Malaga

I have decided to include a synopsis of some of my time in Spain on this blog...
As the staff team was packing early on the morning on which we had to leave, Abe found out that he could not find his passport. As this is important for flying, we had to come up with a plan. Fortunately, there is a Canadian consulate in Malaga, so he had to extend his flight, cancel his current passport, and stay in Malaga till he could get his emergency travel documents sorted out. We got his flight delayed by a few days, and so that he could get his passport. I decided to stay with him, check out Malaga, and chill, as I was kind of tired. The rest of us scattered, some to Canada, some to France, and some to the south of Spain. Abe and I grabbed a cab for the Canadian consulate, found it, and began the lengthy process of applying for an emergency passport. I tried to be somewhat helpful, making hotel arrangements while he processed his forms, getting something for us to drink, and then returning to the tiny consulate, eating paella out of a tupperware container with my hands, and falling asleep under the consulate's homey-feeling Canadian map, which apparently hadn't been updated since the 1960s or 70s. We got a girl at the travel agency to show us how to get to the hotel. She was from Romania, and talked about how much she hated living in Malaga. How charming. We walked past the bull ring, and continued on for about 20 minutes.The map I had of Malaga said that our hotel was right on the river flowing into the Mediterranean. We were excited. As it turns out, however, the "river" was actually not more than a sort of dried out bed of dust with absolutely no water in it, where some people played soccer.

We settled into the Hotel Tribune, left our stuff in the modest, but clean room, and decided to check out our surroundings.
Malaga was the first fairly large Spanish city I was in. It is on the Mediterranean, has a prominent port, and is built against the backdrop of some fairly big hills. Apparently it is the sixth largest city in Spain, with over half a million people. Lonely Planet (one of my favourite travel websites) describes the city as "very Spanish" and "exuberant", and I would tend to agree with their assessment. Several things stand out about Malaga. First, the streets are very cool. Lots of little alleyways, which feel very Spanish. That's the best way I can describe it. The broader avenues were sometimes covered over from on high with this somewhat translucent cloth which would cut down on the sun. Malaga is also known for its botanical gardens and plants, and this was quite cool, with lots of flowers growing in the downtown, beautiful trees, and gardens. This was the first place I was in that really felt like Old Europe. There were centuries old monastaries, cathedrals, churches, chapels, etc. everywhere, and you would find what in Canada would be considered a very important historical site by walking down what seemed to be a dead end street. Ronda was even more this way; it seemed to me that if you picked up a stone and were to throw it randomly, you would probably hit an old church.
Since Abe was disappointed that he had to stay an extra few days instead of going home to see his lady friend, I asked him what sites he would like to see. He wanted to see the Picasso Museum, as Pablo Picasso was born and raised in Malaga. Fair enough. We checked out the museum. I was surprised that Picasso had some earlier stuff that looked entirely different from his later, cubist stuff. There were some interesting pieces on bullfighting and on horses. But, for the most part, I need to be honest, Picasso doesn't really turn my crank. It was still cool to have gone, though. The coolest part of the museum was when we thought we were done, and we saw a very small sign saying simply "Ruins" or something like that, pointing toward a very nondescript staircase that looked like it could have been used to access a cleaning supply closet. We shrugged and decided to check it out. Turns out, the museum is built over a set of Phoenician ruins from when Malaga was a Phoenician colony exporting salt and stuff. Being a history geek, I really enjoyed checking out original Phoenician walls, guard towers, houses and stuff like that. I can't believe they didn't really advertise it. It was stuff that was around 2500 to 3000 years old.

After leaving, we decided to keep up with the historical bent and check out the local Roman ampitheatre. While there, we ran into Amy and her sister who were staying in Malaga! It was fun catching up, even though it had only been several hours. We exchanged information on what was hot and not in Malaga, took our picture together in the theatre, and continued on.
Both Abe and I are "economical" (or "cheap"), and we looked for the cheapest food we could find. We found a place that had tapas, 6 for 5 Euros. This became our dependable haunt, and it introduced me to an illustrious sandwhich made up of brie cheese and caramelized onions. Delicious. I saved money by getting my money at a local farmer's market, which was really neat. I would get chorizo (sausages) along with fresh fruit and manchego cheese (cheese from La Mancha). It was cheap but good.

I wanted to go on a day trip, but Abe needed to stick around town the next day, contact referees for his passport, and deal with the consulate, so we did our business there the next day, and after briefly checking out the bus and train station (where we saw Amy and her sister again), decided to spend the rest of the day in Malaga. It was a good call.

The next thing we checked out was the old fortess, called the Alcazaba, which the Moors left behind on the imposing hill of Malaga. Say what you want about the Moors, they built impressive castles and fortresses. It was super fun to check out their well-built system of defenses, utilizing the slope of the hill, tight gates, archer towers, imposing walls, and walkways bent back on themselves. They were also recyclers, using old Roman columns they found, which are still part of their gates. As you got higher up, it changed from a fortress to a palace, with nice gardens, these really lovely fountains and systems of channelled water gurgling pleasantly at your feet, and beautiful lookouts over the Mediterranean. The interior of the palace looked very Arabic, with the same sort of tilework, arches and pillars, and what must have been considered luxurious living in medieval Spain. Also, there were these Chinese tourists who seemed to be stalking us and giggling. We paid the extra money (about a euro) to see the part of the fortress further up the hill, which was quite a hike, but it was less impressive than the lower fortress, though it did have a cool little museum about Spanish colonialism. Apparently, the Catholic forces only managed to take the Alcazaba, and hence, Malaga, in 1487, just over 500 years ago.
We also checked out the Cathedral of Malaga, out of all the churches in the city. It was the first old Cathedral I have ever checked out. It is pretty impressive, although when a building takes 260 years to build, you expect it to meet certain standards. The architecture is not like the old Gothic cathedrals of France and England; it has a different style, a Renaissance style. There are almost no windows, and the interior is filled up with a lot of little chapels to various saints, with a lot of old religious artwork contained inside. I'm going to state the obvious and say it was huge.
The rest of the time, Abe and I did stuff like eat, drink zumo (juice), and watch world cup games in little cafes.