A Series of Unfortunate Events in Málaga

Saturday, April 10th
Woke up at 5:00am this morning to catch an early train to the airport. Destination- Málaga, a town in costa del SOL aka beach! Steph, my friend Chelsea and I were ready to soak up some sun and celebrate my birthday! After landing, we navigated our way to the hostel, "The Melting Pot." It had a great location right on the beach and a cute terrace in the back. Unfortunately, our room was located in the basement so we were stuck with a gross musty smell and couldn't open the window because it would be freezing. Chelsea's friend, Mark, who is studying in Málaga, meet up with us and gave a tour. We walked along the gorgeous beach where there were a bunch of beach cafes. Each cafe had its own mini-boat that was filled with sand and had a small bonfire-type fire on top to cook food- it was so cute and smelled amazing! We also saw the Roman ruins and the Cathedral and walked around the downtown area. Also, there was an International Festival with food and shopping from all different countries. Steph and I split a vegetable crepe from "France" and then I had two delicious smoothies from the "Carribean." Steph and I made friends with two older women, one from the Dominican Republic and the other from Columbia. They taught us some new fruits like "tamarinde" and "tomate de arbol."

On the way back, we stopped for some groceries to cook dinner and sunscreen in preparation for tanning tomorrow. I made a delicious veggie sauté and was so happy to be back in the kitchen. I miss cooking so much! We were going to meet up with Mark and his family to watch the fútbol game between Barcelona and Madrid, but were really tired so decided to stay in and get some work done.

Sunday, April 11th
I woke up early as usual and snagged the three lounge chairs for us to use for the day. I tried to work on my marriage paper while waiting for the girls to wake up. Oh, there were also little bugs crawling around and we were all skeeved in the beds that night with nasty sheets and blankets in a room that smelled like mildew. To make it worse, we had another random person in the room with us, but we let it go and focused on quality sun we were expecting for the day.

Steph and I had a delicious breakfast of Special K with fresh strawberries because the hostel breakfast that was included of course sucked. Then, Steph and I tried to soak up some sun while Chelsea showered. By the way, the sunscreen we bought was basically oily water that provided no protection whatsoever just an oily mess. Finally, Chelsea came out only to tell us that she showered in dirty water that didn't drain and she had to turn off the water between each step in order to not flood the bathroom. Excellent! This hostel is super great and by the way there's no sun... so much for costa del SOL.

At this point, we are miserable and discussing going home so we check the weather for tomorrow because if it were to be sunny, we would've stuck it out, but no, 60s, cloudy and rain- and there was the breaking point. We started checking any possible flights, but they were way too expensive plus losing the money for the flight we already had for Tuesday. Steph suggested looking at trains- there were two for that night (Sunday)- one at 7:10 and the other at 8:00. We decided the 8:00 would be perfect so we could enjoy the smorgasbord of food we had between groceries and host mom meals and then catch the train. Steph booked her ticket first and then when I tried the 8:00 one was full. So Chelsea and I had to book the 7:10 one. After booking, the confirmation e-mail said we had to arrive at the station with printed tickets. Shit- we are on different trains and have no way of printing. On top of that each confirmation e-mail said origin:Madrid and destination:Málaga. You have got to be kidding me and we were all in a PANIC- could all three of us really book the wrong train. We had to get to the station, hoping that someone could straighten everything out, but not before Steph brought her wrath to the front desk and wound up getting our money back for one night at the hostel.

In the AVE train station, we chose to talk to the hot guy instead of the girl and hoped the sympathy card would work in our favor. Turns out, the e-mail was wrong and we were set to go from Málaga to Madrid, however, Steph was still on the 8:00 train. Sergio, our new customer service friend, asked us where we were from and lucky for us, he was heading to the United States (New York & Las Vegas) at the end of the month and wanted helped planning his trip. Perfect exchange- NY 411 for getting all of us on the same train. So he invited us for coffee in a café in the train which was actually like a mini-mall. He bought us drinks and we told him about New York and what we knew about Las Vegas- too bad this trip was with his boyfriend- figures!

We all got on the same train thank God even though Steph had to stand in the cafeteria car. Chelsea and I met her there and we had our smorgasbord on the train. Suddenly, Steph remembered she forgot to register for classes, which should've been done about 4 hours before, but between trying to get out of the hostel and and her alarm not going off, it slipped her mind. She tried to contact her parents, but her iPhone had no service and all three of us had no money on our Spanish ghetto phones. So I texted my dad to tell him to call Steph's mom and have her call Steph, but the connection was so bad because we kept going through tunnels. Umm- problem... I was stressing and they weren't even my classes. Thankfully, she was to text a friend from Chelsea's phone to call her and register for her, but one class was full.

What a disaster! We all made it home, took showers and slept in warm beds. I was never so happy to be back in Alcalá. However, I forgot to mention that while freezing my butt off outside, I managed to meet three girls from the US who are studying in Salamanca (another city outside Madrid). They were really nice and invited us to join them that night for some wine and birthday celebrations, but we fled the scene too soon. My Dad was actually able to get us some money back from the Tuesday flight- way to go Dad! Málaga was such a cute city, but between the horrible weather and gross hostel we just couldn't stay.