Mallorca

We went to Mallorca this summer. It was a truly amazing place to go, to see, to eat, to swim and to beach yourself in the sand. We had the privilege to stay in one of the oldest villas on the island that also happened to be right on one of the beaches. The villa itself was truly poetic. The architectural style of it was an undeniable nod to Moroccan design and it had intricate shapes and formations that enveloped the structure. We had a huge yard in the front with a cabana that overlooked the beach and the back was beautiful as well, covered in grape vines and equipped with a wood burning oven.
The majestic beauty of Mallorca is firstly noted when one sees the turquoise waters that seem to never end. They are dotted with patches of deeper, more intense hues of blue and protected by naturally formed cliffs of jagged rocks that are inhabited by the local and wild goats. The goats peruse the hillsides of Mallorca, eating God knows what and "baaing" frequently as all the German tourists ( many, many) make the interesting choice of sunburning their often fleshy bodies on the lounge chairs.
We rented a paddle boat for 10 euros for an hour and paddled out to the coves, dove into the unspeakably pleasing and warm water. Afterward, we laid in the sand and drifted in and out of sleep whilst enjoying the Mariachis singing "Guantanamera" at the beach bar to a table of hungry Germans.
The world cup was going on while we were in Mallorca and to watch the U.S. V. Ghana match we decided to walk to Don Pedro, a seemingly normal middle of the road hotel where all the German and British visitors were staying. Well, normal it was not. The minute we entered the bar on the bottom floor of the building, we heard a "version" of "Proud Mary" that made me want to pluck out my own eardrums. "Karaoke?" I thought. No, not karaoke, rather a trio of hired, horrible, haggard performers who were decked out in red sequins. The two women in the group looked like ex-cruise ship performers and the one, very gay man just seemed to be relieved to be performing at all. Oddly, the small TV that was playing the match was off on a side table next to the stage, in order to watch the game, we had no choice but to be deafened by "Rollin, Rollin, Rollin on a river- ONE MORE TIME!" over and over again as we pleaded amongst ourselves for the madness to cease. The audience was full of old British and German couples who looked like something out of the Shining's ballroom scene, drinking cheap wine by the bottleful and digesting the Paella buffet dinner they'd had an hour prior. Needless to say, sitting in the smoky, dark room that held all this, the sweat, the booze and the glitter eye shadow, made me want a shower desperately. To make things even worse, once all had been endured, the U.S lost the match to Ghana.
Once we left the Don Pedro, I felt that I was once again on sane ground and we walked back to our villa, the sea sloshing in the warm, blue night.
While staying in the Villa, we had the difficulty of tourists walking in to our villa from the beach. Many people thinking that it was a museum of some kind or an old church. Indeed it was not and for the first time I felt baffled. I needed to know German to communicate in Spain in order to keep these people out of the house. In the end, we had to just keep locking the door despite us only being feet away on the beach. Silly Germans, they never developed the concept of ,"not yours", now, did they?
All in all, Mallorca is a beautiful, majestic place with the most incredible water I've ever seen in person. I wouldn't go there expecting to have a conversation with the locals as most of them, it seems, have been all but pushed out by the British and the Germans. However, if you get the chance to go with someone whom you can converse with endlessly, it will be a fabulous and memorable time.