We had a funny thing happen this morning.
Jana´s plane was supposed to land at 10:50, and the airport is the exit just before ours when we´re driving the five or so miles east from Palma. So I figured leaving here at 9:50 would be fine, getting us there nice and early so we could have breakfast in the cafe near baggage claim.
As we were walking out of the complex, we saw the owner, who greeted us, asking if we´d found other nice restaurants in the area. :-) I asked how to get to the airport. He shook his head apologetically, and said basically that you can´t get there from here. He said we´d have to drive all the way to Palma and turn around (NOT an easy thing for me to manage! No overpasses, and lots of one-way roads downtown!), and that there might be lots of traffic, so it might take a long time. ACK. I was pretty alarmed. We hurried to the front desk and asked there, just to get another opinion. All three of the people there told us firmly that there´s no exit to the airport from this direction, and that we´d have to go to Palma and turn around. And when I said our friend´s plane lands in an hour, they looked doubtful about whether we´d make it in time. YIKES.
So then I was very concerned. I had visions of Jana waiting at the airport for us...
We got on the freeway and headed toward Palma. After about thirty seconds, we saw a sign for the airport exit. I just couldn´t believe it, but Alaina said, "Take it!" We were parked at the airport about two minutes later. I was just speechless, and all we could do was laugh. I still just can´t believe they all said it was impossible. There was no sign of road construction or anything.
We found her just fine, and I signed a form to release her to me. It´s GREAT to see her after four months! The girls really want to have a relaxing day of swimming, and Mandy has a lot to do. So that works out perfectly. The girls are already in the pool with the orca, and I think this afternoon we´ll drive twenty minutes to the beautiful white sandy beach we went to on Sunday, so they can play there.
We´ll call Mandy in the evening when we get back, to talk about the plan for tomorrow. There are some amazing caves, and I think that´ll be the plan for Wednesday.
Mandy was telling me about living in a country where health care is free for everyone. It´s hard to imagine a place where people don´t sue people. There´s no problem like having to pay huge amounts for medical treatment for injuries. So doctors hardly have any liability insurance either. In fact, doctors don´t make much more than people working in a bank. And interestingly, one of the homeschool moms was telling me yesterday that asking someone what they do is rude, almost like asking how much money you make. She said you could almost look at America and Spain as two extremes: one culture where people focus on making as much money as they can (giving up relaxing time to do it), and the other where people focus on relaxing as much as they can (giving up working and making money to do it).
I caught Dale on Google chat yesterday and was telling him some people would go crazy here. If you like to have a plan, do that thing, and then move on to the next thing, you´d find it frustrating here. People aren´t ever in a hurry. They´re relaxed about everything, and never even want to know what time it is. It took me a few days to let go of always wanting to know what´s going to happen when. The girls are still caught up in that a bit. But now when they ask me what time we´re leaving a beach and I just look at them, they know that means it could be anywhere between fifteen minutes to three hours. I´m learning to love it, though! It´s a much more pleasant experience when we let go of our usual expectations and float along with the rhythms of Spanish culture. It´s lovely here!
Kathy