Let me begin this post by saying that I will NEVER do an overnight layover again.
I don’t care if it’s Disneyland, I WILL not put myself through it EVER AGAIN.
My journey began late last Tuesday night. I had pulled my small carry-on to the other side of the city where the train station was located. The cobblestone streets had its way with my suitcase and decided to jam up and deteriorate one of my wheels. To sum it up, it was a big struggle-fest.
I got there, found the 6 Euro bus to the airport, arrived at the airport, and was so excited that I headed right for security.
“Mam, where is your boarding pass?”, The security guard questioned me.
Me: “Oh, yes….where do you get that again?”
At this point, I knew it would be a LONG night.
I boarded the only flight out of Florence that night, and arrived in Barcelona at 12:30am. Once I arrived there, I started following the long line of people into what appeared to be the exit, when I realized something….
I was here for the long haul. I knew that this meant that I would have to be very creative with my sleeping positions.
Sleeping Position #1: Next to the moving side walk, where it appeared no one could easily steal my luggage.
Issue #1: Every 19 seconds, the security guard walking by would trigger the obnoxiously loud “start-up” to the sidewalk.
This lasted for approximately 79 minutes. My jacket and small travel pillow, mixed with the strange looks I received from stragglers, made me feel it necessary to move.
Sleeping Position #2: Make a bed out of airport chairs.
Issue #2: Couldn’t sleep due to the snoring of local over-nighters in the proximity.
Sleeping Position #3: A children’s jungle-jim inside the airport. Don’t judge me, the soft-looking play mat looked promising.
Issue #4: That child would wanted to slide down the slide, yet had a rude awakening by a large stagnant human body.
Awkward.
Then, I just gave up, ate an apple at 5:30am, and started the zomby walk to my next flight.
It wasn’t until I arrived in Menorca that things got REALLY interesting. I knew that I would have to wait for about 5 hours in the baggage claim until Jared arrived. I took notice to the rather comfortable looking chairs, and decided to lie down and make myself comfortable. So…that’s exactly what I did.
I briefly remember a security guard waking me up with a gentle poke and saying some gibberish sounding Spanish phrase to me. It was apparent that he thought that I was seriously confused or in the wrong place. So, I pulled out my mental Spanish dictionary (Thanks to my high school Spanish years), and said,
“Espere”
Because, I couldn’t think of anything else. Apparently as Jared told me later, I did get the word right, just not the right conjugation You see, Espere is the command, “You wait.” (Not, I’m waiting).
So, I told that worried little Spanish man to wait. He seemed confused, worried, and on edge.
I did sense his urgency, but it wasn’t until after another nap and the second security guy noticing that I was sprawled out in a nap-like homeless position, that I managed to think of a few more things to say.
“Mi amigo es en la avion.”
The guy still thought I was lost.
“En Menorca?”, he asked.
What I actually said: “Si!” (I did remember that word, thankfully)
What I was thinking to myself , “No, in Buffalo, NY. OF COURSE Menorca!”
Jared rescued me, finally.
I was so over that whole airport, lack of sleep, children’s play-pen, Spanish speaking security guard thing.
So we hopped in a taxi, and took us to our Half-way house, until we could check in to our hotel Thursday afternoon.
Son Park, the name of the hotel, was kind of like the Half-way Dam of Spain. It boasted lots German families and British people. I’m not going to lie, I eavesdropped on so many British people having conversations just so I could listen to a few English children speaking.
It was really fun.
Our apartment was sufficient. Nothing special, but not bad for the great price we paid. We thought we would take advantage of the sun (not knowing there would be none for the rest of our time here), and we scooted down to the beach.
And seriously, we were not expecting what we saw.
It was like paradise. The cover photo is exactly what we saw.
Incredible.
We laid ourselves down, and after getting very chilly from the breezy weather, we retired back to the apartment for the night, made a frozen pizza on the stove, burnt it, ate it anyway, and watch British soap operas and game shows.
I would relive that night over and over if I could. Because…it was actually really fun.
But, the morning came anew, and with it came the infestation of ants into our apartment.
They were everywhere.
It was almost like a horror movie.
The only thing that got me through the ant plague was the fond memories of the unique decoration at hotel’s breakfast restaurant, complete with Totem Pools, Hungarian Dancer statues, and Yacht prints.
There was also this cute lady just making omelets, talking 5 different languages, and loving life.
I watched her the whole time and realized that people like that are just infectious. I mean, seriously, she was flipping omelets, but you never would have known. I want to live my life like that.
She just made my whole day better.
And arriving at the timeshare ALSO made my life better.
No ants.
More than one English television show.
AND airconditioning.
The White Sands Beach club sits on top of this beautiful “cove” in Northern Menorca.
Gorgeous, right?
And you want to know the most gorgeous thing about it?
I GOTS ME AN OVEN!
AND A VIEW FROM MY BED!
Jared got airconditioning!
And we formed a new addiction to Dinosaurus “Cereal” Cookies
Over the course of several days, we consumed some un-holy amount of these consistently burnt edged cookies. Pediatricians recommend these…but I’m not sure for what. But apparently they are made with cereal, so Jared and I decided to eat them for breakfast every day.
And eat them for lunch every day.
And eat them for snack every day.
And eat them before we went to bed every day.
I mean, Pediatricians DO recommend them.
I miss those cookies.
Real bad.
I saw a little kid at the airport eating them after our last pack had been consumed. I was so close to doing a sneak attack of that child, but while I was trying to figure out how to distract the father, they rolled away.
I felt devastated and physically defeated.
I’m not sure if the pain will ever go away.
But anyway…getting over my cookie obsession,
Jared and I realized that after 40 Euro cab rides and hidden beach chair costs, money would be really tight. So, given the fact that I had an oven and a stove, we decided that we would cook.
Sorry, we decided that I would cook.
So we purchased a bountiful of goodies, and even though the supermarket was about the size of Sheetz, we were able to make do and create several memorable meals throughout the week, including:
Sauteed chicken with herbs and pasta carbonera,
Toasted ham and cheese with sliced cucumber,
Pesto fried rice with grilled chicken,
The apple pie, I’m sure you have all read about,
A happy looking omelet for King Jared,
Chicken cordon blue sandwiches,
Aad then I got tired and alot less creative,
so I made frozen pizza and heated up leftovers.
Other than that, there was minimal beach time in Menorca. The wind was rough and the sun didn’t shine. We were blessed with rain our last two days and had the opportunity to:
- Sleep 54 hours in 5 days
- Eat 3 quarts of ice cream (most accompanied by the apple pie that we finished ourselves)
- Watch 4 movies that we rented from the Timeshare (Knight and day, Honeymoon in Las Vegas, Bridesmaids, and A-Team)
- Nap, because we didn’t get enough sleep
- Lay on the couch after we were done napping
- Stand up, and then sit back down because of the physical strain
- Skype each other and try out a variety of strange facial expressions. Like this one.
We felt like we were whisked away into someone’s private garden,
complete with a hand painted mural, shrubbery, and traditional decorations.
The menu was adorned with delicately thought out starters and mouthwatering entrees.
I’m still wondering if “Iberian Pork Secret,” which was on the “English” menu was translated correctly.
I almost ordered it just because of the name.
They brought out delicious bread. I’m not sure if I was starving or if the bread was just that good, but between the two of us, was consumed about 7 rolls.
That’s a little embarrassing.
But, not that much.
I ordered the mixed vegetable salad for my appetizer and it did not disappoint.
It was absolutely beautiful. There was so much care and delicacy to the way the vegetables were prepared. There were julienned bean sprouts and beets, sliced avocado, boiled egg, carrots, cucumber, sweet corn, mixed greens, cherry tomatoes and fresh walnuts, all dressed in a lovely olive oil coating. It was a vegetarian wonderland.
I mean, Jared even ate some.
And that’s saying something.
The man don’t eat no vegetables.
We were also given these small toasts (on the right), that were honestly rather strange tasting and had two unidentifiable particles on either end.
I think they were playing, “See if you can confuse the Americans,” with us…because it totally worked.
For the main dish, I pressured Jared into ordering the steak with Menorcan cheese sauce, well…because I wanted some serious bites of that.
I forced myself to order something traditional…
I chose the courgettes.
and…
well…
no.
Jared’s steak?
OMG.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
My Menorcan Courgettes?
Let’s just say, I’m not a courgette person. I spent the good part of 25 minutes delicately messing with my plate in order to fashion my leftovers in such a way so it looked like I ate a good portion of the dish.
I did pretty good, right?
The mushy texture of the courgette made it an excellent medium for fooling your waiter.
Except the fact that the waiter came over…and I could see in his face that he knew what I did.
I felt guilty, so I ordered dessert.
It was hard…I’m sure you can imagine.
Jared ordered a brownie torte, which made him feel at home again.
I ordered the fig gelato which tasted like a Chilly Menorcan Fig Newton.
I liked it…
I liked it alot.
And after the three tubs of ice cream that we consumed in 4 days,
it was evident that we needed more.
C an’ Olga (and Menorca, for that fact) comes highly recommended from Jared and I. The food (Minus the strange toasts and my dissertation to strange textured edible objects) was fantastic and the atmosphere and staff are very pleasant.
Just make sure you eat what you order.
Or it becomes a stare fest.
We left Menorca well fed, all movied up, and ready to jump into another week of classes.
Back home in Florence now, and these 6:30am bakery starts are seriously kicking my butt.
Ciao for now!