Ca'n Pastilla

I made it to Mallorca, and while I didn’t see Rafael Nadal or any pigs in the intersections, I did see my backpack at the Palma de Mallorca airport, which was a very pleasant surprise given how chaotic things were when it went rolling away from me on the conveyor belt in Barcelona. I really thought we were not going to be reunited for days, if at all.

I’m staying tonight in Ca’n Pastilla, which is a beach resort town just outside of Palma, the big city. The biking guide makes all kinds of excuses about Ca’n Pastilla, pretty much implicitly asking me to reserve judgment about Mallorca and not form any opinions about the island as a whole based on this place alone.

I understand why. It reminds me a little of Ocean City. They’ve got souvenir shops with New York Yankees baseball caps, Fleetwood Mac is playing through the speakers of the outdoor restaurants and there are “My [insert family member here] went to Mallorca and all I got was this lousy shirt” shirts. But the beach is pretty and there are lots of volleyball players and wind surfers.

Unlike Ocean City, English isn’t the dominant language here. It seems like there are a lot of Germans and people speaking, I don’t know, German-like languages, perhaps Danish because it’s easy to get here from central Europe. I built a whole career out of having theories about things I really know nothing about.

Regardless, it’s easy for me to reserve judgment because I slept for about one hour last night and am pretty much ready to go to bed even though it’s not dark out.

Every room in my hotel has a balcony overlooking the ocean. I have a corner room so I have two separate balconies. But I won’t get to try them both out because I have to get up in the morning and start my bike ride. 

I read the directions for tomorrow and they really make very little sense to me (like the instruction that says “generic pass petrol station”). I don’t know if it’s because I’m so tired or because the people at the bike company assume I’ll just figure out the details on my own. I’ll know more about that when I see where I end up tomorrow evening.