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Published: April 24th 2006
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Málaga
Málaga is a beautiful town sitting up on the hillside overlooking the sea below. After the two hour drive from Córdoba, we were excited to see the blue waters of the Mediterranean in Málaga. We walked hotel to hotel, finding the city to be completely full of Semana Santa vacationers. Finally, we found a home at Hostal Capri. At least we wouldn´t be sleeping on the beach tonight!
We walked the two blocks to the seaside and as it started to rain, we found a charming tapas bar with a great view of the sea. Here, a tinto de verano only costs €1.40, and you get a tapa
gratis with every drink. With my first drink I ordered a portion of my favorite,
tortilla española... and they brought me...a piece of sausage wrapped in bacon. It was delicious, but it wasn´t
tortilla. With my second drink I ordered
tortilla...and they brought me...deepfried eggplant. Again, delicious, but not
tortilla. The four of us could hardly keep straight faces as I ordered my third drink, with which I asked for
u-na tor-ti-lla por fa-vor (enunciating every
sílaba...and this time they brought me
¡tortilla! It was delicious and worth the wait.
We toasted each other, and drank to our health.
¡Salud, amigas! We drank to sisterhood.
Hostal Capri, Málaga
Even though this was just a cheap place to lay our heads, it was charming to meet the family and the dog who lives here. ¡A tí, guapa hermana! We drank to our fabulous adventure together.
¡A nuestro viaje! The tinto liberated our Spanish, and we talked politics, and war and philosophy and love and life and culture. Cecilia and Mariela tried to teach Tracie and me a little Portuguese, but I´m afraid we were bad students. Every time we tried to say something in Portuguese, the two of them cracked up. We laughed and talked for hours as the rain fell outside. It was a wonderful afternoon.
Finally, we walked out into the rain, and up the hill to the center of town to go dancing. The dancing was fabulous and fun, but I´m afraid the
discotecas don´t play quite enough
hip-hop (pronounced ¨ip-op¨) for my taste, and my ability to dance salsa is behind the curve. After a few hours of dancing, we walked down the hill in the pouring rain, becoming
muy mojadas, and tucked ourselves in bed in Málaga.
Buenas noches, Boa noi-chay, and Good night, chicas.
A late morning after a late night. Tracie, our marathon-runner, actually got up early and went running on the beach while the rest of us snoozed. When we finally got moving, we
¡Salud!
A sisterly toast in our seaside tapas haven. checked out of Hostal Capri and climbed the hill again to the center of town. The weather had cleared up, and it was the perfect day for a tranquil breakfast outside at a café in Málaga´s central square.
Zumos, café, tortillas, y pan. Lazy warm shade.
After enjoying the food and the company and the morning light, we went next door to the house in which Don Pablo Picasso was born and worked. It houses a relatively small collection of misfit pieces, topped off with collection of ceramic plates made into abstract faces, and ceramic pitchers made into birds. Photos of Picasso in life and at work. A display of the clothes in which he was christened. Original Picasso poems written in a scrawling calligraphic hand, adorned with sketches and paintings. A replica of his studio in one room. I can see that the diffuse light (due to the sun´s reflection off the water in a seaside town) and the tranquility of Málaga were huges assets to his work.
Next we went to the actual
Museo Picasso Málaga which houses a more extensive collection. The sheer volume of his work is amazing. I can´t claim that I like
all of his pieces, but several impressed me as evidence of sheer brilliance.
One of my favorites is the ¨Minotaura y copa,¨and it depicts a minotaur peering at the viewer with a devilish look on its animal face. In one hoof it holds a glass of wine, and in the other it holds paint brushes and a palette. Behind him, a nude woman is posing. What a contrast to Velasquez´s portrayal of the artist in Las Meninas! It helped me understand other pieces in the collection, as the minotaur was a recurring element in his paintings.
Another recurring theme was ¨Mujer.¨ It seemed like Picasso was almost obsessively devoted to the portrayal of women, usually in abstract form. Women were far more prevalent than men as the subjects of his paintings, and when he did depict a man, the title of the piece wasn´t ¨Hombre¨but rather ¨Personaje.¨ He used corporeal symbols to depict their women´s life roles. He seemed fascinated by the womb and motherhood and sensuality. My favorite was ¨La mujer acrobatica.¨ It is black and gray and white, and shows a human figure abstractly contorted. The head is extending towards the lower left, as if bent
Lazy Desayuno
I could sit here all day. Fresh zumo is the best. over backwards, and the leg and arms are extending in different directions, completely disassembled. I think I only understood this piece by reading its title. It speaks to a larger truth about womanhood; how women contort themselves to play many life roles simultaneously: wife, mother, lover, friend, daughter, teacher.... And how sometimes it´s impossible to understand how they do it.
I also noticed that he was devoted to abstract still life paintings. What I found interesting, though, was that the original Spanish title for such subject matter is
¨Naturaleza muerta¨ (dead nature). It seemed like a culturally significant difference between Spanish and English art, that what we would call still
life, they would call
dead nature.
After sufficiently stimulating the right sides of our brains with Picasso´s cubist
mujeres, we flesh-and-blood
mujeres went to the beach. We sat in the shade, and enjoyed sangria and
gambas. I laughed when Cecilia popped the whole shrimp in her mouth, shell and all, and she laughed at how much work it cost me just to eat one because I insisted on peeling it. We talked of Africa. From the Mediterranean coast, it´s only 45 minutes by boat, and we would all
Lovely Málaga
It´s the simple pleasures that make a city beautiful. like to go someday.
As we walked down the beach with sand between our toes, I noticed that three of us were all searching for beach rocks. The ones we found were smooth and thin and black. Both Mariela and I plan to make pendants out of the stones we found. I think we four
chicas really are made of the same stuff. We were a great mix together. No one was pulling excessively in any direction. We all enjoyed the same things, and it was easy to get along. Throughout the weekend, we kept paying
el banco, and out of this we shared the expenses for gas, lodging, food, and drinks. It was easy, and everyone was generous.
It was getting late on Saturday, and we didn´t want to be stuck in traffic on Sunday on our way home to Madrid. So we packed up into our Pepe car, and started to drive to Granada, which would reduce some of our driving time the next day. Hasta luego, Málaga...
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STELLA
non-member comment
PICASSO
WONDER HOW PICASSO KNEW SO MUCH ABOUT WOMANHOOD AND THE CONTORTIONS WOMEN MAKE? VERY INTERESTING JOURNAL. I HAD NEVER UNDERSTOOD WHAT HE WAS SAYING ABOUT WOMEN BEFORE. NOW I AM ANXIOUS TO STUDY HIS WORKS A LITTLE MORE. LOVED YOUR 'TORTILLA' STORY..WHAT A WAY TO TRY ALL THE TAPAS!! YOU'VE GOT TO MAKE SOME FOR US WHEN YOU COME BACK!!