Minorca

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We arrived at Minorca around 1pm. It was a beautiful day! We spent a majority of the morning sunbathing. We went to lunch with my 2 favorite new friends - Gloria (Northern Irish) and Jan (Scottish). The island is beautiful as it’s lush and very clean. The problem - it was Sunday. EVERYTHING is closed on Sunday! I would have loved to come to this island midweek as they had the cutest shops; however I am on a ship and have absolutely no say as to where we go. Either way, it was a chill day.

Overall, I had a very nice time on the cruise. My mom and I were lucky to meet such great people to spend our time with. The only downside of being on a European cruise is that we were the minority… English speaking! It wasn’t a big deal except for the tours. When there are 36 Italians and 4 English speaking folks, the majority of the people resent and bitches about the multilingual guides. OYE. In general, the Italians are so freakin late to everything, it made the tour time quite annoying (out of a 4 hour tour, we waiting for about an hour which left no extra time before boarding the boat… the boat had to actually wait for my darn tour group…ouch). My mom complains, one of the other ladies starts to complain… my head is boiling and before I know it, I am complaining. This is so not what I want to do with anyone’s time (especially my own).

Culturally; the Italians apparently don’t even realize that they are late (or even acknowledge when people wait for them). The Spanish are usually late, but are partially aware of it… My new friends were always on time - they were British, Scottish, Irish, and Dutch… all on time, not even a minute late. Generally, Americans are known to be on time, even on vacations (according to out English speaking host). Now that I am not working and taking most things day by day, I find myself late often as it really doesn’t matter… especially in Europe. I am starting to get the ‘when you get there, you get there’ attitude. Hopefully I can bring some back to NYC.

We head back to Barcelona for one last day/night with Hope before we depart.

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