Más y Más de Benalmádena

5/22/2011 Benalmádena

10:40 - I missed my update yesterday, but do not worry! I still remember everything that happened. Still, this entry may be shorter because I don't have a lot of time on the computer. Yesterday I woke up at 11 am and got down to the beach about 11:30 after applying lots of sunscreen. Everyone else had been down on the sand for over an hour already, but we still splashed around and laid on our towels for almost two hours. It was very relaxing. The water, of course, was cold and salty, but I loved every minute of it. We went back to the hotel to shower before our vocab quizzes.

    For lunch about seven of us walked down to the boardwalk to check out the restaurants there. I had a tomato and tuna bocadillo(a toasted baguette sandwich). It was very delicious. Conversation was awesome too! I was sitting with a friend from Newman(Karen! Surprise!) and two students involved at CCF(campus christian fellowship) who were asking questions about Catholicism. Of course, I could hardly say enough. Afterwards, we split up in some different groups and Karen and I went walking through the town with two of the other guys on the trip. We did find the church, but we got lost a few times(there aren't a lot of street signs) and went to a different church for mass anyway. But we did get some ice cream at a nearby heladería(ice cream shop) as a reward for traveling so far!

     After that, we went back to the hotel and I slept for two hours. The nap led into dinner(again, mediochre and I don't remember what I ate) followed by a very traditional Spanish event: the flamenco dance! We took a bus a few kilometers down the road to a find Pepe Lopez's Flamenco Show. It was incredible. We were all amazed. And we got two free drinks with the ticket! The dancers were so impressive and worked well as a team. You could tell they all worked very closely and had good chemistry. Their movements were so quick and slow, graceful yet aggressive. Look it up on Youtube, but it will never be the same as being right there.

5/23/2011 Benalmádena

10:55PM -  Sorry! Had to cut out because the computer I was borrowing got taken away. Continuing on...

Basically al that happened for the rest of the night Saturday was sitting on a friend's balcony with a few people chatting the night away(including more talk on my favorite subject!). I had also stayed up late Friday night on the balcony talking to my roommate and friend Catherine. It's so peaceful with the breeze blowing and watching the moon rise over and reflect off the sea. Hermosa(beautiful). It's cool getting to know people I would never run into just at school. We're really a great little microcosm(minus our spanish affiliations) of the whole school. There are a wide array of majors and extracurriculars represented.

     Sunday was a very exciting day from the beginning. There were about 12 of us (out of 20!) that went to mass together. And only 6 or so of us were catholic and several had never been to a mass ever. I had to laugh because the church we went to happened to be dedicated to la virgen del carmen(the Virgin of Mt. Carmel). So there were images of the Blessed Mother holding a Scapular ALL over the church. I thought it was beautiful, but some others weren't sure what the think. It was awesome how I could still say the english prayers under the spanish and everything was so much the same! After mass we walked through an incredible park full of so many plant varieties and then we went to lunch(a spanish omelette for me, very tasty and very unique. Look it up!).

     It was around 4 by the time we finished lunch. At that point I was ready for just a little more time on the beach for some swimming and laying on the towel before dinner. I don't remember well, but I think I just relaxed in my room until dinner. After dinner I started blogging but then went to bed early. I did catch some news commentaries on the presidential elections as they came in! El Partido Popular(PP) won, but I don't really know what that means. Thankfully, I was able to fall asleep fairly quickly to rest up for my big trip today!

    Today was a trip to Mijas, Spain. It was a pueblo up on the mountain above Benalmádena. Some people woke up at 6:30 to see the sunrise, but I slept in until around 10:30 and just looked at their pictures. It did look beautiful. About 8 of us chose to hunt down the bus for Mijas at 11 and took the journey all on our own. It was unforgettable. My pictures will be up eventually, you'll just have to wait. The first stop we made was a small chapel built as a tower over a cliff. It turned out to be the site of a Marian apparition: La Virgen de la Peña(The Virgin of the Rock). The images of her were mystifying. I sat and dedicated a small prayer for Grandma Flori and read the history. She appeared to a boy and girl, Juan y Asuncion, in the 16th century who were playing on the hill. I also bought a rosary with the image on it, though it's a bit small to see details.

    There were so many wonderful things about Mijas. We really felt like the other twelve missed out, but the 8 of us were very happy. After the chapel, we sat down for lunch in the shade. In the sun it was hot, but where we ate we had a breeze of perfect coolness brushing by. We all agreed we could sit there all afternoon but had to get moving. We had the option of riding burros(donkeys) around the town, but decided to save our Euros. We thought we could explore the town on our own, but we ended up walking down a very long dead-end residential street away from the more tourist-welcome areas. We were interested to see where people really lived, but happy to find our way back to public squares. We walked up past the bull ring, passed two churches, and then found another spanish park full of their marvelous plant life. The second(third, fourth?) best part of the adventure was sitting down at the edge of the park looking over the edge of the cliffs toward the sea. We all just sat and looked and absorbed it all. Pictures can't do it justice.

     The last thing we did in Mijas was finding a small ice-cream shop. Because one of us couldn't eat sugar, we ended up going to an out of the way frozen yogurt shop in a hidden away corner. It was barely a hole in the wall and the woman(early thirties?) seemed like she was new to the town herself, but the yogurt tasted better than any frozen yogurt I had ever eaten. It tasted like regular yogurt, but very cold and the consistency of ice cream. Along with your yogurt you got three choices of toppings. I had watermelon, pineapple, and honey(the best decision of all!). None of us could get over it, and the woman seemed like we were answered prayers to have so many customers at once.

    As we finished our frozen yogurt, we sat to wait for our bus and quizzed vocab on benches in the shade. The perfect end to the perfect trip(minus the vocab and having to finish our yogurt). Coming back to the hotel, we had a short time to collect ourselves back in our rooms before our vocab quizzes and dinner(still in the same unimpressive hotel restaurant). Pites treated us to a little helado(ice cream, but it's extra creamy here) and I tried the rum and raisins flavor. It was unique to say the least, but I did enjoy it. After that, I came back to the hotel and here I am blogging, checking e-mail and facebook. Tomorrow we leave for Granada and then to Cordoba and Seville the next day(with two nights in Seville; I'll let you know if I see any barbers!).

I'll update as soon as I can!