Monday Susan, Tim, Tracey and I left our apartment in Florence well before dawn…at 3:45 am for our 6:30 flights…Susan, Tim and Tracey were off to Orlando via Frankfurt and I was off to Mallorca via Zurich. We made it to our respective destinations safely. There were nice views from the plane descending into Palma.
I landed a bit early in Zurich (it was cold in the jetway!) and early in Mallorca. The only snag was that I tried to sit in the same seat I was in on my flight to Zurich…of course had to move but my seat turned out to be a better one even though further back, so no problem. I was in the exit row…interestingly, in Europe, nothing can be put under seats in an exit row and the flight attendant wouldn’t even let me put my jacket in my lap, and it was too warm to wear it. I knew about the former, but the latter was a new one.
My bags were the second and third to come onto the belt…but from there it took a very long time to get the rental car. Wiber said that the rental went from 100 to 500 a day over the past couple of days and they were clearly not ramped up for that increase. Once I finally got onto a bus (the first three left without me and I’d already waited half an hour or more), it didn’t take too long, maybe 10 minutes to get to the rental counter attendant and into my car.
My first stop of course was an Aldi Nord…had to get my favorite things such as the Marcona type almonds, dark chocolate with almonds, strawberries and lambs’ lettuce…and some salmon and chicken to cook, and more mundane items such as oatmeal.
I then drove less than 10 minutes to my apartment. I’d stayed there before and the manager sent me a code, and there is a parking lot so it was easy.
I just had time for a quick bite then it was off to play tennis at 4pm. I made it with five minutes to spare and hit for the first time in three weeks, on the red clay at the Jofre Porta Academy. It felt good to hit and all the walking (and the daily workouts I did) helped with fitness. I just hit for an hour, dropped off a racquet for stringing, then returned back to my apartment, worked out, ate my lambs lettuce and it was early to bed.
Today, Tuesday, I hit twice for an hour…little by little to get ready for my tournament next week, which has a full 16 draw and a pretty strong one.
I had errands to run after…picking up a foam roller and mat at Decathlon, some Padron peppers at Alcampo (none at Aldi yesterday)…fun to look around at all the different produce (some of my previous blogs have lots of photos from Alcampo).
Here in Mallorca it was cold and windy today without much sun, though yesterday was nice and sunny. So my European tour continues.