Well, our trip started at 7:15 Friday morning as we headed to the train station. After a series of stressful events, we finally made it. The city is right on the coast of southeast Spain and sits on the Mediterranean.
Let's start from the beginning though. There were supposed to be 5. Only 4 arrived at the station we were meeting at. Poor Sally Anne snoozed her alarm one too many times and was running terribly late. We headed to the train station, and arrived, unsure of where to go after that. Long story short, our train was supposed to come at 7:43. At 7:43, on the dot a train pulled up, even though it looked like a commuter train, we thought nothing of it, especially since the other group of Americans got on as well. I took the lead, eager to not be left at the station and hopped on the train.
Turns out it WAS a commuter train, NOT going to Malaga. As we found this out, the train doors began to close and our group was still on the platform (except me, conveniently, ALREADY on the train), I yelled to Corey, as the doors were closing and without skipping a beat, corey literally stuck half her body into the train. Now, in America, there is a mechanism that causes the doors to bounce back open. Not the case in Spain (they should really look into that, to avoid the antics of those silly Americans). The doors continued to shut and just held Corey in between them- one foot in the train, one foot on the platform (hindsight, probably not our smartest idea- but hey, you're supposed to make mistakes in college, right?) A very agitated security guard came over to find out the problem as the doors re opened (but this was about a minute later- a long time to be in that limbo). We scampered out and avoided eye contact at all costs (I stand by that decision).
Either way, we still have no Sally Anne. Ten minutes later, our train pulls up, just in time for us to see Sally Anne on the other platform (looking at us through the train windows) and straight out of a bad romantic comedy- we waved goodbye. .. Luckily, she caught the next train and arrived about three hours after us.
I stayed in my first hostel- I love hostels! Everyone is so nice and just doing the same thing! It was a bit alarming, but I loved it- everyone hung out at night and we got invited to what sounded like a really cool bar crawl, but we turned it down because we had literally walked uphill for about three hours, and didn't want to be dead for Granada the next day. You just pay for your bed and there are about ten beds in a room- but when you are being a tourist, you aren't hangin' out in the room anyway- PLUS we got free breakfast.
We found our way to the beach and ran into this awesome structure. It reminded me a lot of Las Setas de Enamoracion, like that subtle burst of modern architecture surrounded by the traditional feel. I liked the way the shadows reflected to add to the piece as well, and against the water, it obviously added to the scenery.
When we were in Malaga, we hit up the beach- one of the prettiest places I have ever seen.. EVEN THOUGH it was cloudy.
The view with the mountains in the back was picture perfect, I can't even get over it. Especially being from the Prairie State...
As we were at the beach, we saw this old fortress looking thing, and decided we wanted to check it out! We literally walked like an hour up hill (which we didn't know from the beginning) and got some GREAT sites of the city. We saw the Plaza de Torros in Malaga, and just the feel of the buildings. Kinda made me feel like I was in Greece.
Since we didn't really know where we were going, we took a slightly wrong turn. We were so close, so we decided to try to climb over the wall. I'm going to blame my failure on my flip flops. Apparently Old Navy doesn't make these with the intention of hopping fortress walls. They'll be getting an email about that one. And kudos to those peasants to who built the wall- they kept me from climbing it.
The fortress, known as Alcazaba, was built off 1st century BC Roman ruins, and was constructed by the Arabs in the 11th century. It means "red fortress," and connected to the village a bit lower on the mountain. However, after an earthquake, the path broke, and was never restored. We visited the village as well, but was nothing compared to Alcazar or La Alhmabra. Man, I've got this mudejar architecture down. I've been to three Arab palace/forts so far.
Planking on an 11 century fortress. Can you say that?
This is a touch of the architecture from the village and palace. The arches are vital and they used a lot of white and blue usually. This fortress is different because of its emphasis on red.
From the top we could also see part of the cathedral, on our tour, we learned it is the only cathedral that is not finished, because when they were building it, a lot of people in the town were very sick. The government decided to use their money to help the sick people instead (a very noble government if you ask me), and the cathedral never got around to being finished after they paused construction.
Here are just more views of the city, because from the mountain top- it was just so cool to see them all...
After all of this, we made our way to the Picasso museum, because Picasso was born in Malaga. Because we were students, they gave us 50% off, so the whole museum cost us 4,50! I have a much better understanding of his work now, what it looked like at least- I wish they had given us more information on his life, and his thoughts behind the pieces, but I suppose it was more of a gallery.
My next post will be on Granada, the next day, but there are just so many picutres! In the 23 hours I was in Malaga, I took over 300 pictures, and in Granada I took over 400. But in Granada I had like 36 hours :)
