Mi primero día en España

¡Hola a todos! What a day! I had a good flight from Cincinnati to Paris. During security I made friends with an elderly woman who was on her way to Paris for her 5th time this year. We sat and talked until our flight left, she was full of information and knowledge. I had a pretty good flight. I got to take in some movies and eat some decent food. It was such a neat sight to look out the window at night as we flew over Nova Scotia. Through the clouds you could see pockets of towns with their lights on as well as the light of the moon illuminating the ice surrounding them. My flight actually landed in Paris about an hour early, which was great because Charles de Gaulle is not an easy airport to navigate. It was a lot of walking and asking directions to find the right gate. 

The flight to Málaga was much shorter but was rougher. The 8 hour flight from Paris with a 6 hour time change and no sleep was rough enough and then to go do a 2 hour flight on a crammed, hot plane was not fun, but the destination was well worth it. Málaga is such a beautiful city. It reminds me a little of a Florida city right on the beach with all the palm trees, however; the builds are more unique and built out of different colors of concrete and stone, not a lot of new glass buildings. Our hotel is rather modern and different. It took my roommate and me about 10 minutes to figure out how to turn on our lights lol. It turned out that by the door is a slot that you have to place your room keys in to make the lights come on. 

After checking in to the hotel, we all left for lunch and the beach. We ate at a small Chiringuito, which is basically like a small bar/restaurant on the beach. The food was cool. They brought the table bread, salad, fried calamari, and baby squid for appetizers. And for the entrée we had grilled chicken and french fries, (no ketchup, so I squirted lemon and lime juice on mine). It was all actually pretty good, I even ate the calamari and baby squid. The squid was probably my favorite it kinda tasted like chicken and the fried calamari was rubbery but still good. I wish I would have had my camera with me to show how they grilled their fish. Outside the restaurant they had an old boat that was filled with ash and wood that they grill the fish on, and that was typical for all the Chiringuitos on the beach.  

After lunch, a group of 7 of us went and swam in the beautiful ocean and took an afternoon walk on the beach. There were tons of families out enjoying the sun and sand. After about an hour and a half on  the beach we headed back to the hotel. We were supposed to have an evening session tonight where they gave us a tour of the city center, but when my roommate and I got back to the hotel and showered, we crashed for 3 hours finally trying to catch up with our jet lag and we missed the session, oops :P Once I finally woke up at 9:30 I went out on my own and walked the streets of Málaga and gave myself a tour of the city center. Life does not really start here until 10 or 11 at night so people were just beginning to come out for a night on the town. Everything was lit up and beautifully between the people sitting outside the bars, the shops that stay open late, the fountains all lit up or the many people flying around on scooters, It was definitely a unique experience. 

I cannot wait to see what tomorrow has in store for me. We have orientation sessions all morning and afternoon and then we take a bus to our host city of Granada where we will get to meet our host families! Fingers crossed that tomorrow turns out to be as awesome as today was!

¡Chau! Nathan