Arriving in Malaga

Whenever I go to live in a foreign country, usually it is the first days that pass unnoticed. The first moments in the neighborhood, the first visits to the local store, the first trips out into the city prove hard to remember. The first people I say "hola" or "konnichiwa" to are the ones that I will most probably not run into again during the rest of my stay. Time goes, like a bored guest would slip out of a party, and before I know it, the first whole month is over. But where has it gone?

I try to recall my first week at ICU - five years ago - and I wonder how it went. Not that everything is beyond retrieval; in fact, some moments do stand out, like arriving in campus from the airport at midnight, sleeping in a room without bedsheets and electric fan, and bugging the cleaning lady for some hot water to steam up my cup ramen the next morning. But those days are now significantly fuzzy, and laying out the chain of events is like piecing together a grand puzzle. Every time I do a mental rewind, I see things pass like a flash of light.

But my first night in Malaga was different, and it would be quite difficult to forget. After 18 hours on the plane, flying a Manila-Bangkok-Frankfurt-Malaga killer route, I arrived in my new flat at about 8 in the evening. Before that, I had a nerve-racking week in Manila and spent six hours wandering inside the Frankfurt airport to wait for my connecting flight. So my body was craving sleep, which proved elusive since I didn't have the heart to decline my flatmate Sergio's offer to bring me to a botellon on my first night in Spain. We all set out to Plaza de la Merced, that part of the city center where the locals normally gather for a botellon, the typical Spanish street party. Young people usually flock together, often in an open space like a plaza, with their own glasses, bags of ice, cola and rum to chat and drink the night away. The party starts at about 12 midnight and lasts until the wee hours of the morning. That night, I was actually drained, my mind half-asleep, but it was constantly aware of the new sensations around it: the sound of Spanish spoken everywhere, the sea of western faces, the ground wet with melted ice and spilled rum, and the amazing architecture surrounding the plaza that I only used to see in Intramuros.

My first night, October 7, was an initiation of sorts to the Spanish culture of fun, partying and taking it easy, thanks to my flatmate Sergio, Veronica, Ismael and his other friends in the picture whose names I now struggle to recall. I also got initiated into the European culture of beso. That day I kissed - on the cheeks - the most number of women in one night in my entire life. Pity I couldn't kiss the men...