Life in Palma

First off, I apologize for not having written in so long; to say I’ve been busy would be a blatant lie, I’m just lazy and enjoying the town.  Please forgive me…

The weather here is still nice, I can’t believe it.  Right now, It’s 11:30 and I’m on our balcony sipping coffee in the sun, a few wispy clouds are in the sky, and it’s a high of 70 today.  It’s kind of interesting though, in the mornings and evenings, it’s freezing (almost literally), but the afternoons are still pretty warm.

I’m finally getting situated at my school and trying to pick up a couple more hours (during the two hour lunch period) teaching English to the professors.  Most of the teachers ate the school are friendly, though during break they speak to each other in Catalan (a regional dialect, kind of a Spanish/French mix) and it’s impossible for me to understand.  To combat this, I’ve registered for an online class in Catalan.  I’m going to try to learn at least a little bit but we’ll see how the ‘teach yourself’ method goes.  They have workbooks at school that I’m going to try to obtain too.  I will keep you all posted.

Our biggest news this week is that we FINALLY have internet in our apartment!  Long gone are the days that we had to buy a café con leche (coffee w/ milk) at a restaurant just so we could use the internet.  Thank God.  And now, I can skype with people on a decent connection.  If you’re on skype, feel free to chat me up at kaylaesmith.

 In slightly more exciting news, last weekend my friends and I (about 10 of us) traveled to Manacor (small town, about an hour away from Palma) to go to a few bars and have dinner.  While we were out (around 2am) we saw Rafael Nadal!  Manacor is his hometown and he was back for the weekend visiting friends and such after playing in a tournament.  We ran into him at two different clubs and were able to get a photo with him!  He seemed like a nice, down to earth guy; he was taking pictures with everyone who asked.  Anyway, it was a late night-the clubs here close around 6am and we got the first train back to Palma.  Made it home and in bed as the sun was rising at 8am.  Needless to say, I was worthless for all of Saturday afternoon.  Worth it.

We have another holiday this Monday, All Saints Day. Kind of like our Memorial Day I think, though they told me it’s also Halloween, so I’m not really sure what people do on the actual holiday.  I don’t have to work though so I’m not complaining.  I have today off as well (Friday) and need to run a couple errands.  Better do that before siesta (STILL trying to get used to that, it’s going to take a while…)  I’m thinking about getting a bike, one of my roommates has one; I would love to be able to exercise while exploring the city.  The nutella (chocolate/hazelnut spread) is starting to catch up with me. 

I also need to reserve/order a turkey.  Since, apparently, no one eats them here (they’re not in stores), I have to go to a carnicería (butcher’s shop) and have them get one.  I just hope it’s de-feathered and dead before they hand it over, otherwise you’ll all be hearing about that experience.  We’re going to cook Thanksgiving this year at our apartment (again, I hope to God it works out) which, could be an interesting feat because our oven is rather small and, extra bonus, there’s not temperature dials.  It’s just a fire.  I think I’m going to give it a test run today with some cookies (if I can find vanilla extract, good lord that’s a tough one).  If this completely fails, mom, I might need you to send me some vanilla and some almond.  Amanda and I just want chocolate chip cookies and we can’t find brown sugar, vanilla, or almond.  I’m sure they have it somewhere though, I’ll keep looking. 

Oh I almost forgot, we went on a short hike last weekend as well.  The scenery is so beautiful over here; you have the ocean on one side (well, all sides) and the mountains on the other.  We climbed up a trail to a castle on the side of a hill and the view was amazing.  We could see the port and out into the ocean.  For any visitors that are coming this way, it would be something fun to do one afternoon. 

Well, I better get this posted and run my errands before the daily shutdown.  Keep me posted on all of your lives, I love the emails!  Un beso a todos, chau!

Getting Situated

Needless to say, a lot has changed since I’ve last written.  I now have an apartment, a working phone, a few friends (yay!), and I can find my way around the city (for the most part).  I live with three other people, two Americans (Amanda and Dan), and a British girl (Becky).  They’re all pretty laid back and easy to live with; I got really lucky with the random roommate situation, thank God. 

We did have a few issues before Amanda and I could get the keys, which was extremely frustrating.  I was reminded multiple times of how much I despise siesta and the ‘no pasa nada’ (don’t worry about it) attitude that a lot of people have.  Our day started with the two of us trying to exchange Amanda’s traveler’s checks for cash.  Easier said than done, since NO ONE would take them.  We walked from bank to bank, standing in lines, only to be told that, absolutely not, why would you want to exchange traveler’s checks?  We FINALLY got to a bank that had a sign on the window saying they could do the exchange.  Perfect!  We waited in line for about the 20^th time that day, again, only to be told, “Well, this branch doesn’t do it.  The bank on the other side of downtown does it.”  So, with light at the end of our god forsaken tunnel, we make the trek to a Banesto bank on the other side of town.  We arrive at 2:10pm and banks, apparently, close at 2:00pm.  For the day.  Between the two of us, we decided to just withdraw the cash we needed for our apartment deposit and say, “screw traveler’s checks.”  Well, after my debit card got denied (at three different ATMs) I figured something was up.  I told Amanda we needed to find a café w/ Wifi ASAP so I could Skype my bank and tell them to let me have my cash, this is some type of emergency.  I call, and they say, “NOOOOOO you may NOT take out more cash!  You’ve reached your limit for the day, you have to wait til tomorrow.”  What.  I said, “Listen, I need to put money down for a deposit, since, I’M STILL HOMELESS, and it would be FAAAAANTASTIC if I could take it out of my own account.”  Abbbbbbsolutely I may not.  Well, that’s perfect.  Thankfully, the person Amanda was staying with offered to loan us 600 euros so we could still pay our deposit.  Woo hoo!  We can get our keys!  We went to the office to sign our lives away and arrived at our new home moments later.  There are a few things we need to get straightened out, like internet, a few kitchen appliances, and cleaning supplies, and how to work the washing machine, but other than that, we’re very happy living here.  It’s centrally located and about a five minute walk to our friends’ apartment.  Below are photos of our apartment.  The first is me (obviously) in the kitchen, next is our dining room, followed by the living room, and lastly, the view from one of the balconies.

Today, instead of unpacking and cleaning our rooms, we decided to hit up the beach.  This was my first trip since being here and I was amazed.  The water was crystal clear and there were rocks and sand to lie out on.  One thing I am going to have to get used to is the way the natives embrace their bodies.  Probably about 1/3 of the women I saw today were topless, either laying out or swimming.  Some were also in thongs.  Extra bonus.  I mean, I guess it would be nice to not have tan lines…  At any rate, though I’ve witnessed it all before, I was still slightly taken aback.  We all looked out the bus windows (the city bus takes you right to the beach!) and were speechless.  I really hit the jackpot by being assigned to this city.  It was so nice to lay down in the sun and enjoy the scenery, especially after we’d had such a terrible day yesterday.  We’re definitely going to have to hit it again soon.  Photos below are me arriving at the beach, and the view from the coast.  Be thankful I spared everyone the topless beach goers.  There were some bad ones.

Tomorrow I’m planning on walking to my school, about a 35 minute walk from the apartment, according to Google Maps, just so I can figure out the location of everything.  I’ve also been looking into calling one of the language schools here and possibly teaching a couple more English classes.  My friend, Hollie, apparently got another job with them and it pays really well for the time you invest.  It would be nice to have a little extra cash for traveling and stuff so I’m going to see what I can do.  Right now though, I’m just sitting on the couch, listening to music (in my own apartment!).  

One thing I did forget to mention is, Amanda and I witnessed (and participated in) a strike!  Here, and all over Spain, there was a workers strike on Wednesday, the 29th for a lot of businesses and public transportation (busses, trains, Metros, etc).  I’m not entirely sure what the strike was over, besides small businesses wanting the same rights as larger companies, but it was quite interesting.  People were marching with flags and other signs here in Palma and on the news, we saw a lot more in other cities.  The major cities, like Barcelona and Madrid, were feeling the effects of the strike a lot harder than we were here.  Many busses were egged and there was a photo of a police car on fire.  Below are a couple pictures from Palma:  The first is the crowd, followed by a march of people holding a sign written in Catala (the local dialect here), and last is another picture of the march, with people holding flags (we each got one!) and a tombstone with RIP.