In a way, it’s good not having wifi.

I’m now at a huge villa in Mallorca with Piers and his family, and we’re here till Saturday or Sunday, I’m not too sure.

I would be completely disconnected for a week except, somehow, my unlimited Internet on my prepaid UK Blackberry SIM card seems to extend to Europe (it worked in Paris, too).

But doing online activities on a stupid tiny Blackberry is annoying, so I have been limiting my Internet usage, the result of which is that I have a frail excuse to ignore my blog.

I’ve had two glorious days of doing what I love best (relaxing with my iPad) in front of the most magnificent view I’ve been faced with.

I can’t do photos now but our villa overlooks the great Mediterranean Sea, although we’re separated by a tiny forested area. Surrounding us all around are gentle mountains against an endless expanse of clear blue sky.

Days are scorching hot but breezy (therefore very comfortable on the balconies under the shade) and nights are cool.

It’s a most incredible location to have a holiday and the company is really great. Piers’ family makes great meals and everyone is fun to be around with thanks to the well-known English wit and humour that, till now, I have only experienced on books and TV.

I probably won’t blog again till we get wifi, but I will tweet, so please follow me on Twitter (@sheylara) for updates.

I have to go now. They’re playing dominos and I’m missing the lesson!

As they say in Spain, ciao!

Piers and I must be the only two people in the world who go on holidays without a clue as to our itinerary.

We do have a sketchy idea:

1. Palma – 3 days
2. Drive to another part of Mallorca – 3 days
3. Join his family at holiday villa – 7 days
4. Drive to yet another area – 2 days

The thing is, we’re leaving for our second leg tomorrow and we still don’t know where we’re going. We have no hotel bookings. Ditto our final two days.

The marina opposite our hotel.

Also, we spent two days in Palma roaming aimlessly without any plans what to see, where to go, what to eat. We must have walked 10 km yesterday.

Well, there was my unexpected bikini incident which gave us something to do the first day — search for a replacement bikini — so that was possibly fortunate.

I think it’s in our genes. We love travelling but neither of us could be bothered to do the research.

Palma de Mallorca Cathedral, famous giant Gothic cathedral

I take back what I said about it being fortunate that I forgot to bring my bikinis. It took us about three hours before we found one. That’s because all the boutiques and shops are now selling autumn fashion.

We finally found a lingerie and swimsuit shop and I got my bikini but I don’t really like it. I got it because I was dying for a swim. The summer weather here is as hot as Singapore on her hottest day, which is already bad enough, but if you’ve been walking nonstop for three hours, you really want a swim.

Never mind the last time you actually dipped in the pool was 11 years ago.

I’m not joking. I have not been in sea waters or a swimming pool for 11 years because of my aversion to sun and swimsuits. I’m working on dropping that aversion; life is short; although it might become shorter if you get skin cancer.

I also need a bikini so I can wear my new beach clothes — those that look indecent if you wear them on their own but cease to be if you have a bikini underneath.

Here’s a photo of me in my bikini. Sorry, that’s all I can do. I don’t want to be doing a bikini photoshoot with people at the pool possibly watching!

Besides, I really don’t like this bikini.

Okay, enough about bikinis.

Here are some photos of our hotel, the Melia Palas Atenea. It’s beside a marina rather than a beach, but it’s near the Palma town centre, so that was kind of the point.

It’s a pretty nice hotel, I think four-star, good service and surrounded by cafes and restaurants. There’s a seriously long street between the marina and hotel and that’s just all restaurants, cafes and bars, with a few gift shops and a mini mart.

And there’s free wifi at some of the cafes, so you don’t have to pay the crazy hotel wifi charges.

It’s a bit of a walk to the town centre, maybe 20 minutes, but exercise is always good. (Sunblock is also a great idea.)

I wore a maxi dress on our first full day here. I thought it would be cool enough. I underestimated the weather and overestimated the coolness of my dress. I think shorts and singlets would be the best things to wear if you’re going to be walking around sightseeing the whole day.

Okay, then. Just a few more photos then I’m going to have to call it a day. I’m not sure where we’re going to go after this. Maybe to the pool again.

At a square around the town centre. Tourists and shoppers watching a street performance.

The performance. I had to stop and watch because the music was really good. I bought their CD for 10€.

Lots of horse “taxi” touts. Kinda like trishaws in Singapore, except without the techno lights and music.

View from the Palma de Mallorca Cathedral.

No idea what this is. Didn’t see any signs explaining it.

Okay, that’s all for today. I’ll do food another day. My first impression, though, is that the Spanish must really, I mean REALLY, love their salt and sugar. But I need to do more field research before I can safely report my findings.

Will be back when I can find free wifi again!

So, I did the stupidest thing you could imagine.

More accurately, I didn’t bring my swimsuits with me to Mallorca, after all that fuss shopping for a bikini, leading to the craziest purchase of my life — FOUR pairs of bikinis.

It’s crazy because I don’t even like wearing swimsuits to begin with, never mind bikinis, because, to grossly understate it, I don’t look so hot in them.

Of course, what’s more crazy is that, after all that, I am now lounging on the island of my two-week resort holiday while my new bikinis are lounging in my wardrobe in Bournemouth.

I would say this is the biggest loser story of my life but I think it’s more likely a sign. Swimsuits and bikinis are not for me.

In case you’re interested, I didn’t bring them because my wardrobe had run out of space so I had stored them in Piers’ wardrobe. They’d been sitting there untouched for about three weeks, waiting for the big day.

Except when the big day arrived, I forgot I even had stuff in Piers’ wardrobe. Since my mind has never been geared towards bikinis and beaches, it remained that way during the three hours it took me to pack.

Oh well, there is always next year, if the bikinis don’t get eaten by moths by then.

In other news, wifi is not free in this hotel (Melia Palas Atenea – Palma de Mallorca) so I have painstakingly typed all this on my Blackberry and will post it via UK data roaming, which I suspect might be free cos it was in Paris. That’s how I’ve been tweeting anyway.

Will pay exhorbitant wifi charges soon so I can do a proper post with pictures and everything.

Ciao!

I feel sorry for the thousands of people who have travelled to Bournemouth to witness the four-day Bournemouth Air Festival, which started today.

I also feel sorry for the organisers.

Because, this morning, we all woke up to gloomy skies and intermittent heavy rain that had gone on through the night, giving way to thunderous downpours by mid morning.

By late morning, photos and reports of flash floods began to surface on the Internet.

Wimborne Road in Winton, just minutes drive away from us.

I was happily oblivious to the damage caused by the very same weather that had kept me in bed till 11 am.

It’s not very often you see heavy rain in England, much less thunder and lightning. The rain in England is often so misty fine it’s actually fun to walk out in the rain.

There was thunder and lightning a couple of weeks back and Piers was so impressed, acting like he’d never witnessed anything like that in his life. He was envious of me two months ago when I was in Singapore and we were having thunderstorms every night.

Anyway this morning, I took the opportunity to enjoy sleeping in while heavy rain drummed soothingly against our windows and rooftop. By the time I forced myself up at 11 am, I had been sleeping for almost 11 hours.

Here’s an MSN conversation I had with Piers immediately after I got up. (Has been edited for brevity.)

For half a year now, Piers and I have enjoyed making fun of each other’s cultures and countries, in a good-humoured way, of course.

One recurring thread in our banter involves the River Bourne, a river in Dorset which flows into the English Channel at Bournemouth, thus giving the town its name.

The nearest segment of the River Bourne to us is five minutes’ walk away and Piers showed it to me when I first came to England in February.

My first comment was, “That’s a drain!”

To which he replied, “No need to make fun of our river.”

I couldn’t help it. You would have reacted the same way as I did.

This is the River Bourne:

To be fair, the river widens considerably in some parts:

Here, it looks almost decent:

I took all these photos in March this year. Why am I showing you them?

Because, today, thanks to the rain, the River Bourne finally looks like a river.

Piers showed me this flood photo and we had another MSN conversation.

So, it really is quite serious, the flooding in Bournemouth. Even as I’m typing this now, news on TV is reporting the damage and online news reports are popping up everywhere.

People got stranded, the ceiling of Bournemouth Nuffield Hospital collapsed and patients had to be evacuated, businesses closed down, roads were closed, and part of the Bournemouth Beach got washed away by overflowing sewage and floodwaters.

Photo from BBC News. More photos here.

Also, more photos at Bournemouth Echo.

I’m relatively unaffected because our apartment is on a hill, sort of. Piers might be affected when driving home from work tonight because of all the flooded roads and road closures.

But the town as a whole is certainly affected. Piers had been looking forward to the Bournemouth Air Festival and had even thought about coming home during lunch so we could walk to the beach together to look at the air shows.

Shows were cancelled today while the rain continued to pour.

Which prompted a smart alec to respond thus:

Quite funny, I suppose.

But seriously, I do feel sorry for the organisers and fans of the air show.

On the other hand, this will cause a significant number of people to cancel their plans to travel here for the show and it will be less scary for us as a result. In 2009, the show attracted 1.3 million spectators over four days. I couldn’t find the numbers for 2010.

I don’t want to jostle with a million people on the beach when I go see the air show and fireworks display tomorrow night.

During summer every year in Bournemouth (and neighbouring Poole), beach-goers are treated to fireworks displays every Friday (and Thursday) night. I’ve been meaning to see one but always put it off because I’d get lazy at the last minute, thinking I can do it next week.

The cold summer nights in Bournemouth are a deterrent to me.

I’ve been told this summer cold in England is not normal.

But the world hasn’t been normal in the last couple of years, has it? Uncharacteristic weather conditions all over the world, tsunamis everywhere, Japan’s earthquake and nuclear fallout, London riots and, closer to home, the unprecedented four-way presidential battle in Singapore.

No, I don’t think the world is going to end next year.

But I can’t say I’m not worried and wondering. What’s happening to our world?

Since I’m going to be a student soon, I have an excuse to change my wardrobe again!

:D

Okay, not really. This probably won’t be the most appropriate outfit to attend the course I’m doing (Montessori education). In any case, I already had the outfit way before I decided to go for the course.

It’s just that I’ve liked high school uniform fashion for a long time already and never seem to be able to outgrow that disposition.

I think it’s because Singapore uniforms are so ugly that I feel like I grew up deprived of style. And there’s 12 years of deprivation to make up for.

Of course, I realise that school kids are not actually supposed to care about style and beauty, but I think people can’t help being drawn to aesthetics. People need beauty in their lives. We get to have pretty school bags and stationery and water bottles, so why can’t we have pretty uniforms?

Well, I’m not trying to change the system or anything. Just explaining why I like wearing school uniform inspired styles.

I also happen to really love school. I wish I were school-age again.

I mean (if you overlook the occasional essay deadline, which is evil, times two if it requires you to read an infinite number of books on pretentious philosophical and literary movements that actually don’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things), being a student is immeasurably better than being a working adult.

If you’re currently a school-age student, you have to trust me on that.

One day, when you have a job, no matter how much you love your job and your boss, you will eventually get chewed out for something you didn’t do and you can’t defend yourself for whatever reason and you can’t quit because then you can’t pay your bills, you’ll start to appreciate school.

Or you might get backstabbing colleagues who will keep trying to get you into trouble or steal your credit.

Or you might get hired into a position requiring you to do the work of five people and you don’t get overtime pay because you’re executive level and above.

Or… a lot of things. You’ll find out for yourself one day. Don’t be in a hurry to find out.

Sure, school years have different sets of problems. But I think I very much prefer them. Plus I like learning.

Oh, well.

Can’t turn back time, but I can go back to school, even if only for a short time.