Malaga

The first time I went to Spain was the summer of 2001, so that I could learn Spanish. I was in Salamanca, a little town about 2 hours from Madrid. They say that in Salamanca, they speak the most perfect Castillian Spanish, and the town is very safe, no one speaks English, so it's a great place to learn Spanish. But the town is really small, and FULL of very young students, many from America, complaining how nothing is open in the middle of the day and heading straight for the town's only McDonalds. I was dying to get the hell out of there. I managed to hook up with a Brazilian girl, a Japanese girl, and a couple of random guys, and we rented a car to drive down to Andalucia. I remember teaching the Japanese girl some of the myriad ways the word “fuck” can be used to form a sentence in English, that the Brazilian girl kept whining about having to find caramelos (soft gummy candies) seemingly every 10 minutes, and that we kept driving in circles for hours trying to find a hostel they could afford. All of them were students on a very tight budget, except for the Brazilian girl who just had no job, and I practically rich in comparison. It was also the time of the peseta, only a couple of years before the Euro was adopted, and Spain being one of the poorer European countries, everything was so goddamn cheap. We drove through the night, and we finally happen upon one hostal, and the Brailian girl gets out and says “ugh it's too epensive!” It was $14 a person, and they were looking to spend no more than $11. It was then that I realized that I was too old to be traveling with children. Malaga was probably the one major andalucian city we didn't make it to. So I was very excited to see Malaga. Maybe this is why I was a little disappointed. Malaga is a port city, and has an international airport, so it is the major thoroughfare for travel to the south of Spain. And in July, where there is coast, there are Germans and the English. You know how the signs in other airports have a couple of languages on the signs- usually the local tongue and English? Well, here the first language on the signs is German. They go straight from the airport to coast towns close by. Malaga has a huge alcazar at the top of a hill, and old city walls, and a lot of tourism. Victor, the gracious hostel owner, recommends a couple of areas to check out... the beach, the shopping area, the university area, and I'm not particularly impressed with any of it. It's very touristy (granted, a lot of Spanish tourists), the beaches are dirty in comparison to the other places I'd been, and at night the streets are packed with those people who are trying to get you to come to their particular club for chupitos. I guess it would've been better had I not spent all day running around, too tired to go out at 11pm or midnight to actually experience life in Malaga. So Victor recommends Nerja, a town about an hour (two with the stupid bus I chose) from Malaga. It has a really pretty beach, with lots of huge rocks and coves. It's full of Germans, but whatever. It's hot as hell. It's also the home of the most spectacular caves. I hate cave tours. Caves are usually dank, smelly, slippery. But somehow, Nerja managed to take the “nature” out of the caves. It's completely dry, and they have built a walking path in the cave so that you can walk around without actually walking on the cave floor. And inside, they have built a concert stage. I wish I were around to see a cave concert! Back in Malaga, I find this awesome bodega... the place is very simple, and the bar is actually just a very long plank of wood in front of barrels of wine all laid out. It's run strictly by grumpy old men (I LOVE grumpy old man bartenders, it seems). I asked for a recommendation, and he takes one look at me and says “take this one, it's sweet.” He gives me a glass of wine that has a very rich taste of raisins, almost syrupy. Almost too sweet for my taste, but delicious. With chalk, in front of my glass, he writes “1.50.” This is how the tab is recorded. Victor, who became a sommelier in Brooklyn, later brings us an almost identical glass of wine back at the hostel. This kind of wine is very typical of Malaga. Everyone at the hostel is so sweet. In my room, there's an adorable Italian boy who seems allergic to wearing a shirt. He's in Malaga looking for work, in the time of “the crisis,” so he's cute but probably a little bit stupid. A pair of Dutch girls ask me to go out with them. Later on, the two Spaniard girls invite me as well. I'm just not into going out for shots. I meet a pair of self-described “awkward” girls from Belgium, and convince them to go out for a quick and uneventful drink, as it seems they're not so into shots, either. I was as excited to get out of malaga as I was to get in.