The adventure continues

This has been one interesting trip so far. I started out in Madrid and then made my way to Malaga for a few days on the beach. The hostel I stayed in there was full of Spaniards and Italians and none of them spoke English. My days were spent at the beach and my nights were spent going to see bull fights. I definitely had a good time, but what I really wanted was to be able to speak English! I´ve been holed up in Mali for a year and it would be nice to have regular contact with English speakers. Walking around Malaga on my last day there (or so I thought) I was kicking myself in the butt for not going to Amsterdam to meet up with my friend Iain from college. He had planned a trip with his dad and buddy Paulo for the August 11 - 16, and I was walking around Malaga with nothing to do on the 12th. So, I ran to the nearest internet and found a roundtrip flight leaving the next morning and coming back on the 16th. What the hell, I thought, and bought the ticket. This turned out to be a seriously awesome idea. The hostel I stayed at hooked me up with a ride to the airport the next morning at 6am, I had a layover in Madrid and then flew right on to Amsterdam. Freezing at the airport, I hopped on a train to Central Amsterdam for 5 Euros, checked out a map and compared it to the address of the apartment Iain was renting, and started walking.

Amsterdam all looks the same to me. Nearly every street is accompanied by a canal and the houses are thin, 3 storie tall buildings complete with a hook and rope. The reason for this is that when the houses were being built, the city collected a tax based on the width of the house, but not the height. People in turn built tall, thin homes with limited staircases. In order to raise furniture to the upper levels, the rope and pulley system was devised. Despite the similarities of the streets, I am a pretty good traveler and was at Iain´s apartment within 2 hours of flying in. Knocking on the door, I wondered if they were home and planned to settle down outside the house if they weren´t. Why not just wait? After a few minutes, Iain opened the door and was surprised to see me. They were very welcoming, offered me a Heineken and showed me how they had brought a computer hooked up with Comcast digital cable straight from Boston! That meant Red Sox games every night at 1am!

Amsterdam definitely rocked. We attempted to do something cultural like go to the Anne Frank house, but the line was down the block and around the corner. Plus, I´ve been there before the last time I was in Amsterdam (2006 for a school fieldtrip). Instead, we walked around, went to the park, and had some awesome Argentinian steaks (they were apparently imported straight from Argentina...). All in all, it was a good 3 days and I was very happy to see a friend.

I woke up early on the 16th and headed to the airport for my trip back to Malaga. Upon arriving, I planned to stay a night and then head out. Stupidly, I had neglected to write down the name of the hostel I booked, and ended up arriving on the biggest party day of the year. The bus took me to the center of Malaga and I walked around through the crowded streets full of drunken Spaniards yelling, screaming, singing, toasting, etc. Getting through the crowds with my big backpack was a challenge and I received a quite a few angry glances. Because it was such a big party day, absolutely nothing but bars were open and I needed to figure out where I was staying. I eventually walked into a square and a guy wearing a pink frilly apron (obviously wasted) asked me if I was lost. Confessing that I was, hedecided to be wicked helpful and brought me to a hostel where I was able to use the internet and find a map to where I was staying.

This hostel was all Italians, but they spoke English well enough. I hung out with a guy named Marco who spoke a little English and a little Spanish, so we had to communicate through a mix of the two. Soon we found some girls at the hostel from Italy that spoke English really well and went out for tapas and some beers with them. I stayed two nights and have no found myself in Algeciras. Today I will find a place to stay and then head to Tangier tomorrow, and then on to Casablanca.