A Return from Hiatus
- Natalie Penry
- Dec 24, 2024
- 8 min read
Welcome Welcome Welcome! I know everyone was ✨heartbroken✨ that I took a brief hiatus over the last month or so, but trust me, it was for the best. Time on this island is precious, and I'd be remiss if I spent more time writing about it than going out and living.
That being said, there's a lot to catch you up on now! Since we last chatted, I've had two visitors make it to Menorca, one weekend on the mainland, a birthday, and the arrival of the Christmas season.
Since everyone famously loves to hear people ramble on about inconsequential things, I've tried my best to keep this post's collection of anecdotes short and sweet, embodying my best Sabrina Carpenter. Without further ado, let's get reacquainted!
All in the Family
In all my travels before, I've never gotten the chance to play hostess before, but in the beginning of November, my dad made his way to the island for some late-season tourism.
While he was only able to visit for a long weekend, we still packed in plenty of adventures, mostly around cuisine. If you know Dan, you know exploring the local gastronomy is a must. The good news: we ate a lot, a lot, a lot of yummy food. The bad news: we literally always forgot to take a picture before digging in...
With lots of yummy food comes lots of long walks, and with lots of long walks comes the desire to move a little faster. Our biggest adventure together was a bike trip from Mahón to one of the more popular beaches here, Binibequer. It was...appropriately challenging for me. In my defense, I have biked exactly two (2) times in the last five years, both times in a foreign country on a rented bicycle with my father. Yes, it is "just like riding a bike" but tackling the giant dirt hill by the broadcast tower was perhaps a bit ambitious for us.
All good things must come to an end, and so I waved to goodbye to Dad. There wasn't much time to mull and mope over bittersweet thoughts, though, since the next morning we had to begin preparations for two things: Birthday Week & Another Guest Star!
Twenty-Three & Me
I've spent birthdays away from home and birthdays away from family before, but I'd never been quite so removed from "normal" on November 22. That being said, there was a lot to look forward to & much to celebrate. It's not everyday you turn 23 😊
The day of my actual birthday was on a Friday, continuing my "no school on my birthday" streak. I had a festive day, if a bit odd to be celebrating solo, living out most of the morning and afternoon before everyone at home had woken up. Still, filling my day with birthday yoga, acai bowls, and dedicated writing time was lovely. My roommates and some friends went to dinner with me before an evening out on the port. In true Spanish fashion, the night wrapped up at a crisp 5:30 a.m., when I collapsed into sleep...only to wake a up a few hours later in a flurry of "my friend is coming today!"
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a twenty-something girl living away from home, must be in want of time with her besties. (Not quite Jane Austen, but I stand by it) The best gift I could receive for my twenty-third birthday was another chance to play hostess, this time with my fellow D1H (if you know, you know). Aditi braved the Thanksgiving Break Crush at the airports to make her way from West Lafayette to Mahón - quite the perilous journey - and was all set to spend a little over a week with me in Spain.
Few things are better than spending time with your people, you know? Especially when it's been a couple of months since you've gotten to laugh or talk or just be together...I can only just begin to describe how much this feeling is amplified when you've spent the aforementioned months in a foreign country where your sense of humor or cultural norms don't translate. It is a breath of fresh air to fall into a conversation where you have established friendship shorthand - we literally talked for hours nonstop on Aditi's first day in town. Twin, where have you been???
Not to bore you all with the hijinks that ensued during Aditi's visit, I'm highlighting some of the top moments below:
A Quick Dip in the Sea: It might have been late November, but the weather was lovely, and a Sunday afternoon could hardly be better, no?
Night Bus Excursions: After a trip to Ciutadella with some other auxes, Aditi & I headed back to Mahón. On Saturday nights, there is one night bus that leaves every 2 hours. It's exclusively used by teenagers trying to go home (possible students) and foreigners without cars (me, hiding from the possible students).
Wicked: We managed to find an Original Voice version (not dubbed) for ridiculously low prices - you can get two tickets, two drinks, and a mega popcorn for less than the price of one ticket at home - and unintentionally sat by the only five theater kids in Menorca. While I kept myself from singing along though it was a challenge, our seat neighbors were very big on audience participation...
The last little Colored Glass Moment was a time-honored American tradition: Friendsgiving! While some of the US auxes went back to the States for the holiday, there were still a handful of us on the island. We decided to show our European friends the highs and lows of a Thanksgiving dinner, complete with a potluck and heavily-substituted recipes.
It was a little odd to go through a whole day of work and come home to find the Macy's Parade just beginning, though I did appreciate being able to go for my "Drumstick Dash" in the afternoon. We (mostly me) made sure to have the Dog Show and the classic Cowboys' game on too!
Our Friendsgiving dinner actually happened concurrently with most people's Thanksgivings back home, following the Spanish tradition of late meals, and was an eclectic spread of semi-traditional and "this is something I know how to make" dishes. I will say, it is a lot harder to digest your Thanksgiving meal when it's 10 p.m. and all you want to do is pass out in a food coma...
Back in the Mainland
Before Aditi schlepped herself back across the Atlantic, we decided to have one last hurrah in a city with a bit more life than Mahón. Lucky for us, flights from Menorca to Barcelona are frequent, fast, and relatively cheap! Since I don't work Fridays, the day after Thanksgiving we dragged ourselves to the airport before sunrise and boarded our flight.
At that point, I had not left Menorca in over two months. It was only once we landed and started traveling to our hotel that I realized just how much that impacted me: despite the fact that I've been to Barcelona before, I was agog at how many people I saw walking about, how tall the buildings were, and how much ambient noise existed in the city. We were most definitely not in Kansas anymore! My Small Town Fever was quickly eradicated ;)
Our time in Barcelona was limited from Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning, so Aditi and I tried our best to run through the must sees:
Barcelona Walking Tour: narrated by our bestie Rick Steves, we saw several different sectors of the city and walked through the Cathedral of Barcelona
La Sagrada Familia: I actually went inside this time! We managed to snag tickets around sunset to see the iconic colored glass illuminated the interior, as well as visit the Christmas Market set up in front of the church.
Casa Batlló: Another Gaudí classic! We unknowingly visited the house right as its first Christmas Lights Show of the season was starting up, so there was an added display of holiday magic!
In keeping with our spontaneous theme...Saturday afternoon, Aditi & I kept seeing people in F.C. Barcelona gear, to which I commented "Oh, there must be a game today." Aditi ran to the internet to confirm, and then mentioned that there were tickets available, and did we want to go watch it? Dear Reader, of course we did :)
Things almost got off to a very rough start, as I had forgotten that Camp Nou was closed for the season, so I had Aditi mapping us to the wrong location. Luckily, we saw a ton of FCB supporters exit the subway on a different stop, sending up a red flag. When I grabbed the e-ticket, I saw that we were actually supposed to be heading towards the Olympic Stadium...oops! It ended up being fine, just a bit longer of walk once we got off at a different subway stop.
In fact, going to the Olympic Stadium was its own special experience for me. I'm lucky to have toured Camp Nou back when I was here during SAS, so getting to see the team play in a different historic stadium felt like a very unique adventure. The trek from public transit to the stadium that all the fans followed took us past some iconic Olympic architecture and gave us a gorgeous view of the city that I would never have stumbled onto organically. While FCB ended up losing 2-1 (though they had a 98% chance of winning or something crazy like that), it was still so fun to be a part of the atmosphere and see how passionate the supporters were!
A trip to Barcelona isn't complete without trying some of the local gastronomy! Some of our favorites from our weekend away were:
Empanadas: literally the yummiest ones I've had since Chile
Gelato: tiramisu flavored! it's never too cold for ice cream :)
More Starbucks: I'm just girl, living on a island that doesn't believe in seasonal flavorings or iced drinks
All good things must come to an end (part 2), and so Aditi and I made our way to the airport early Sunday morning to board our flights. She is much stronger than I, and ended up spending almost 24 hours bouncing between three different airports to get back to campus before her classes resumed Monday. I, on the other hand, enjoyed a 30-minute hop back to Menorca and was home before snack time.
It was so so so lovely to have a friend visit and play hostess for a while! If anyone at home wants to come see what the Balearics have to offer...well I can only wink so hard ;)
Final Thoughts...
If you know me well, you know that film and television are often integrated into my everyday life - hello, film major, duh - just as a way to frame my worldview. School years become seasons and big events act as episodes building up to a longer plot arc or character development. High school acted as its own four-season show with university as a four-season spin-off, featuring old and new characters, locations, dynamics. Now, moving abroad seems to be a connected, stand-alone limited series. Having some special guest stars from both the original and spin-off series come to the island was a wonderful exercise in perspective. It's hard enough to get a good grasp on your place in the world when you're familiar with everyone and everything - reckoning with the old and new simultaneously, well, it's wonderfully confusing. If a precious and rare visit from your loved ones doesn't really turn the world upside down, are they really doing it right?
Apart from those slightly disorganized musings, life remains quiet and peaceful here in Menorca. It's Christmastime, it's still in the 60s, and it's time to log off and soak it all in. I pinky promise the next post will come with more haste than this one - after all, who else is going to tell you about the holiday activities we've gotten up to recently?!
Have a warm and toasty week, whether that be curled up by the fireplace with a good book or taking a walk along the port. ¡Adiós & Bon Nadal!
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