After our short flight across the water, we landed in lovely Palma de Mallorca, the palm tree laden island paradise where Julia works. This was a Monday, and Julia had school neither Monday nor Tuesday, for reasons unbeknownst to her. On our shuttle from the airport to town, however, we met another language assistant named Dave who enlightened us to the reason for the vacation - Día de las Islas Baleares, Balearic Islands day. This would be Tuesday, so we put a pin in it and spent a relaxing day exploring the town. Because I was still recovering from my stupid illness, we took it pretty easy and decided to have a lazy night in, making a super delicious goat cheese and veggie pizza and watching Mamma Mia. I say we made a pizza, but really Julia did most of the work while I hung out with Charlie, the enormous sheep dog of the family that she lives with, and my new best friend. Charlie had the good fortune to be the first dog I’ve been around since I left home and my two puppies died, so we spent a lot of time together during my stay in Palma.
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| isn't is precious? |
The next day I was fully recovered, so we headed to the Castell de Bellver, one of just a few circular castles in Europe which is conveniently located just across town from Julia’s place. We climbed the 504 stairs up the hillside to the castle where we were lucky enough to experience a break in the clouds for some wonderful views of the island. This was actually one of the only monument type things I did/saw during my whole vacation, and it was definitely a good one. After we took a good many pictures of and around the castle, we wandered back down the hill to a nice picnic area where we enjoyed some fruit, cheese, bread, and sausage. Not quite the paddle-boat picnic which is normally the only time I see Julia each year, but lovely in its own way. Later that afternoon we decided to check out some more of the town, with plans to see the cathedral and a few important boulevards. On our way to the cathedral we stumbled upon what appeared to be a little street market to celebrate the Balearic Islands, with all local and traditional foods and crafts. We decided to check this out and hit up the cathedral after, but this was no little street market. It wrapped around 3 boulevards (one of which was entirely lined with palm trees), and had more cheese, sausage, and leather goods than I’ve seen in one place. We sampled a good deal of the former two, and near the end while watching some women make traditional donut-hole like pastries and debating whether we could manage 12 of them between us, we were offered samples – lovely!
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| we certainly didn't have such stylish life vests on our Palma picnic |
By this point we’d sacked the cathedral and were heading back towards Julia’s when we stumbled upon what was probably my favorite single experience of the vacation. We could hear music from a square up ahead, so we followed it and pretty soon we were on the edge of a plaza that was filled with people dancing to traditional mallorquin music (which I found to be surprisingly similar to traditional English music – think pride and prejudice). These people weren’t just dancing, though; they were doing a mesmerizing circle dance, each circle led by 3 or 4 dancers with castanets. There was a lot of spinning and jumping involved, and there were people from 4 to 84 in each circle, all seeming to at least understand the basics and taking cues from the leaders so it all flowed very smoothly. At the end of the song during which we arrived, one of the guys in the band made an announcement (in mallorquin, so we had no idea what he said), and all of the circles collapsed into one big group near the stage with a sizable open space in the middle. Everyone seemed pretty excited about whatever was going to happen as two dancers took their places in the middle of the clearing. As the music began, the couple started circling one another, slowly at first, then speeding up with the music until they were at a pace quick enough to begin the twirling and jumping of the previous dances. After a minute or two, a woman came out from the crowd and twirled into the place of the first woman, who twirled away into the crowd. After a bit another man came to replace the first man, and the cycle began. Whenever anyone felt like it, they would spin into the place of one of the dancers, and stay until they were replaced. Sometimes a man would spin in and shortly after his wife would spin in and jokingly push the first woman back into the crowd, and the dance would become closer and more romantic until the next person came in. Young and old alike were dancing, including a boy of about 16 who stayed in and held his own for a surprisingly long time (the men always had to dance a little longer than the women, who were more eager to join in). The music was continually growing faster and faster until the original two dancers found their way back to the middle and finished off in an impressive and dizzying jump and twirl. I am absolutely in love with Mallorquin dance, and I can’t express how joyful it felt to be in that square and feel the community of the dance. That one dance could have strangers dancing together with huge grins spread across their faces as well as couples, bringing the spins closer and keeping their eyes on each other – it was absolutely spectacular. This was the last dance, and as we left the square with the dissipating crowd, I felt a general happiness around me.
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| another bit of traditional dancing we came across earlier that day, but this time with traditional garb to boot |
That evening was the Ruta Martiana, a weekly festival of sorts, where all the bars in a neighborhood of Palma have ‘rutas,’ or 2euro caña-pincho combos. Pinchos are tiny toasts to go with the tiny beers, with a variety of toppings, from anchovies and cheese to curried potato salad. In an evening reminiscent of our night out in Madrid, we went to three different bars, having 4 or 5 rutas before heading in for the night. The next day Julia had to work, so I spent the morning doing laundry and hanging out with Charlie, and the afternoon exploring the town (this time the cathedral made the cut). That night we made some chicken curry and hung out with the kids of the family, Sergio, a 13 year old boy, and Monica, a 16 year old girl (as well as Monica’s friend whose name I don’t recall). My entire venture in Spain surprised me with how much Spanish I actually learned during my 3 semesters at Willamette, and I found that I could understand nearly everything that was said to me, but had the inability to respond. I did understand that the girls were going to Madrid to see Bieber, and managed to form a sentence (with Julia’s help) – “soy muy celosa.” The next morning Julia made some delicious apple scones and we enjoyed a leisurely brunch on the patio, and before I left we made some traditional Morrocan avocado milkshakes to prepare me for my journey south. I said goodbye and got my shuttle to the airport where the next chapter of my vacation commenced.
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