US singer Cumie loves Mallorcan life

Cumie met her husband when he was travelling to New York on a business trip and moved to Mallorca in 2004.

She misses the hot Buffalo wings of New York but loves Mallorcan life for many reasons, for example the lower cost of living, village life and having friends from all over the world.

She says a car is not absolutely necessary in daily life because everything is within walking distance in towns, unlike in the US. Another pleasant surprise was finding that the Internet was much faster than in New York.

Tradional and modern

She enjoys “the funny mix of traditional and modern”. For example, the farming town of Sa Pobla was quick to adopt a new system of separating rubbish and organic residues, with nightly pickups.

Cumie also appreciates the Spanish language. She found that two things helped when learning it: the pure vowel sounds and the clear spelling system. Also, certain words are fascinating because they have no exact equivalent in English, such as alucinar, which means “to be so impressed by something or to be so overwhelmed by something, in the positive sense, that it’s like you’re hallucinating, but there’s no negative connotation to it. I really love that word.”

Another favourite word is entregar, meaning “to fully give yourself to something, or to fully surrender to something. There’s no one word equivalent for that in English.”

A third word Cumie admires for its succinctness is aprovechar, meaning “to take full advantage of something”.

Beautiful island

Cumie immensely enjoys the island’s spectacular and charming beauty. She finds great pleasure in exploring the island as a family and always finding magical new places, such as beaches and coves, where you can spend hours and hardly see any other people.

The view from the window when flying back to Mallorca from a trip abroad or travelling in the countryside from Sa Pobla to San Joan always brings a smile to her face.