Adventure Time II

At the ripe old age of 22 years and 1 day, I embarked on my first ever solo trip to Majorca, Spain.

Now on my 3rd and last night here, I am sitting in my dorm bed and watching more Adventure Time. The internet connection here is great, and I'm wholly exploiting this to my advantage.

These two weeks have been greatly fun, tiring and eventful. From the 17th to 25th March, I was in Scotland with Ianthe. 26th was my 22nd birthday, and probably the best birthday-day I've ever had (in the company of my varied and beloved friends). 27th was the day I flew out to Majorca on an easyjet flight. Tomorrow, on the 30th, I sadly fly home. These two fun weeks have been a massive departure from reality: exams and dissertations. Holy crap. Just thinking about it makes me feel overwhelmed. But I suppose I'm always like that, I think too much and things always turn out to be fine somehow in the end. Fingers crossed.

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Majorca, Spain
Day 1: 27 March

From my flat, departing at 9:20 am, I walked out to Euston Station. On the Victoria line, a young black guy who was leaning against the side of the carriage nicely offers - or rather directs - me to his spot, saying how I won't fall if I lean there. His gesture makes me glow all over inside with Happy Feelings. I thank him again as I get off at Victoria Station. At London Victoria however, I realised I forgot to take note of my Gatwick Express booking number and ended up rushing to the ticket counter to collect my tickets. Then I ended up running to buy a quick and crappy egg and bacon sandwich, and then running to catch the 10 am train to Gatwick. When I get on, alongside another running passenger (a really tall black man), we both give each other silly smiles of relief. I text ZW to let her know I made the train. At Gatwick I miss the shuttle to the North Terminal by 30 seconds, but no bigs. I notice two Chinese boys, from HK I think. They are very very badly dressed.

When the shuttle pulls in at the North Terminal, the two boys tear out of the train. When I approached the easyjet counter, I noticed they were a wee bit ahead of me in the queue. Behind me, a white middle-aged man appears. About 5 minutes later however, more people appear in the queue (next shuttle?) and I notice another middle-aged man edge his way in front of the first man. The first man gives me a 'EH?' shrugging sort of look, and I decided to intervene, gently mentioning that the other man was ahead of him in the queue. The queue cutter doesn't look at me, grunts, and shuffles backwards. As I get closer and closer to the front of the queue, I realise I can hear the conversation between the counter staff and the two Chinese boys, and he's telling them that the check-in to Barcelona is closed. True enough, a glance at the Departures screen shows that the Barcelona flight is the second flight scheduled to depart - that is within something like 15 minutes. They shuffle off to the Sales Desk.

As I'm about to pass through security, I noticed the boy ahead of me, a young teenager, repeatedly staring at me. Of course I look back, and I realise to my curiosity? amusement? that they are Irish Travellers! Like on the silly show I watch on 4oD. Of course I find this utterly thrilling. I listen to him and his Dad talk, look at the tattoos on his Dad's arm. It's like the show!

When I finally board my flight, I realise that: 1) I am the youngest person on the flight, save a baby, everyone else looks about 60 to 80 years old, 2) I am the only non-white on board the flight. On the plane, I notice the guy behind me in the easyjet queue sitting across the aisle from me. We very Britishly ignore each other's presence. Meanwhile, the woman in front of him kicks up a fuss about her seat and she's reseated. The women who sit around gossip about her after she's moved to the front of the plane.

The moment I step out of the restricted zone in the Majorcan airport, I look for the information desk. I came with no idea how to reach my damned hostel. They direct me to take the no. 1 public bus, and after I board it I realise the same guy from the easyjet queue/across the aisle is in the seat in front of me. Not knowing where to get off, and deciding this was all so silly, I tapped him on the shoulder. Just as he replies that he doesn't know, another bus passenger pipes in saying that he lives in Majorca, and can help. He directs me to get off at a pretty nearby bus stop, and off I set with my dinky google maps print out. I took a wrong turn somewhere, but ultimately I found the hostel pretty painlessly.

As I rested in the room, a roommate comes in. She is a French lady that looks a bit like Marion Cotillard (it's the eyes we conclude). Her name is a lovely Margery. She tells me that there's going to be a strike on Thursday, and hence public services like transport are affected. We end up making plans to visit a nearby town of Soller tomorrow, to avoid the strike.

I wander off from the hostel and find the Cathedral by accident. I walk about more, popping into shops here and there. I conclude that Majorca is an awesome place for reasonable shopping. Finally I settle down for dinner in a small spot, eating seafood paella, before wandering back to the hostel. I meet Margery in the room again, and she tells me she's changing rooms cause she wants privacy. As the hostel is empty cause it's off-season, I suppose the manager offers it. We arrange to meet at 10am tomorrow, downstairs at reception. I settle down and end up writing 9 postcards, until the ink in my pen starts to waver. I watch some adventure time. The other roommate comes back, a Spanish woman, and we talk very briefly before going to sleep.

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It's 12:32 am and the Spanish lady still isn't back. Anyway I ought to prepare to sleep, since I want to enjoy my last day tomorrow and see Can Marques. Woo hoo.