Welcome back, dear readers, to this week’s Travelling Tuesday with me where I’ll be taking you down the narrow, cobbly streets of Spain and its sandy, sunny beaches.
After another few weeks of studying, Easter holidays finally came around. Students have a whole month of holidays to relax, get back home to their families and (eventually, if at all) study for upcoming exams. To point out the obvious, I am across the world so instead of heading home, I planned a trip to Spain. It was originally a trip around Europe where I had planned to go to France, Italy, Greece and the Netherlands as well, however the pressure of travelling alone as well as my haemorrhaging money led me to the decision of coming back earlier than anticipated.
The week before leaving for Spain, I booked my flights, hostels and Interrail tickets but stopped there when I saw my money rapidly depleting and decided to just see how it went and book any further hostels once I got to each country. The night before, I packed my huge hiking bag full of necessary things – 6 outfits – and the lesser important things like my documents and stuff. I spent that week with a close friend, having sleepovers and shopping trips and as much as I loved her company in my very lonely and desolate flat, I was so ready to go do some travelling and see everything I had been waiting to see.
I woke up at 4am on a Monday with my Uber waiting outside (I had ordered one to arrive at 5am but I guess he was eager to take me) and quickly got ready to make my way to the airport. I easily made it through check-in and security checks before going to wait for my plane at the gate. It’s a different kind of excitement when you’ve managed to plan something on your own and are now just waiting to go do it. Especially if you’re like me and never plan anything.
Now, dear reader, don’t be like me and forget to download music for a 4 hour flight. You will be extremely bored out of your mind – stuck listening to the last 10 odd songs you had in your queue on repeat. And, if you have a book in your bag, don’t get shy and just leave it for the entire flight like I did – just say, ‘excuse me’ and go get it.
When the plane finally touched the ground again, I let out a sigh of relief. No matter how many planes I take in my lifetime, it will never get easier to imagine myself floating 30 000 feet above land with only air to support us. As I got off the plane, I took my jacket off and tied it around my waist, finally feeling some heat after 4 months in rainy England. (God, I miss Australian heat.) I went through all the exits and went to sit down to call my family and eat my sandwich. I had just arrived in Malaga!
I managed to figure out how to get to my hostel with my horrible Spanish and hopped on a train packed with people travelling from the airport – my bag continuously bumping into someone. Perdon. I finally got to my hostel and I can confidently say that it was 100 times better than I had expected. I had accepted that I would have to share a room with 10 different strangers (and a bathroom – yuck) but instead they gave me a ‘pod’ room. A teeny-tiny room with a single bed, a mirror, a few hangers and a tiny chair, all squished into about one and a half times my arm-length. To some that may have been inconvenient but I, however, am a relatively small human being and it suited me just fine.
I dropped my stuff off in my pod and made my way towards the beach. It was past 4pm at this point and I was way too tired to actually go to the beach but I had made it that far so I figured I should at least go and see it on the first day. So, I started walking towards the beach, (if I haven’t said so before, invest in a phone lanyard to put around your neck – I was much more relaxed knowing that my phone was on me at all times walking around Spain) and obviously stopped at every tourist attraction on the way there so that my 30-minute walk turned into 3 hours.
I climbed up the Roman Theatre to see a beautiful view of the city from the top, got a photo and went back down. I walked past the amazing University of Malaga that looks like a castle on the beach. I took a stroll through the gardens overlooking the sea and I finally reached the beach. I bought a nice refreshing ice-cream from a little store and marvelled at the beautiful beach and especially the heat. (Nothing compared to our Australian summers but it was still better than the England rain.)
Once I had had a nice walk around the beach, I felt satisfied with everything I had seen that day so I headed back to the hostel for a siesta and around 7pm went out again to find some food. I quickly checked my maps and found a nice place a few doors down. I managed to ask for a table with my horrible Spanish and the waiter gave me an option of two – one near a group of very noisy girls and the other next to a guy eating alone. I went for the quieter option.
Having struggled to order my food with the waiter and resorting to my Italian to communicate, the man next to me asks if I’m Italian. We had an awkward little chat in Italian until our food came out and went back to silent for about 10 minutes. The conversation picked back up again when he noticed that I had only ordered an entree, not realising that tapas meant small plates of food. He kindly offered some of his meal and we ended up having dinner together. It was such a nice way to start off my holiday because I thought I would have to be completely alone for the next 3 weeks but, alas, there I was making friends.
During our dinner conversations, we found out that we both lived in the same part of Italy at the same time. He told me how he had moved to Germany to get away and was now exploring Spain to see if he could live there instead. I asked him what was holding him back from just moving and he said he gave a very vague non-answer so I dropped the topic and moved on. I later discovered he was 29 with an ex-wife and 8-year-old kid…
He asked me out to a movie and I said that it was getting very late and that I had woken up at 4am so maybe the next night would be best. Instead, we took a walk around the beach and we read our books (he was weirdly childish about wanting to read his new Spanish book by the sea, so I grabbed mine from my room on our way there) and had nice conversations. He bought me a beer and said that I was very quiet. After this, I thought it would be best to just go home before it got too dark to walk on my own.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my first day out in Spain on my own and if you did make sure to catch part 2 where I’ll be talking about my second day around Spain.