Palma was amazing. It’s exactly what I thought it would be after reading all the blogs written by the American expats. It’s lazy, sunny and the cafe culture is fascinating. A school friend met me at the airport and helped me get situated at one of the luxury hotels Palma has, which was one of the nicest hotels I’ve every stayed been in. She told be she chose this hotel because it’s centrally located, plus it’s not too far from the the Plaza Espana, which is the central meeting point for all the students from abroad people in Palma.

All the students studying abroad here live with there host families and have ‘madres’. The ‘madres’ act as a substitute mother and does all the cooking, cleaning and will even dote on the student! The set-up is so different from the independent living situation I have. My friend had to have dinner with her ‘madre’ that evening, so she showed me a small tapas bar nearby, this place, bar was adopted by all the abroad students. It was a small English speaking bar and I could tell this helped make them feel less homesick. But there are local people our age too and most of them are the crew on these huge luxury yachts. What I liked most about this place was all the shirts on the wall.

The next day, my friend and I had some of the best coffee and what’s called an ensemada, which is a flaky pastry, and then we met up with another girl and began to walk around the city. She showed us the downtown and where all the best shopping can be found. She didn’t have to go back to her ‘madre’ for lunch because her ‘madre’ was gone for the day, so she had time to show us a spectacular sandstone Cathedral and then she took us down to the waterfront and marina, where we saw all those luxury yachts. That evening, we went to dinner and it was my first time to have sushi! I really like it, I thought for sure I’d be only eating Spanish dishes. It was time to head back to my hotel, and for my friend to head back home and wait for her ‘madre’. That kind of made me envious that she had a pseudo-mom to go home to.