Fuengirola, Spain & la Costa del Sol
Today, I wake up, eat breakfast, then take the train to Fuengirola. I had seen brochures for the Fuengirola Zoo, saying that they did not believe in bars or cages, and tried their best to recreate animals’ natural environment. This sounded great to me, so I decided to check it out. I’m glad I did! Although small, it was labyrinthic and very pretty, and I even got to see a few animals I’d never heard of, and a few more way closer than I’ve ever previously been. After the zoo, I took the train back to the hotel just in time for the group’s Costa del Sol tour of the southern coast of Spain.
We drove through small pueblos, touristy beaches, posh LA-style shopping strips (Armani stores, Versace stores, etc) and super-rich beach mansion areas. We took walking tours in the downtowns of some of these places, and it was amazing to see the old churches, the ancient castles, the opulent mosques, the fountains, the statues – and these aren’t ordinary fountains and statues! In one park, everything was created by Salvador Dalí. In another, the fountain was a mosaic, and in most, the benches are made with painted tiles.
After the tour, I returned to the hotel to study a couple of hours for class the next day. Because this first class is only two weeks, every night we have to read 2-3 chapters. At midnight, Sebastián showed me a little bar on the beach. I only stayed out for two hours because I had class the next day, but I could have stayed and talked with him for hours. I was finally having a meaningful conversation in Spanish, and for the first time since my arrival, I became acutely aware of the inadequacies in my vocabulary. We talked about the Bush presidency, the lack of compulsory foreign language/culture education in the United States, and the correlated general geographical ignorance of our nation (myself included – a blank map pop quiz makes me break out in a cold sweat), the cost of living versus typical wages in different regions of Spain, the cultural norms and typical dress of people in Morocco (where Sebastián had spent 3 months traveling), the many countries that invaded Spain over the last couple millennia, the surfing waves in Peru as compared to Ecuador (this one I was doing mostly listening) and how Miami is definitely inferior to Tampa. I was hoping to make friends in Spain – and finally I found the first one!
A few things I don’t know if I mentioned but don’t want to forget to say: The bathroom in the hotel has a bidet. I don’t think I’d ever seen one before (and I have not so much as touched it as of yet) but I should at least turn it on, just to see what happens.
Also, prices. How much do things cost? Well, it depends. Some things are very expensive. The cheapest one day car rental, for example, is 45 euros, which is like 53 USD. I had wanted to go to Cadiz, but it’s 3 hours away, and at 45E plus gas… not this trip.
Similarly, the Internet is pay-per-use, ranging from 1E per 10 minutes at my hotel to 1E per hour at the local, rarely-open, Internet cafe.
On the other hand, if you want something to drink, it’s probably just a euro in any vending machine. Bottled water? Diet Coke with lemon? Cadbury candy bar? Cigarettes? Beer? It’s all in the vending machines.
In the grocery stores, drinks are even cheaper. I got the equivalent of three gallons of water for 2E, and a box of sangria for 59 cents. (I don’t know what’s more ghetto – that I bought sangria for 59 cents or that it came in a box.) I took it to dinner at the hotel and shared it with my classmates. (We’d been taking turns and I was up. No expense was spared.)
Speaking of boxes of drink, I bought some Apple Juice boxes at El Corte Ingles – but if I had wanted to, I could have gotten wine instead. That’s right, you can get wine or sangria in Hi-C sized mini boxes, some with plastic bendy-straw. (See? That 59 cent box of sangria is starting to sound pretty high-class, isn’t it.)
And there’s no drinking age in Spain. Children often share a glass of wine with dinner. (I guess you could pack a wine box in their lunch pail too, if you really wanted to.) Some places enforce an alcohol *buying* age of 18, but even that isn’t standard. However, there’s really no issues with alocoholism. Because of the lack of drinking age and the idea of responsible one-glass-only drinking taught from childhood, there’s no rebellious underage drinking, no raucous frat parties or hazing, and no drunken karaoke bars. (Except in tourist areas. Americans can’t help themselves.)
So, kids have to find some other way to rebel, and near as I can figure, it’s all in the hair. Teenagers and twenty-somethings have all the hair colors in the rainbow, and many look as though they trim their hair with a lawn mower. (I’ve even seen a few lost souls with Rainbow-Brite colored mullets – and these were *women*!) The little kids, thankfully, are normal-looking and very cute.
