My trip to Majorca
Well, last week I was on holiday in the afforementioned Spanish Island, so here's what I did whilst I was there.
It's the Island labelled with the city Palma - that's the capital
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=UTF-8&hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&ll=40.178873,5.229492&spn=13.220257,29.619141&z=5&om=1&output=embed&s=AARTsJonLBOP5MmQ1Yz53ZhZZSNp4hz7Cg">
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http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=UTF-8&hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&ll=39.656456,3.161316&spn=0.833131,1.851196&z=9&om=1
We were in Sa Coma, near Calla Minnor, on the East coast. Neither of those are shown on the scale of the map. The nearest town that's shown is Manacor - but we were about 5 minutes walk from the coast.
So without further ado, here are the details of our trip.
Thursday night I was very late to sleep because I hadn't packed yet (surprise surprise!), and we had to get up at 3.30am in order to get to the airport on time, so I had about an hour - you can guess how I was feeling the next day then!
Friday 7th Sept
Well, after a drive to Manchester Airport punctuated only by sleep, we left the car in the airport and took the shuttle bus over to the terminal. The queues in Manchester were looong. Our plan was to get a breakfast, we ended up at Burger King because the queues were shorter than the cafe and with just enough time to spare to buy a bag of sucky sweets for the plane, we made it onto the flight with no incidents.
I had a window seat on the plane, a blessing which I thoroughly enjoyed. The meal was a bit crap and not worth the £6 we'd paid for it, but the view was well worth the extra money. England really is made of at least 70% country side, it takes a plane trip to see that. And it is SO MUCH GREENER than France or Spain! Flying above the clouds makes you realise that when you look up and think they're so far away, they're not. And flying over water is a great experience because it just goes on and on. Makes you realise that the Earth actually is BIG. And God sees all of it, and sees the course that the Earth takes through space; but He also sees every single shoot push it's way out of the soil and begin to grow. Magnificent :-) I thoroughly recommend taking a plane trip, even if you just go up and come back down in the same place again. And this was only 2 hours, imagine how much more you could see if you flew round the whole world?
Upon arriving, Mum's suitcase didn't, so that was the first 'event' of the holiday. After dumping our bags we went straight to lunch and then I returned upstairs for a nap whilst Mum, Tony and Lucy set off exploring the complex where we were staying.
Getting ready and going out for dinner happened, and then we rounded off the evening with a few drinks and watching Flamenco dancers, which was the provided entertainment for that evening.
Now, Friday I think was the most boring day, but it had to be written about. For the sake of everyone's F-list though, the rest will have to be cut.
Sat 8th and Sun 9th
After the welcome meeting, we spent the morning of Saturday in or around the pool. Lucy and I were mucking about in the shallow end, giving each other piggy-backs and shoulder rides and best of all, practicing The Lift out of Dirty Dancing. A late, light lunch was followed by some more lazing around and then the first excursion of the holiday in the evening. Entitled 'Moonlight Riding', 3 of us mounted the "automatic" horses (who just walked one behind each other in a line) and set off for an hours excursion around the ranch in the sunset, whilst Mum, who is scared of horses, rode along in the Sangria Wagon instead. Many jokes were made about those being on the wagon were actually "off the wagon", but we all got back together as darkness fell for a brief bit of line dancing and then barbequed food served to us whilst we were sitting at long tables with benches. More line dancing followed this, and it was only on the coach afterwards, approaching midnight, that it occurred to me it might be worth asking if there was an English speaking church in the area. The guy on reception couldn't speak English and didn't understand our faltered attempts at spanish either (he was german), so the matter was unresolved as we went to bed. Tony, who has travelled the world and knows at least a small amount of many, many languages, had another practise at getting the grammer right and was willing to ask on my behalf the next morning, but we all got up late and I missed breakfast so we figured that even if there was one I had probably missed the service by now. Mum no longer needed to borrow clothes from Lucy and I because her suitcase had turned up on Saturday evening. It turns out it had never left the UK until they sent it specially Saturday afternoon, but it was returned and so all was well.
Instead, on the sunday I reverted to my original plan which was just to do a bible study by myself on the day. I had a solitary lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon just chillaxin in our room. Lucy and I had contemplated going on a trip to the Marine land, seeing the dolphin, parrot and seal shows for the sunday - in fact we'd paid for it - but the the trip was cancelled, which was a good thing ecause I think the rest di us good. Sunday was the day that the others found the beach, and spent some time there. I can't remember much about the evening, so I assume we were in the hotel that evening as well.
Mon 10th
Mum wanted to visit a local market, so on Monday we headed off to the one at Manacor on the local bus. They'd given us 50 Euros each so I had some of my spending money with me. I bought a beaded necklace for 7 Euros, which was the only thing I could have haggled on but I didn't. (Haggling is the norm in Spain - at least it used to be, that may be changing.) I saw a pretty headscarf I wanted, the guy told me it was 5 Euros and I said I'd think about it.
I carried on browsing round, saw pretty skirts for 2 Euros but left those as well, and I did buy a rainbow striped belt, also for two Euros. Not 'gay pride' kind of stripey, like many you see around here, but with vertical stripes, and because it was a multi-tonal rainbow, there are 14 colour used overall. It's pretty. :-)
Now, for the story of the fan. When we arrived at the market I said I needed one so I did look out for a fan stall. Every fan I've ever seen has a picture of the place it's from on the actual fabric, and has loads of lace around the edge and they aren't very pretty, so I said "but not one with a picture of Majorca on it, and if I can, I'd like a plain one." Briefly a picture came into my head, but I figured trying to find one like that may not be likely, as long as it didn't have a picture of Majorca on it, I'd be happy. SO, I get to the fan stall and the first one I see is EXACTLY THE SAME as the fan that I had briefly pictured!!! It was wooden, not plastic, like every other fan I've ever seen, it didn't have lace on it and the PLAIN fabric on it was bright blue - the EXACT colour I would have picked if I was designing it myself! AANNDD, it was only -1- Euro, when all of the other nice ones were 3 Euros. And it was the EXACT SAME one that I'd seen. Obviously I bought it, of course thanking God for it at the same time. Was it already there and God gave me a vision of it? Did He see my vision and put the fan there himself? Did He cause someone to make it for me, or did He see someone make it and think of me? Did He send the fan to the market we would be at, or did He send us to the market where the fan was? (We were looking at markets on 3 different days and more or less randomly decided on that one.) I don't know. And I had only thought that I would by a fan as we began exploring the market, I hadn't planned on it but there it was. Fabulous. Thanks Father :-D
And that was just a little 1 Euro fan, which did come in exceedingly useful, not only as a fan but also a sunshade and a fly swatter, to name but a couple of things. So how much more is He going to look after me in all the big things??
I bought one of the pretty skirts with beads on as well. They had many colours but I settled on the Navy. This meant I had 3 Euros left - not enough for the headscarf, but I was alright with not having it, I had my fan. I did walk back to the headscarf stall, wonderring if I should haggle about it, and I enquired again about the price of the one that I liked. The woman on the stall served me this time, and guess what price she said - 3 Euros!!!!!!! Wheee!! So a pretty headscarf for Katie too!! *bouncebouncebounce* I think Katie is finally discoverring her inner girliness - Whoo!
I sat with my book at the meeting place waiting for the others, and after we'd come back and had lunch, we went for a round of mini golf. None of us were as good as expected, and so for the first course, which had a parage of 56, I came last with 107, Mum and Lucy tied for 2nd with 97 each, and Tony won with a score of 87! Whee!
In the evening, we went away from our complex and found a British pub, where we did the pub quiz. Yeah... . We didn't come third, like we usually do in pub quizzes, we came second on the tie breaker question [so it was joint first really.. :-) ], and that was Monday.
The rest of the week will go up soon because I have to go now - it's Tony's 60th birthday today, we are going out for a meal.