TORREMOLINOS

Let´s start this post off with the fact that not having wireless internet in your hotel sucks; alot. Right now i´m in an internet cafe, which are really quite popular here in Spain (I guess a lot of people don´t have internet of their own), and i don´t get a lot of opportunities to come here because I´m always out and about, and this particular cafe closes at 11:45 my time...which fyi is 5:45 U.S. time.

Anyway... that´s why I´m behind on all of my posts. So shall we go back to the begining? I think we shall.

So, I can´t remember if I said this in my last post or not, but it turns out my group and I are acutally not staying in the downtown metro-area of Malaga...instead we are in a great touristy pueblo called TorreMolinos. Fun fact: Torre means tower and Molinos means mill...so I think the town means...windmill or mill tower or something like that; but yea, the whole south coast area had all of these ruins from old towers from years past...very interesting (and beautiful) stuff.

My hotel is the Hotel Natali (it´s 3 stars) and it´s pretty okay...i mean it´s by no means a dump...but the beds could be more comfortable, the TV could be bigger and there could be more outlets...know what I´m saying?
My roomate´s name is Rachel. She´s fantastic. We have a lot in common and have a lot of fun together. She´s a Italian and Spanish major and a French minor.

Ok...so enough background info..let´s go into what I´ve been up to. Thursday the 19th was my first day of class. I´m taking intermediate conversation and class starts 9:30 every morning (blech!!!). I have a teacher who is a native of Malaga so she´s super knowledgable of the area and history and local slang and phrases. I´m doing really well in this class... I mean..not to brag, but I probably should be in advanced convo...but it´s nice to be in intermediate cause I can strengthen that which I already know, which personally, I think is the best way to go.

Anyway after class on thursday some girls from the group and I went to a Tapas bar for lunch. A tapas bar is kind of like a "snack bar"; you go to get drinks and munch on finger foods...but believe me it´s filling, not to mention, delicious!!! (another funny thing is, so far when I mention tapas bars to anyone at home..almost everyone stops and says "What!!? Topless bar???"...it´s quite humorous). Well anyway, for all you who know me well you should be so proud of me because I ate shrimp at this particular place...and if I do say so myself...it wasn´t too bad. I don´t think I´m ready for full shrimp entrees yet, but for tapas...estan bien.

After lunch I took my time walking back to the hotel down a main street called "Calle de San Miguel" (Saint Micheal´s street). This area is full of little alleys (is that how u spell that?) and plazas with shops and cafe´s and all that stuff...really nice and convienent.

Later on me and a group of chicas that i´ve been spending a lot of my time with (Rachel, Marcie, Karen, Amanda and Sabrina) went to the actually city of Malaga (about a 30 min bus ride) and met up with on of the teacher´s (Vanessa) here. Rachel and I have had her before at binghamton for our intermediate grammar classes back in sophmore year. She actually lives in malaga when she´s not teaching in bing, so she knows alot about the city and what not.

She showed us the major plazas, historic buildings (including the apartment where Picaso was born), and took us to a trendy little tea house (we all kno how much I love tea!!).

Unfortunately, in the hotel we are only allowed 2 meals in the dining room a day...one of them has to be breakfast and then we have a choice each day between lunch and dinner.... So by the time we got home from Malaga we had missed both lunch and dinner hours. So we sat and had a cheap dinner or Bocadillos (special sandwitches) and Sangria.

Over all the first real day was a success...I really got to know the area and it helped me get a handle (that´s such a weird phrase..."get a handle"....it´s weird, but I use it) on what I want to do in my short 2 weeks here