We decided to pay homage to my homeland by hosting a college themed party, which mainly consisted of beer pong and other traditional drinking games, as well as lots of random people and a disgusting mess the next morning. Very college, I think. I felt like I was back at Penn, waking up in the morning filled with fear of the destruction awaiting me outside my bedroom door. My friends got me a cake that had the candles “2111” on it, because finding a “3” candle proved to be very difficult. At first I was really confused and thought they didn’t know what year it was but applaud their creativity and ability to dodge another Spanish curveball. It was a pretty great party, it was very international, which is a change from my usual Philadelphia celebrations, and the neighbors didn’t complain! I was concerned that the wannabe Spanish Von Trapp family (they have really terrible family sing-a-longs) that lives across the hall would complain because there were a lot of people at my apartment but thankfully, we were in the clear. Although I missed my family and friends back home, I had a wonderful celebration with new friends. Twenty-three is off to a good start.
Ladies before the party
After a detour to Spanish Oktoberfest on Saturday night where I enjoyed every sip of my non-Spanish mug of beer, three friends and I got up early on Sunday morning to head off to Nerja, a nearby beach town. Now that we’re beginning to settle into Malaga, it’s time to begin exploring the surrounding areas. Nerja is absolutely stunning, it’s one of the prettiest beaches I’ve been to. There are beautiful cliffs, clear water and amazing views of the Mediterranean. Add that to the fact that it’s an hour-and-twenty-minute bus ride from my apartment and once again, my life is a joke. After grabbing some tapas we spent the afternoon on the beach enjoying the sun and basking in the ridiculousless that is our lives, and we even went in the frigid ocean water! I’d swum here before but two of my friends hadn’t, so we made a pact and sprinted into the ocean where we promptly lost all feeling in our bodies and developed goose bumps that lasted nearly an hour. But you have to swim in the Mediterranean if you’re there.
Once we regained feeling in our extremities we headed off to the Cuevas de Nerja (Nerja Caves) to do some light spelunking. There’s not actually any spelunking involved, sadly, but the caves are unbelievable. They date back to the Neolithic Period and are some of the most renowned caves in Europe. They’re also HUGE. At first you descend into a small cave, so I was originally questioning whether or not this was worth the eight euro fifty, but once you turn the corner and see the main attraction, every cent is immediately worth it. The large cave that you get to explore is massive; we walked up and down different sets of stairs in order to see it all. The walls are made up of areas that resemble drip sand castles, church organ pipes, and weird creepy things out of a scary movie or from Lost. I initially associate caves with Lost and the Man in Black, but this cave puts that one to shame. Our cab driver told us that the large tourist area of the cave is actually the smallest section, and there are two even larger caves closed to the public. There are also music and dance festivals down in the cave, something that I would love to see and am researching when they are on.
One of the best parts of visiting Nerja was getting to cross it off my list of Lugares a visitar (Places to visit) in my notebook this morning! Excuse the large number of pictures, the caves are so cool and it’s difficult to do them justice without visual aids.
Malaga at night
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