The First Day in Spain

Today was an exciting day. I arrived in Spain at 5 in the morning. I hadn't slept much on the plane so I gladly accepted the coffee offered on the plane. I had met Abbie in the Boston Airport so when we got off the plane we wandered around the airport together trying to find our gate. It turns out they don't assign a gate until about 30 minutes before the flight, not realizing this we felt lost for a little bit. I bought a Cosmo in Spanish in order to have something to read in Spanish that wouldn't be too challenging. Before getting onto the second leg of our trip we met up with three more students going to Granada and ended up getting a taxi together. Since we shared a taxi it was only 5 Euros each. Showers were welcome thoughts when we arrived and then we had a few free hours before we were heading to lunch. We went on a search for a hair straightener for my roommate, which though we were unsuccessful in actually finding one, I was able to practice my miming abilities with the help of my Spanish. Spanish has actually been coming back steadily, though among each other we're still speaking English out of comfort. Once we're in Granada, or why wait til then? Maybe tomorrow I'll make myself only speak Spanish.

I have never been a huge fish eater. It has never been appealing to me. Today, I hate almost nothing but fish. We had lunch on the beach, which included a white fish, fried seafood (small squids, some type of fish cubed, and another type of seafood that I did not recognize), and a couple salads. Everything was delicious. The rest of the day was mostly time for relaxing. I took a short nap and woke up just in time to walk around the city. Most of the group went so we were probably a nuisance to the locals. We then split into groups and Javier showed us a Catholic cathedral, the Picasso museum (just the outside since it was closed), and a Roman theater. We then went for dinner at a place called El Pimpi and got some appetizers, in the essence of tapas. It is said that Granada is the only place where tapas are still free, as in by purchasing an alcoholic drink you receive a free bit of food. Here in Málaga we had to pay for the food, but by splitting the dishes we were able to still have a reasonably cheap meal. The food once again was delicious. We had "Los Pinchos" which was 2 cheeses (queso manchego and another kind) and cherry tomatos with an olive oil, tuna fish sandwich things (with asparagus on top!) and Tortilla de patatas (so good, like a mixture between mash potatoes and french fries). We actually had gotten the tuna fish by mistake because the waiter misunderstood what we wanted. After dinner we walked home, and as soon as I sign off of this, I will be asleep for the night. What a long, but exciting, day.

Tomorrow we're off to Granada!