For the past 2 weeks we have been offline. During that time we have enjoyed our first family summer holiday and experienced a great time on the Balearic island of Mallorca. We left for the airport in the morning of Monday September 6 and Jakob was clearly excited about our departure as he did not sleep at all that morning and also during the 2 hour flight there was no sign of being tired. He explored the airplane, had fun with the crew and entertained the people in the front rows with his sounds (some would call it screams), laughter and other activities. After the arrival at Palma airport though our sunshine got very quiet and soon after having left the airport in our hire car he was fast asleep in his car seat.
An airplane features lots of interesting stuff.
For our 10 day holiday we have booked an apartment at Apartamentos LEO in Port de Pollenca, in the north-east of the island which is approximately 50 minutes drive from the airport and the main city Palma, both located on the West Coast. Our apartment was very nice and calm (there were hardly any other guest in the complex during our stay) and so had the small pool which was located right in front of our terrace all for ourselves. While one normally would be very happy about a pool in which one can jump into in the morning from the terrace, we were not so comfortable with the situation, as we were afraid our nosy junior would fall into the pool. Even though Jakob was indeed very often very close to the brink, he never fell into the water. It seemed that he had enough respect of the wet element to not get too close.
The pool was interesting, but no hazard.
Our activities on Mallorca were not predefined only vaguely: we wanted to spend time on several beaches throughout the island (hence the hire car) whereas we decided rather spontaneously where to go. Our "home beach", Platja Port de Pollenca was ca 15 minutes walking distance from the apartment and never too busy. Once Jakob was there though, the noise level increased big time as he greeted almost everyone who passed by with a loud "Ahhh" and luckily both the Spaniards as well as the large amount of Brits on the beach (most of them also with children) were very responsive and did not seem bothered by our junior. The same was true actually on the other beaches we went to. Apart from meeting and greeting many people Jakob also got to know both sand and salt water and he loved them both more and more the longer we stayed. Swimming, digging sand, destroying anything mom or dad built, sipping the water and eating sand were the most loved activities on the beach.
Water is fun. Especially if dad is underneath.
Before leaving for Spain we were most concerned about Jakob's reaction to the food and drinks and thus had taken along all sorts of drugs for him in case of diarrhea. Fact was, that Jakob ate huge portions, filled the diaper sometimes three times a day, but never "soft" and thus we were glad to take the drugs back home again untouched. We also learned during our holiday, that we can feed our sunshine pretty much everything: He loved to eat olives with anchoas, grilled octopus, jamon iberico and the peak was when he ate half of Kerstin's gambas al ajillo (prawns in oilve oil and garlic!!) at Meson Ca'n Pedro. The gambas were followed shortly after by the bottle of night milk and yet Jakob neither threw up nor had any digestive problems. We probably can say, that we are safe now.
Just before the gambas arrived on the table
While after a week we felt that the holidays are going by slowly the last three days flew by so fast that the whole holiday suddenly felt like having passed by extremely quick. On our flight back home which was late - departure at 2055 - Jakob again greeted everyone getting on the plane and tried to fight sleeping, but as he was so tired he had to give in after what felt like hours of screaming. Our pilot was luckily well experienced as he apparently could hardly hear anything on the radio communication given we were sitting in the first row and Jakob's volume was pretty high and so we arrived safely at home just after midnight.
"I dont want to leave from here!"
While we are sad to not have sun, sea and beach anymore but autumn temperatures we are quite happy to be back home again but are going to return to Mallorca for sure again in the coming years.
Jakob, Kerstin & Markus
No comments:
Post a Comment