Saturday was so wonderfully lazy and spent with 2 of my new fave people -- Brittany and Chelsea. We intended to go to the beach, but we ended up everywhere else in Palma instead. We had snacks and very expensive water (that the waiter spilled a glass of) at my favorite cafe. We went to a few stores but mostly just walked around.. and talked on a street corner for 2 hours without realizing that so much time had passed. Those are always the best conversations. :) We went to Brittany's to talk more, and I spent the night (because I haaaate walking home late, and I love sleeping over at friend's casas). We watched The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in Spanish and some other horrible movie partially in Spanish, until we figured out how to switch it to English.. Hey, it was 2 in the morning, and Spanish just didn't make sense any more haha.
We had planned on going to a city called Alcudia on Sunday with a group of 5 girls, but due to hard to decipher bus schedules, we missed the bus by 15 minutes. We decided to go to Manacor instead just to do something. That turned into quite an adventure haha. We got on the train to go (this was my first legit train ride!!) to Manacor, which is a city on the complete opposite side of the island. I love trains. (miss you Joey!!) The first part of our exciting adventure was when one of the girls, whom I am not going to name, had to pee very badly. This problem was resolved by another girl in the group cutting off the top of a giant water bottle with her key, and the anonymous urinator taking the bottle to the back part of the train where no one was sitting and literally peeing in a bottle in one of the little seating areas of the train while one of the other girls stood guard. Basically, we were all crying from laughing so hard. It was definitely the most epic pee of her life. At the next stop, she threw it out and came back to sit with us while we laughed even more. We noticed the director was going by and making everyone get off the train in the random small town we were in, without saying why. Someone asked him why we had to get off there, and he said... wait for it.. another train ahead of us hit a donkey, so they had to close off the tracks. Much more laughing ensued, until we realized we didn't know how we were going to get to Manacor nor did we really know where we were. I can't believe the weird things that happen to me here!! It's just one hilarious thing after another. God must really want to make me laugh. The director said a bus would be coming to get us soon, so we waited in the cold rain for a while until it came. He told us we had to wait 20 minutes to get on the bus, so we ducked in a little restaurant for some bread nom noms while waiting. We rode the bus for a while until we got to Manacor. Once we arrived, our first question was, "uhhh, is this Manacor?" That's never a good sign. It was just a typical medium-sized Spanish town and didn't really seem special. We really didn't care about anything at that point except for finding food. We wandered around the rainy streets in our own umbrella parade, asking random people smoking outside their homes where the city center was, until we found it. Exciting... not. I shouldn't hate on it so much though, since most things are closed on Sundays. We found a little restaurant, one of the few open, that had a special daily menu for 8 euro that included paella, some type of fish, wine, and dessert. It's kind of hard to say no to that (about $12 for tons of food). After ordering the daily special, they brought us two bottles of wine and lime-flavored sparkling water to mix with it. We thought it was only one glass per person, so we were pretty excited. My favorite drink is vino tinto (red wine) with sparkling water.. it is SO good. We heard a microwave ding (seriously.. they microwaved our paella, and the microwave is near the dining area so you can hear it ding), and the lady brought out our paella plates full of seashells, oyster shells, tentacles, and crab claws and legs.. aka something none of you ever thought I would touch, since I don't even like touching bones in steak or chicken. It was pretty good, not the best (my host madre's paella is my favorite). It was fun/kinda gross digging through the shells and picking inedible things like pointy crab feet out of my food. I didn't eat the crab claw or legs, because I couldn't get them open (and kind of didn't want to...). After that course was taken away along with a plate full of shells, we were brought a very strange fish dish (that had also been microwaved) with what appeared to be hardened microwaved mayonnaise on top. Let's just say we all took 2-3 bites then mushed it all together and covered it with napkins. Gross. After that, she asked us what kind of dessert we wanted. We all opted for a small piece of cake and hazelnut ice cream. That was definitely my favorite part of the meal aside from the bread and wine. The ice cream was incredible, and the cake was neon yellow. Ohhh, Spain, how I love you. We trekked back to the train/bus station after our long lunch and waited for the bus to pick us up since the train wasn't running yet (apparently it takes all day to clean a donkey off train tracks). After a bus ride and an extremely long train ride due to the train being broken and running at half its normal speed featuring a beautiful sunset, we finally got back to Palma. Also, on the train on the way back, I smelled smoke with my smoke-detector-like senses. Sure enough, while looking past about 20 no smoking signs, I see a lady with a cloud of smoke around her. How inconsiderate. There was no ventilation, and we were all coughing and being loud, hoping she would get the memo. She didn't, so Hannah said something to her so she put it out on the floor. Again, how inconsiderate and disrespectful. We had to move to another train car, because the smoke was so horrible and did not go away. I really just can't believe some people. We all headed home to rest, especially me, because I took a 4 hour nap. My host mom thought I was sick haha.
Today I only had 2 of classes, because one (my earliest one) was canceled. I also got stuck in a hail storm walking from school to the metro, which was quite exciting. I haven't really done much today other than go to class and sit on my computer. The best news today is that I am going to Barcelona this weekend! My friend Hannah has had a trip planned for a while, because she has some family friends there. We were talking about it the past few days, so I decided I would go too! I booked my flight and hotel today. We are leaving Thursday night and returning Sunday evening. We also got tickets to see FC Barcelona play a game! I know that I am not a huge soccer fan, but I think this is something everyone in Spain needs to do at least once. We are literally on the last row, because it is almost sold out. I can't wait to see all the beautiful architecture and explore a new city! Tomorrow is "el dia de les illes baleares" which means no school and festivals! I have no idea what to expect, but I am excited to see everything. I will definitely be doing a post about what all happens tomorrow!
Hasta luego,
Lynne
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