Shen-Han Lee

Spain and I seem to have an affinity of sorts. In my first undergraduate year, I spent my summer break visiting five Spanish cities/towns within a span of 10 days – Barcelona, Madrid, Cordoba, Toledo, and Segovia. My most recent trip has brought me back to Spain, this time to Mallorca, the largest Balearic island off the southern tip of Spain. Having spent four days and three nights there, I can attest that the total hours and intensity of sunlight during that trip was more than what I could get back in ye olde England, and more specifically Cambridge town, in a whole academic year.

Mallorca is a truly beautiful island, with plenty of sunshine, beaches (both sandy and rocky ones) and brimming with tourists, with some areas of the island dominated by Germans and some English. Incidentally, the places in Mallorca that we visited were mainly filled with German tourists, so much so that the shop signs and restaurant menus were in German. In fact, some hotels even had the German flag waving, aside the Spanish and Mallorcan flags!

In my first Spain trip, the Malaysians completely outnumbered the lone Singaporean 6 to 1. This time around, I found myself in the minority, with two other Singaporean Churchillians in the group – Yifan and Rus. In spite of that, there were plenty of jokes stereotyping Malaysians and Singaporeans exchanged between the three of us.

The places we visited were Palma (the capital of Mallorca and the only (and by default, biggest) city in the Balearic islands), Cala Ratjada, Port d’ Alcudia, and Soller. Port d’ Alcudia was not originally in our list of places to visit in Mallorca; rather, we planned to visit and spend a night in a monastery in Lluc. However, due to a mis-reading of the bus schedule, we missed the last bus of the day to Lluc, and decided, instead, to head off to Port d’ Alcudia.

I intend to post pictures up from the trip, but will have to wait for the pictures from Yifan and Rus because my camera was giving me problems during the trip. Stay tuned!