November 2009
I’m a bit behind in pictures but they’re coming soon.
Saturday, November 21: Kayaked through the lagoon and then out past the beach. Later Robert was swimming and swam with a sting ray for a while while I joined Hannah at a water polo game followed by beach volleyball. We’ve met a nice family from Canmore, Alberta. It really is the people that we meet that make traveling fascinating.
Friday, November 20: Robert and I woke up and rushed off to a “spinning” class with Adrian before breakfast while Hannah did the teenage thing and slept. We walked into Puerto Aventura today but it is small with not much happening. Mostly it is too hot to be out in the mid day sun. It will be interesting to see if we can get motivated to do more once we arrive in Akumal next week.
Thursday, November 19: I suspect the days aren’t going to vary here much from day to day while we’re at the resort for this next week. So far we get up, eat, lay on the beach, eat, lay on the beach some more and then eat again before we go to sleep. There is a great crew of program staff people that try to motivate us to get up our of our beach chairs and play games. I also went off to a “fit ball” class which was different and fun. Robert played water polo and bocchi on the beach with coconuts.
Nov 19, Our beach
Wednesday, November 18: We woke up this morning to paradise I think. In the evening we did a family “spinning” class before dinner.
Nov 20, a holiday from our holiday
Nov 17, Goodbye shoes
November 17: A day of traveling back in time. 10.5 hours on a plane is far too long! But the final reward of being here in Mexico is great. The air is warm and humid. Our resort spectacular.
We had fun in Madrid but no time to do much at all before we left in the morning as it was an hour metro ride back out to the airport. There was so much to see but the memory that is going to stick is Hannah throwing away her favorite shoes so that she has room in her backpack to carry juice with her to the airport.
November 16: One day in Madrid is just not long enough.
November 15: We’re packed and ready to go. We’ve definitely decided that we won’t say good-bye here; we plan to come back.
November 14: Hannah wrote here first away midterm today. James, our upstairs neighbour, agreed to invigilate it and it seems to have all gone well.
Novemer 13: Home sick today but managed to drop by Ágora Portals school anyways just to have a chance to meet one of the Special Needs teachers there. If I wasn’t feeling crummy, I’d be thrilled to have finally started to have some exchange with a school “away”. After that I had a low key day, just a trip to the post office with Hannah and an afternoon nap. Dinner in the evening with Kim, Rafa, Marta, Victor and Pacha.
November 12: Today is our 27th anniversary! We celebrated with a trip to the post office to ship home a 20 kg box of stuff, all the things that we thought we’d need for our 10 months away, but don’t. It will be much better traveling from here on with lighter baggage. After stumbling through our spanish exchange at the post office we celebrated with a coffee at Maria’s kitchen in Palma Nova and then did a bit of shopping for cards. I can feel us all winding down as the weather cools off and we start to get set to leave the island. To top it off Robert went for a swim and got a good jelly fish sting and I spent the evening trying to pretend that I’m not coming down with a cold.
November 11: Way too cold for swimming today but I tried anyways. Then spent the rest of the day warming up. After yesterday’s adventure we stayed more local except for an afternoon/evening trip into Palma. Hannah did her shadowing for Planning 10 at International House, where Kim work. Kim arranged for her to shadow a young, energetic English teacher who works more with children. The experience was fun for Hannah. She enjoyed “playing teacher.’ When we met up at the end of the evening, we decided to go to Akbar’s in Portal Nous for a final East Indian meal before we head to Mexico.
Nov 11, Waiting outside International House
November 10: Acludia market, Port de Acludia and a picnic at the entrance to Cap de Formenter. This was a fabulous trip with a good market and a fabulous drive. We had a picnic lunch at the entrance to the Cape, with amazing views.
Nov 10, viewpoint
November 9: Port o Pi shopping center. Robert bought shoes which of course, he’ll probably return. Robert swam in the morning but it was cold. I opted for a nice long walk the roundabout way to buy groceries.
November 8: Hannah played soccer in the morning. Robert and I went into Palma Nova for an early morning walk and to find a coffee. Ended up in yet another shoe store, still checking out shoes for Robert…. and I bought sandals. We came home to a wonderful Spanish lunch with Kim and Rafa and then went for tea in the countryside with Rafa’s friends Andreas and Flor.
Nov 8, Time out at soccer
November 7: Hannah hasn’t been feeling well at all these last few days. We tried to cheer her up with a little “retail therapy” but even buying her a backpack didn’t really help. So we brought her home to rest and Robert and I set off again to shop, an uncharacteristic outing really. We found a large Walmart type store, Alcampo where I am happy to report that Robert did not like the shoes. We revisited Festival Park, still a rather dead and unattractive outlet mall and ended up not purchasing anything. It was a fun outing though, a nice diversion from sudden downpours of the rain. With all the talk of “the crisis” here, it was interesting to see the Alcampo mall packed with shoppers.
November 6: We made it up and out early this morning for the Algaida market but it was a dud so we decided to drive cross-country to catch the tail end of the market at Bissen…. The drive was really beautiful. Some of the roads we’d been on before but today the lighting was perfect and we had the roads completely to ourselves. A real highlight was walking by a lovely little local winery where we were invited in to taste wine.
Nov 6, a local winery
Nov 5, Soaking up the history at Bellver Castle
November 5: Today we went shopping for new shin pads for Hannah and shoes for Robert at the Decathalon store. I suspect Decathalon is a big European chain but it seems to have pretty good quality stuff and reasonable prices.
From there the highlight of the day is that we went to Bellver Castle which was ordered built by King James II of Mallorca in 1300. It is distinct in that it is a circular Gothic castle, maybe the only circular Gothic castle…. ah the downside of not being able to read all of the literature about it. Currently it houses a museum which does offer descriptions in english as well as catalan, german and spanish but I found very little information about the castle itself. The space was beautiful and again, echoed with history that you could actually feel. The castle sits up on a small forested mountain between the harbour and the main highway from our side of the island into Palma, so the 360 degree view is spectacular.
Nov 4, Crossing the torrent at the waterfront.
November 4: Winter is definitely trying to get a grip on the island. We’re determined to keep swimming for as long as we can though and so today with the wind swinging in more from the north we decided to try swimming off of the beach at Illetes. Kim and Cobo came with us though Kim had to leave early which just confused Cobo. The water was definitely a little cooler and pretty churned up. We got bounced around but had fun all the same.
We can’t seem to get enough of Palma, the beautiful old stone alleyways, the restaurants tucked in to courtyards, the terraces and balconies, the colourful shops and the wonderfully ever-changing street scenes as stores open and close at odd hours throughout the day, street performers trade off corner beats, school children spill out onto the streets and parents shift back and forth from work to play. The smells and sounds mix it all into an enchanting scene that I find myself wanting to completely soak up. So today we parked way out of Palma and just let the late afternoon turn into evening as we walked and ate our way through the “mazeness” of it all. I love the surprise of coming across places that we’ve been before, this time with a sense of where we actually are. Robert was happy to revisit his favourite hamburger stand. We re-found the cheapest gelato stand and also bought some chocolate coated pastry.
November 3: A day at home to catch up on photos, blogging and for Hannah to do school work. Talked to Christine and Wes on Skype this morning. We are still amazed at how easily we can stay in touch with people from so far away.
Nov 3, Graffiti at the fort
No new pictures today so this one if from yesterday when Robert and I walked up to the fort here in Bendinat and took some pictures of the graffiti.
Nov 2, We never tire of the colours, sounds and smells of the street markets
November 2: We drove to the market in Manacor then on to Ponto Cristo for lunch and some sight seeing. We’re starting to shop a bit for a few souvenir type things to send home in our box which we hope to mail this week. The prices in Ponto Cristo were good even for lunch, though I may finally be tiring of the Mallorcan type pizzas I’ve been eating everywhere. We had dinner in the evening with Kim and Rafa. I was happy too to finally catch up with Judith on Skype.
November 1: My worst swim ever, also probably my worst spanish day. I just wasn’t really understanding anything that anyone said in spanish. I think probably I was dehydrated after the hike yesterday and so I spent most of the day laying about not feeling great. Honestly though, this isn’t a bad place even to not be feeling well. Marta and Victor came by to visit Kim and Rafa. Kim cooked a beautiful lunch and we spent several hours together. Before and after, I just slept.
