Castles and Palaces-With a Load of Bull (2/25/24)

I was woken up at around 9 by Mom and was asked if I would like to go tour the bull fighting arena, but I chose to sleep instead. Griffin was given the same option, but as it turned out, he woke up sick! I’m bummed for him of course, but at the same time, I’m glad it wasn’t me again.

Mom, Dad, and Kayla went and toured the bull fighting arena, and the tour was led by a matador and they got to pet a bull. (Parent note: this was actually a lie. We were told by the tourist info center that the bullfighting arena was free on Sundays from 10 am to noon, and Matt, Kayla and I thought it was a little ridiculous that the 3 boys could not drag themselves out of the apartment before noon to check it out. Matt and I left earlier, and we a bit disappointed to find out that while we could get in for free, all that was open was the hallway around the arena, with a few windows where you can peer into the arena itself. We had just left when we ran into Kayla who was making her way there, so we went back and toured with her. We all agreed to say the tour was much more interesting than it actually was, which I promptly forgot about until I saw Gage's post!😊)

They returned and collected everyone else (besides Griffin), and we headed out for the Gibralfaro Castle at 1:30, because it was free entry at two and we wanted to be able to do both the castle and the Alcazaba. (Parent note: when we arrived in Malaga, the kids had been appropriately chastened about their minimal contributions to the planning efforts, so they jumped in to help plan our days in Malaga. One of the things we learned is that entry to the castle and Alcazaba were free on Sundays from 2-6pm, so that was our plan for the afternoon. The castle, as you may recall, is on top of a hill overlooking Malaga, so we had to repeat our hike up from a few days earlier.)

About halfway up Connor and Kayla left us to go to the Alcazaba first instead of the castle. (Parent note: Kayla successfully made the hike when we did it before, but after yesterday's trauma she quickly decided to opt out, so she and Connor started with the Alcazaba, which is closer to the bottom of the hill.)

Up at the castle we were able to walk the walls that had a view of the entire city.

The courtyard of the castle was huge too, because it was used to house the residents of the Alcazaba when the city was under siege.

The castle Information Center was also quite cool, as it had a model of the old city as well as the history of the castle.

After the castle, we went straight to the Alcazaba and met up with Connor and Kayla, who had just finished touring it.

Connor went up to the castle to tour it while Kayla stayed with us and gave us a tour of the Alcazaba, which was quite cool. And it seemed that every entryway was an archway.

After that we headed down and started walking to the Picasso museum, but once we were about two minutes away, we encountered a line, a line to the museum. So we decided it wasn’t worth a half hour wait and went back to the apartment.

We had a little 15 minute rest and then set out towards the store to get stuff for dinner. We checked online because we knew that several stores wouldn’t be open on Sundays, but the one we went to that said that it was open… was closed. So we had to go to a different store to get stuff for dinner, which was just fine because there was a place open right across the street.

We got home and Connor and Kayla started cooking the spaghetti and had a minor argument about some methodology that was being used, which was quite funny to watch. (Parent note: the disagreement is about how to store the pasta that is cooked but uneaten. Kayla feels strongly that it should be mixed with the sauce; Connor feels just as strongly that it should be saved separately. Interesting that they had this argument/discussion while they were cooking the pasta, which is on the other side of dinner from having to store any potential leftovers, so that was kind of amusing. But the happy couple was able to work through their differences - and ultimately we saved half the pasta one way, and half the other.)

The spaghetti turned out delicious either way, and Dad made some burgers, which were phenomenal.

After dinner everyone went off in their own ways, Mom and Dad went on a walk, Connor and Kayla watched a movie, griffin was asleep, and I talked to Nolyn(my girlfriend, for people who don’t know). After that everyone just went to bed.

-Gage