trip to Malaga

I left the friendly confines of Norway last week for only the 2nd time since I moved here. I went to Málaga Spain to visit one of the test equipment companies that we work with. It was a bit hotter in Málaga than I'm used to in Trondheim but I survived OK. I just had to do what the local people did which is to wait until 7 or 8pm before going out to walk around. I went out in the afternoon the first day I got there, and I must have looked lost and hot and German, because some German guy took pity on me and started pointing the way to downtown and talking about beer (in German). So I said 'oh I'm American" and he said "OH American!" then he proceeded to switch to Spanish and continue pointing towards downtown.. That didn't help much but at least I was pretty sure which direction the downtown was.
Málaga is a city of about 600,000 people on the south coast of Spain. The center of the city is very beautiful. There were tons of German and French and Spanish tourists down there, as well as a few Americans. I also got some advice from one of the girls at the company I was visiting regarding a vegetarian restaurant to try in downtown. I managed to find the restaurant but it was only 7pm when I got there so it didn't seem to be open. So I kept walking and found the path that leads up the Alcazaba, which is the remains of a walled fortress dating back to the 11th century. It was brutally hot walking up there but the view was incredible so I kept going to the top. The picture here was from about 3/4 of the way up the path, looking towards the harbor and downtown. When I finally made it back to the restaurant it was about 8:15 but it still wasn't open yet, so I had to give up and go to a kabob shop to get something to eat. The veggie place will have to wait until next time.
There is a nice set of photos from Málaga here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mileslsmith/MalagaPics#
That was my first trip to Spain and I thought it was quite nice there. It helps if you know at least a little Spanish though (or maybe some German ).