So I had soooooo much fun while Tyler, Drew, Chris and Chasen were visiting. It was great to see familiar faces from home, and it reminded me of how much I really miss all of you :)
Where to begin??? We did quite a bit...
So when the guys first got here we were kind of in a hurry. I had to be in class in a hour and we still had to take the bus and drop off all their luggage at my place. But we actually made it in time, although I don't know that they were too keen on sprinting right away :)
Taking the boys with me to class was quite possibly one of my favorite parts of their visit here in Palma... not to mention the kids loved it too! They got really excited when they asked questions, and were more than eager to practice their English with them. We played an ice breaker called "two truths and a lie" (which is pretty self-explanatory)... and the kids were pretty good overall at guessing the boys' lies. So after one class, Joana (the teacher I work with) took the boys on a quick tour of the school and then set us loose. I was expecting to have to finish out my classes that day, but I guess it wasn't necessary. They are pretty flexible with me at my school :) ... I was really grateful for that during their visit.
So that first night I took the guys to the crossointerie that my teacher owns and they gave us free snacks and hierbas (a typical Mallorcan liquor). Then we went to one of my favorite local hangouts (which is about a block from my apartment) called El Sarao. I call it the "bruja bar" because the entire inside is decorated with brujas (witches). It's really pretty interesting. We played some UNO and had a couple drinks and then we decided to call it a night. The guys were pretty tired after the first day of traveling.
The next day after class we decided to hit the main spots in Palma. We went to the Cathedral and walked through the old part of town. I showed them the town hall, the main plazas, shopping areas, and of course, the beach. We took lots of "Faith plus one" pictures where all the guys posed as if they were taking a picture for the cover of a Christian Rock album :) It was hilarious, and only suitable while in front of the Cathedral.
Later that night we went out for some Kebab at this place by my house. Got a great salad with loads of meat.... delicious....and the boys were pretty happy with their meals too. Later that night we went to a bar with over 100 types of beer (including a gluten-free option for me and Chasen!) Anthony had told me that he had seen one on the menu before when he had gone there, so I thought we should check it out. We met up with Anthony and Pablo that night too, so we could finally put the names to the faces we had all been talking about. We didn't get too wild and crazy that night, as it was in the plan to go to Soller in the morning.
Soller was great. I decided to show them the tourist route by going on the old rickety train. We had fun yelling in the dark tunnels and looking down at the ground as it passed us by while standing outside the cars. About an hour and a half later we got into town. We took the trolley down to the port (which I had never done) and looked for a place to eat. We found this quaint little restaurant that served paella (papaya to you Drew) overlooking the pier. It was fantastic. The food. The company. The weather (for the time of year). Everything.
After lunch we walked up to the top of the hill to go look out off the rocky cliffs nearby. Wow there were some great views. We were really high up there :)
Next stop: the women's Soller basketball game. Carly and I have gotten to know a couple of the players on the team and we had promised one of them that we would go (and bring more fans). Unfortunately, the girls lost the game. It was still fun to watch, but talking to the players after the game was depressing. I guess that game was a deal breaker and they should have won it. So we didn't stay long to hang out with the others. While all the buses stopped running to Palma after like 8 o'clock on the weekends, we caught a ride with our friend Miguel. I layed on the boys lap; it all worked out in the end.
When we got home we started thinking about the night ahead of us. Encarna and Helena had planned to have people over for dinner and I had invited a few others too, so in the end there were about 25 of us or so... lots of fun. We sat and played cards at one table with all the Spaniards ate dinner and conversed at the dinner table. It was kind of awkward seeing as how the guys don't speak Spanish and only one of the Spaniards spoke English. So yeah, there was a lot of translating going on.... :)
Then we went out. We went to a couple of the places I like best on Paseo Marítimo, the main strip down by the port. It was a good time, although with such a large group of us it was hard to keep track of everyone. So we stayed out until about 5:30 or 6 in the morning (which crazily enough is early for people here) and took the Bus de Nit back to the center of town.
Then there was Valldemossa... and ancient town hidden in the mountains of Mallorca. We grabbed some food from the market and sat down on a bench and had a picnic when we got there. The guys tried some typical foods from Mallorca, some panadas and some coco rois. Then we walked around town a bit. We hit up lots of souvenir shops and grabbed a few drinks at some local cafes. We sat down at one of my favorite spots and the guys ordered some cocos de patata (or sweet potato rolls covered in powdered sugar) and some chocolate a la taza (like hot chocolate but thicker)... I snuck a bite too even though I wasn't supposed to because of the gluten :)
We also went to the Real Cartuja, which is an old monastery that was known to have been home to Chopin some summers. With the views you got from some of the rooms, it was no wonder how he could have been inspired to compose some of his music. It was simply gorgeous.
I wanted to show the guys the Bellver castle up in the mountains, but unfortunately by the time we had gotten there the inside had already closed. But it was still cool to show them the outside and the views from up the mountain. We hung out in the garden and the moat and took lots of pictures. Still well worth the trek up there.
OOOO! Another cool thing we did, which I had never done before, was hit up the aquarium! Palma has a really big aquarium out by Arenal, which is a really beautiful beach, and so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and go see them both. The aquarium was awesome. There were all different types of exhibits, from "the Jungle" to "Deep Sea Creatures" to little critters like seahorses (which were some of my favorites). I really liked the turtles too... they had these spiky scaley parts of their shells that stuck out like armor. It was pretty cool to see, especially because its not every day you see a giant tortoise. The sting rays were pretty awesome too though. We got to see them feed... I thought they looked like Kirby from the old video games.
It was a great day to go to Arenal. Too cold to swim though. But we did have a great time walking along the beach, skipping stones and collecting shells. Then we searched for the best place to grab a glass of sangria :)
Thanks guys for such a wonderful week. I really had a great time! I can't wait to see all of you again :)
