Sunday evening and once again, I'm at the train station. I swear, the people working at the Skopje train station must  think that I am involved in some sort of human trafficking as they repeatedly  see me collect strange foreign people and wizz them away and to our home.

Alberto and Nuria walk down the train station stairs with their huge backpacks and even bigger smiles. They've travelled for the last 8+ months, mostly through India and Nepal but have also visited other regional places including Singapore, Malaysia and the UAE. They are now making the trip back home to Mallorca, and actually have a plane to catch from Bratislava to Palma in about 10 days. During these 10 days they are planning to see Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia, Hungary and Slovakia. That sounds like a very ambitious plan and one that does no justice to many countries in the region...but it is what it is...so, fingers crossed for Alberto and Nuria:)

We head home in a taxi and instantly figure out that football (our European kind) will be a hot topic. I tell Nuria and Alberto that back in 2005 I saw Barcelona play Mallorca at NouCamp and that even though the game was not too attractive, the experience of being at a FCB game on the La Diada combined with the cheering of the crowd as a huge screen showed a video of Real Madrid losing a home game....just priceless.

Alberto was born in Santander, the capital of Cantabria in the north of Spain. Much like Skopje, Santander has had its fair share of disasters in history. In 1893, 500 people were killed when a ship full of dynamite exploded, while in 1941 most of the old city center was destroyed in a big fire. Santander is nowadays the home to one of the most popular Spanish beaches - the Sardinero is thought of as one of the more elegant vacation resorts in Spain.

 
El Sardinero is also the name of the stadium of Racing de Santander, the La Liga football club from Santander. But Alberto also roots for Barcelona as well, much like us. What we didn't know before Alberto and Nuria came is the fact that Catalan is an official language in Mallorca. Although Alberto has moved to Palma from Santander, Nuria was born and has lived in Mallorca her whole life. I love her name - it's very Catalan and in proper Catalan it is written Núria. Núria has a degree in philosophy while Alberto is a biologist, and they both aspire to become high school teachers in their fields.

So, Mallorca. In our mind it is this extremely tourstic place and Núria and Alberto confirm this but also say that there are nice quiet places on the island as well. Mallorca is the biggest one of the Balearic islands and its flag (below) is very cryptic to me. Ok, I understand the typical Catalonian "4 blood fingers" stripes, but that thing on the left, is actually a rotated castle...and as if rotating a castle is not enough, there is an angel with wings standing on the rooftop with a cane and a baton? Or am I completely halucinating?

After some reading it turns out that the castle is the one of La Almudaina but we still haven't found an explanation of the angelic figure. Must ask Alberto and Nuria...hope to be back soon with answers...stay tuned.