Malaga, My Spanish Home

Note: I'm a bit behind on posts - so I was actually in Malaga at the end of August/beginning of September

I travel from southern Germany to Malaga, Spain at the end of August, via a trip which took as long as it would have to fly from NY.  One tram, three trains, two flights, and two bus rides later, I arrive at the door of the apartment where I lived for several months in college, seven years ago.  And I am home, sort of.  My host mother, Esperanza, is awesome as always and I appreciate being able to reconnect with her.  Her apartment is just as I remembered it and as I enter she tells me “you know where your room is.”  It feels great to be speaking Spanish again, especially after a month in Germany, where communication was sometimes challenging. Certain sensory memories are very vivid, like the smell of the kitchen and the sweet intoxicating floral smell on the beautiful terrace, which I have always associated with summer in Malaga and which I finally learn is the smell of jasmine in bloom. Please note, that someday when I settle down into a stable home again, I’d like a jasmine plant as a housewarming gift.  And depending on where I live, maybe a greenhouse to keep it alive. Oddly though, the neighborhood is busier and a little dirtier than I remember, and there are far more shops and businesses on Esperanza’s street than I initially recall.  The plaza near the house is not what I remember, although I soon discover the plaza I picture in my head is just a bit farther down the road.  I think it’s likely that over the last seven years, I’ve changed more than the city has, and certainly the plaza didn’t move, just that my memories restructured over time.  It’s so strange that this happens!  Compared to New York City, Malaga is still clean and quiet and that was probably my main point of comparison at the time I lived there. As I walk around the neighborhood and the nearby downtown “El Centro” over the next week, I start to remember more streets, businesses and other sites, including the businesses on the street where I lived, and I can’t figure out if memories begin coming back to me as I take the time to notice each storefront and plaza or I just form new ones that overwrite the originals. Probably a little of both

Over the first few days, I spend most of my time hanging out with Esperanza, her parents and her sister’s family.  Her sister Cristi’s kids who were 3, 5, and 7 at the time I lived here are now teens and pre-teens, and I get to meet sweet Alejandra, born the year after I left.  We go to the beach and have big family meals, where I completely lose track of the multiple conversations taking place in rapid fire Spanish buried under thick Malagueño accents in which entire syllables are dropped from words. I receive cooking lessons from Esperanza once again and delight in preparing gazpacho, veggie paella and farinata (this last one is Italian, not Spanish).  It’s extremely hot and air conditioning is scarce. Because it’s so refreshing one day I actually drink Gazpacho with breakfast, lunch, and dinner!  I’m more hooked on Gazpacho now than I ever was when I lived here.

One other highlight for me was a visit to La Concepcion botanical garden which I never visited when I lived in Malaga.  Esperanza’s father Miguel is the president of the local “Friends of La Concepcion” association so I get my own personal guided tour and learn the history of the garden and all its secrets like the gazebo where your voice reverberates if you stand dead center and the curved bench where you can whisper back and forth with someone if you talk into the far corners.

Miguel, me, and Esperanza outside the La Concepcion garden.

Me, Esperanza (mother), Esperanza (daughter) in the garden.

A few days after I arrive, Esperanza leaves for a month-long trip to Budapest, to consult on the opening of a Spanish restaurant by a group of investors there.  I fall into a very slow-paced rhythm.  Sometimes I go to the Mercado Central for vegetables and I chat with the vendors in Spanish.  One night I go to a language exchange at a nearby bar where I practice my Spanish with locals and they practice their English with me.  I go to the beach almost every evening, once the crowds have left and the sun is less intense. It’s one of the only times of day in which I’m not unbearably hot and a dip in the Mediterranean completely revives me.  I’m excited that the city where I’ll be living in Israel is also coastal, as I’d forgotten how much I missed it after six years in a landlocked desert.  I visit Alcazaba, the fortress/palace built in the 9^th century and rebuilt continuously thereafter, which plays a prominent role in both Malaga’s history and its landscape.  It’s visible from Esperanza’s terrace and I walk past it daily to get to the beach, so for me it is quintessential Malaga.  On the evenings I’m home, I practically live on the terrace where the air is cooler and the jasmine scent surrounds me.  I feel the need to mention here that for the people who actually live here, life is not a perpetual vacation – they have responsibilities just like the rest of the world.  And, crushing unemployment combined with the slashing of public services in an attempt to stem the bleeding of a poor economy have seriously reduced the quality of life for many Spaniards, a topic on which Esperanza gives me her perspective one night over dinner.  But for me, during my brief visit, life is pretty good in Malaga.

Street view of Alcazaba

Alcazaba

Alcazaba inner garden

As I start to plan the next leg of my trip, I realize I really don’t want to leave Malaga!  It’s familiar, relaxed, I have this wonderful apartment to myself with a kitchen, and a terrace, and my own bedroom, and the beach is within a twenty minute walk. On the other hand, I set out on this trip to see parts of Spain that I hadn’t visited seven years ago, and I’m pretty lazy in Malaga. Plus, my daily interactions seem to be decreasing the longer I stayed, which doesn’t exactly lend itself to practicing Spanish.  Still, I panic a little at the idea of leaving.  Fortunately, the next day I go to visit a great exhibit by a Spanish impressionist painter, Darío de Regoyos (side benefit – art museums have air conditioning!).  Regoyos was from País Vasco in north-central Spain and the northern landscape is the subject of many of his paintings.  They are beautiful and like nothing I’ve ever seen before in Spain.  This helps a little in convincing myself that unless I leave Malaga to travel around, I might never know the other Spanish towns that I will love.  So, still a bit ambivalent, I board a train to the north!

Street in Malaga city center (El Centro)