Yesterday was a long one…4am pickup to go to Trieste, Italy, via Slovenia for a 7am flight…to Munich, Germany, finally arriving at 11am in Barcelona where I had to wait till 3pm for my flight to Mallorca. The Barcelona airport is very modern. The last flight is a short one and I slept so soundly that when it landed I was in a daze.
Lost and found #1:
The Palma de Mallorca airport is a busy one, especially considering that Mallorca isn’t all that large. The signage is let’s say, suboptiimal. There was a sign near the arrival gate for baggage claim that was prominent…no others were and I wandered around for a while, eventually getting to passport control (for passengers going out of the EU). I learned that “maleta” means suitcase in Spanish, executed a u-turn and finally was reunited with my luggage.
Of course I was quite late to pick up my rental car but eventually found the area where the rental car company was to pick me up, and 30 minutes later I was at the rental counter.
Lost and found #2: I got my car, and then tried to figure out where the hotel was. My phone took it’s sweet time finding it’s gps location, but eventually I had directions (no thanks to the hotel clerk who wouldn’t or couldn’t give me directions…probably the latter). I finally found the hotel and pulled up in front, only to learn that the parking was behind me. So what’s the problem? The problem is that you can’t just go “around the block” in Palma…the streets are at pretty much every angle other than 90 degrees…about 30 minutes later I found the hotel again and the parking area (the upside was I got free parking out of all the aggravation). Also, it was raining, did I mention that?
So why am I here in Mallorca? Another tournament, starting Monday for me, in Font de sa Cala, on the opposite end of the island. I had a week in between the tournament in Croatia and the one next week so I’m training at a tennis academy for 4 days. Which led to…
Lost and Found #3: The location of Global wasn’t on my GPS so I used one close by. I got near the academy and was in an industrial area…and figured I was hopelessly lost, so wisely called the academy for help…which came five minutes later and I followed their white van to the academy. I hit with one of the pros twice for 1 1/2 hours, did some light fitness and watched the hoards of impressive juniors smacking the ball…never heard a complaint either or a bad word.
Palma seems like a nice city. There’s a huge church which looks like a castle and it’s right on the water. It was pretty cloudy and gloomy this afternoon and I was tired but Saturday I plan to explore, or maybe tomorrow if it rains a lot as the forecast predicts (50ml what ever that means).
I did make it back from the academy and now have the gps coordinates but I figure I’ll make a few wrong turns yet. Mallorca has roundabouts everywhere. They are pretty useful…when you aren’t quite sure which way to turn you can just drive around in them a couple of times till you figure it out.
Meanwhile in Croatia, Hugh Thomson, USA beat #1 seeded Peter Adrigan in the men’s 70s.