This weekend I went to the beautiful Spanish island of Mallorca with Molly and Mimi! We were bummed we had to miss Wofford's Spring Weekend this year, but this was definitely a great alternative. I flew to Mallorca's capital, Palma, on Friday morning and waited for about an hour for Mimi and Molly to get in from Barcelona. Landing in Palma had made me so antsy to get outside and on the beach! Our landing took a while, but was beautiful! Our plane seemed to just hover over the island for about 20 minutes. I was eye level with beautiful mountains, turquoise waters, caves, and mansions. When Mimi and Molly finallyyy landed in Palma we took a bus to the city center and then transferred to another line that would take us to the outskirts of the city, where we were staying near the beach!
Our hostel, Hostal Mimosa, turned out to be nice and quaint (always a relief in the world of hostels!), overlooking Cala Nova Port. We changed into our bathing suits as fast as we could, so eager to make the most of such a beautiful day on the beach! We walked for about twenty-five minutes to a beach called Illetes. There was a beach club right on the beach with an amazing menu, and an even better view, and needless to say we felt like we had arrived in paradise! After my lunch of a salmon sandwich with avocado, we got settled on the beach and went into full relaxation mode. It was so nice to really feel like we were on vacation and to get a good dose of some much needed vitamin D after a long winter. Molly and I tried to brave the beautiful turquoise water of the Mediterranean, but it was just too cold to go in deeper than our knees. After our perfect afternoon on the beach we went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner.
We walked down the street and found a cute and cozy restaurant, Port Cafe, for dinner. The restaurant ended up being a favorite spot of the British beach goers who had a very strong presence in our neighborhood. It was fun for me to be surrounded by some English speakers and for a few hours we really didn't feel like we were in Spain but in a pub in London. After another great meal in Mallorca, we headed back to our hostel and called it an early night.
On Saturday we woke up early to take advantage of the free buffet breakfast provided by our hostel. It was a treat! After breakfast, it was pretty cloudy outside so we decided to take a walk around our neighborhood and wait for the sun to come out. Eventually it did and we headed back to Illetes. This time we walked a little bit further past where we had spent Friday afternoon and discovered another beautiful beach. We spent some time here, giving our cameras' self timers a workout. We then headed back to our favorite beach club for another tough round of decision making with the delicious menu. I finally settled on a grilled cheese, something I've really been missing! I think Mimi and I were both drooling over Molly's baked brie though. Unfortunately Molly was enjoying it so much that we didn't get to try it. After lunch, armed with our daily ice cream, we went back to our little spot on the beach and laid out for the rest of the afternoon. However, this afternoon wasn't as peaceful as Friday. On one side of us, we had some British boys playing an intense game of frisbee (I have a bruise on my stomach now to prove it), and on the other side, some Spanish boys were playing an even more intense game of futbol. To entertain me and Mimi, Molly asked the British boys if she could play frisbee with them. Their game kind of died down after Molly joined in though, so Mimi and I didn't get as much of a kick out of the whole thing as we though we would.
After getting ready at the hostel, the three of us took a couple of bottles of wine down to the beach to watch the sunset and soak up every last bit of the island that we could! This was definitely one of the highlights of my weekend. It's moments like that, just laughing and chatting with my best friends, that I have really missed the most about home! We had such a good time that we forgot to eat dinner until about 10:15. We are true Spaniards now! We ate dinner at a place called Monkey's Pizza and got nachos and pizza. Not our healthiest meal, but boy was it good!
This morning my flight back to Madrid was at 11:05 and Molly and Mimi's flight to Barcelona was scheduled for 12:40. However, due to a little volcano in Iceland, air traffic in Europe is a complete disaster. Luckily, the Madrid airport is up and running so my flight was on. Molly and Mimi did not share my luck. They are still in Mallorca as I type, back at the Hostal Mimosa. They will be taking a boat back to Barcelona tomorrow afternoon but I will let them elaborate on this! The timing of my flight was fortunate, as it was one of the last ones to leave the island before the Palma airport closed down. I ran into a group of people from my program in the airport who had a flight a little bit later than mine, and they are currently stranded too! Hopefully this whole thing will clear up soon! What a disaster!
It was so hard to leave Mallorca this morning after such a perfect weekend! I have to admit I am a bit jealous that Molly and Mimi are still there right now, although I'm sure they think I'm insane for saying that considering their circumstances! Well, what I really wish is that we had just had more time there! It is a beautiful island and one that we definitely needed more than 2 days to explore. Maybe one day I will get to go back! Thanks for a lovely weekend Molls and Mimi! Hope you're enjoying the Jamrock Cafe right about now...
