Hola a todos! This weekend, I went on my first overnight trip! I knew I wanted to go somewhere in Spain and found out that there was a group planning to go to Málaga, which is in the south of Spain. I had heard great things about Málaga, plus there's a beautiful beach. When I saw that the weather was going to be in the 70s and a high of 80 degrees (Fahrenheit), I knew that they could count me in.

I booked everything a WEEK ago. Isn't that amazing? And it was CHEAP! How is this possible, you may ask???

1. We took the bus. The bus is definitely the most frugal way to travel in Spain. Or hitchhiking! But the bus is safer!!! We found a roundtrip ticket for about 30 euros.

2. We stayed in a hostel. This was my first experience in a hostel, and it was amazing. Gonna talk about it later in the blog. But if you're not familiar with hostels (like I was before abroad), you pay very little money and stay in a room with other travellers.

Those are the main two reasons. On Saturday, we had a beach day. No entrance fee. It was beautiful. The sand was a little rocky/hard for my liking, but the views were 10/10. Great weather - I got my final tan of the year on and hopped in the water a few times.

After dinner, we went to the rooftop of the hostel. We missed the free sangria, but the rooftop was still packed with people. It was so cool to meet people from all around the world. I met people from Germany to Chile! We found out that the hostel was throwing a pub crawl and we decided to do that. I'm legal in Europe woohoooooo!

The pub crawl was so fun. I met a guy from Colombia who was studying abroad in Málaga for the year. Everyone was speaking in English, and he only knew Spanish, so I said that we could talk in Spanish.

Buena práctica ;)

Anyway...

Hostels are the best. They're affordable, and you get to meet lots of cool people. Also, bunkbeds -- yassss.

On the last day, we were pretty tired. But we still made our way to the Alcazaba, a fortification built by the Hammudid dynasty in the 11th century. It was beautiful, and we kept getting better views of the city as we climbed higher.

In high school, I played Pablo de Sarasate's Malagueña on the violin. Knowing that I was in the birthplace of the Malagueña, I couldn't help but sing the tune in my head. And I also kept imagining Picasso walking down the same streets, as he was born in Málaga.

Mom and Dad come to visit on Wednesday, and I am so excited to show them around Madrid!!! We're also going to Sevilla, which is also in Andalucía (same community as Málaga) Hopefully, we'll be able to get there with no issues. I got an email saying that there are going to be rail strikes taking place on Friday when we're traveling! Vamos a ver..