Malaga, Spain: The feeling of freedom

After our wonderful time in Prague, we spent about 10 days in Austria to attend a wedding of friends and to meet a few relatives and friends. From there we headed to Malaga, Spain.

This was our first time taking a flight with Nora. We were given both wanted and unwanted advice by a lot of people on how crazy it might get to travel with a baby. We were a bit concerned but we felt that as long as we are close to Nora and attend her needs she would be fine. Luckily, the flight was very smooth. She was a bit upset when she was forced to sit on the lap under the seat belt but other than that she was fine exploring the plane, interacting with people around us, and taking a nap.

We rented a place in Malaga through Airbnb with a lovely Ukranian/Spanish lady who was renting a room in her apartment. The stay with her was wonderful, she was very lovely with Nora and we really enjoyed our time there. The beach was just a few minutes walk from the house. And we had access to the kitchen where we cooked all our meals.

After being used to the looks and discrimination in Austria, in south of Spain we felt a sense of relief, freedom, and a feeling of not being judged when we interacted with people and walked on the streets. People were simply going on about their lives, sometimes excited to interact with our sweet baby, but definitely not surprised or shocked about us being a mixed family. We haven't had this feeling since Nora was born. People in Malaga were of all colours and many of them looked like us. We never thought we could find a place on earth where all three of us could be considered locals. Malaga was that place and we were pleasantly surprised.

Malaga was a very laid back town where there were markets on almost every corner of the streets where they sold fresh fruits and vegetables which were priced at a lot lower price compared to Austria. The only thing we were surprised to see was how much plastic bags were used in the supermarkets. We tried our best to minimise our plastic bag use.
The beach was clean and calm. There were public workout stations on the beach for various activities. Men, women, young and old were doing their work-outs and it also motivated us to do a bit of workout on those machines while we were in Malaga. People were doing their runs in the mornings and evenings, families camped on the beach bringing their own chairs and tables and had a great time together eating and drinking. There were a lot of young and old people walking along the beach, taking a dip in the water, and playing all kinds of sports on the beach. The beach in Malaga was a very lively place.

We would love to visit Malaga again some day and this was definitely a place that gave us the feeling of freedom and peace.