Oh Mallorca...

Nothing better than being able to go from home in a city of 400,000 people,

to a small village on the Med,

(Es Camp de Mar if you're curious)

along windy back roads,

up into the mountains,

all in just a short bicycle trip (or 2).

Yes, you can see the Mediterranean in this picture.

Vuelta a Mallorca

The Vuelta a Mallorca bike race rolled through the island February 9-12.  The race is a over 4 days but with no real overall winner, just 4 individual winners.  The weather is great here this time of the year so we got to see many of cycling's stars on the island.  At the race were Vuelta a Espana winner Chris Horner, new World Champ Rui Costa, Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins, and a whole host of other cyclist getting their legs ready for the upcoming season.

Kelly and I arrived back from Barcelona on Sunday morning, just in time to head down to the waterfront and watch the Trofeo Palma, the first race.  It was a short, criterium style, race that gave the spectators plenty to see with several laps along the Paseo Maritimo, the main waterfront road in Palma.

We watched most of the race from and 'Irish' Pub along the road.  There is no better way to watch a race than sitting in a chair, in the sun, with a cold Guiness in hand.  As the race was winding down we wandered toward the finish where we saw Sacha Moldenado win, despite another guy raising his hands thinking he had won, whoops.

We missed Monday and Tuesday's stages in the mountains (ugh, work) but were able to take the train up to the winery filled town of Binissalem to catch part of the final stage.  We found a bench in the sun and waited for the peleton to arrive.  We were about 30km from the finish of the race which had split up in the mountains near the beginning.  A large group was off the front, followed by the peleton, followed by several stragglers.  25 minutes on the train each way for a solid 3 minutes of race watching, Id say that math works out...

Video highlights of the races

Kate's Here!!

Kate came and visited us for a week here and so we decided to show her the whole island by renting a car for a few days and seeing all the hard to get to sights.

Checking out the cathedral while we waited for Kelly.

Climbing the 300+ stairs to Castle Bellver.

Wandering the castle.

Look at these two! :)

Not a bad view of the island.

Toes in the Med for the first time. 

(technically the second in this shot but the first involved a ton of seaweed and wasn't quite as photogenic).

A warm day and a trip to the beach at Palma Nova.

Finishing it off with a trip to a futbol match.

Thanks for coming Kate!!!  We had a great time discovering the island with you.

A Good Day for a Ride

Football, No like American Football, In Spain!

Sunday we went and saw the Mallorca American Football Club, The Voltors (Vultures).  It was a sunny day out, the game was at the RCD Mallorca stadium, and tickets were free, so we had to go.  After a Spanish Tailgate (making to-go drinks and walking to the stadium) we made it to the stadium to find out that the game was actually on a practice field beside the stadium.  No biggie.

The practice stadium was full and we walked in to a 12-0 score on the scoreboard.  And when I say scoreboard I mean a chalkboard easel.  Since the 'scoreboard' didn't tell us who had which points, we first had to figure out which team was which.

Touchdown, team in white!  Which it turns out was Alicante, the other team.  With the other team lining up for a PAT to make the score 12-7, we were discussing how good our kicker must be to have 4 field goals already...and then when they missed the PAT we realized we were just sterotyping Spanish people as good kickers of balls because, you know, soccer.  Nope, lots of missed PATs, a missed field goal, general bad kicking all around.  Yes, its a different ball, but c'mon.

As the game continued the Voltors proceeded to run over the other team.  Literally and figuratively as passing is very limited (and they play with college rules, FYI) in Spanish American Football.  After a rousing halftime drum show and the discovery that they serve beer (it's Spain after all), we hung around until the Voltors finished with a winning score of 54-6.  

Yes, I bought a t-shirt, No, I cannot wait for more Spanish/American Football!!!!!

Brussels, Belgium

We took the train from Cologne, Germany to Brussels, Belgium and tried to enjoy all of the beer in town...

The famous little peeing boy statue

A much bigger peeing boy on a nearby wall.

A great shot of the old and new that come together so well in Brussels.

Hitting up the beer museum.  We somehow were given 2 free beers. 

 It was a good day.

Getting some vin chaud (hot wine) from a street vendor.

Its like cider but better (wine-y-er)

Awesome streetlamps.

Observing the arts, and then sitting on them.

A statue of Peter Pan.  Seems like an odd amount of statues

of small boys in this town...

The Delirium Cafe, because its Belgium, thats why.

Everyone Knows You're American When...

Even after you dress up to go to the cafe on the ground floor of your apartment and buy a baguette while you're there and get a cafe con leche...

A) You got it para llevar (to go) &
B) You don't want at least two packs of sugar for it.

Remember, the key to a good cup of coffee is to add enough milk 

and sugar to drown out that coffee taste.