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| Image: Spain-Holiday |
I have recently made the big leap across the border from
Bordeaux in France to the sunny south coast of Spain. My new home is Malaga,
the touristy city that allows for beach days in February and continuous eating
all day long. As a primary school teacher by day and an Erasmus partier by
night, here are a few of my favourite things…
The Social Life. My
experience after 3 weeks in the Spanish sun is that the most important thing to
a Spaniard is to sit outside cafes drinking beer with friends all day long. “Una
caña” is a small beer which, in Malaga, usually costs around 1
euro. In my short time, I have learned that at least one “caña” must be consumed every day. It’s
time to wave goodbye to the vineyards of Bordeaux!
The Siesta. It
seems to me that everything in Spain happens a few hours later than in the UK.
Lunch is at 3pm, supper is at 10pm and night clubs shut at 7am. This has led to
the ingenious invention by the Spanish of two shorter sleeps every day, rather
than our preferred 8-hour nights. In Malaga, you would be hard pushed to find a
shop or restaurant that is open between the hours of 3pm and 5pm. Take note, the
siesta is taken seriously in Spain.
The Spanish Language.
This is a comparison to France, in which I spent a lot of time being angered by
incorrect English on billboards and the language battle with waiters when they
replied to me in English (despite being in bourgeois Bordeaux). Even in the tourist
town of Malaga, music is in Spanish, shops have Spanish names and the people
always reply to me in their mother tongue. Perhaps the same wouldn’t be said
for a small town 50 km away called Marbella…
The Spaniards.
They may not see any need to apologise if they barge into you in the street,
but I have never felt more welcome than I have this past month by the Malagueños. If you ask
for directions, they’re happy to walk you to your destination and if you don’t
know a word in Spanish, they wait patiently while you try to explain what you
mean.
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| Malaga's Beach! |
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