Este Es El Dia: Malaga Mania

Hello again, I have returen-ed. This past weekend was a four day weekend for most people in Madrid. They call it the puene or "bridge" weekend. I call it an excuse to get out of Madrid for four days. Jenny and I had been talking about going somewhere/doing something for a long time but never settled on anything. The weekend snuck up on us fast and about two weeks ago we decided to go to Malaga. Malaga is a port city on the southern coast (Costa del Sol) of Spain. Most people said it was very nice and Jenny and I looked forward to seeing some beach. I hadn't seen water in months, so I was pretty excited.

On Thursday, Jenny and I met at the bus station at 7:45a and took an 8a bus to Malaga. I slept for the first three hours, but the last five I couldn't get to sleep. That's right, it took eight hours to get there! The traffic getting out of Madrid was crazy slow, but I suppose that's what happens when you only have a two lane highway connecting Madrid to the entire south of Spain.

When we got to Malaga we took a city bus to our hostel. It was pretty far from the center of town, but the buses were good and reliable so it wasn't a problem. We checked in changed out of our bus clothes, then caught a bus to town. We walked around, found a park, and the beach. We were shocked by the beach. It was a mess. And I mean a mess. There was trash everywhere! You can see it in my pictures. It was gross. Spain has a very efficient cleaning system, but I think it takes away from personal responsibility a lot. Everyone here knows that someone else is going to clean it up so they don't pick up after themselves.

We had donar kebab for dinner then went back to the hostel and crashed.

Friday morning we woke up and went downstairs for the complimentary breakfast. The hostel reviews had said the breakfast was bad, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn't have. It was bad. Well I suppose it wasn't that bad, if you were on a carb only diet, then it was perfect. They had bread, packaged muffins, and packaged cookies. By the way, cookies are a very common breakfast here in Spain, as are all things sweet and/or chocolate, particularly for children. We ate and took some bread for lunch later on then went back to our rooms to relax and slowly get ready for the day.

Once we were good to go for the day we went to the bus stop. There we asked the other waiting passangers where we could get a bono (bus pass). A friendly old man pointed us down the street and around the corner. We thanked him and headed off in the direction he pointed us. He proceeded to walk with us until we got to the corner. Then he waved his arms around in the direction we were to go until we were out of site. It was very strange. People in Malaga (and most of the south of Spain) speak very differently than those in other parts. Jenny, pretty much only speaks English with me (ie she speaks a lot of Spanish), has a hard time understanding a lot of the people in the south. I notice it in a few words, but since I don't know what anyone is saying anyway, I don't notice as much. For example, most Spanish speakers say, "Adios." People in the south say something more resembling, "Adio." They tend to drop off the last letter, particularly the S. So when Jenny spoke to the old man, she had a basic understanding of where we needed to go, but she couldn't understand it all. We walked down a block and saw no tobacco shops (that's where you buy bus passes). We walked up a block, no tobacco shops. We asked two newspaper stands and an internet cafe and did almost a full circle. We asked an old man and he pointed us back to the way we came and sure enough, under a dirty awning was the tabacco sign. We bought a ten trip bus pass and it turned out it wasn't quite the money saver we had hoped for. But we got to hang out/wander around some locals for a bit so it was ok.

Ok. Back to the bus stop. We took the bus to town and walked our way to some Roman ruins. Those Romans sure get around. I don't think I'll need to go to Italy anytime soon. There are plenty Roman things to see here in Spain. Next we wandered toward the big castle on the hill, the Castillo de Gibralfaro. I don't know if there is a short way to get there, but we seemed to hike forever. Luckily the views were good so we took a lot of pictures a long the way. The view were also very nice from the top.

Next we walked back down the hill and found our way to the beach. We went to the grocery store and found some things for lunch. Fuet (a meat of sorts), strawberries, bread, pate, and orange juice. It was a random combination, I know. We took our grub and found a spot on the beach. We sat and ate and watched the other sun bathers. Then we did some sun bathing ourselves. After about 30 or 40 minutes (maybe even less) I got bored of laying there/worried about burning so I started to get restless. I went and put my feet in the water (first time in the Mediterranean, Whee!!) but it was cold so I went and sat back down for a bit. Then Jenny and I moved to a shaded area and I was able to sleep in the shade for a while. Then I turned over, in the shade, and slept some more. It was very nice.

Next we went back to the where the Roman ruins were and went into the Alcazaba de Malaga. It is a bit of a castle-like structure that used to be connected to the Castillo de Gibralfaro. We took some fun pictures. I think at this point we went back to the hotel to freshen up then came back to town to wander around and find dinner. We ate at a tasty Italian restaurant, Hawaiian pizza, yum. After dinner Jenny was exhausted so we went back to the hotel. It was probably close to midnight by this time anyway.

On Saturday morning, we woke up again and went down for our bread breakfast. Jenny had developed a pretty high fever and was pretty miserable so we ate then went back to the room to relax, hydrate, and formulate a plan. Check out was at noon and our bus back to Madrid left at midnight, not an ideal situation. Jenny slept and slept. I went down to the front desk and talked to the guy there. Between his broken English and my broken Spanish I was able to tell him my friend was sick and we wanted to stay in the room a bit longer and he was able to tell me that he had to talk to the cleaning ladies and then that it was ok and we could stay as long as we needed. Win! We napped for a couple more hours.

Jenny still had a fever and was miserable but we checked out of the hotel and took our bags to the bus station. We locked them up there then found a cafe for lunch. We stayed there for over two hours. I enjoyed the people watching while Jenny suffered through her fever. She was a pretty good sport about it though and was able to keep up a conversation. Finally we couldn't stay there anymore so we walked around the shopping area. Next we headed back towards the bus station. We still had a couple hours to kill so we stopped off at a mall near the bus station and did some more window shopping. We found a place to sit and eat dinner and kill time.

Once time had been sufficiently killed we went to the bus station. There we waited some more. There were a lot of people there waiting too, all of them heading to Madrid. At midnight our bus arrived and we boarded and hoped for a quick ride and some sleep. The quick trip part did happen, it only took about six and a half hours to get to Madrid. The sleep part did not happen. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get to sleep. It was very frustrating. Luckily, Jenny's fever broke at about 3am and she was able to not be miserable for the rest of the ride home.

When we got to Madrid Jenny and I said goodbye and headed to our homes. I got to my house at about 8am and immediatly went to sleep. It was a long, interesting, sight filled weekend. And thus concludes my story.

Now on to the pictures...
I don't know why, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get the pictures to load in the same order they are in my files. In my files they are in chronological order. But that isn't how they end up on this screen. So, that being said, sorry for jumping around.

Here I am on top of the Castillo de Gibralfaro. Ta Da!