Week 2 and Malaga!

It's been a while, once again, but I am updating you on my full adventures the past week or so. I log the hilights in my little journal so I don't forget, and now I'm catching up.

Friday we visited the Mezquita, which is this giant (originally) Muslim worship place which was later turned into a catholic cathedral, although it still maintains a ton of the original architectural build. When I say original, nothing is original, it has all been reconstructed, but the idea is that everything now looks the same as when it was built, PLUS the changes from the catholics. Its really cool. There's a giant courtyard with orange trees and ONE olive tree around a fountain. There was weird light coming through the window so we all took funny pictures in the light... it looked like you were holding an orb or something. Unfortunately my pose apparently looked like I was praying to the mecca or something, and the guards started running over and yelling at me DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS? in spanish, but, alas, when you yell at me AND speak really quickly, my brain shuts down and I look like a deer in headlights. FACT. Once I figured out they were telling me it was NOT a muslim worship house and was catholic and I was not allowed, I then proceeded to show them my catholic pendant of the Virgin Mary and holler in my best spanish YO SOY CATOLICA! which roughly translates to i am catholic... at which point they stopped yelling at me, mumbled, and walked away. PHOTOS!




Friday night we went to a club called VERSAILLES which was really cool.... and Saturday began our adventures to Malaga!

The internet lies. It said the bus was at 11... it was at 3. The internet as far as the bus stations here is complete malarky. We ended up just trolling around town for a while, and the 3 hr bus ride to malaga went so quickly. We got there, found a hostel near the center, and it smelled like cat litter, but was cheap and safe and close to the center. The boys got the room on the street side, and us girls (me, ilana, jenny) ended up in the backroom with bars on our window and facing a building... lovely. So, it was Valentines Day and Chris got me chocolate, which was absolutely adorable, but then THEY MADE ME CLIMB THE BAZILLION MILE MOUNTAIN TO THE CASTLE..... ON VALENTINES DAY. It was actually night and the view was breathtaking. SEE? LOOK!


yes, yes, beauty abounds. So the castle was the castillo de gibrafaltar or something (I have it written down WITH pamphlets and all, i promise), but we didn't go inside. Then we went back down to the middle of town and bought these GIANT baked potatos and you can put ANYTHING inside them and they were DELICIOUS. They are preparing for Carnaval there, even though it isn't a main city, and there was a parade and singing and SO much fun. PHOTOS!



We were accosted by a group singing dressed like devils and angels, and of course I made friends. We ended up grabbing tapas and I ate OCTOPUS! rather proud of myself. and a delicious sweetonionwithbriecheeseonbread dish... also one of the best things i have eaten here. So my valentines included a bus ride, chocolate, a HIKE to a castle, an amazing view, a parade of crazy people in crazy costumes, being accosted by a devil, and octopus. Lovely.

Sunday we strolled around town, which, oddly enough, looks like santa barbara We went to the picasso museum... I keep my little knife with me and they made me check it while I was there for fear I'd destroy priceless picasso. Also saw a Max Ernst exhibit, which was really cool too. What was REALLY cool was underneath it is an example of the ROMAN architecture... like they found a house under it... what was even COOLER was that some of the descriptions of the stuff directly corrolated to the stuff we were learning in history (granted, history is in spanish, so i can only ASSUME to know what im saying). Then we went to picassos house PHOTO! and then took the bus to what we thought would be a lovely beach. we were wrong. it looked like LA had taken it over. and not like tiny tan people, as in broken glass and grafitti. BUT as souveniers of the journey, I took a piece of decorated tile I found on the beach and confetti from the parade. We found a rundown playground, and of course, PLAYED!



Here is the last photo I'll post about Malaga... we really had a great time and it was nice to stick my toes in the Mediterranean Sea.


Me, Mason, Ilana, Chris, Jenny