Chapter 3

Malaga. Two weeks ago the city didn’t want to let me to go and today, when I returned to gather the rest of my belongings, seemed like it didn’t want me to get any further than the front door of the bus station. I walked into a suffocating hot wall of the summer that had arrived while I was away and I was immediately grateful for the knowledge that I would be leaving again tomorrow. I am determined to make a slightly more stylish exit this time; I won’t leave the flat too late, nor will I take a “shortcut”, get hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of construction sites around the bus station, miss my bus and have to pay for another ticket. As well as sweating off about five kilos of water weight, flustered semi-panic often results to important lessons being learned. If you’re stupid enough to buy a bus ticket in advance, make sure you follow the route you memorised the day before when you went to purchase the damn thing.

I am no longer counting days. In the last two weeks that I have spent in Cádiz, where in the botanical gardens you can stumble into fibreglass dinosaurs, time has started to resemble a piece of melting chewing gum thoughtlessly spat onto sweltering hot pavement. It sticks to the seven mile boots that I’m wearing on my feet and expands, contracts and snaps while I, blindfolded, take my random leaps into the unknown while trying to figure out some kind of a direction to head towards. While falling haplessly in love with the smiling city I have been at times desperate for a breath with my head deep under water and then suddenly swept into safety of the shore by the gentle giant waves. I have been insecure and terrified, grasping around the outlines of a reality fabricated by my own imagination, felt a tap on my shoulder and been nudged towards daylight. Without the safety net that routine provides and the blinkers which normality harnesses you with, you are stripped bare and sensitive as everything is hugely magnified and extremely intense. It takes some time in any new situation to work out the size and the correct proportions of your own personality compared to those around you. Misjudgements need correcting frequently.

The city is a kindly brutal lover. Over two weeks of couchsurfing and living in a hammock on the rooftop of a hostel have left me battered, bitten, sleep-deprived and itchy. I’m starting to get used to the heat, and the constantly shared living space is honing my patience and social skills. The job hunt hasn’t yet resulted to anything concrete I have been hoping for but I do have a private class booked into my diary for Monday. My Spanish is coming along slowly but surely. My feet are still lost but I’m slowly starting to think I might find them one day.