Update: Travels & Sevilla

Over the course of the last week since I wrote anything a lot has happened that I wanted to get down before it blew away with the wind. First two weekends ago a large group of us (6 in total) went to Malaga, Spain to officially begin "our" beach season, and see another city full of sights. We at first were disappointed when it seemed like everything was falling through, but quickly perked up when we found a beach where we could lay down and soak up the rays (in fact a few of us fell fast asleep). We made our own lunch, spent the day dilly-dallying and then went back to the hostel to prepare for our evening out. Luckily our hostel is also a hookah-bar (teteria), so me and daniel passed some quiet hours pensively questioning some deep thoughts. It was great to be inside such a warm and cozy hostel, where we could also use the terrace to look down upon the Meditterranean sea. Afterwards we all went out, had a good dinner, and then went into the city.

Malaga is a beautiful city, but designed completely differently from Sevilla. In regard to what I'm talking about, all the night life is put into essentially a one-kilometer or so square. As a consequence, in the the process of 30 minutes walking I saw more clubs than I'd pretty much ever seen in my life. After hopelessly getting free shots in a couple that wanted us to enter their club, our new friends from the hostel called and got us into this incredibly cool club with quite the line waiting out front. The club was called Liceo and if we heard correctly is where Antonio Banderas parties when he comes to Spain. Also a couple famous music videos were filmed on their white marble staircase. Inside there were two floors and it felt more like an old mansion than a club. Large marble staircase, from the top floor you could look down through a gap in the floor and check out everyone dancing below. All in all it was a great time! After that we visited the Picasso museum, incredible, and the large castle (how many of those have I seen!). The views were gorgeous up there, and you could literally see for miles.

One of the highlights of our Malaga trip was the bullfight we saw. Done exhibition style, to display a plethora of new rising stars in the bullfighting world, we were able to see two full fights (and it looked like three or four had happened before we'd even got there). I was astounded by the impeccable fluidity of these amateurs, and it has made me anxious to see the quality in a full-blown performance. I was surprised by how affected I was to see the death, however being no more than 20 feet away and being able to hear the blood pour onto the sand certainly was of no assistance. A top seat view would have certainly made that part less intense, but it was so invaluable to have an experience like that so close.

This past weekend I went to the Canary Islands with a good friend of mine. We went to Gran Canaria's capital, Las Palmas, and basically enjoyed a week of relaxing that has been needed for quite some time now. The beaches there were absolutely beautiful, the waves huge, and the city relatively bustling for not quite being tourist season yet. Although the weather wasn't our biggest friend and we did have a cloudy day on Saturday, Sunday relifted our hopes and we captured some nice moments in the warm sun before having to fly home. The city is really fun, the food was incredible, and the beaches were a place to pass the day even without the ideal weather. Some highlights were wandering through the city and seeing them building a huge pirate ship / set for a performance I'm sure will be performed in the coming weeks. Walking the coastline and seeing crabs dangling from rocks, near vertically at times, as the waves crashed in below them. Eating a tentacly piece of calamari that turned out being my favorite one, although the tentacles were certainly a mind-challenging first step to overcome. All in all an amazing weekend, a great trip, and well worth the effort to go see the Canarias (vale la pena!).

In other news there are a couple friends and I currently working on plans to remain in Spain during the summer. As of now there are still a lot of details that need to be worked out but I'll keep everyone posted on how this plan works out.

Hasta luegito!