Day 6 found us in Malaga, watching parrots fight at the Picasso museum.

Day 7

Our final day in Spain. We’d spend most of the day in Malaga, and then board a train that would whisk us back to Madrid and from there, the airport, and back home. Lots of ground to cover.

One of the sub-groups in our larger group was taking a day trip to Morocco, and they were already gone, along with Al, our primary guide. Their pull-out from the hotel was something like 4 AM, in order to get on the ferry, have time to clear customs (2 hours), do the tour, and then back to Spain again, whereupon they’d catch a flight from Malaga.

We tried to get on that excursion (how cool would an authentic Moroccan fez be?!) but our travel itinerary and flight made the side-trek impossible. We were given a “beach day” instead, and you know, a few people even did that. My family had other plans.

Janice found another museum for us to explore, the alternative being more day drinking. This modern art edifice was called the Centre Pompidou Malaga and it was very near the marina anyway. It’s noteworthy for the El Cubo art installation outside of its building. Inside, we were treated to three exhibits of modern art, and for the record, none of them were “echoes” of anything, all right? They were their own curated collections, which was immensely more satisfying.

My favorite was called “Place-Ness” and it was about the antagonistic relationship between urban and rural spaces and how one encroaches on the other and back again. Lots of commentary on the Industrial Revolution and how the 1920s and 1930s saw the erosion of rural for urban, but now in the 21st century, the rural is reclaiming the abandoned urban. It’s the kind of modern art collection that I think most people can understand; a mixed media presentation of photography (a couple of pieces by Wim Wenders!), sculpture, fine art, graphic and commercial art (movie posters!) and even film footage. They even had a couple of Picassos.

Going through the museum completely took the sting of betrayal away from yesterday’s disappointment with the Picasso Museum. For one, I was prepped for what I was about to see, and this was contextualized throughout the exhibit. Everything spoke to and pointed back to the purpose of the collection, like a really good essay or research paper. No wasted space. Heh. That was not on purpose.

Our visit was a leisurely hour and a half, including the obligatory cruising of the gift shop. When we came out, we were famished, but the problem with the Malaga Marina is, evidently, this is where the tourists all hang out. Authentic cuisine was not in sight, which is how I ended up at the Hard Rock Café: Malaga, staring at a mediocre plate of what I presumed to be nachos and wondering if I’d done something wrong with my life.

I’m not sure which chain restaurant establishment I detest more: Hard Rock Café or Planet Hollywood. They are both just the worst kind of thing, more than a restaurant, less than a theme park, with signed objects in glass cases and other trappings of grim idolatry, dedicated to the people least deserving of sainthood ever. Look, I like James Taylor’s music just fine, okay? “Fire and Rain” is an unarguable classic. No doubt. But his signed acoustic guitar over the greeter’s station is, first of all, not hard rock, and second, who cares? I hate that these two places are, for many people, their first and only exposure to American culture.

I didn’t say anything, because the rest of the family and our tagalong, a woman with the last name of Guiterrez, whose nickname was “Goots,” which delighted me to no end—they seemed okay with the choice. It turned out later that this was ironic on the part of my family; there was a story I won’t retell about how they ended up there on another trip and it became a “thing,” if you know what I mean. This lessened the sting, somewhat, but the nachos were still shitty.

We took our sweet time getting back on the bus. Our trip was essentially over, in that we would be retracing steps to get home. I found myself exhausted, out of gas, and this made me go quiet, which concerned my fellow travelers, as I had not shut up for most of the trip. After assuring everyone that I was okay and probably just needed a nap, we stopped for a quick café con leche and some cookies that seemed innocent enough but were contextually very inappropriate. Let me ‘splain:

You may have gleaned onto the fact that Catholicism is alive and well in Spain. They go old school with it, and why shouldn’t they? All of those freaking cathedrals aren’t good for much else. During holy week, there’s this thing called the Semana Santa or the processions of the brotherhoods and it’s part of their tradition and culture for the acolytes to dress in long white robes with white pointed hoods that cover their faces completely. If that sounds like something else that is terribly vile in American history, you aren’t the only one to reach that conclusion.

BUT…to Catholics in Spain, the sight of a group of people in white hoods and robes, carrying crosses, and marching down the street, is reverent and spiritually moving. A perfect example of context and situational experience. These images adorn tourist bric-a-brac, such as coffee mugs, postcards, and, well, evidently, cookies. The shape is somewhat abstract; I had one of the sailboat cookies and thought they were nice enough. It was weird that the sail had eyes, though. That’s when it hit me; those weren’t sails, they were hoods. Sweet Baby Jesus! It was funny in a horrific kind of way. There were, incidentally, also Easter Egg cookies in a far less triggering shape. They were decorated with pastel icing, as one would expect, and so were the acolyte hoods. Cue up all of the Gay Klansman jokes—we did. Shades of Dave Chappell’s blind Klansman bit and also inappropriate scenes from Zorro, the Gay Blade. Just to be clear: we were not mocking the Catholic church. Rather, we were throwing the KKK under the bus…the brightly colored rainbow bus.

All of the remaining travelers reassembled at the bus and made our way to the AVE train, a high speed (not bullet) affair that was long, sleek, completely crowded, but still managed to be quite comfortable. It went from the coast of Southern Spain all the way back up to Madrid in 3 hours, leaving all of us who were on it to wonder, aloud, what the hell was wrong with Texas and the rest of America that we can’t have things like this. It makes no sense, and never will. There’s not an argument you can offer up that I can’t bat it back down again. Someone is lining their pockets to make sure that it doesn’t happen. I can’t imagine who that could possibly be *COUGH*big oil*COUGH*auto industry*COUGH*…sorry. Got some sarcasm in my throat.

We got into Madrid late, around 9 pm, and ended up back at the first hotel we’d stayed at. I cracked the window in the room.

We woke up the next morning and had a leisurely breakfast before heading back to the airport. One last round of ham and that lovely Spanish tortilla, and then we simply had to endure the plane ride home again.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading all of the entries. I hope you found something entertaining about my adventure, and hopefully it’s inspired you to do your own traveling. I’m really grateful for my wife’s family and their willingness to bring me along on these trips. Salud!