Things I have noticed about Malaga
Definition of “afternoon”
I went to an optometrist to replace the contact lens that somehow blew out of my eye when I was whizzing down mountains at 60 km/hr on my bicycle. He told me that he didn’t have time to do a vision test before lunch, but I could come in the afternoon. I was concerned at first, because I had a zoom call scheduled at 2:30. Then he elaborated: any time between 5 and 8:30 p.m. That’s what “afternoon” means. (Update: Not only was he able to give me a new lens that worked perfectly first try, I then asked him to check my left eye, which my Edmonton optician hadn’t been able to correct to my satisfaction after multiple attempts. He checked my eyes, then the prescription, then said, “Hmm… I don’t understand the reasoning behind this prescription.” He ordered a different one with a completely different prescription, and I’m seeing better than I have in years! And he nailed it on the first try. Time to change who I go to in Edmonton.)
Mid-day meal
Lunch (almuerzo) is a big deal here, and most businesses close from 1:30 or 2 p.m. till 5 p.m. for lunch. It is typically eaten with one’s family. Such split shifts are the norm. The exceptions are people who, like our Spanish teacher’s mother, work in hospitals or other places that can’t take such scheduled breaks. Those shifts are normally from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Apparently that’s why many people don’t eat lunch till 3:00 or later. What I don’t understand is how they mange to get up and get to work by 8, given that they don’t start supper until about 9:00 p.m.! Warning if you are travelling to Spain: restaurants that don’t cater to tourists won’t even open for lunch till 1 (at the earliest) or 2 p.m. and dinner between 9:00 and midnight is normal.
Dogs
There were plenty of dogs here pre-Covid too, but the numbers have increased. We live in a little cul de sac on a hill. Right behind our house is a park where people love to walk their dogs. People don’t have lawns here so there is no sound absorption. Our apartment balcony is ideally placed to be the Emperor’s loge seats in a Roman amphitheatre: the sounds travel up and bounce around. When one dog gets started, they all join in. It makes for quite the chorus. We gave it some thought and concluded that, as noisy as that can be, it beats the sound of the honking horns that were ever-present in Lima. It is easier to talk over the sounds of the dogs.
Dog Detritus
Even in Paris they now clean up dog poop, but not here. Sigh… It is everywhere. Oddly, though, I’ve seen a few responsible citizens who not only clean up when their dog poops, they spray a cleaning solution onto sidewalks when their dogs pee on them! Unfortunately, they are a tiny minority.
Parking
It used to be that Europeans drove sensibly tiny cars, because gas was super-expensive and many of the roads pre-date cars, so congestion is endemic and parking seriously challenging. In recent years, more of them are driving bigger, almost North American size cars, but gas is still hideously expensive, and parking has not become any more available. During our afternoon cocktails on our balcony we are often entertained by watching people juggle to figure out how they can park their cars (or where they can move their double-parked one to while the person they had blocked in tries to leave). You have to be an expert at parallel parking on hills. Also at on parking on sidewalks, on street corners and all other sorts of places where cars really don’t belong. And because the sidewalks and roads are narrow, as pedestrians we have to dart in and out among the parked and in-motion vehicles. On the positive side, unlike Peru, here people don’t honk often!
Cruise Ships
They have returned. On a typical day there are three or four of them in Malaga harbour, including some of the gigantic ones with 14+ stories above ground. They dwarf most of the buildings here. I hope that the cruise ships do good Covid screening of passengers. I was chatting with a cruise ship staffer who has been hired to give frequent tests to all staff. I find it amazing that people are willing to risk cruise ships again. Floating petri dishes. But if you are comfortable with the risks, the prices are probably good these days.
Outdoor Living
The biggest thing that strikes me, though, is just how freeing it is to live in a place where you can comfortably be outside almost all the time, and go pretty well everywhere on foot. I wouldn’t want to be here in the summer, when it gets too hot to be comfortable outdoors, but for the rest of the year it is just such a joy, especially for someone with cold-triggered asthma. Some people who move to warm climates say they miss the four seasons. I can confidently say, I don’t. Sure, snow is fun for a couple of days, and it does look beautiful before it is converted to car snot. (To my non-northern friends, ask me and I’ll explain what that is.) But I can live without it quite happily. Here the arrival of winter is denoted by the fact that the oranges on the trees that line the streets are now turning their lovely orange colour.
