Beach+

One day while walking along the boardwalk, a British man came by and gave us a flyer to his bar, Cheers, which we ended up going to a couple of times. It was good fun, with a great atmosphere. We did karaoke the first night we went in, with much cajoling from Maya (though less as the night went on). I did an Eminem song, we did a couple of duets, Jordan killed some Beyonce, and Chance rapped a song he had never heard before, which was hilarious. The owners were lovely, a pair of British twin brothers, and it was really fun and welcoming both times we went.

Majorca, or Mallorca is an island located in the Mediterranean Sea. It is the largest island in the Balearic Islands archipelago, in Spain. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands.

Like the other Balearic Islands of Minorca, Ibiza, and Formentera, the island is an extremely popular holiday destination, particularly for tourists from Germany, Ireland, Poland, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and the United Kingdom.

Nearly all of the days we were there were lovely, with a high usually around 25 degrees, though it rained on and off the entire last day we were there - though we just ended up hanging inside Mint and reading all day, which was quite lovely.

Overall, it was a wonderful and relaxing week in the sun. The beach was gorgeous, the hotel was lovely, especially for how little we paid to stay there, and the whole thing was just amazing.

When we left Mallorca, on the Saturday after we arrived, we got the airport extremely early, as Chance had a flight much earlier than us, so spent a large part of the day hanging around the airport, playing an extremely fun app called Charades, and drinking Starbucks. Jordan was sat further to the front of the plane, but Maya and I were at the back, where there were several empty rows, so we ended up with a row each, were we spread out and read for the flight back. The flight attendant made fun of me for the fact that when he tried to ask em if I wanted anything to drink, I didn't even notice - he joked that I wouldn't even notice the plane going down.

We arrived back in Edinburgh pretty late, and while we got the 100 down to Princes Street from the airport, it was too late for the 16, and the night bus didn't come by for another half an hour, so we elected to walk the rest of the way home - I'm sure we made quite a sight, in the cold Scottish night, in our shorts, with Maya's braids, carrying our beach bags along.

You can read more about our trip to Mallorca in this article in Hashtag magazine, text by Maya and design by myself.

Long Overdue Return... and Mallorca

I'm back! I know its been ages, and I'm super behind, but I'm gonna try and catch up on all of the stuff I've been doing for the last couple of weeks, starting with Mallorca.

I'm not going to be doing a day-by-day break down of Majorca, partially because its been so long I'm not sure I quite remember what happened each day, and partially because our day-to-day routine really didn't have that much variety to it.

Maya, Jordan, and myself flew down to Mallorca on Saturday, returning the following Sunday. We were flying on Ryanair, which I'm pretty sure is the cheapest of all European airlines, and thus has some pretty strict restrictions on what you can bring in term of luggage (aka pretty small) but luckily you don't really need to bring a lot when all you are planning on doing is lying on a beach for a week! There was a very... rambunctious hen party on the flight, but besides all the screaming, singing, and chanting, it was a pretty awesome flight - Jordan had been sat in the emergency exit row without anyone next to her, so she got the flight attendants' permission for Maya and I to move next to her - so much luxurious leg room!

Upon arriving in Mallorca, we wandered around the airport terminal for a bit until we located Jordan's friend, Chance, who had flew in from Germany, before grabbing a taxi to the hotel, all the way on the other side of the island (a trip that was a total of an hours drive - its not a very big island).

We arrived pretty late, so after wandering down to the beach and grabbing a small bite to eat at a restaurant called Mint (which we returned to quite a few more times) we just headed to bed. The beach was all of five minutes walk from our hotel, and our room, which was located in a small building off the hotel overlooking the pool, included a private balcony - rough stuff.

The loungers filled up pretty quick everyday, with people staking out their claim early in the morning with towels. As none of us had actually thought to bring a beach towel, and were too cheap/broke to buy one of the outrageously overpriced ones at the convenience stores/tourist traps along the beach, we never ended up having a day of lounging around the pool. However, we did spend quite a bit of time hanging out on our balconies - though Maya and myself and Jordan and Chance had booked our trips at different times, we still got adjacent rooms, and thus adjacent balconies, complete with chairs and bitty tables.

Above is the view from the balcony looking back towards town, away from the beach. Our first day there we went to a convenience store and picked up some very cheap wine to drink out on our balcony, which was ridiculously disgusting. After that terrible choice, we stuck to grabbing the occasional cocktail from one of the many restaurant along the beach.

Sunscreen was a definite must for all us pale people who had been huddled up in Scotland for the last couple of months getting whiter and whiter.

We landed on the west side of the island, but our resort was on the east side.

Our hotel included breakfast, so our daily routine was basically along the lines of eating a massive breakfast, heading down to the gelato shop for ice cream and free wifi, and then eating lunch/dinner around four. In between we oscillating between our time on the beach, our time on the balcony, taking siestas, and reading. A lot of reading.

Maya's Spanish was definitely a nice bonus, but the island is such a popular destination for German and English tourists that most of the people working in the town spoke at least some English.

The Mediterranean is absolutely gorgeous - its amazing how blue it is. Canadian oceans as a general rule are not quite as.... welcoming, but the ocean in Mallorca was beautiful, and not too cold (perhaps a bit nippy at first, but not too bad after that).

The weather was also absolutely gorgeous while we were there - though the Americans accompanying me were perhaps not quite as impressed with the highs of 25 celsius as I was (Maya was appalled when I told her how, when moving to Scotland, I left all my winter clothes in Canada as I was moving to a much warmer climate).

Maya got her hair done in braids by a lady at the beach the one day - like a true tourist!

Jordan, Chance, and I played ball on the beach while Maya was getting her hair did, which was a lot of fun, though the combination of super lightweight ball and strong winds did make it a bit of a challenge.

I definitely spent a lot of time reading on this trip - I finished a total of eight books, which was pretty awesome - I read Eleanor & Park and Rangirl by Rainbow Rowell, Let It Snow by John Green, Flash and Bones, Bones Are Forever, and Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs (all from the Temperance Brennan series), Dead Witch Walking, and The Good, the Bad, and the Undead by Kim Harrison (all from The Hollows series).

It was awesome.

Mint was one of the most frequent places we visited, as they were fairly cheap but also pretty tasty.

I'm not going to have quite as many stories to share on my next post, but I do still have loads of gorgeous pictures to share, so just so you know :)

Five Happy Days

Lets do this quick and dirty.  

Sunday. Stopped at Waitrose on my way home to harass Becky at work. Bought ice cream. Multitasking ftw.

Monday. Did laundry. Cleaned my room. Did some work, then napped a lot. Was feeling really sick.

Tuesday. Gorgeous sunny day at Luath. Spent all night working on school stuff. Very busy, still sick.

Wednesday. Insanity. Printed off all our work, submitted our final group portfolio, our group buisness plan, our individual essays, and our packaged disks with the books. Still more work to do but I couldn't be prouder of everyone. Went to bar to celebrate. Got a pot of tea. Was mocked. Still sick.

Thursday. Busy, second-last day at Luath. Went to launch of new book at Blackwell's, enjoyed being surrounded by books. Also showing off my nails. Still sick. Almost done.

(Real posts will return soon, promise. I'm almost out of the rough of it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel).

In other news, and as most of you may have heard already, I'm heading home! Thats right, as of Tuesday I will be officially back on my native Canadian soil for 24 days!

Busy, Busier, Busiest

Well last week was just as busy as I thought it was going to be, as has this weekend been, wherein I spent most of my free time at the school working on finishing up the book projects (did all the internal pages for Ah Dinnae Ken) and doing some stuff for Hashtag - if I go home for a couple of weeks soon, as I am hoping to, I won't have access to InDesign, and so need to actually get ahead on a coupe of spreads for Hashtag so I don't end up ignoring it for a month.

Today is a bank holiday, so Luath Press was closed, but because I am missing both my wednesdays during the placement due to class, I asked if I could take home some stuff to work on at home, which I have been doing all day. I also need to write a short personal essay for wednesday.

I was hoping to get some more blogging done this weekend, other than this short update, and did manage to get the photos from Mallorca uploaded to my google album, so at least thats a start, but I've also unfortunately come down with a cold (which I've kind of been expecting the last couple of months... it'd been over a year since I'd had a bad cold, it was bound to get me sooner or later). So my throat feels like I've been swallowing glass, my nose is running, and my head feels like it has been stuffed with cotton balls, which is not particularly helpful when trying to write words and stuff.

Thus, you will have to excuse me - it looks like its still gonna be a bit longer before I get back to posting consistently. In the mean time, I am going to bang out this essay and then go curl up in my bed and feel sorry for myself.

xx