MALAGA!!!!

Ok on to Malaga!!! Katie and I took a semi long train from Sevilla to Malaga, we were both pretty tired from walking around all day with our backpacks, but I perked up a bit when we saw Drew coming to greet us at the train station. For those of you who don’t know, Drew is a good friend of my family. He was in the youth choir at STM when he was in high school, and is now a composer who works in Europe. Even though he lives in Europe now he always visits our family when he comes home for Christmas.

He seemed pretty happy to see us when we arrived and fist taught us that in Spain its 2 kisses one on each cheek. We took a taxi to his flat to drop our stuff off. We met his roommate, Alvaro, who is a French teacher in a university.  After relaxing for a little while and refreshing ourselves with some nice cold water, Drew decided to take us out so we could explore Malaga a little bit and then have a drink. It was so great to have Drew there because all of the history and background that we lacked while exploring Sevilla, Drew knew (mostly) about Malaga. He pointed out historical locations, showed us the charming Cathedral with one unfinished tower, and we talked a lot about how the Catholic Church stands in Spain today. Unfortunately the Catholic Church was once very involved with political matters, including matters of very unfortunate consequences to the people of Spain, like the dictation of Franco. Because of this none of the younger generations trust the church anymore and so they don’t go to mass. This was very sad for me to hear. My faith has always been very important and to hear about and know what the church did in Spain is so sad. It strengthened my belief that the church and the state should be separate. When the church gets involved with politics church turns more into what is wrong and right in this world and not about simply doing what Jesus taught us to do and that is to love.

As we were talking about this we made our way to a café type of place and sat outside. I was eager to experience the normal Spanish culture and this was the time for that. Relaxing outside talking with friends, drinking a glass of wine or a beer, so good.  After a little while Drew’s girlfriend, Nathalia, joined us.  Nathalia was very kind and tried her best to speak to us in English even though she didn’t know a whole lot. After getting to know each other a bit Drew and Nathalia became very focused on making a game plan for the evening and for the next day. It was very funny watching them name all of the things that they wanted us to see while we were in Malaga, and all the foods they wanted us to try. Soon we had finished our drinks and decided to walk to our next destination where we would experience some different Spanish wines.

On the way we saw some pretty cool things like the giant Cazar which was an old Moorish fortress which was left. We also saw a roman theatre type of place that was recently excavated. Drew said that it seemed as if there were new excavations taking place all the time. People would decide to put a new building in this one spot and as soon as they started to dig up the ground and build they would find some amazing discovery of ruins from the 12^th century or something. Pretty funny. We also passed many building on our way, which were being rebuilt.  The unique thing about them was that all of the exterior walls were still up, either because they like them or they were historical, but the interiors were totally empty. So basically there were just a bunch of empty shells all over the place.

The place where we tasted wines was really cool and it was packed. Along the walls were lots of barrels with signatures of famous people who had visited Malaga. There was even one signed by Antonio Bandarrez who is originally from Malaga. The wine we tasted was all really good, I like the sweeter wines the best. We also had some ham and cheese. The ham legs are kept right there in the shop and are cut freshly when ordered. It was really good.

After spending a while there, talking more, learning about the culture in Spain we decided it was time to get Tappas. Usually in Spain people have a normal sized breakfast, a large meal during the siesta time, and then tappas at night which are like appetizer sized dishes.  At the tappas place we had a thick tomato and bread type soup, some potato nuggets, a shish kabob stick with beef on it, tortilla con potatas which was like a egg and potato pie type of thing. It was all really good. Then finish the night off we stopped at a bar and had one last drink. It was a nice relaxing evening full of food drinks and lots of good interesting conversations about Spain and other things. We ended up getting home around 1 AM…I think. Or maybe that’s when we went to bed after we got an opportunity to check our email and stuff……I dunno, but it was a very enjoyable evening.

The next day we did a lot of sightseeing, We tried to go to a couple museums, the museum of modern art, the Picasso museum (which in fact is in the house where he was born), and also to tour the inside of the Kazar. Unfortunately all of those were closed because it was a Monday and the day to take a break from all of the tourist events of the weekend. Although those places weren’t opened we were able to see the Cathedral. The cathedral was very beautiful and had a lot of interesting art pieces. One of the cool things that I learned about from Drew is the Saint festivals which are held in every neighborhood. I believe ( and I might get this wrong) that each neighborhood has a patron saint, usually some form of the virgin mary (Like the Virgin of Macarena), during the Easter celebration over 200 (?) men will help carry giant statues of the saints around the whole neighborhood while there is music and dancing. The streets are totally crowded like a giant parade.  Inside the cathedral I was able to see one of these giant statues that are carried around, the carrier of it really is gigantic.

After exploring a bit we took the bus to the one of the beaches where we had lunch. Lunch was sooo good. We had fish, salad, and calamari. Now those of you who know me know that I don’t eat Calamari…it is too weird for me….but I actually ate the calamari there and it was soooooo good!!! I think I really missed fried food from home and that could be why it tasted so good but seriously it was great! We also had some Sangria, which became one of my favorite drinks.  We hung out on the beach for a while, dipped our feet in the water, and enjoyed the beautiful sun and gorgeous weather.

We decided, after our long day of walking, to take our own little Siesta. We went back to Drews apartment and enjoyed some down time. I enjoyed some computer time. One of the things I really dislike about the ship is the lack of internet availability, it’s there we just have to pay for it. Although I can see that it is a good way to help us focus on the voyage and not be distracted by our usual obsession with internet (facebook and such) but I think that when we are in port and find free internet we spend our time catching up on our obsession rather than exploring the new country. I have been able to balance it out pretty well, but I know people who in Morocco spent a whole day sitting in a hotel on the computer. That is sad. 

Anyway back to Malaga. After out Siesta we met Nathalia back on the beach for drinks and to watch the sunset. The scene of beach and the city lights with the sunset in the background was just breathtaking. We met one of Nathalia’s friends who came with her brother and her 1 year old nephew. The little boy, named Gael, was soooo cute. He was carrying around a stuffed Sponge bob. His dad would play the theme of the sponge bob show on his phone (it was in Spanish) and Gael would smile so big, then he would sing it too.

After a while we decided it was time to get Tappas. That night we had the Tortilla de Potatas, the potato nuggets, and fried shrimp. My favorite was the fried shrimp. I never realized how much I like fried food. Hahahaha. We also tried another new drink called Tinto de Verano, which was basically wine with club soda in it, or sangria without the fruit. It became another one of my favorite drinks. One sad thing about the trip was that that day Nathalia was told by the office she worked for that they would not be able to renew her contract and she discovered that soon she would be without a job. That is a sad truth for a lot, too many, people in Spain right now. As many people know when the economy is bad a lot of jobs end up being cut to save money. This is going on all over Spain right now. Most of the night was full of us, mostly Drew, trying to make Nathalia feel better. What a scary thing to not have a job. Hopefully that will soon change.

The night ended with delicious Gilato and a nice stroll back to the apartment. Since the next morning was an early one, we decided to go to bed a little earlier.

Okay, sorry I am not posting this stuff as quickly as I was hoping to. Life got crazy again once we started classes, but hopefully I will be able to catch up and be all set for Ghana by the time we get there. For now I am not going to be posting any (or not as many) pictures, because it ends up taking a lot of my internet time. But I promise that when I get free internet in port I will post lots of pictures to catch you all up.  Next time I will finish up Spain and the hopefully I will be able to talk all about Morocco.

Jya Ne!