Malaga

---

Back to Spain, however, instead of going to Barcelona again our ship ported in the city called Malaga around 7:00 A.M. Breakfast as usual was mandatory, had a few cups of coffee to perk me up and forced down some pineapple, which had no taste. Eventually we head over to our group meeting point where we waited for about 15 min till our group was called to start walking to the bus. Arriving at the bus we were greeted by our tour guide, he was an old short plump man with dark hair and a mustache. Throughout the trip he would be speaking in English and German, to accommodate both the English and German speaking people participating on the tour.
Our first stop on the tour was an old castle/museum where we were given a tour around the grounds. The castle was built on top a hill and had an amazing view of the city. I could have spent hours in the castle just exploring the grounds and climbing the walls to get really cool pictures. However, it was not meant to be especially with our crazy German/ English speaking tour guide, who yelled at some of the girls in our group because they were wondering away from our group to shoot some video a walkway on the castle. It would not have been as bad if we did not go the same way they went so really he was yelling at them for going ahead of him. In my mind I had a vision of Gandalf saying, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!” The old man being obviously Gandalf; however, he was not as nice and polite as Gandalf. Anyway after exploring the castle for a little while longer we then started heading to our next destination a bull fight arena.
Spain is most known for its famous bullfights, the people gather in an arena similar to the coliseum in Rome. The arena is shaped like a circle with different levels. The first level is the fighting arena, which is made up of dirt; this is where the bulls and matadors fight. Then all around the dirt circle are circle of chair for the spectators the sit. Our guide then took us to the museum, which is housed in the arena. Here we saw pictures of bulls and matadors fighting, portraits of famous matadors, and also the heads of some bulls, which were mounted on the wall. It reminded me of a room you would find in the Adams family mansion, I was waiting for one of the bulls to start talking or eat someone, similar to the bear rug Mr. Adams had in his office. Finally we left the bullfight arena and went on our little merry way to our flamenco dance show.
Flamenco is a famous dance started in Spain, while watching the dance I could not help but imagine STOMP. The show on Broadway where people would take trashcan lids and stomp them around making loud noises, which would make a song or beat. There were two girls and two guys who would make up our flamenco dance team. The two girls were dressed in almost all red, one of the girls would be the singer of the group and try to keep the beat going by stomping the heel of her shoe on the floor, while the other would be dancing. The two guys were dressed all in black, one of them would be playing a string instrument, while the other one would be dancing and stomping his feet to keep the beat. The reason it reminded me of stomp is because they never stopped slamming there feet on the ground; however, I think I enjoy flamenco dancing more then the Broadway show stomp. Anyway for about an hour they entertained us with their dance first there was only the one women dancing, then only the one guy dancing, and finally both the guy and girl danced together. I would have loved to learn how to dance the flamenco, but it looked extremely hard. Throughout the show I was trying to keep up the beat by clapping my hands together, but unfortunately I could not keep up with the beat. Finally, we got back on our bus and started heading back to our boat where we would set of to the majestic eternal city of Rome.

---