If you like piña coladas...
(this is gonna be a weird one, folks)
They say it only rains in Málaga forty days out of the year, and it appears that about half of those days have occurred over the past two weeks. While I’m certainly not complaining about the break in the omnipresent heat here, I am feeling quite foolish that I put my beloved duck umbrella in storage in New York, boldly assuming that I wouldn’t need it for the next year.
A girl from my high school calculus class got married recently, and so much of the wedding was posted on Instagram that I felt like I was there. Their first dance was to a Jack Johnson song that I recognized, but couldn’t quite remember the name of. This sent me down a rabbit hole into the “This is Jack Johnson” Spotify playlist, in which I stumbled upon the following cover of The Piña Colada Song. Now I’m constantly singing “if you like piña coladas … and getting caught in the rain” to myself in my head, and the recent change in weather certainly isn’t helping to curtail this fun new habit. (Also, in case you were curious, I did eventually find their first dance song a few days later.)
Let me be clear, it really only rained three days last week: Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning, and not for longer than an hour each time. (It also rained during our weekend trip to Granada — less than expected! — but more on that later.) Somehow, I kept getting caught in the rain, and every time it happens, the refrain of this song in my head starts all over again. The first time, during a midnight downpour after dinner, Adrian very kindly lent me her raincoat (another item that I imprudently left behind in storage), so I was only partially drenched by the time I returned home. The next night, it truly only rained for the half hour that I walked home from the climbing gym, but I had foolishly left the borrowed raincoat in my apartment, and a man in my building complex laughed at me looking like a wet rat.
Wednesday morning was really only a light drizzle in between classes, so I don’t have a real story about that one. I just want it to be known that I got caught in the rain, and The Piña Colada Song will not get out of my head.
I drafted the beginning of this newsletter last week, and of course, the weather has returned to the regular sunny days that I’ve come to expect here. But I don’t feel like getting rid of any of it, or changing the newsletter title, so we’re all going to live with the drama that I felt the need to express over literally three days of rain (frankly, a little embarrassing for someone who grew up in Portland, but here we are).
Moving on!
A Little Trip to Granada
Two weekends ago now, we all went on a 48 hour trip to Granada, led by our resident tour guide, Sophia (pictured below), who had studied abroad there in college. As someone who generally travels alone and therefore has to do all the planning myself, it was extremely nice to just follow someone around and be guaranteed a good experience. I had been to Granada once before when I studied abroad in Sevilla, but that excursion was notably tainted by the fact that I got food poisoning on the bus ride back. This time, I did not!!
Granada is stunningly beautiful, from the perpetual mountain backdrop of the Sierra Nevadas, to the legendary Alhambra, to street cats that are much more prominent than what I’ve seen in Málaga. My favorite part, though, was the free tapas that accompany every beverage you order (though this is probably how I got food poisoning last time). It was supposed to rain the entire time that we were there, but I think the worst we encountered was a bit of a drizzle, and it felt like fall for the first time since I came to Spain (this is one of my biggest qualms with Málaga: where is fall???).
I was very cool and casual in the way I yelled “gatito!!!!!!!” every time I saw a cat and raced up to take a picture. One of the cats turned out to be the exact same one I had seen earlier (and probably had an owner inside that house who heard me loudly praising their cat), but I’ve included both photos because I think he has a sweet little face.
Our main event for the weekend was a flamenco show in a cave (“una cueva”, as I learned in my guitar lesson this morning), which was extremely cool, and I loved seeing the guitar techniques that I’ve been learning in my classes played in a more professional setting.
And what a great segue that is back to:
More Hobbies!!
(basically the same ones as before)
I’ve been trying to come up with a more legitimate and meaningful reason to base my entire newsletter around The Piña Colada Song, but realistically, I just don’t have a lot in common with a couple attempting to cheat on each other and ultimately finding their way back to each other. The best I’ve come up with is that sometimes you’re tired of that same old dull routine and go looking for something new (by moving your entire life to Spain, for example), only to discover that all the things that you loved in your old life are the same things you seek out and cling to in your new one.
On the bus ride back from Granada, I was feeling off-kilter, in part because I realized that my life in Málaga was missing the strong sense of culture that I had experienced in Sevilla and had been reminded of over the weekend in Granada. I’ve also been missing a devastating amount of concerts in New York that I bought tickets for after being told that I was an alternate for Fulbright (I gave up too soon!), so I started looking up “conciertos en malaga”. Of the groups coming through Málaga in the next week, Depedro sounded at least vaguely familiar to me, and after listening to a few songs on Spotify, I decided it was the kind of music that I would enjoy seeing live. But their show was that same night and I wasn’t sure if I could commit. So I went home, I took a siesta, woke up at 6pm, and bought my ticket with exactly enough time to travel into the city center for the show at 7. I bought a cheap ticket in the back, and having been to the venue once before for a philharmonic show, assumed it would be a sit-down, chill environment — perfect for someone who just woke up from a nap. I did not realize, however, that every single person around me would know all the words to nearly every song (I think maybe the lead singer was a rock star in the 90s??), so I ended up doing my best to bop and clap along and cheer when everyone else cheered.
Anyway, the show was amazing and healing, and now I have a whole new set of Spanish songs to listen to! These are the ones that made it onto my playlist (which, of course, also includes The Piña Colada Song):
Nubes de papel (this is the song from the video above)
Lugar perfecto (the only song I had listened to more than once because presumably this was the album they were touring for. No one else seemed to know it.)
Completely unrelated to the recent trip to Granada, my guitar teacher has started teaching me a style of flamenco called the granaína, which originated in (you guessed it) Granada. It’s quite complicated and extremely beautiful, but despite Ari’s request that I send a video of myself playing guitar, I will not be including that in this particular newsletter; you’ll just have to take my word for it. Guitar lessons are going well, though! I feel like I’m learning a lot, and I can hear the improvement in my regular repertoire of random folk songs that I play for myself whenever I’m bored or stressed out.
After the bout of rain early last week, the weather immediately returned to the high 60s and 70s, which called for two back-to-back beach days last weekend. I was feeling slightly guilty that this newsletter is literally called “beach boys” and I hadn’t set foot on a beach since Maya came to visit, plus I needed to keep up the streak of swimming in a body of water every month this year (except for broken ankle month, when we’re gonna say it was a safety hazard (also I was busy)). I feel I made up for it all appropriately.
Here are some more sunset photos, one taken from my bedroom window, and the other as I stepped out of the metro. Also: the sunrise from this morning, which I was stupidly surprised to discover happens on the other side of the sky.
I’ve been switching off “solo” and “social” climbing days, which has been working quite well for me: I get my alone time, and I’m starting to make friends! I’ve started climbing with a woman that I met my first day at the climbing gym, Sophia (because apparently all my friends must have the same set of names), and she very kindly took this video of me as she encouraged me to make a move that I had been attempting repeatedly (I’ve done it successfully now! But now I can’t reach the next one).
Though the homesickness persists despite the hobbies, I’ve been spending a lot of time video calling (and normal calling) friends, which is doing wonders to keep that feeling at a minimum! Other things that have been helping: your wonderful email responses (which I’m using as an excuse to start corresponding via email), the perpetual Brooklyn 99 loop (which turned out to be very helpful at trivia recently! A question was tagged with the topic “Andy Samberg”, but no one else at the table even knew who he was. The question? “How many seasons are in Brooklyn 99?” I immediately won us a point :)), and a steady influx cat pictures, which is obviously the part that I will be documenting here:
As we are officially in birthday month territory, I’ve been scoping out my next birthday present to myself (iykyk), and in doing some research from past birthdays, I stumbled upon this picture of the boy as a kitten from 2022. [A note to say that I wrote this sentence before I added the screenshot and I’m glad to see that I still describe this season the exact same way, three years later.]
Sorry, the cat photos were entangled with the newsletter this time and you can’t skip them! But that’s the last of them.
What I’ve Been Eating
(per Greta’s request, even though she got a sneak peek with the espinacas con garbanzo last time)
Really, I mostly want to show you this kind of pasta called “shark”, which is endlessly entertaining to me. I only have these pictures because I got so nervous cooking that I had to live-text Sonia pictures for emotional support the whole time. It turned out pretty good, though!
A few weeks ago, I threw a bit of a tantrum because I was feeling hungry and yearning for my comfort takeout foods in New York. Alas, there is absolutely no Pad See Ew to be found in Málaga, and the closest Chipotles are in Paris (booo) and London. Upon sharing my lamentations with Sonia, she, a Google Maps wizard, immediately sent me a bunch of potential Thai food locations where I might be able to satisfy at least one of those cravings. One restaurant in Benálmadena, a few towns away, looked extremely promising.
So last Friday, I cleared my schedule for a Thai food pilgrimage, and Ramsey & Sophia very kindly joined me on my adventure! I think we were all quite impressed. The chicken satay slapped, and the drunken noodles were genuinely spicy (not Spanish spicy, which is nothing), so I struggled a bit with that, but everyone else loved it. It was also the first actually good tofu that I’ve had here, so I’m still calling it a win, and I will definitely be back.
Did you know that last Wednesday was the Día mundial del Pan? I got some free slices of pumpkin bread (like normal bread made with pumpkin, not like the sweet fall treat) from the bakery around the corner from my apartment, which I used to make my staple sandwich of ham & (sin lactosa) cheese with a fig jam spread.
Though I was hoping to be cooking a lot more, my natural tendencies to avoid the kitchen at all costs are as strong as ever, and I’ve been sustaining myself on university cafeteria meals (which is basically a full three course meal for very cheap) and various kebabs from around the city. Perhaps one day that will change, and I will almost certainly be keeping you posted here.
Okay, that’s all for now! Substack will never stop telling that my posts are too long for email, and I will never listen <3
Until next time!
xoxo,
Jaya
Loved the post!! Loved reading about your rainy day adventures, couldn’t stop smiling.Pictures were beautiful, especially the sunset. Please take more pictures of unusual plant and flowers.
Yesterday, I had an Uber driver from Spain, his English was not great, he was following directions in Spanish 😀.
I never imagined I would see chef in front of your name 😂. Happy to see that you cooking.
Love you bunches 🥰😘😘
Me encantan los recomendaciones musicales! Estoy reproduciendo 'te sigo soñando' 😴