Gasping for air after taking in the last two 5l-bottles of water to our flat in El Molinar I admired Matjaz and Bojan handling to carry like 25 shopping-bags on each hand quite conversant. As I mentioned before, the day after we moved in, we got some visitors from Slovenia. And these five hungry mouths wanted to be filled at least twice a day!

Having our pockets full of money we didn’t mind preparing the most prosperous dishes I had seen in a long time. As to say - Bojan and Matjaz did. Seems like I really took a lucky shot, when I ran into these two guys. Motivated as they always are, Trifko didn’t mind preparing Cevapcici for all our guests while Matjaz did french fries and salad for a full-fledged army! Of course they had also invited our new best friends - the Genova-Girls - over for dinner.
Actually today I’m having slight difficulties to tell the story of our housewarming-party exactly the way it happened back then. Since my memories of that time mostly consist of irratic pictures of drunk-people, walking on Paseo Maritimo, and me getting rid of my dinner, I would really like to let the pictures speak for themselves. But as it is obvious for everybody who followed that link, due to lack of camera-geeks partying with us, this is not possible in that case. So I’ll just go ahead then…

After having approximately 1 million Cevapcici each, we ran into two bottles of Havana Club, some limes, brown sugar and smashed ice, which accidentaly happened to be all mixed up in tidily cleaned glasses with straws right next to them. Unnecessary to say, that I gladly managed to pour the missing coke into the drinks.
Next scene happened on the beach… where suddenly everybody was looking at me as if they were waiting for me to do something… It took me some time to look down on the sandy floor and to identify the sparkling something as to be mine. After two more slammers the cab I suddenly was in had to stop due to the driver’s ridiculous impression of me wanting to get rid of something right next to the partying crowd on Paseo Maritimo. Uncool.

After recovering from this Waterloo some days later, we showed our lovely guests a little bit around the island. Casey sacrifized herself to support a second car and act as our tour-guide for Cap-Formentor. Luckily I’ve been at the exact same spot one day earlier with some colleagues from the University of Vienna. The fact that I skipped one or two days of my spanish-course at the university should only be mentioned along the way…

So there were we. Sleepless, homeless, demotivated, slightly drunk. Since our adventurous search for an appartment lasted already for three days, Ilonka(Slo) and Casey(US) assisted us in contacting landlords and agencies. Might have been because they were such nice girls who wanted to make the world a better place, fighting the evil, helping the helpless. Or because Bojan and Matjaz were staying at their two-rooms-flat in Genova for five days now - together with Casey’s guests from the United States. But seriously - if you would ask me, I couldn’t tell why they did it.
Fact is, we eventually found a wonderful place to stay. Walking around to find our parked car somewhere south-east of Palma city centre, we just wanted to end this day’s search as we finally encountered our last resort. It appeared to us like The Ten Commandments must have appeared to the jewish during the Exodus. An orange-based sign, with big black letters, saying se alquila and giving away a handwritten telephone-number. Needless to say, we were totally stunned.

Immediately after C.P.R kicked in and Bojan recovered from this georgeous experience we called this guy - Juan-Carlos - met his wife later this evening and moved in the next day. We considered the terms and conditions more or less as irrelevant facts - as we couldn’t understand what this very nice and strongly haired spanish guy told us anyway - and concentrated on how to move our inflatable airmatrace in one of the apartment’s two(!) bedrooms. At that time it seemed considerably reasonable to take a two-room-apartment for 750euro for giving a home to three people, well aware of the fact that one of us three would most likely have to occupy either the living-room or the winter-garden for the time-being.

Since the winter-garden directly accessed to the terrase with a beautiful view to the beach, I didn’t have to do much of a consideration to know where to put up my camp. Even though there was obviously some effort to be put in this room to convert it from the former dining-”room” to my throbbing antrum of love, I quite excitingly accepted this challenge.

So definitely a new era seemed to dawn. We ultimately ended our rough and painful life on the palmesian streets and started to enjoy the comfortable cosiness of our very own home… waiting for the next adventure to come up… five guests for a week - arriving the next day.

Making my way through the mediteranean metropolis of Palma de Mallorca by most eloquently asking for directions on the street I eventually managed to attend the intensive spanish course which would - hopefully - earn me the scholarship for september. Not having any clue I consequently entered a classroom for intermedios basicos where I - starting to memorize all numbers from 100 to a thousand in spanish - felt quite comfy! Unfortunately some observant teacher stuck me into the course for intermedios superiores some three days later. But it goes without saying that I managed to have a fairly pleasant time at this class full of female russian language students and spanish-freshmen. Not fooling away my money I got to know two pretty hidious slovenian guys who - not having neither any clue of spanish-language nor of finding a residence in this mere catalan city - exhibited a quite familiar style of humor when trying to speak german after having a cup of coffee in our descretely extended lunch brake.
Knowing about not having a chance of getting laid with one of the frigid russians I hopped on the next opportunity of spendig some fun-time in Palma and joined Matjaz and Bojan on their adventurous ride to the university. As these two master’s students had come to Mallorca by car we - once again - challenged the incredible road network where Matjaz, Bojan (aka Trifko) and I figured out how mallorquin style of driving really must be tought in driving-schools:

So, Maria-Magdalena-Veronica-Ana-Martina-Sonia. Brauchst di ned fürchten vorm Fahren, wir gehen’s ganz langsam an… Schau - gehst langsam runter von der Kupplung, gibst a bissl Gas beim Wegfahren und !”%!(% SCHNEIDST DEN WAPPLER DER GRAD AUF DER RECHTEN SPUR IM KREISVERKEHR FÄHRT DAMITST DIE AUSFAHRT ERWISCHST (%&”/!”&
Na schau, woar ja scho’ ganz guat.

It goes without saying that slovenians are quite familiar with this style of driving. Therefor after checking out the strategically carefully picked location of the university campus of the UIB, 7.5km outside the city, we kept going, finally deciding to move in together for the following couple of months. Wisely having delayed signing the contract for my first apartment I was free to join these two crazy chicks on a tour through the most fancy districts of Palma looking for a mansion that would fit their expectations. Of course I was the only one mildly understanding what newspaper ads and shields hanging on diverse balconies were saying, so I was officially announced austrian translation machine. Three tough days of driving around the city, entering derelicted buildings, calling landlord after landlord and real estate agency after real estate agency where followed by pure agony and chronic remorse… more to come

So this is what I do… three and a half weeks after the arrival at my island I haven’t eaten much, or gone to see the city. Basically I’m living on a terrace somewhere half way between Palma and the Airport, but hey - what the hell… I got internet!! Looks like three weeks of abstinence and abslolute abstemiousness of alcohol or partying finally paid off!

But well - let’s have a look. Tremendous exaggeration doesn’t take us nowhere. So here’s what really happened:
I got to Palma on September 3rd - all alone, all lost in a city where they even pronounce prevalent names like Burgerking or Microsoft in odd ways of twisting tongues. Luckily a nice mallorquin guy had supported me with just enough information to manage one third of my way to the apartement I rented via telephone some days ago. Since I had to agree on switching rooms with some funny spanish who instantly didn’t want to move out of the 300m² flat I rented a room at primarily I was excessively delighted that Arturo had found me some other place to crash at: 200m², two french, two spanish and me, next to Placa d’España (somehow the Westbahnhof located on a kind of Gürtel-like ring around the inner city). So there I was. Calling my landlord trying to figure out how to find the very street I was supposed to be at one-and-a-half hours earlier I ended up taking a cab to go like five times around one block to access the ludicrous one-way-system of Palma de Mallorca the right way and to stop just 120m from where I first jumped on the taxi… generously paying 6,50 EUR of course (since I had two suitcases an obviously reasonable sum).
Entering the apartment in C./ Patronat Obrero No.28 I was fairly impressed by the palace-like look of my accomodation - not that it was that big, but as empty and cold as the entrance hall of an medieval castle with rooms the size of one of these fancy little dungeons we all got to appreciate so much watching 1960’s bw-knights-movies. Luckily the french (and only) guy I met there within the following four days was sincere enough to demonstrate his interest in my arrival by going to bed right after I entered the flat. Thus I grabbed the Mallorca-GuideBook my lovely mum got me the other day to figure out how to get to the institute the next morning, where I was supposed to start my spanish course last friday. Cozily snuggling on the diligently placed pallet in my room I fell asleep right after the gastly beeping noise coming from some construction site hushed.