Malaga de nuevo

I cried when the plane left Vancouver. It was a Dash-8, and the flight attendant (a guy) asked where I was going and what I was going there for. He said, too bad there were other people on board or he'd get me to teach him some flamenco on the way to Seattle.

I did not want the plane to land in Malaga. I was not very excited to see Spain again. I looked slightly disparagingly at the measly Cypress trees and longingly at one or two odd ones that looked like firs. My suitcase miraculously made the connection in Paris, and nobody hardly looked at the visa pages in my passport or asked for my residence card.

Due to the nature of Southern Spain, it is pretty impossible to be too unhappy about being here. Despite looking at out the plane window at grey skies in Vancouver and realising I liked distinctive seasons, and that a properly grey sky in Winter is somehow grounding.

What can I say? It was snowing last night and now it is 20 degrees and there are honeysuckle vines and some odd huge flowers on a hedge. It would be impossible to feel rotten when you land in a warm place in the winter.

Warm that is, until you take a siesta with wet hair.

I arrived in time for siesta. Well, I was in time for lunch but didn't get it, because I didn't make a reservation at my hostel, and finding it full, went to a new one in the center of the city and then was too exhausted for food.

How to explain this: it is warm here. But you live outside, partly. The hostel is no different from any other building - a modern courtyard apartment: there are stylish tarps across the parts of the building that are open to the rain, but it still wets the floor in certain spots, and there is nothing keeping the air out, which is no longer 20 degrees. I might just go back to the airport tomorrow and come home if there were not a warm inside area where I am currently sitting.

I managed to dance bulerias and some bad Sevillanas the first night here. The bar has tons of pictures of famous flamencos, and is a dedicated flamenco place (everyone in there seemed to know each other or were related, the waiter plays the counter like a cajon - a Latin American rhythm box used in modern flamenco). A local woman who dances professionally, approached me seeing that I was alone, and since all the music playing was flamenco, one thing led to another and of course we danced. Though I did so kind of badly, it is still fun to connect with people: probably the most satisfying was the pleasure/surprise they have at seeing some random Canadian who knows at least how to keep basic compas (rhythm) and when to do the bulerias llamada and all that. "You are a real artista, for a Canadian!" said the now drunk bartender/husband of the dancer.

Oh, and did I say Malaga is like some alternate relaxed universe?