Incredible views from Málaga

This past weekend I went to Málaga to hang out with Jose and to visit my old host parents Paco and Maricruz who I hadn't seen since last May when Hana and I went to visit them. I hadn't been in Málaga since the feria in August, so it was a nice change of scenery.











I caught the bus on Friday right after work and that night we just stayed in, cooked dinner, and then walked around a bit to look at the Christmas lights before it started raining on us. The Christmas lights downtown are seriously impressive. Even the narrowest of streets have some sort of design of lights strung up between the buildings. Calle Larios, the main drag pictured right, was, to me, bar far the most impressive. At the end of Calle Larios when you get to La plaza de la constitución there's a huge Christmas tree made of lights and a couple of elephant-sized ornaments with which everyone takes pictures. Paseo de la Alameda, the other main road which runs perpendicular to Calle Larios, reminded me a lot of America as it had all the big trees wrapped in lights as well as hanging lights. Jose told me that the City of Málaga spends a million euros every Christmas installing and maintaining all the Christmas lights in the downtown area!

The next day, we went and ate a typical Spanish breakfast, chocolate con churros at the famous Malagueñan establishment Casa de Aranda. That's right, CHURROS. Those delicious fried sticks of dough that you can only ever remember eating at Disney World or Astroworld. They may or may not have on one occasion made your mouth bleed? HAHAHAH Ashley! Afterwards we walked around some more and Jose did a little shopping. Then we went to the mercado and bought some fresh fruit and vegetables for later on that day.

After lunch we walked around again. This time we went down by the port (pictured left) where a jeque, or sheikh (AKA a super wealthy Arabic guy), has recently financed the building of a really cool park and a strip-center-like building with a ton of new shops and restaurants that face directly out to the water. He's also building a mall between the park and the strip center. I can't even begin to imagine how loaded this guy is.

After this I went directly to meet up with Paco and Maricruz who were already downtown. They asked me where I wanted to go and I told them that they should decide since I didn't really know of too many places. I sure am glad I said that because they  took me to the most incredible place. There's a hotel called Hotel AC that's right in the heart of downtown along Paseo del Parque with a restaurant/terrace on the 15th floor. They took me up there and we sat outside for 3 hours having a drink, catching up, and enjoying the beautiful scenery and sunset. The only thing missing was a little bit of Hana Morton. We missed you, Hana!

The Alcazaba or old Moorish fortress can be seen on the first hill

Downtown
I love how the city isn't just a giant grid but a maze of winding streets and different colored rooftops

Sunset over the city. Stunning.

After spending the afternoon with Paco and Maricruz I went back to Jose's and got ready to go out. Jose, his roommate Juane, Juane's two friends, Jose's cousin Kristina, and I all went out to dinner then went back to his apartment for a bit before hitting the town. I had a really good time chatting with Kristina and just being out in Málaga as I hadn't been there in a super long time. Overall it was a GREAT weekend and when I get back to Spain in January, I'll have to start planning another visit! Below are a couple more pictures I took that I thought were cool. See you soon Málaga!

The outline of the cathedral against the blue sky

A cool old tree that Jose found tucked away in a random little nook of the city