Málaga, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands
Saturday, November 21, 2009
A couple of days ago I was talking with a friend of mine who is from England but is living in Malaga now. He told me that one time in a restaurant the waiter asked how the meal was and he told the waiter that it wasn't that good. He told me that normally the British will just sit there with an unhappy look on their face and never say anything. He got the meal for free. Today I met two really cool people from Seville, Alejandro (Alex) and his girlfriend, Maria. Alex reminds me of my high school Spanish teacher. They got some mojitos at a bar but they did not like them so Alex went back in and bought a beer. Maria asked the bartender about the mojitos and why they taste different and the bartender told her that they mixed it with a different kind of soda because they didn’t have any more of the usual kind. So there we were standing in the street drinking and he was holding this 5 euro mojito that he wasn’t going to drink. I asked him why he didn’t just ask for her to replace the drink and he told me that it is extremely rare for a bartender to ever replace a drink and that the Spaniards will usually never complain. I told him that I would go tell the bartender that we’d like to exchange the mojito and he was a little surprised. In my mind I was correct, if you don’t like it you should have it replaced, but in hindsight I believe that is an American mentality (a tradition of America). I asked Alex if he thought it would be wrong for me to ask and he replied, "What have you got to lose?" which is the state of mind I like. So I went in and asked the bartender if I could exchange it and she was a little surprised and she asked her boss, and they exchanged it. When I went out of the bar with a beer in my hand the group (Alex, Maria, Juan, and two friends from an intercambio) were all super proud of me. No pasa nada!
Afterwards we went to a bar where they played a lot of older Spanish songs…very good and upbeat even though some were from the 60’s. Also, after I left the bathroom in the bar I saw Maria standing waiting for the girls bathroom and she called me over. She had met a girl from Jaen in the line and I talked a little bit to her in English. She was very nice. I really enjoyed this bar, it was so refreshing to hear Spanish songs for a change. The night ended on a down note though…Juan’s bike got stolen. : ( It’s ironic because I had a conversation earlier about if I should get a bike and my friend from the intercabio that is from Malaga told me no, it would get stolen. It sucks that Juan’s bike got stolen. All in all tonight was a good night.
