Mallorca

I've found that, as expected, my years of education in Spanish haven't prepared me for jack. I'm sure most of that is my fault for having a leak in my memory bank, but a problem's a problem. Thankfully, since I spent the last five days in a mostly tourist-themed section of Mallorca, Spain, most people I needed to talk to understood English. And, oddly, German. 

Having not done a ton of research before heading on this trip, I was surprised when the six of us on the trip ended up in a hostel in the German section of town. Pretty much everything was written first in Spanish, then English, then German, and occasionally a couple other languages, including Dutch. 


Our group had had some experiences with linguistics before, with me probably the least proficient of the group, but thankfully our touristy tendencies saved us from being totally lost most of the time. We were visiting an island that was a commonwealth of Spain. We did what anyone would do. 


We went to the beach, ignored the fact that it wasn't quite warm enough for that (the water was ESPECIALLY cold, but that didn't keep some of us from swimming), took bunches of pictures of the city (parts of it were ancient) and we even visited the local aquarium. All of this with only a couple instances where someone had no idea what the hell we were talking about. 


I actually kind of admire the barkers along the beach. They'd spaced themselves out every 10 yards or so and always had something to sell you. A guy with a fistful of watches, a girl offering to braid your hair (even mine!), someone inviting you to a restaurant, a guy selling sunglasses, an elderly woman offering massages. They'd invariably talk to you, walk with you, ask you didn't want to buy their item, it's so cheap! By the way, apparently everything in Mallorca's half price. 


They really bothered me at the time, but they've got to make a living somehow, you know? What makes me admire them is the fact that some of them were actually trilingual, at least when it pertained to sales pitches (how many languages can you say "no" in?). One even went so far as to cross the street to talk to our group one night. He wanted us to visit his bar, and asked us where we were going. 


All six of us, in unison, replied, "home." 
"And then where are you going?" 
Again, all of us replied, "home" and walked off.


Oh yeah, we're party animals. 


All in all though, it was a whole lot of fun and I'd recommend Mallorca to others, although they'd probably do better to hit it in June or July, when the water is swimmable to those folks who don't have ice running though their veins.