For Meade's "mid-term" break last week, we had the opportunity to visit Mallorca, which, as you may know, is an island off the east coast of northern Spain. We stayed in an apartment owned by the couple that Meade stayed with (and befriended) when he first arrived in England. Mallorca can be a totally fifferent experience depending on what one is looking for- it is comprised of fancy all-inclusive resorts and gorgeous beaches as well as poor, sleepy little towns. Like anywhere I guess, except that the juxtapopsition of these setting so close together on a small island makes it more notable. The town in which we stayed, Campos, is definitey as far from fancy resort as one can get. We did not see one other tourist while in there. The town was quaint, though kind of dirty and run down at the same time. The people there were friendly an happy. Unfortunately, we have no photos of the town.
We had read that they speak Mallorquin, which is a version of Catalan spoken in Barcelona, etc., and that they did not necessarily speak Spanish. However, we found that in general everyone spoke Spanish (and minimal English) and enjoyed the opportunity to use our Spanish. German was spoken more often than English, at least in the areas we visited- the place was full of Germans and some English and not a one American that we encountered.
As far as the wonderful Spanish food we had been looking forward to, after two consecutive nights of attempts at eating in restaurants, with Aaron breaking a fancy glass of milk one night and Linnea the next, and overall unenjoyable for all, we decided to avoid the restaurants and eat at home whenever possible. Luckily, Meade is of course a fatastci cook, so we enjoyed paella a la Meade, shrimp and rice, tostones, platanos, fresh fruits, and good, inexpensive wine in the comfort of our little apratment while the twins slept. During the day, we pretty much subsisted on baguettes, cheese and pork (mainly salami). Between the four of us, I'd say we consumed about 70 baguette sandwiches. It reminded us of our independent travels in Europe years ago after college, living off baguettes and cheese and nutella. It is cheap and it works. A few days into the trip, I asked Linnea and Aaron what was their favorite thing about Mallorca, and they answered, "the airplane" and "pirate's booty and goldfish crackers," which they had on the airplane. So simple, isn't it?
The kids transitioned to a 9am to 9pm schedule easily (it is one hour later there, and the other hour was a gift), which was fantastic. We generally went to a beach in the morning, they napped in the care mid-day, and then, you guessed it, a playground in the afternoon. However, for two days, it poured rain, so these days were less fun. On one of the rainy days, we took the highly regarded train ride from Palma to Soller. The train is a fragile-looking wood paneled train that has been in operation since 1912. Aaron loved it. The rickety train travels through countryside, olive gardens and mountains to the charming town of Soller in a valley. The town was quite lovely and, I am sure, interesting, but nothing is very much fun in a rainstorm with two three year olds, so off we were on the next train back to Palma where the rain had stopped and we found a playground.
