I can’t believe there are only 2 weeks left. I wish I could stay here forever. Everything so far has been so much fun and I don’t want it to end.
On Monday, France had a soccer game. We all went to a restaurant to watch it. It ended up going to penalty kicks and France won. It was a pretty boring game overall but I love the environment in the different areas while everyone is watching the games. We went to dinner after at a Lebanese restaurant. I was worried that I wouldn’t like the food but it was actually pretty good.
On Tuesday, I went to the mall to do returns. I bought a lot of clothes in the past weeks and there were some that didn’t fit/I didn’t like. I went to a bubble waffle place. It was so good. I got a waffle with strawberry ice cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce.
On Wednesday, Justice and I went to the Dior Museum. Everything was so cool and looked so pretty. The set up of the museum was amazing and easy to navigate. They set up the rooms to make the clothes stand out even more. It was so inspiring seeing all of the things he did and what his business had become. After the museum Justice had to go back to work even though it was 6 pm. I met up with Elise and we went bathing suit shopping. We then went out to dinner. It was pretty good but it wasn’t anything special. We made a quick stop at Monoprix afterwards to buy cards for the trip the upcoming weekend. Afterwards we went to the Eiffel Tower, got crepes, and watched as it shone and sparkled.
On Thursday I left work early to work from home and pack. I had to head to the airport at the same time I got out of work so it would have made it more complicated to leave from work. We all met at the airport to fly to Mallorca. When we got there, after we went to the Airbnb and did all of those things, we went straight to the beach. It was very late by the time we got there so by the time we decided we were done swimming it was past 2 am.
On friday, the boys were still asleep by the time the girls decided we wanted to do something. We went to a grocery store and explored the town a little. Afterwards we went back to the house and settled in a little more. We went to the beach and it was gorgeous. It was so warm and I missed laying in the sun. Going swimming was so nice, the water was so clear and warm. There was an area in the deeper water where there was a platform you can jump from. We went off that a lot and it was so much fun. After the beach we went back to the house to chill for a little bit. Some people slept, and some watched soccer. I got bored of watching soccer so I went for a walk and explored the areas around us more. I met everyone at a restaurant for dinner in the town square. The food was so good. We went out that night afterwards and explored. We got home pretty late but I wasn’t tired and ended up staying up until 6:15 because for some reason I couldn’t fall asleep. I just read and looked out the window.
The next day, we went to the beach again. It was a little cloudier earlier in the day but cleared up in the afternoon. After the beach, Ella, Justice and I went to the souvenir shops. We were planning to meet everyone for dinner but the other people ended up being too tired and went to bed earlier. The three of us went to a Tapas restaurant and I loved it. None of us were ready to go out afterwards, but we said who cares what we look like, let’s have fun. We went out for a bit and went to a couple of places. We ended up at the beach again for night swimming. I ended up only sleeping for 2 hrs, because I couldn’t fall asleep and we had to be up early to leave the Airbnb.
On Sunday, we went to the Palma area. We were staying in Cala d’Or but we wanted to be closer to the airport. I was asleep for the majority of the car ride. We went to the beach over there and explored a little. Excluding when we went to lunch, we had 2 hrs at the beach. When we got on the plane I passed out before we even took off. I woke up about 45 min later to them making an announcement that they had to turn off the plane because there was something wrong with the air conditioning. A bit later they said they fixed the air conditioning and they were going to do another system check. After about an hour and 45 min of being on the plane they said that the plane is unflyable and that we had to get off. We went to the desk that they sent everyone to for help with new flights. They told us and sent us an email that said that we would get our new flight and a hotel room within 90 minutes. After waiting for 2 hrs and not getting an email, even though we asked them about it a couple of times, we booked our own flight. It was a 6:30 flight so we decided a hotel wasn’t worth it and we were just going to stay in the airport. Sleeping in the airport was definitely an interesting experience. I slept the entire flight home and most of Monday.
France is a more high context country than the US in all aspects of work and life. This means that France is less direct in what they say and you sometimes need more context to understand. The French are also more relationship focused while the US is more individualistic. This is definitely apparent in life and work. Work life has more of a hierarchy here and it’s very noticeable. The French are also more direct in their criticism and it does cause some miscommunication because they aren’t insulting they are just saying it how it is. There aren’t really any challenges with this. It gets a little more confusing at times but overall it’s manageable.