Espana

Welcome to Malaga, Spain!

DAY 1



Well when I got here, I made a BIG discovery....the spainards don't have many automatic transmissions in their cars, lol. Me being novice in manual transmissions always have shyed away from driving them. Car rental was all lined up, got in line, got the keys, loaded the luggage, got in the car, started it, looked down to change the gear from park to drive and realized I was sitting in a manual transmission!!!! So I went and returned to the rental company to ask for a automatic, and they didn't have any. Went to every other rental car company at the airport, and they didn't have any automatics either!! Well there was one company who had a BMW with an automatic, but he was charging 1000 Euros (thats about $1500), so I just walked away. Ended up catching a cab to the Dona Lola resort and talked to the receptionist, and they found a company that rents automatic cars.

Flight was 7.5hrs long. Had about 10 movies to choice from, I ended up watching The Dark Knight, Hancock, and Get Smart. Got about 2hrs of sleep on the plane and I am dang tired. So I am going to try to stay up til 11pm (5pm EST) before I fall asleep


DAY 2


Got an early start on Day 2 when the rental car company dropped off the AUTOMATIC car, lol. Right after we got the car, we hit the road to Gibralter. Google maps said it was about 54 miles away. So not knowing where exactly we were going or how traffic and the roads were, we guessed it would take us an hour to get there. Get out on the road and discovered these people are speed demons!!!!!! They use the other metric system here, so everything is in KM (versus miles in the US). I was driving around 110KM the entire way, and folks was on my bumper like I was driving slow, lol. So anyway, got to Gibralter. It is the last english territory in Spain. It is a HUGE rock (bout 2-3 miles high) with small houses, shops, restaurants, apes, and extra large plant gardens with exotic birds throughout. Pics coming soon! So we drove through the island, ate, went through the Botanic Gardens, and walked around for a bit.

After that we headed back to the hotel to use up the massage vouchers they gave us :-) Got me a 30-minute swedish massage that knocked me out for a couple of hours afterwards. Got up and got some pictures of the Mediterrean sea and went over to this bar district to eat and drink.

The thing about New Years Eve in Spain is everything closes at 2:30pm, so we are gonna have to be fast. We stopped by the grocery store to get some snacks and the lady in the store told us that nothing is open after 2:30pm, everybody is closed on New Years Day, and some shops and cities stay closed down through January 15th.


DAY 3




Gota late start on this day. The original plan was to head to this city called Ronda, but it is about 1.5hrs from the resort and on New Years eve, most cities shut down at 2:30pm. So we decided to head out to Mijas Village "the White City" instead. On the way there, we came up on a castle, so we climbed this small hill to see it and take a few pictures. Then we got back on the road to Mijas Village.

This city is way up in the mountains. Road up that mountain was so narrow, I do not think any american car would have made it to the top of the mountain where Mijas Village is located. So we get there and see this all these all white bldgs made out of brick. Turn around and face the Med. Sea and see the costal cities. Turn around and look up (maybe 200ft), and see a church off in the clouds. I was speechless!!! So we walked through the White City and came up on one of their historic churches. Then we stopped in this leather shop, and the guy in there was about bargains, lol. He asked, "where you from? South Africa?" I said, "America". Then he responded, throwing his fists in the air and moving side-to-side, "Obama! Obama!" Classic funny! After that, we went around to this small temple where a virgin body was found buried 500yrs ago. Story was two little kids were playing in the yard, and a spirit came and told them that she has been buried there for a long time and to tell everyone she is there. So the parents came, and found her body. A lot of Catholics come there and leave flowers inside the small cave. There are also royal jewels and expensive dolls all throughout the cave.


DAY 4


So after Mijas Village and a nap, we head around to this bar to bring in the New Year. The bar had a $10 euro entry and it included a buffet, karoake, music, dancing, and dranks :-) We get there around 1030pm, and we are off, lol. There are about 25 people there. The white bristish folks were begging me to sing a karoake song, lol, so I ended up doing Celebrate by Kool and the Gang. Midnight hit, and we celebrated Spain's new year.....1am hit and we celebrate England's new year...2am hit and we are still drinking and eating...3am hit and I get sleepy.....330am hit and I am walking out the door. I couldn't hang those last 2.5hrs. So I head back to the resort and crash. Wake up to Thursday, a chill day :-)

The weather was perfect!!!! Got up around noon and I went out and took a stroll on the beach and took a few pictures of the Med. Sea and just chilled. A lot of people pulled out the resorts beach chairs and was sleeping, reading, or getting their tans. I'm too dark for one of those, lol. So after I did the beach I went back to bed, lol, because we planned to get up early and head out to Cordora, it is a 2hr drive away.


DAY 5


Well this days adventure was a 2hr drive through the mountains of southern spain, going east to a city called Cordoba (or Cordov'a). Let me roam off for a bit and talk about these spainards and their driving skills.

Man!!! These folks do not hesistate on any turn they make, they do not use their brakes, and they will ride your bumper until you move out the way if you are driving slower than 75mph! You will get ran off the road if you hesistate making a turn or if you are driving too slow. It doesn't matter what kind of conditions are present, lol. In the dark, in the fog, going around narrow curves on the side of a mountain, and even in the rain. Matter of fact, they drive faster in those conditions! I'm very surprised I've only seen one car accident since I've been here. I've only seen the police twice. Once a guy was changing his tire, so they blocked off one lane. And the other time to direct traffic by a mall.

But back to the story, lol. Many many years ago, it was the capital of Islamic spain, so they built a lot of temples there. And when the Christians took over spain, they built some temples of their own and made some changes to some of the Islamic temples. The Romans left their mark on this city too! So our first stop was to the Great Mosque / Mezquita / The Great Cathedral / The Cordoba Cathedral. The pictures I took of this place will not do it any jutice. The architecture here left me in shock and awe. They have over 800 30ft high columns. Every column along the wall had some type of stained glass art, christian statues made of gold, and some prayer written in Latin. It was at least 30 of them. In the center of the cathedral it was more of that, but they had also very large statues of former popes, Jesus, and the apostles. Then outside, was the cathedrals courtyard. About 100 15ft high Orange (the fruit) trees. Actually the entire country of spain is full of Orange trees. That place is unbelievable! I remember when I went to Rome back in 2000, I had not seen any place that could rival St Paul's Cathedral since that day.....until today.

After we left there, we went around to see one of the Roman Bridges and its tower. It is very well preserved after 2000 years!

Then we walked around to the Jewish Quarter and stopped in one of the ancient Synagogue. It was closed for lunch the first time we walked by, lol. So we went to eat. And came back by, and it was open :-) Inside was some ancient language script written over the walls. It was bible verses.

Then we ventured over to the Cathedral of the Christian Monarchs. We didn't go in because the line was wrapped around the corner and we had to be back on the road by 5pm because we did not want to be driving back to the hotel in the dark with these crazy drivers. So we hit the road!


DAY 6


Lower Spain is called Andalusia; think of it as a state. And its capital is called Sevilla'. This spot is about a 2.5hr drive from the resort. So the initial plan was to catch the bus up there because we were tired of driving, lol. So the bus leaves Malaga (15mins from the resort) at 11am. We leave the resort at 1015am. We got directions, and somehow still got lost, lol, so we decided to take that drive up to Sevilla. The trip up was good, got use to the speedy traffic, and make it up there in 2hrs with the speed demons pushing us, lol. So we get there and see that Sevilla is a very metropolitan area!!! Big malls, stadiums, LOTS of people. Very different from Crodoba, Mijas City, and Gibralter. So after getting through some traffic congestion, we saw this black guy walking up to people's cars giving hand shakes. I saw a mile away that he was just a hustle man, lol. So he comes to our car and points us into the direction of the Seville Cathedral. The city kinda reminds me of DC, with the only difference being Seville's train is all on the ground.

But we come up on the cathedral. It is the 3rd largest in Europe! First being St Peter's Cathedral in Rome, second is St Paul's Cathedral in London. I've been blessed to see them all, and they are all very HUGE! Walk inside (had to pay $8 euros) and it is bananas on the inside! 20ft statues everywhere of the apostles, former popes, Jesus and Mary, 100ft ceilings with crazy architecture designs. Enoromus stain glassed windows. And then I saw it, lol, something I didn't think I would see....the tomb of Christoper Columbus. It has four 20ft statues of people holding up a casket. The body is in the ground, under the statues. All of the statues and the casket is made of some type of marble stone. The Cathedral itself was built in the 1200's. Parts of the building got torn down and rebuilt over the years except the tower, which is about 10 stories high. We climbed to the top of the tower and took a look down on the city. Crazy view! The Cathedral's courtyard is full of Orange (fruit) trees. Bout 100 of them there.

So we left the Cathedral and went around to the "Real Alcazar de Sevilla". This place is a palace with 100's of marble rooms, courtyards, and huge gardens with all types of fruit growing from them....lemons, blueberrys, and oranges. This palace is supposedly where all of the voyages to the "Americas" were planned and where the spanish kings from the mid-evil times lived.

So we leave that spot, and the plan was to go around to the Plaza de Espana. It wasn't driving distance. We get in the car, and got lost :-( By now its almost 5pm and its starting to get dark and its raining. We decide to not go see that Plaza and head to the resort before it gets completely dark and crazy rain. So after bout 30mins of driving down the narrowest streets known to man and seeing some of the modern bldgs in Seville, we find the way out. And of course its dark and its still raining. That trip out was crazy!!! They dont believe in street lights and these people are still driving crazy fast on these narrow roads! Of course we cut the bright lights on! The rain got harder at times, and it stopped raining at times. But we eventually made it through the storm and got back to the hotel after 2.5hrs and finished off the liquor in the room, lol.


DAY 7


This day took me around to Fuengirola. This is a Miami South Beach like city. Got a beach on one side and on the other side is stores, bars, clubs, restaurants. It was bout 2-3 miles long of that. Bootleggers and weed smokers everywhere, lol. But it wasn't a crazy drunk environment. It was just a happy chill environment. So we hung out there for a few hours, chilled out, and headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready to come back to America.