A Much Needed Dose of Vitamin SEA

Mallorca, Spain - May 2021

As much as Jesse and I like to travel, you may be surprised to know that we have not taken a vacation together, just the two of us, since our honeymoon in 2015! We've been on plenty of trips together but we love travelling with other people too. And with as many weddings that we went to in the past 5 years together, many of those trips were group trips and our trip to Europe in 2017 was too.

Mallorca was just what we needed.

I know this may be controversial but I love travel days (to the destination). Yes, they are stressful but something about packing up our bags, heading to the airport, and flying to a new place just brings me such

joy and peace. In this case our travel day started with a 20 minute walk through town, suitcases in tow, to

the train station. We had a little hiccup and ended up missing the train but luckily that gave us enough time to grab a coffee and catch the next one 10 minutes later.

I love trains. I've never lived in a city with a train system that I regularly used for commuting to and from work so to me they are still fascinating and mean a fun, new destination to me. We caught our train connection to the airport and were at our gate in no time.

I have flown during the pandemic (domestically and internationally in both October 2020 and March 2021) but the airport looked normal again, outside of the masks. It was really exciting and people seemed so genuinely happy!

Our days in Mallorca were spent between the beach, the pool, and the buffet at the resort. The beach was one block from our hotel and had a beautiful path that ran along it. We ran and walked up and down it most days enjoying the sun and strong breeze coming off the water. Jesse even tried the "fish foot massage" along the beach! We also spent one afternoon and evening in Mallorca with some of our friends we know from Germany, Chris and Nadine.

The "all-inclusive" was different than what we had previously experienced at resorts in the Caribbean, however I had done enough research that we somewhat knew to expect that. Some of the "non- included" items were a bigger deal to us than others. One minor example was that the website said that ice cream at the snack bar was included for "all-inclusive" guests. However, we learned that the true ice cream was not included, only the popsicles. As a self proclaimed ice cream enthusiast, I was pouty for at least 30 minutes after discovering this setback. Again, we knew to set realistic expectations going in so overall this did not impact our trip and we would still highly recommend the place we stayed to families with children as it was very geared towards kids.

The hotel also offered to help schedule our Covid tests for the flight home but honestly it was so simple that we ended up just doing it ourselves. The hotel also had entertainment each night, again, mostly geared toward children but really, who doesn't love cheesy magic shows, balancing acts, and talented singers?

Our trip was a perfect getaway for us. However, we still very much think like Americans and not Europeans when it comes to vacations. Our taxi driver on the way back to the airport was asking us all about our trip and asked how long we stayed. We happily said "5 full days!" which was greeted with a look of confusion and disbelief. He asked "Why so short?! You should stay at least 2 weeks!" We then explained that a full week IS a vacation to us. Like many people have explained before, it is very common here for people to take a full month off work. Many stay at home for a week or two and then travel the other weeks.

Jesse and I just laughed and looked at each other knowing all the other trips we had planned this year already. Maybe one day we will slow down, but today is not that day. :)