I was really lucky to be able to fly out to Mallorca again to race this spring. It was one of the highlights of my year last year, and I couldn't believe that I was able to go again. This year instead of meeting some girlfriends, Jeremy was going to travel with me. I went out a couple days before he did, and while I was waiting for him to arrive I did a little exploring. My favorite activity is always eating ice cream on the beaches sunset. It's been a long time since I've had a magnum bar, and it was incredible.
I also decided to drive through the mountains exploring all of the little towns nestled up in there. I didn't stop and get out to explore them all, I just drove through drinking it all in. Each little town had its own little flavor. I loved Soller for its terraces, city living, and walking paths.
I loved other little towns because the mountain views like Valldemossa.
I loved others like Banyalbufar because of the views of the sea.
I stopped at Cala Deia and found a walking path that took me down to a private little cove. I spent my time enjoying the water lapping against the rocks, and laughing at the Instagram couple who were trying so dutifully to take the perfect shot.
As twilight was falling I headed back to Palma to pick up Jeremy. I had a couple minutes left so I wanted to go see the cathedral. It's difficult to navigate European cities in a car on yours own. One of your eyes has to be on the GPS, and your other eye has to be on the road reading signs in Spanish. There are very, very narrow streets which means you can't take your eye off the road for a second. Well I took my eyes off the road for one wrong second. I was following my GPS to the cathedral and it asked me to turn down a little alley. I didn't think anything of it since all of the streets are basically little alleys. But soon I realized this was taking me through a very narrow labyrinth of residential only streets. I was not supposed to be on those roads. They were so narrow that I was worried about scraping my car on each side. I obviously didn't have anywhere to turn around so I kept creeping forward. With every building I passed I was getting more and more nervous about where I was going to end up. I started passing residents walking by staring at me wondering what I was doing. I started passing shops that had cafe tables set out front, meant more for pedestrian traffic than cars. I was in trouble and I knew it. I didn't know what to do though, so I just kept going. I came around a corner and suddenly found myself in the courtyard of the cathedral! This is definitely not where I was supposed to be! Since I was there anyway, I considered parking the car getting out for a great picture before getting in and driving away, but I knew that wasn't quite right. So I drove around to the back side of the courtyard where I found a parking spot. I parked the car as soon as I could and took a couple moments to compose myself because my heart was racing. I climbed out of the car to go take a proper look at the cathedral. As I walked away a woman walked past my car and glanced at my windshield, pausing to take a double take. Then she pulled out her phone. I was nervous that I had still done something wrong so I went back to check, and sure enough all the other cars had residential parking permits. I decided to go get a picture of the cathedral anyway. Even though it was a perfect evening I couldn't linger and enjoy it because I was so nervous about my car being towed.
I dashed back to my car and then hopped into keep driving. I found another maze of narrow streets. I passed a wonderful pedestrian walkway that I would have loved to explore any other time, but I just needed out of there. I finally found a parking garage and parked ready to explore the rest of the city on foot. I walked out and found some dinner then realized it was time to go get Jeremy. By now I was so turned around I didn't even know where my car was. It took me two or three tries to find the parking garage, and I decided never to do that again. I picked up Jeremy on the airport and then we were ready to roll for the rest of the week, hopefully with fewer navigation adventures.
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