My family’s trip to Spain in December has hardly received a mention here, and I’d like to give it a recap in pictures. It was wonderful to have all of them here! I showed them my favorite places around Santanyí and then we went exploring all over the island for six days, and ended the trip with a busy day in Madrid before flying back to the US together.
***
This picture makes me laugh! This was the first night of my family’s arrival in Santanyí. I was giving them a mini-tour (this is the main plaza all jazzed up for Christmas) and OF COURSE John David walked right in front of Mom's camera. A beautifully intriguing picture resulted!
My roommate Sofia and I at her stone/masonry workshop. She is a technical drawer/designer, and she gave us a whole tour of the workshop (the factory? what's the name for the place where they cut stone for construction work?). It was neat to show my family the “real” bits of Mallorca.
A multilingual Christmas! While all of us (my family+Sofia+me) hung out at our apartment, I practiced my interpretation skills, JD polished up his Spanish, and my parents worked on their miming.
JD and I outside the elementary school where I work in S’Alqueria Blanca. My family came to all my classes and we talked about our own Christmas traditions, and then we did lots of renditions of “Deck the Halls.” The kids had the the fa-la-la-la-las down.
Down to the beach. Because we rented a car, we explored lots of places around Santanyí that I hadn’t been to before—this is in the Parc Natural de Mondragó, which is a beautifully undeveloped cove containing three or four natural beaches. (Now that I’ve become a bit of a bike-riding fanatic, I ride here every chance I get!)
I love this picture! An almost-posed family picture where we all look normal…or at least, as normal as we ever get!
:)
***
Mallorca’s Serra de Tramuntana is a candidate for an UNESCO World Heritage site for its “paisatje cultural” (“cultural landscape”). After I finished up my work for the week, we drove up to the northern part of Mallorca—the road wound through stunning mountains and along steep cliffs.
Our mode of transport! Although I’m riding shotgun in this photo, I successfully drove a stick up a shoulderless road full of hairpin turns climbing 1600 feet in elevation in 12K without stalling the car, going the cliff edge, or hitting any of the centennial olive trees or medieval stone walls that were only inches from the road edge. Go me!
***
The church on the main plaza in Sóller, where we spent two nights. Lonely Planet’s description of the town: “As though cupped by celestial hands, the ochre town of Sóller lies in a valley surrounded by the grey-green hills of the Serra de Tramuntana.” It was indeed heavenly.
By far the best part of the trip: while staying in Sóller, we went on a walk through the valley to the villages of Fornalutx and Biniaraix. (The names, by the way, are pronounced “Sawyer,” “For-na-LOOCH,” and “bee-nee-uh-RAISH”.) We walked past orange trees heavy with fruit, through terraced almond and olive groves, past herds of bleating sheep, through wonderfully picturesque villages, and up lots of hills. We got a little lost and figured the next village must be just over the next hill… maybe around the next switchback… ok, we’ll go up one more hill and see… nope. Turned out that other village was in the valley bottom, but hey, we got a good view of the region!
Olive trees and terraces.
Hello!
***
Portocolom’s beautiful port. After spending two nights up in the northern part of Mallorca, we drove back across the island to stay on the coast in someplace near Santanyí. We picked a town at random—Portocolom—just to give me a chance to see a place I’d probably never otherwise get to visit.
***
After spending six days on Mallorca, we flew to Madrid to spend a busy day getting a taste for the city. This is the royal palace, which was closed to the public because there was official business going on. (naturally, the 1 day we had in the city...I guess I’ll just have to go back!)
At a Madrid market. This fish’s name is “Rape Gallego,” which looks a whole lot like “Galician Rape.” In English it’s actually called “monkfish” or “goosefish,” and it’s quite tasty, believe it or not.
The Paseo del Prado is beautiful even in the rain. After several hours of rather cold, wet exploring, we made a beeline for the Prado, where we wiled away a happy 4 hours.
Last night in Spain for 2010! The next morning, we flew out and spent the next 24 hours trying to make our way to Bozeman. We got home at 2am on December 24th, and then spent a lovely Christmas at home.
***
I think my blogs have now all caught up to the present. If my blogs have seemed a bit random lately (jumping from riding bikes to gallivanting around Europe to life´s-changes blues to existential meditations/cogitations/agitations) it’s because I post about whatever I happen to be thinking about. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, which, coupled with a copious amount of free time, turns into lots of blogging. The pace at which I publish and the verbosity of my ramblings will probably both return to their normal mild frenzy (no more than once a week & fewer than 1000 words per post) sometime in the near future. Linnaea Cunha is visiting me this weekend, Katelyn Krygowski is coming the weekend after that, then I’m headed to Germany for 6 days, and spring will go by in a whirlwind. For now, hang in there with me. I think I´ve spent enough time on the computer for a while, so I´m headed off for a bike ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment