Hola chicos y chicas.

I made it! And I´m now sitting writing this from my new flat (: I arrived last Monday with my dad but as I was so early I could afford a few days of being a tourist and getting to know the city a bit. The traffic lights here are amazing, the green man actually walks and then runs! To be honest I had a few preconceptions of Málaga, mostly that everyone was a british tourist and that everything was terribly unorganised. These both turned out to be very wrong. I´ve hardly heard a single British accent and the city is very forward planning; the buses are very good and the supermarkets are very efficient, (each cashier serves two customers at once with dividers for the shopping). One preconception, however, turned out to be very much true, this city is HOT HOT HOT!

I started on my flat hunting quite early and it was extremely unsuccessful at first. The first place I called was from a quiet call box in a very noisy area and the guy on the other end seemed to know nothing about a flat for rent. It was very stressful at first but before long I got into the flow of it and it was much better.

After these fews days of being a hopeless tourist I bid farewell to my dad and set off alone to the youth hostel where I was staying. When I arrived I was greeted by a very friendly receptionist who was happy to listen to my muddled up, nonsense Spanish and I met my roommate, Thorid from Germany. Although she spoke English better than Spanish we are managing to avoid English. After all it’s Spanish we’re here to learn. She had already found a room in a central flat the day before and 6 days on I have just moved into that flat. I was originally looking at flats in the uni area (which is miles out from the town centre) but luckily she convinced me to look central. After all, all the night life will be there! I met “el hombre del piso,” as we call him when Thorid moved in on Sunday and then moved in myself yesterday. It’s such a relief to have a flat.

At the weekend I also bought a new Spanish phone with a Yoigo sim card. It’s a ridiculous name but all the Erasmus students here have it. I also discovered the Málagueñan night life on Sunday after I´d dragged my new roommate Manuela to the Sevilla- Málaga football derby. We went for a few bebidas and then discovered the only night bus at that time went all the way round the city before coming to the youth hostel! Trying to find the right stop in an unknown city in the dark is an experience and a half but somehow we made it home!

This week, after paying my rent for the new flat, there wasn´t much more to do that lie on the beach all day under the hot Spanish sun. Not a bad life really! There are also many, many Erasmus students to get to know, 99% of them German! Perhaps German would be a more useful language here than Spanish. Everyone is very nice though and every night there are more new faces and new names to learn. On Tuesday we discovered the art of flamenco, what an amazing culture the andalucíans have.

yesterday I moved into my new flat. It´s fair to say by British standards it´s not perfect. It´s actually comical how many things have already gone wrong; the washing machine wouldn´t open, we couldn´t use the gas, the light in the bathroom smashed. But it´s all part of the experience and also all fixable. We even had a little spare time to watch the crazy Spanish T.V.

Today was the first day when I realised what I was here for, to study! We had a meeting at the International Office for Erasmus students. I luckily new someone who knew where to go as Málaga is very confusing. My friend Chris got hopelessly lost, came three quarters of an hour late but didn´t even miss much! So the Spanish can be very late at times. I also discovered the hilarity of a Spanish lady trying to tell jokes in broken English, after she acted out a joke of someone drinking at a bar and then realised she couldn´t express what the point of it all actually was.

So that is my first week and a half in the Costa del Sol in a nutshell. More to come next week. Hasta luego!