Day 1 - 10/7/10 - Arrival in Malaga

      It’s my first Friday night in Malaga and I am already in bed at 10:40 pm. As much as I’d like to say that I’ve already found where to live, am already completely settled in, made a bunch of friends, and have already gone out for a night in the town… I haven’t done any of these things. So far I am extremely thankful at how good the past day and a half has gone, but I thought I was in for it when I first landed in the Malaga airport.

(flight from London to Malaga)

     As I’m sitting at the gate where my flight is leaving from Dulles airport, I decide to pull out some magazines that Marie was so awesome to give me right before I left for my trip. I go through what she called the “trashy” one first, which had your typical celeb drama spilled out in less than 50 pgs. I get in a few smiles and a few laughs at how ridiculous people are and decide to look at another of the 3 magazines. So I pull out a magazine that I, myself, never would have thought to buy, but looked really interesting. It’s put away in my bag so I can’t think of the name of the magazine, but it’s a science magazine. I read through a few interesting articles about what’s killing America’s bats, how far we’ve come, April fool’s day science articles, and *ding*, the sound goes off letting us all know that it is time to board the plane. Right before I get up to join the huge line forming at the entrance to the plane, I flip through a few more pages and end on an article called 30 Ways the World Could End. Oh sweet, exactly what I needed to read before boarding a 7 ½ hour flight.

     Just touched down in London-town. 7 ½ hours flew by. I somehow managed to sleep almost the entire flight, which never happens. I like the London-Heathrow airport, probably because it and Dulles airport are the airports I have been to the most throughout my life. 6 hours. I had to spend 6 hours in this airport. What the hell am I going to do to keep busy during 6 hours in an airport? For some reason the 6 hours flew by also. I barely listened to music, barely read anything, barely walked around, grabbed a sandwich 4 hours into the 6 hours. I didn’t realize it ‘til later that the reason the time had flown by was because I was perfectly content just sitting there people-watching. I do have to say one thing (apart from the million I’ve already said and have yet to say), although there are more attractive American girls than there are European girls, the European girls that are attractive completely blow the American girls out of the water. There is no comparison. Moving on. Came across some young Mormon boys with their top hats and full-length pea-coats, a Muslim woman covered from head to toe apart from her eyes, a tiny little nun with tiny glasses, a girl who had bright pink dyed hair styled into a Jersey-Shore bump that somehow pulled it off and looked amazing with her perfect skin and model features, west Europeans, east Europeans, skinny Africans, little tiny Asians, kids with their little people voices and handheld games, many accents, languages, clothing styles, physical features, etc. I even saw an old man with the biggest nose I have ever seen in my entire life! It was one of those things that you don’t want to look at, but just can’t keep your eyes off of… intense.

     The gate number my flight was departing from wasn’t put on screen until 5 minutes before boarding time. This is where things started going wrong. I go down the hallway the gate is supposed to be down, somehow manage to pass my gate, so I go back to where I started, missing my gate again, so I go back down the hallway AGAIN, and this time I was smart enough to ask a man who worked at the airport where my gate was and oh, how convenient, it was maybe 20 feet in front of me on my right. I’m so smart sometimes. To top it off the plane ends up departing late.

      One of the teachers that I’m working with is waiting for me at the airport to pick me up and take me to spend the night at her house until I find my own place. Since the flight departed late, we arrived at the Malaga airport late. At this time I’m just hoping that my suitcases come out fast so that the teacher doesn’t leave thinking that I missed my flight or something. Oh hey, how awesome that they wait a little over 10 minutes to even start the conveyer belt that our suitcases will be thrown onto. Peoples’ suitcases start showing up slowly but surely and people begin to leave… and more people leave. One of my suitcases shows up. Woohoo! One more to go. More people leave... and more people leave. 30-45 minutes later I look around and realize that there is a mother and her child, two girls, and I waiting for our suitcases and no more suitcases are coming out. How awesome. Not only am I already about an hour behind in my arrival time, now I have to reclaim a suitcase. At this point I’m sure that the teacher is going to leave if she hasn’t already. I go to the desk of British Airways. While waiting in line behind one of the girls, a lady from British Airways approaches me, takes a look at my suitcase and says “Are you missing another suitcase just like that one?” I was. “Yes” I responded. “It’s sitting at one of the conveyer belts down there.” Yeeeeeeessssss. I run, not walk, I run with my suitcase and handbag on my little cart down to the conveyer belt that the suitcases from my flight were supposed to come out of. The suitcase isn’t there. Are you serious? I ruuunnnn back to the lady that told me about my suitcase and ask which conveyer belt she saw it on. Of course, it was on a conveyer belt that it shouldn’t have been, no wonder I didn’t see it.

     
     Finally I’m done with my suitcases. At this point I’m all hot and bothered, and panicking that the teacher has already left. I rush out to a crowd full of people and signs with peoples’ names on them. I take my time and look at every single one to make sure that I don’t miss my name. There is not one with my name on it. … Craaaaaapppp. I just stood there in the middle of everyone. What am I supposed to do now? It was one of those moments where it seems like your world is at a stand still, but everyone else is whizzing by. Fortunately, my mom called right at that moment. She can hear the panic in my voice. She says “Don’t worry. I’m going to call the school and get the teacher’s number, so wait until I call you back. If no one is there to give me the number, don’t worry. Just get a taxi to the hotel I gave you the address to and we’ll figure it out in the morning.” It was just what I needed to hear. You know, that motherly comfort that you need every now and then even though you think you are so grown up and independent and can do everything on your own? … Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyway, so before I knew it my mom called me back, said she talked to the teacher and that I had taken so long that the teacher thought that we hadn’t crossed paths or I had missed the flight, but is coming back to pick me up. That was the best thing I had heard all day. 20 minutes later we’re in the car on the way to the house. To my surprise, the teacher that was originally supposed to pick me up had to stay home with her son for some reason, so the Vice President of the school picked me up instead. By looking at him, you would never, ever guess that he is the Vice President of a school. His name is Jose Luis, very young at heart, a musician, married his high school sweetheart (Susana), has 3 charming kids, and a townhouse-sized, Spanish style home.

     I studied abroad in Malaga in fall of 2008 so I knew the city pretty well and have a lot of great memories there. Jose Luis was nice enough to drive through the center of the city just so I could see everything. After a 15 minute reminiscent drive we get to the house that is in a little town on the outskirts of Malaga called Cala del Moral. Susana answered the door and was very welcoming. She told me to feel at home and that once I was off and settled on my own I could count on them if I ever needed anything. So nice! I decided to have a cup of hot chocolate and we sat down to relax. The kids were asleep. The Barcelona basketball team was playing the LA Lakers. Barcelona ended up winning! What are the chances of that? Weird. All of a sudden two little people appear on the stairs. I guess 2 of the 3 kids weren’t really asleep. They got up just to meet me J. The oldest one is named Jose (like my oldest brother) and is 9 years old. The middle one is named David (like my middle brother) and is 8 years old. They’re probably 2 of the best-behaved kids I’ve ever met. They were cute. At this point we were all tired. Everyone went to sleep. I took a hot shower and hit the bed myself; Friday was going to be a long day...

(sunset at Torre del Mar)