2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 71

Now I am a resident of London. The hostel I found is a cream Regency townhouse located just a few blocks from the River Thames in the district of Pimlico, draped beneath the graceful shadows of elegant pear trees, right up the street from Eccleston Square, where Winston Churchill used to live.

My plan is to stay here for a couple of weeks, make some friends, scope out the rest of London, and decide in which part of the city I'd like to rent a flat. I also want to travel all over Europe, since I'm already all the way over here. There's so much to see and experience in this ancient continent. I wouldn't want to miss the Alhambra, the Swan Castle, the Blue Mosque of Constantinople, the leaning tower of Pisa, the blue and white houses on the sea cliffs of Santorini. Isn't it a pity to travel half way around the world, only to stay cooped up in London the whole time?

The question is: should I travel now, or should I travel later? I couldn't make up my mind.

Meanwhile, I needed to make some friends.

The first friend I met up with in London was Becky. She's a real foodie, this Becky. We ate at an Italian restaurant near Farringdon, which served spaghetti with venison ragu and mixed mushrooms drizzled with truffle oil. The fact Becky and I even know each other, was also because of food. So this is how we met. Back in Vancouver, a year prior, I attended my friend Mike's birthday party. The festivities were so loud, and there were so many people, it was impossible to speak to everyone there. Becky, being the foodie and home cook that she is, baked these delicate green tea and early grey cookies infused with lavender buds. She prepared several boxes of them, probably intended for the birthday boy Mike. Somehow, without ever speaking to Becky, I left the party with a box in my stealthy little palms. Then I Facebook friended her to inform her how I enjoyed every bite of her cookies. Becky was probably rudely surprised why instead of Mike, some stranger ate her food. But that was how we became friends.

A year later, she saw that my Facebook location had changed to London, so she reached out to meet up. I must admit, I never imagined eating someone else's cookies would get me a friend in London. Becky has already been living in London for a year, and has just returned from Spain. Next week, she's is going camping in Scandinavia. She's living with a roommate in a flat near Canary Wharf, a major financial district of London, where suits and impeccably manicured lawns dominate. Her roommate is moving out soon, I can stay with her if I wanted to, she said.

Hearing her talk about Spain, I am struck with such a dumb spasm of envy. I want to go to Spain! Especially when London is treating us to blizzards and snow in March, I want to go to warm, sunny, south of Spain. Becky says one of her biggest mistakes was not traveling enough and taking on a consuming contract job in London right away. Now that her contract is up, she's catching up on all the traveling she can. I thought, why not travel Europe while London is freezing and before I get tied down with a full-time job?

So that's why I called one of those insanely cheap budget airlines and booked a flight for Malaga, Spain – the tippity top of the Spanish south, on the Costa Del Sol (coast of the sun). If you go any further than that, you'll fall right into the Mediterranean Sea.

A week later, I am on the plane, and then, in less than three hours, I am there. I instantly love Malaga. Warm, sunny, clean, Moorish, shipwrecked, vibrant, over-the-top Malaga. In the 8th century, Muslims took over Spain, and during their reign built exquisite fortresses and palaces in the Moorish style, which later combined with the Renaissance, Gothic, and Baroque influences of Western Europe gave Malaga an eclectic look and feel. Kind of like One-Thousand-And-One-Nights meets high church. The Spaniards love to paint their buildings the color of cayenne pepper, mustard yellow, and various bold hues. Just so ostentatiously in-your-face. The city is imbued with the intoxicating scent of orange blossoms. Which smells like jasmine. You can pluck oranges straight off the trees. Picasso was born in Malaga.

I meet a group of American exchange students who had just returned from a week of camel riding adventure in the Moroccan desert. And we all go out to eat together, wandering into one of those tourist-trap looking restaurants on the coast, without a single customer in sight. But within the space of twenty minutes I am busily eating hands-down one of the most amazing dishes I've had yet since arriving in Europe. It's a type of tapas served in a tiny, earthen dish of red clay. My American friends tell me this is gambas al ajillo, which are fresh prawns sautéed with olive oil and garlic, with a dash of paprika, and a splash of Brandy, served tossed like a hot salad with fresh chili flakes and slices of even more garlic, all swimming in an aromatic olivey, oceany broth. Followed by crusty bread, baked in a wood-burning oven.

But Seville, the next day, is even better.

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