An accidental holiday in Magaluf.

This was the week that we had been looking forward to for a long time.  Booked at the end of last year we decided to spend our holiday in Mallorca, it was somewhere we could all get to from 3 different airports, it was a good price and it is a nice place.  We booked a hotel called TRH Palmanova (remember this, it is going to be important...), booked our flights, and all we had to do was wait, so wait we did.  A quick read up on the internet suggested that the hotel wasn't quite in Palmanova like the name would suggest, and on a steep hill, neither of which really caused us a problem.  Easter week rolls around and off we go!  Charlotte and Vicki arrived first having flown together from Manchester, and get told we've been moved hotels as there had been over booking with ours, not a problem, it's just  even further up the hill!  Now I'll take you back to our location, we were basically on the end of the strip in Magaluf!  Not quite what we'd intended, but oh well!  Palmanova itself, when we actually did go there for a wander, is a lot bigger than we had realised and we'd certainly go and stay there again.  The only problem with the location we ended up in was that there was a Spanish festival of some sort on for a few days and there was a huge group of people staying in our hotel, and they weren't the quiet type!  But when this is the view from your balcony, you really can't complain:

The very first time we took a walk down to the beach we realised that we would have to find another route, it is impossible to walk down the main strip without getting stopped at least every 5 or 6 steps (and I'm not even exaggerating) by some promoter or other trying to get you to stop in their bar for a drink.  It doesn't matter how clear you make it to some of them that you're not interested, they'll engage you in conversation, physically block the way, try and split up the group and even try pulling you in by your hair!  It's a bit of a laugh but certainly gets tiresome after a while.  We instead tended to go to places along the beach front or walk over to Palmanova where there are still plenty of lively bars but without the hassle.  We did cave into them once or twice though, the first time was at 4 in the afternoon when we bought beer and sangria and got given free shots of Sambuca, only in Magaluf...

Because we're so cool and so mature we bought a bucket, spade, rake and some little animal shapes, oh and a sive!  We spent quite a while on 2 different days making these creations:



And on a sand related note, the girls buried me in the sand and sculpted me into a mermaid.  I didn't get the best photo of that though!

In general we spent our week wandering, eating, drinking and laying in the sun, so I'm not going to give you a diary entry style blog of what we did for fear of boring you all so much that you never come back!  However, we did go to Palma for the day which was nice, other than paying €4.50 for a Fanta!  We had intended to see one of the Easter parades for Semana Santa but by the time we'd spent the day there we were getting tired and ready to leave so we didn't get to see it.  I just see that as an excuse for me to get back out to Spain another Easter and see it all though!

We also did one of those holiday essentials and played mini golf which was a lot of fun.  Especially with holes like this one where the water gets in the way some what:

I didn't do very well, lets just say that I lost by a long long way and leave it at that shall we?  Whilst we were there Katy and I had our photo taken with a snake, it was pretty scary and we weren't really expecting it to happen, but we had to buy it just to prove we've done it! Apologies for the quality, it really needs to be scanned in at some point.

That  is about it really!  I came back this morning fairly early, I've unpacked, done 2 loads of washing, uploaded my photos, done my photo of the day project and now I've even written this!  Will be an early night for me tonight though, and hoping for my first totally uninterrupted nights sleep in a week! Got a day tomorrow to catch up and maybe do some work before classes start again on Tuesday which feels really odd.  I'm glad though, because I'd quite like the next few weeks to pass, it's been hard knowing so many Erasmus students that have been home and seen their families this week and I haven't.  Oh well, one blank weekend, then Cordoba, then Seville and then my parents are here with my Nana for a whole week which even includes my 21st!  Can't wait!

Hooray, hooray, it's a holi-holiday!

This week has been pretty uninteresting if I'm honest, since Erin left on Sunday I've not been up to a huge amount.  Classes as usual and an exam on Wednesday mean that I'm now half way though my classes here and just over a third of the way through my total time in Granada.  Time has flown by so fast since arriving here at the start of February, I'm coming to the end of my 7th week here!

The only slightly exciting thing that has happened this week is that the Spanish decided to go on strike on Thursday against a labour reform that is being introduced, I'll be honest and say I know very little about it (I have bought myself a couple of newspapers in the hope of reading up on it at some point though...) but lets just say they aren't happy!  I went out for a wander on Thursday morning to see what was going on and I have to say there were more shops open than I had been expecting, groups of people shouting here and there but I generally didn't see much.  Apparently closer to the centre things were a lot more active, and I could somewhat see the aftermath of that when I went shopping yesterday and there were stickers and posters and things around but not much.  But that is just Granada, things were worse in Madrid and Barcelona etc as I'm sure lots of you have seen on the news in the UK.  Whatever way you look at it the strike gave me an extra day off, I didn't use the time productively though.

My day was made yesterday by a random smiley Spanish man walking past me when I was walking down Gran Via eating my Smooey yoghurt and calling out "que aproveches" which is the Spanish equivalent of bon appetit and then carrying on his way.  This should show you how little I achieved yesterday if that was the highlight of the entire day!  The only other thing I managed was spending money on clothes. 

Today I remembered what is the worst part of going on holiday- packing!  I'm useless at it and am always over the weight limit no matter what I do.  Annoyingly I have no way of telling how much my luggage weighs for my holiday as I have no scales, on the basis that I am using a smaller case and only taking clothes for a week I surely must be under my weight limit, but the thing seems to weigh a tonne!

Tomorrow morning I'm off to Majorca for a week with some of my friends from Lancaster, I've not seen them since January/February so I'm really looking forward to it.  A little bit of research tells me our hotel is just off the strip in Magalluf, so watch out for us in the background of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents I guess!

Sorry for the really boring post, hopefully by the time I get back on Easter Sunday I'll have plenty to tell you about, I'm hoping to get to see the Maundy Thursday parade in Palma whilst we're there so don't panic, there might be some vaguely cultural content in it!

The surprise test, the essay extension and the holiday to Mallorca

Great news when the first thing the teacher does when they enter the room is say the word "Test", especially when they have a grin right across their face when they say it!  English to French translation about the King James bible... so that was fun.  Not holding out a huge amount of hope for that one!  He did take pity on us English students towards the end and gave us dictionaries though.

After this would normally be the culture lecture but as I've done the essay I decided it was pointless to go, I later find out that he told them today that the deadline is now extended to January, when I've already finished it, just typical really.  I've got one more to write that I've not been given a deadline for yet, no doubt once I've written it he'll say January too...

The best part of today is that I've booked my flights for my easter holiday break to Mallorca with Katy, Charlotte and Vicki,  I just get a week off from Granada at easter so it will be a nice way to spend it.

Home in 3 weeks and 3 days, which I'm really looking forward to, and bearing in mind how fast time has been going lately it will be upon me so quick.  In terms of weekends I have this one to do work, the next in Lille and the following Henry is here, the weekend after that is Christmas!  Sorry, I know I've said the C word and it's not even December yet but it's just so close.

Apologies for the rather boring post, not 100% sure why I even bothered to write it...