Málaga, Spain
So, today I wake up, eat breakfast, have class – life as usual. For me, anyway. I later found out that my classmate Paula went to the Internet cafe, read a disturbing email, left and crossed the street without looking, and promptly got hit by a car. She was shaken up, but otherwise fine. Luckily, the car had been coming from a stop sign and was able to stop without injuring her – it only managed to knock her bag from her hands.
Instead of going to the Internet Cafe right after class myself, I took the train to Málaga. Finally, I was going to get to explore the Alcazaba! it was incredible. The towers, the tall, skinny walkways atop the castle walls with nothing to prevent me from tumbling to my death except my own sense of balance – amazing. My imagination ran wild, imagining what it would have been like to live here, an Arabian prince with an incredible view of the city, the sea and the mountains… or a servant, defending the castle, running along the narrow walkways hundreds of feet high, trying to run wile balancing a vat of boiling oil ready to be thrown at the invading armies below…
After the Alcazaba, I wandered around and happened to come across the customs-immigration building, which happened to house a modern art exhibition by a greek artist. Entrance was free, so I went in to check it out. i don’t pretend to understand modern art (neither the abstract paintings nor the indecipherable statues) but it was interesting to look at nonetheless. The security officer at the entrance struck up a conversation with me when I was about halfway through the exhibition and told me all about the changes being made in order to prepare Málaga to be the European Capital of Culture 2016, and how a new customs-immigration building was being built and this one expanded and how any building of history or importance with any kind of exhibit room was being turned into partial museums, such as this building, to house travelling exhibitions and the like.
As I walked back toward the train station, I noticed two things. One, I was starving. Two, on the walk/don’t walk signs at the traffic lights, instead of ¨WALK¨, there’s an image in green of a man walking.
As for my stomach, I stopped into a sidewalk cafe. The only thing on the menu (a cardboard sign with pictures) that seemed vegetarian was a potato omelette. I figured what the hey, and decided to order it. BTW, when waiters, receptionists and the like, greet you, they say “Dígame”. This does not me, “Hello, ma’am. How may I help you?” or even “What would you like?” No, “dígame” simply means “Tell me.” So, I said I wanted the potato omelette and he said they were all out, did I want something else? And I said, well, I’m a vegetarian, and he said, oh, do you want a Spanish omelette, then? There’s no meat. So I said sure, sounds great. So that’s how I ended up in an alley café, ordering items not on the menu. I’m glad I did – it was yummy and totally hit the spot.
Tonight was La Noche de San Juan, the shortest day of the year. This is a festival celebrated throughout Spain. Fireworks go off around 11:30pm, and all evening the people light bonfires along the beach and roast sardines. Then, when the clock strikes midnight, they walk to the shore. The legend is, if the waves come and lap at your toes and you make a wish, the wish will come true.
I had a great time letting the Mediterranean Sea wash over my bare feet and making wishes underneath a huge full moon. (I did not, however, eat any roasted sardines.)
