Lost in Malaga: Episode 2

So that last post was the one I wrote on Sunday, but never posted for some reason. But here's yesterday:

So we went to the beach in the morning, and it was pretty deserted. I started collecting sea glass, because there are no sea shells here! The beaches have a lot of rocks on them, but they're all smooth, so they're not bad to walk on. The water's really clear, and really warm. So yeah. I go back to mi casa to eat lunch, after agreeing to meet people to catch the bus. I was confused as to what lunch was, but someone later cleared it up for me, it was tortilla espanola (chopped up potatoes made into a really thick tortilla).

So after lunch, I decide to go meet people at around 2:30. So I start strolling through Pedregalejo. I find the dried up river again, then I start looking for a street called Juan Carlos somethingsomething. I didn't find it...but I wandered around for a while, then realized it was about 3:15 and that they had probably already left. So I went back to my house to try and find the bus station my host sister had told me about. I gathered up all my orientation papers, my host sister even went out on the street to show me where it was, and I STILL got on the wrong bus. I was supposed to take the 11, but I thought my host sister was telling me to take the bus that comes in a few minutes to the stop right by the white truck. She may have been telling me not to be confused by that bus, and to take a bus further up the road. Regardless, I ended up on the 34.

So I sit for a few minutes, and the bus is going through El Palo, and everyone's getting off. I started to panic, because I didn't know where this bus was going, and if I got off, I had no idea where I would be. So then it's just me and this old woman. She kept glancing at me, probably because I was looking increasingly terrified, and so I went up to her and asked if she knew if the bus was going near el Puerto de Malaga. I showed her my orientation sheet, and she read it, and she told me to get off at the stop after hers, and told the bus driver to make sure I got off at that stop. And told me to calm down, that it would be all right, and that I wasn't lost, because I had started to cry. She also found me a woman getting off at the same stop, and told me to follow that woman. So, after riding another 15 minutes, I did. Except at this point, we were supposed to meet at 4 PM, and it was 4:20ish. So I ask the woman for directions after I get off, and she told me to go down the street and take a left. Wrong. This was a shopping plaza. So I ask a guy for directions, he tells me to go down the street, take a right, and then cross the plaza. Maybe not wrong, but I get to a corner and I was feeling completely lost and starting to panic again. So I get out Karen's phone, and try to call my professor. And it worked! Except that I was really panicking, and I was speaking in English to the professor, and he wasn't pleased. He told me to find someone and ask. And he told me it had pillars, and that it was a brick building on the left inside the pillars. So I went up, and asked another person, and they told me to go down the street and to take a left. So I went all the way down to the sea, took a left, and found the pillars after 10 minutes. I found the building, the guard told me where the room was, and I walked in an hour late. He just kept talking. Whatever.

So we went over a lot of information, which I didn't listen to because I was feeling resentful towards the Spanish language, and then we went out on an activity to find the building in the picture we received in groups of 3. We thought it was the Picasso museum, so we went there, and saw el Teatro Romano (a roman theater) and a huge cathedral, and tons of gelato shops on the way. We took a picture, walked back, and strolled through a park before getting back to the class. Unfortunately, we realized when others presented that we did not have the Picasso Museum. We presented anyway, and got told we would have to find our site by Wednesday and present on it then (the other groups who didn't find theirs did not have to do this...). But it's okay. So next we get our tutors!

There are four tutors, Marcos, Elena, Sandra, and SAMYAAA. Unfortunately I'm not with Samya (she was the Malaga exchange student at Dickinson last year, so I already know her), but Elena is very nice. And very concerned about my sunburn, she can't believe I wore spf 55 and still got burned (I upped it to 70 today). But we walked to Cursos de Espanol para Extranjeros, and then looped around and took the bus home (the 11, this time). I went home for dinner, and then met back up with some folks, wandered around, and found more Dickinson kids getting drinks. So we got drinks, and sat around talking about how amazing the beach is. We headed home at around 2:30, I basically rinsed off the day in the shower, and went to bed.

Phew. I might start heavily editing my days, but the getting lost story was important. We have a lot of independence here, there's almost no structure to our days, and I'm not sure if I like that. The city is beautiful, but I like practicing first...I wish there had been a practice round of taking the bus, of finding the locations, that sort of thing. But it's all right. I'm still very apprehensive of using the buses, and finding things, but it'll get better.