The Train To Soller - Kate's Here!! Pt. II

We finally took the historical train to Soller while Kate was here.  The train was first opened in 1912 and runs from downtown Palma, through the mountains, and back down to the city of Soller on the East side of the island.

The train travels 27.3 km (17 miles) in about an hour and goes through 13 tunnels on the trip.

The train is made mostly of wood and is supposed to be the exact way that it looked way back in the day and is even supposed to be maintained in the same way as it was 100 years ago, whatever that means.

Once you make it to the other side of the mountains, the train stops and gives you a chance to take a few pictures of the town of Soller down in the valley below.

The most impressive building in Soller is the St. Bartomeu Church which originally dates from 1236.  The most unique feature of the church is that it has a beautiful facade, but the rest of the church is fairly plain (unusual in Mallorca anyway).

The original hand-operated switch to change tracks.  I find this fascinating, Kelly thinks I'm a nerd.

These are the trams (different from the trains) which run from Soller to Port de Soller which is about 4km away.  Most of the old town in Mallorca were built about that far from the water to protect from pirate attacks (on a side note...  Whats a pirates favorite letter?  You think it be arrrrr, but its really the sea!).

While we were walking through Soller, a cat perched on a windowsill took one look at Kelly and let out a loud pet-me meeeoooooow.  After the (slightly longer than) appropriate cat petting time, we were wondering if Kelly was some sort of cat whisperer.  However, we were maybe 20 feet away when another person walked by the cat, it meowed, and they pet him.  Turns out this cat is just running a kind of pet-me racket.  Brilliant.

Kate and I in front of the two most Soller-y things in town, the church and fresh fruit trees.

Fin

Bike Shop in Mallorca

Looooots of accessories.

Anchovies=common, Pale Ales=not so much

 Friday night we went out to Loriens, probably the only bar in Palma with a 100+ beer selection.  Spain has several large breweries Estrella, Cruzcampo, Mahou, which isnt surprising for the country with the most bars per person on the planet.  All of these beers, however, are pilsners and lacking in the flavor department (fortunately they are always served very cold and from a tap, which makes up for the somewhat malt-liquor-y taste).

So the chance to get a good beer on another hot October day was hard to pass up.  I had the classic Sierra Nevada, which was my first Pale Ale in over a month!  Kelly had the Red Ale from a brewery in Menorca (the second biggest island in the Balearic's).

Bonus points for noticing that the name of Kel's beer from Spain is in English and my beer from the US is in Spanish...

After enjoying our round, we went out for our 9:30 dinner of tapas.  This came with what may be my favorite starter in Spain, anchovies and black olives.  Anchovies here are really more small, salted fish fillets than the canned mediocrity you get at home.  And the olives?  Well, they are fresh Mediterranean olive, so, yeah, they are all sorts of yummy.

Hunting for Advil

After staying out until 5am on Saturday night, I woke up and was informed that I am getting older by the pounding on the inside of my head.  As I stepped out the door at 1 pm and set of to find some sort of asprin I was reminded by the deserted streets of Palma that this would not be easy.  Sunday is without a doubt a day of rest (or recovery) in Spain.  A suburban subdivision in the States has significantly more traffic, car and pedestrian, than a compact city of 400,000+ in Spain on Sun-the day after everyone goes to the discotecas till some ridiculous hour-day.

My first stop was the largest department store in the heart of the city, El Corte Ingles.  Its a combo Wal-Mart/high end department store; aka they have everything, but is really nice (and pricey).  You need some produce, a new computer, to book a vacation, have a key made, eat lunch, and buy a new 3000 euro suit? No worries, hit El Corte Ingles.

So I went to the biggest and most centrally located El Corte Ingles and was met by locked doors, because, well, because its Spain.  Extremely flustered, I was going to head home when I saw the flashing green cross of a 24/7 farmacia.  I wandered in and proceeded to search for 5 minutes for some Advil/Tylenol/ibuprofen with no luck.

At this point I was stuck in that area between "do I keep looking since my head is really starting to annoy me now" and "do I just go home and sleep all day" when the angles of advertising presented me with a gift.  Carrefour.  Prominently above a bench with a sleeping hobo on one end and two love struck teens on the other was a sign proudly displaying to the world that Carrefour is open on Sundays!

Carrefour, for those of you that are out of the loop, is the bigger, cheaper, French-ier version of El Corte Ingles.  Any department store that has its own brand of Whiskey has been around the block a few times.

So, I hopped on the bus and settled in for the 25 minute ride to happiness.  As luck would have it though, this bus went by the smaller, less convenient El Corte Ingles first.  Which, upon passing, I saw was very open.  'Cuz you know, why would you open the nice, big, convenient one?  So, buoyed by the though of not being on a bus for about forever, I dismounted and strolled confidently into El Corte Ingles where I searched for 10 minutes for FREAKING ADVIL.  So finally I tried to make myself somewhat presentable, focused really hard, and asked a bored looking associate where I could find the ibuprofen, which I was told is obviously only at the pharmacy.

This threw me for a minute because I can get BC powder at a gas station in North, South Carolina (the town, thats not some odd typo) and here it is only available in pharmacies where I had already looked earlier.  Whatever.

Fortunately, there was a Pharmacy close by, so I stumbled across the (still deserted) street, walked right in and asked where the friggin ibuprofen is.  To which the Pharmacist walked around behind the counter, pulled out a key, unlocked a drawer, and asked me something about 400 something.  Yes! I dont know if I need 400 painkillers but whatever, it will save me from doing this again.  So she pulls out a shiny, silver 2"x4" box and asks for 4 euros.  Confused, but no longer really caring what I just bought, we made the exchange and I walked out to examine my purchase.

Apparently I bought 12, 400mg ibuprofen tablets, which I found very disappointing on the quantity side but was pretty excited about on the quality side.  So Ill call it a wash.

And thats the story of how I spent 3 hours on a Sunday!

World's Smallest Croissant

As seen during breakfast...

We're still waiting on wifi...We had a tease of internet for 1 day and now, no mas.  One day we will be connected to the interwebs.  One day...

And my bike is 100 miles away in customs.  Spain, please do something quick for once and get it to me!