Mallorcan Mensajes: Tourist

Tourist season here in Mallorca is quickly winding down, and without a mass of human obstacles, the streets are far more manageable. A lack of tourists also means that the already lazy street mimes have no reason to expend the effort required to leave their homes and sit on the street. It baffles me that these people make money, but this is neither here nor there.

Maybe the tourists have the right idea. I spent this past weekend in Barcelona and encountered the worst bout of rain I’ve experienced in a while (in any country). I met my Grandma there on Friday afternoon and I think that from then until Sunday afternoon we had about four hours of dry weather. However, those four hours were used very wisely. You might be wondering: how can one use four hours wisely? Well, there is obviously nothing wiser than sitting on the top deck of an obnoxiously colored tour bus and riding around the city. So we did that until it rained again. Barcelona is still a gorgeous city in the rain, but without sunshine it loses a little bit of its majesty. It’s too bad that my Grandma couldn’t see Barca in all its glory, but a good time was had nonetheless. Given that there really wasn’t anything better to do, plenty of tapas (and cervezas) were consumed. We also had an awesome paella dinner at 7 Portes. (Side note: it was demanded that I include an anecdote from dinner: Two women at a table next to us said that they were unsure whether my Grandma was my mother or my grandmother) Anyway, now that my Grandma is happy, you might be concerned that we were slightly disappointed with this Barcelona weekend, but let it be known that I have no problem with food being the main source of my happiness.

As unlucky as it was to see so much rain, we did ultimately have a very nice time in Barcelona. We saw all the sights (Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Barcelona Stadium, Christopher Columbus Statue, Port) and despite the conditions, we ended up walking around a good amount. I would say that this was roughly 98% motivated by my Grandmother’s attraction to every souvenir shop in sight, but regardless of how much time was spent shopping, we did see a lot of the city in between.

You might think that returning to the island would mean sunshine (as it usually does). I’m with you, but sadly, we had another day and a half of rain. Contrary to popular belief, the rain in Spain does not always stay mainly in the plains. It clearly ventures to the eastern coast and islands on occasion. Again though, some great food (and a few drinks) solved the problem. Once Tuesday rolled around, the sun decided to show itself.

My Grandma had some time to walk around during the day when I was in class, but once the books were closed and the clouds were replaced by blue skies, we ventured to the very limited number of Mallorcan hotspots. A visit each to Soller, the Bellver Castle, the Passeo Maritimo, and various plazas and we had essentially seen all of Palma (with a bonus of Soller). I think that the two final days of sun really turned the trip around. It’s sad when an already limited amount of vacation time is further limited by inclement weather, but gladly, Palma is small enough that a day or two is more than enough to really get a good feel for the city. For those first few days of rain, I thought that summer had left for good, but I haven’t seen a threatening cloud in the sky since Monday.

Just because summer is technically gone doesn’t mean that we have to let go of the summer mentality. As I’ve stated, the tourist season is basically over, but I’m still here for six more weeks. When it’s not raining, the weather is still 70s and sunny, and I still run on the beach almost every day. I still have a trip to Madrid with my family and then, finally, the extensively written about ten-day tour of Europe. The weeks are flying by, but I still have six more weeks of shorts and t-shirts. Six more weeks to be a resident, and a tourist.

Aside from my Grandma’s visit, I have also gone on some very interesting field trips with my classes recently. Last Friday we went to the “Consorci de la Playa de Palma”, which is a huge government project to overhaul an antiquated touristic beach area. Miami did something similar in the last 15 years, but here in Palma, a huge portion of the financing (35%) is public. This project is slated to cost over €1 billion and is the first of its kind in Europe. It’s currently in the planning phase with a projected completion year of 2020. I feel that this project is very ambitious and with the upcoming change in government here in Spain (elections November 20^th), finding all the money (public and private) will be very difficult. We’ll see though. It’s the first of its kind. Much can be learned.

Finally, the benefit of my late post is that I can talk about my excursions from today. First of all, I woke up at 7:40 in order to be at the cathedral at 8:00. The entire cathedral was full when I got there, and for good reason. Today was one of two days during the year when the sun is positioned correctly to completely illuminate one of the giant rose windows and project the colors on the opposite wall (see the pics). It was really cool and definitely worth waking up for. Once this was over, my econ class went to the Microsoft Innovation Center for Tourism Technologies and to the office of LogiTravel.com (a Spanish expedia.com) which was awesome.

Overall a great week: great to see my Grandma (who hopefully had an excellent visit) and a few good excursions as bonus. Tomorrow I will do the most important thing I will do during my time here: learn how to make paella. Be kind to me and I will share my knowledge. Until next time.

Matt