on by Germans. They didn't seem to understand that they were in Spain because they would talk to us in German and then act confused when we spoke to them in Spanish or English. Why they assume that everyone speaks German, I will never understand. We danced for a while (surrounded by Germans) and finally called it a night. 

The next day we woke up surprisingly early and headed to the beach. We had planned on taking a bus to a beach further away from the hostel, but we missed the bus by thirty minutes and discovered that it only came once a day. Feeling slightly defeated, we went back to the hostel to see if the man at the front desk could help us. He told us there was a beach really close by, which we already knew about but didn't want to go to because it was so crowded. He then gave us directions to a beach within walking distance that, as he put it, wouldn't be full of Germans. We walked and walked and finally stumbled upon a stairwell that led to the ocean. 

This is everyone I was with on the trip (from left to right): Kayla, Erin, Monika, Gabby, and me.

It was the coolest beach I've ever seen. I don't even know if it qualifies as a beach because there wasn't actually any sand. It was just all these rocks that led into the ocean. We climbed over the rocks above and found an area with giant rocks we could lay down on. The water was beautiful and not nearly as cold as the water in Almuñecar. Below is the view from where we were sitting on the rocks. 

We spent most of the day there until we got hungry and went searching for food. Finding a restaurant was an adventure of its own because there was nothing close to us. We ended up walking for about an hour (even after we asked for directions) and stumbled upon a group of restaurants. We all ordered pizzas and inhaled them so quickly that the waiter was probably making fun of us in the kitchen. After lunch, Monika, Gabby, and I spent about an hour at the crowded beach while Erin and Kayla went back to hostel. When the rest of us got back, we cleaned up in the pitiful excuse for a shower and got ready for dinner.

We decided to take a bus to what is considered the downtown area of Mallorca. After wandering around for a while, we found this bizarre tapas place with a cross-dresser on staff. I was still so full from lunch that I couldn't eat dinner, but everyone else ordered pa'amb oli, a traditional Mallorcan dish of Mallorcan bread with garlic, tomato, olive oil, ham, and cheese. I had a bite of Erin's and it was delicious! After dinner, we explored downtown a little bit, but there wasn't really anything to do so we sat down on this ledge for a while to chat. These two guys walked by and one of the girls in my group grabbed their attention to ask for a good place to go. They told us that they managed a tour of some of the best bars in Mallorca so we ended up joining the tour because at the end of the night it would take us back to the area near our hostel, which had begun fondly referring to as Germany. I was ready to go home after about two bars, but it was a very unique experience to say the least.

We woke up on Sunday morning, got breakfast, and headed to the bus stop so we could take a bus to the airport to take a plane to take a bus and then get on another bus.

Some things I learned from my first trip:
1. Do research before you go, but also don't be afraid to ask the people there for advice. Erin had done a ton of research beforehand, but the man at the front desk of the hostel ended up giving us the most helpful information.
2. ALWAYS keep your hands on your purse. I thought I was being careful, but now I'm going to be even more careful. I'm hoping everyone else on my program will learn from my incident as well.
3. Separate your money, credit cards, and passport. I'm so glad my passport wasn't in my wallet and that I had another credit card at home, but I wish all of my cash hadn't been in my wallet either.
4. Mallorca is such a strange place, and apparently Germany is too because all the Germans seem to flock to Mallorca.

As a side note, my host parents were very worried and upset when I told them about my wallet. There's some sort of saying in Spanish involving beards that tells you to be careful when something bad happens to someone because it may happen to you too. It proved to be a valid concern because the day after I got back from Mallorca, my host mother's purse was stolen while she was in a store in a nearby city. It's kind of a long story that's actually really funny when my host parents tell it together, but they had a horrible day. Now my host mother keeps saying we can be sad about our wallets together.