Cumpleanos de Sara

A few things before I get into my weekend trip in Malaga...

1. In case you were missing them... I'm still surrounded by olive trees and they're flourishing thanks to all of this rain we've been having.

2. My Spanish has reached a cool new level.  Now, when I'm talking to someone who speaks both English and Spanish, I sometimes walk away from the conversation not remembering which language they spoke in.  What I mean by this is, most of the time the person is speaking in Spanish.  Buttttt now I'm more comfortable with Spanish and when I understand the conversation without any trouble,  I sometimes think they were speaking English to me.  Confusing to explain.  In summary, my Spanish has reached the point in my brain where it blends itself in with my main language, English, so now I don't always differentiate between the two when someone speaks to me.  In the past, I would have to stop and switch my brain back and forth between the two languages.  But now they blend together.  It's very cool.

3. The Spanish celebrate birthdays different than the people of the United States...

Sara's birthday is today-- February 16.  She decided to celebrate her birthday in the amazing beach city, Malaga.  So yesterday morning, myself, Sara, Maria, and Gemma packed ourselves into Sara's car and headed towards Malaga.  We arrived around lunch time.  So after dropping our things off at the hotel, we walked the city center until we found a place to stop and eat.  Immediately after ordering our food, a group of men dressed like they were from Shakespeare's time walked by.  I soon learned that these men were called "Tunas."  Yes, pronounced and spelled like the fish.

Spanish Tunas

As the girls were explaining to me how the Tunas are famous for walking the streets and singing to women, Gemma got the bright idea to flag down another group of Tunas walking by.  She quickly informed them that I was American, and they jumped at the chance to impress me.  Surrounded by a group of 10 men, they serenaded us and then one of them forced me up to dance with him.  In the middle of the street.  In front of probably 50 people.  Thank goodness for my years of theater training or this could have been disastrously embarrassing.

I'm now an honorary Tuna

The most precious part, was that after the Tuna men left, a little girl of about six years old came up to me and told me I was the best dancer she's ever seen.  My heart melted.  I must have done something right in this performance.

Once our Tuna friends moved onto another place, we decided to switch to a different restaurant for tapas.  At the next place, we ate a delicious vegetarian spread of food.  My favorite was a vegetable lasagna with a creamed spinach sauce.  I LOVE creamed spinach.  But, only the kind that doesn't have a sweet taste to it.  Which is surprisingly difficult to find.  And this place had it!! It was so good, I left the bowl completely dry.  As we were relaxing in the restaurant, another group of Tunas came inside.  One approached me and took my hand and kissed it all the way up to my elbow.  I must have looked extra American yesterday because all of this attention wasn't normal.  Him and his group of Tuna friends started singing us some songs.  I have to say, both Tuna groups were really good.

After this group of Tunas finished, we left the restaurant and started walking through the city center.  We passed another group of Tunas singing and as we walked by, they started following us too!   

 Okay.  I probably prompted them after taking this photo. But still...

SIDENOTE: I should mention that the reason there were so many Tunas in Malaga this day was because there was some kind of Tuna gathering at 7:00pm that night involving Tunas from all over Spain.  In preparation for their Tuna gathering/parade, during the day they were mostly going from bar to bar drinking and serenading unsuspecting women and children.

We narrowly escaped the third group of Tunas before being followed by a new group of boys.  This pack was made up of five gentlemen from Naples, Italy traveling around Andalusia for a few weeks.  They asked to take a photo with us.  We obliged (because what girl doesn't like being wooed by Italian men), and we took a rather good looking photo if I do say so myself.

Gah how can you not swoon.  Italian accent and all...

Sorry Dad...

Post photo, we got to talking with the boys, and before we knew it, they were joining us for a coffee.  After a coffee filled hour of speaking in Spanish, English, and Italian, we headed off towards the beach.  The boys were very much gentlemen and also extremely funny.  We let them stick around with us.

To get to the beach, we first walked through Malaga's port.  The city itself is beautiful and very typical Spanish.  However, on the water, the city did an amazing job at structuring different architecture and pathways.  It was a really beautiful walk.

Did I mention the temperature was sunny and high 60's?

Once we arrived at the beach, I literally gushed out of love onto the sand.  Boots and all.  (I ended up taking half of the beach back with me in my sand filled boots.  Woops.)  Because the water is from the Mediterranean Sea and not the ocean, it was really warm!  Yes, I went in a little bit.  We walked along the beach and finally came to the famous "Malagueta" sign.  I've seen many friends take photos climbing on this sign, and now finally it was my turn!

After our photo shoot, Maria who is an AMAZING flamenco singer started singing some songs for all of us.  It was literally a perfect afternoon.  Around sunset, we parted ways with the boys and headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner.  To make this day even better than it already was, Malaga was having one of Spain's famous processions.  And we were able to watch the whole thing from our hotel balcony!! I unfortunately was too enamored with the procession that I forgot to take photos.  But it is always very cool to see these when they happen.  As always, the most impressive part was the giant Jesus statue on the cross.  This statue/float was as big as a bus.  And with tradition, the men carried it on their shoulders.  With the procession delaying our plans of getting ready, we finally left the hotel around 11:00 and headed to a tapas bar.  The entire ceiling was covered with ham legs.  Ew.  Not the most comfortable place for a vegetarian...

We ordered a variety of food to split.  One dish that Sara had tried before and raved about was called "huevos y patatas."  Expecting to be brought a plate of potato salad, I was surprised to see the typical American dish of eggs, bacon, and potatoes.  It was hilarious to see the girls rave about how good it was since it wasn't something you can easily find in Spain.  However, for me, its a dish one sees in the United States almost every weekend for breakfast.

Now what makes Spain different than America when it comes to birthdays... the birthday person normally pays for everything-- drinks, dinner, etc.  So Sara treated us to this very enjoyable dinner.  After relaxing, we headed out into the night.  As per usual, we danced until about 4:00am where I called it quits and headed back with our other friend Carmen to the hotel.

Today, we arrived back in Priego.  At least it was sunny.  But I'm already missing Malaga and the beach.  Hopefully sometime in March I will have the opportunity to go back!