Flight out at 7am tomorrow morning, to return Sunday at 9.30pm on SpanAir. The guy I'm renting from returns to Malaga on Sunday, so that will still give me a chance to meet him and if I really want to do Morocco or Madrid I may still have the chance if I go back to NYC early (which is looking more and more likely as I think about it).
I'm getting lots of work done the last few days, but I'm also getting a bit antsy. I wouldn't mind getting a chance to check out Barcelona, Morocco and Madrid. I've been looking at the 7-day forecasts around Europe and it's not good anywhere. The only place remotely close that is experiencing good weather right now is Egypt, but flights in to Cairo on short notice are in the $2,000 range - so that's a non-starter.
I had a bit of a brainwave, which was to change my return flight and come back to NY a week early. I've already considered scratching a return to NY out of my plans after checking out SXSW, and instead hitting up San Francisco and then possibly Maui. If I did that, then I would miss out on a couple of things on my to-do list for a return to NY. Namely:- having a caesar-making contest with some friends I met on the last night I was in NY.
- a couple of follow ups with some contacts I made there
- getting my luggage & selling my bed
- going to see a couple more bands
- go to a few more events where I can meet advertising and online marketing folks
As you can see from the above, these are high-priority activities. My biggest consideration is cost. I would be saving on my place in Spain, as I'm sure I'd get some money back on the place - however it will cost me about $260 to change my flight and I will likely need to stay in a hotel in NYC. Accommodations in NYC won't be cheap, but I think that I may want to try finding a place in Brooklyn for a change of pace. It will be way cheaper, plus any time I made it over to Brooklyn it was a great experience.
So much for Cordoba & a return to Malaga.
At the last minute (literally) I decided to go to Cadiz. Cadiz is a small city on the Atlantic side of southern Spain, and apparently the city has fallen on pretty rough times. But there is tons of history in the city (it was founded in 1100 BC and is where Columbus departed on his 2nd & 4th trips to America), and it is also home to the world's 3rd biggest Carnivale (next to Rio de Janerio and Trinidad). Carnivale is on right now and in its last weekend. I was half an hour early for my train to Cordoba, but when I got to the station I saw the train leaving for Cadiz in 5 minutes and made a quick change of plans. My only worry is that my pre-paid phone card will run out while I'm gone and I won't have data. I cannot live without data, and Cadiz will be much less enjoyable if I can't have Wikipedia, Google Maps & Google Translate at my fingertips. I NEED DATA. The weather is shit all across Spain, but I figured there is no real sense in heading home and Cadiz is a more accessible via Seville than from Malaga. It is cold (10 degrees), raining and I have no idea if I can get a hotel tonight but WeatherEye (via access to data) told me is was much colder in Cordoba. Plus it only is 12 euros & 2 hrs to take the train to Cadiz... if it doesn't work out I can either take the train back to Seville or home to Malaga. Speaking of which, I'm more convinced than ever that the YYC-YEG corridor needs a high speed rail system.I'm trying to figure out where to go next, and would like to go somewhere by the end of this week. The problem is that almost everywhere on my high-priority list is experiencing shitty weather. I don't have a ton of time left here but couple of things have occurred to me over the past couple of days: (1) I need a few days at 'home' to get some work done, while momentum is rolling; (2) I don't have time for everything and maybe some things I'd rather do with a friend on a return trip; (3) having a bit of money for my return to the US would be nice. However, the time is now to book things and get a bit of schedule for my last few weeks in Europe.
So my list is below. Any suggestions on places to go would be lovely...High Priority:- Barcelona
- Sevilla
- Marrakesh + Essaouira
- Fes
Medium Priority:
- Madrid
- Cadiz (the Carnivale going on there right now is supposed to be top-notch)
- Cordoba
- Gibralter
- Sahara Desert
- Venice
- Rome
- Berlin (Berlinale is happening next week)
- Lisbon
- London
- Cairo, Egypt
- Dubrovnik, Croatia
So I arrived in Malaga at noon after traveling all night. I was pretty wiped, but I am staying in a great place for the 6 weeks I'm here. I arranged something with someone who was going to be out of the country when I was here, so he had his brother let me in to the place and show me around. I am staying in a converted attic/penthouse in the middle of Malaga's main town square. It's a pedestrian-only area and is beautiful. The entire area is paved with marble, which is notable especially as I have a friend who marveled at the marble door footers in my NYC apartment. It's a little less notable because everything in the area seems to be 100% marble. After showing me around the apartment, my new friend (David) took me on a tour of about 5 different little restaurants around town and introduced me to the tapas culture. Basically we would sit and have a beverage (coffee, wine, beer, Malaga's famous 'sweet wine') and share a small plate of food & then leave and repeat elsewhere. The specialty in Malaga is fried fish, which was great. We toured around for about 4 hours and then he realized he was supposed to run some errands for his girlfriend so he had to go (I caught a pic of his change in mood when he realized he had to go). It gave me a chance to nap for a few hours. When I woke up it was midnight and I went out to find some dinner. It was a Saturday night and the streets were packed with people. Of course they all spoke Spanish and I was still pretty tired so I ducked in to a small place and got a giant bowl of paella. Just like everything else I've eaten here it was amazing. Then I tried to find my way home and got lost. I still hadn't got the internet working properly on my iPhone after getting a new sim card from a Spanish carrier. I got home and was able to sleep in this morning. At lunch, David and his girlfriend (who's also great) came by the place and took me around some more. Malaga is the birthplace of Pable Picasso and, although its a cliche, he's my favourite artist (The Old Guitarist is probably my favorite work of art, which I saw in NY years ago). A lot of surrealist stuff came out of this area as well, including a lot of Dali's work. Anyways, we went to both Picasso's birthplace and the Museo Picasso, which sits on an old Roman ruin (the ruins are on display in the basement where you can see 16th century structures built on top of 6th century structures). We also did a lot more eating and drinking. An interesting side-note: I took up yoga while I was in NY (an ex of mine would probably shit herself to know this as she tried so hard to get me to go. While in NY I met someone who said I was too much of a pussy to go... that pretty much did it). Anyways, I actually kind of enjoyed the yoga but thought I likely wouldn't take it up again at least until I got back to NY. Turns out my new friend is a yoga instructor. Go figure. So after much eating and drinking, David and his girlfriend passed out here. And my sense of time is still pretty messed up, so I'm up late and now with this blog posting I'm finally caught up to present day. I'm going to bed. (a note about my pics: I know a lot of them are crap but I'm only posting iPhone photos here. I'll get around to posting my other photos on Flickr eventually)
