Mallorca

Krishna and I are currently in Valldemossa, Mallorca. Mallorca is an island off of the coast of Spain and it is a very popular destination for German tourists who want to party it up at the beach, so there is a direct flight from Nuremberg to Palma de Mallorca. It is the low season for tourists and there's no way I'm going for a swim right now, so we're staying in a little bed and breakfast slightly inland. Mallorca normally has mild winters, around 50-60 degrees, so of course they are currently having an unusually snowy winter. I'm not complaining though; I'll take 40-50 degrees any day instead of 10 like it was in Nuremberg. There has been a fair amount of snow in the mornings here because Valldemossa is at a higher elevation, but it all melts in the afternoon when the sun comes out. Valldemossa is a cute little town. When we arrived my first thought of finding our B&B by the color of its shutters was completely dashed when we saw that the entire town is comprised of old stone houses and every single one has green shutters. Maybe they only sell green paint in town? Yesterday we went for a nice hike where we may or may not have walked an extra mile or two up a mountain due to navigational error. But, the sun was shining over the snow-capped peaks and we were hiking alongside orange and lemon groves, so I really enjoyed the beautiful scenery even while we were slightly lost. We got back to the part of the walk where we were supposed to go down crumbling old stone steps that we had missed the first time, due to the helpful directions given by a guy who asked us where we were from and when I answered USA, he responded with "Ah, California! Santa Monica, Pamela Anderson!" Baha! Apparently she is still popular with the male population of Soller.

We also later got turned around trying to find the bus station in Soller and when I asked two women where the bus stop back to the 210 bus towards Valldemossa was, the younger one (the other lady's daughter perhaps?) said "It's too hard to explain, so I'll just show you." It turned out they lived near the bus stop so she walked us there and we thanked her a million times for being so nice. When Krishna and I pool our Spanish vocabulary together, we can (mostly) be understood or at least flounder around until we find someone who will help us out in English or German (but so far we have not run into anyone else speaking Gujengleutsch). I was proud of myself for asking, "Donde esta la estacion de bus para el bus 210 de Soller a Valldemossa?" and I'm not even sure if that is grammatically correct or not. We had to wait awhile for the bus but were slightly entertained by the guy who played his music for us, including "Oooh baby, I love your ways," and also by the drunk man in a long black trench coat and hat who was stumbling around with a beer can in hand while trying to read the bus schedule using his lighter.

Today we went to several wineries in Binnissalem and Santa Maria del Cami (and I added a few bottles of olive oil to my olive-oil-stockpile) before we had lunch in Palma at a lovely little place recommended by two women who were walking by. Before I left for Germany, Krishna told me to stop eating pork for awhile so that I would be running a pork-deficit before I ate it for an entire month in Germany, but the same thing can be said about Mallorca/Spain too, especially for those of us who abhor seafood. Spaniards also eat late; lunch is normally around 2:30 and dinner at 10! Our bed and breakfast serves a continental breakfast of fresh fruit, Spanish cheeses, Serrano ham and sobbressada, bread with tomato and olive oil, coffee, the most delicious freshly-squeezed orange juice, and little cookies, one of them topped with toasted pine nuts and the other rolled in powdered sugar. I will get the recipe for that second cookie before we leave, I promise! So especially yesterday, it was a good thing to stock up at breakfast time because we didn't get lunch after our hike until 4:30 and we were too tired to stay up for dinner (and we're getting old, apparently).