The Prettiest Milonga in Málaga...and an unexpected encounter

My last evening in Málaga

Milonga "El Jardín" by the Cathedral in Málaga

Before heading to Málaga I checked online for milongas, and threw a pair of tango shoes into my bag just in case, since I saw that there was a regular one on Thursdays. I almost didn't go out Thursday evening, since I was tired, and very tempted to just stay in and watch TV. A desire to eat dinner propelled me out, but I decided (after further reading online) that I would just bring along my tango shoes as a backup, but would not change my clothes into the dress I had brought and the alternate shoes instead of my sneakers. So I wandered back to Málaga's Cathedral, and its pedestrianized city center....which is completely dead at 10:00. Seriously, it's weird, even the restaurants looked more like restaurants at 10:00 PM in other countries....open, but with people finishing dinner, and few people arriving. I've noticed generally that out of season things tend to close early in Málaga (the Alcazaba and the Roman Amphitheater at 6:00 – which is ridiculous since it's light until 7:00 and a bit after now), and the side effect of being so completely set up for tourists is that the hours are very un-Spanish. (Mind you, the Cien Montaditos in the food court at the railway station outside of the tourist center was packed and jumping at 10:15 on Wednesday when I managed to squeeze in and find a seat, and the food court in the station is open until 1:00 AM though there aren't trains after midnight, but that's different.)

Anyway, I wandered through the beautifully lit but eerily still pedestrian zone, wondering if I was making a mistake, and if I would find the restaurant where the milonga was supposed to be dark and silent, as has often happened when I've searched for milongas in the past.

Down among (yesterday's) grassroots

The Archivo Histórico Provincial de Málaga does not have things of immediate interest to my research...but it does have things of interest.

I had a productive Thursday, spending the morning in the Provincial Historical Archive again and combing through personnel files of the cuerpos de seguridad which were useless to my research but quite amusing. I discovered Nobby Nobbs levels of police corruption in one handwritten transcription of the deposition of various complainants and one guardia de vigilancia charged with buying lottery tickets on credit from them and not paying for the tickets throughout 1930-1931. He'd run up a tab of 50 pesetas to one lottery vendor and 45 to another before they finally got up the courage to complain. (Since El ONCE in Spain is traditionally run as a charity for the blind, and the ticket vendors were and are traditionally blind or visually impaired, this falls into the category of taking money from a blind man's cup, almost literally. One of the ticket sellers who complained added specifically in his deposition that his only previous contact with the police had been about precisely the theft of coins from his cup and that at that time he had been “attended to courteously and promptly” – suggesting that dealing with the shakedown guy who didn't pay for tickets was an unpleasant surprise.) As I know from reading several files, the annual salary for a guardia de vigilancia was 3500 pesetas, and for a blind ticket seller presumably considerably less. So 50 pesetas could be a week's income from the ticket seller, or at least a few days worth. (Say the equivalent of about 150-200 euros.) Abusing authority that way seems sleazy, if not actively criminal. The internal investigator apparently agreed, since the deposition ends by saying that the accused was forced to pay the amount he owed in the presence of witnesses.

Archives, alcazaba, rinse, repeat

Today was in some ways a repeat of yesterday...but more efficient.

After a nice morning in the archives, in which I did not find anything useful, but learned a few amusing things about the "asociaciones culturales" and "casinos" (social clubs) of Málaga in the early twentieth century, and also started looking at the long ago personnel files of the cuerpo de vigilancia of Málaga, I headed directly back to the alcazaba, stopping for lunch at a Japanese restaurant I had noted earlier, that was quiet and quite good.  (The one problem with Málaga being so set up for tourists is that the restaurants tend to be overpriced and to offer "typical" foods which are anything but, and are not very good.  I made the mistake of ordering what was called "fideua" as a primero on Monday and found it was overcooked spaghetti which had been chopped up to one inch lengths.  A disappointment.  The teriyaki however was excellent, the waiters were Japanese and the clientele were Spanish, an ideal combination.)  Then I went back and visited the Roman amphitheater and the alcazaba a second time, this time with a fully charged camera battery and a memory card in the camera.  And it was worth it.  This may be more an entry of pictures than of commentary, simply because the Alcazaba is so beautiful.

Once more into the archives....

 

Today I visited two archives, and did not get as far as I had hoped, or as little as I had feared.

Greetings from sunny and spring-like Málaga, where the skies are blue, the palms are green, and the tourists are plentiful, even in winter, when the overbuilt beach isn't usable.  I got up with an alarm clock, and have walked at least ten kilometers today (probably more like fifteen altogether) and am exhausted, but certainly have plenty of adventures to write about.  I suspect that the blog entries, like my day, will end up being in two parts: the morning in the archives, and the afternoon in Malaga's stunning ruins.  So, on to the archives.  I started with the one closer to my hotel, on the Alameda Principal that connects the newer part of the city to the headland with the medieval center and cool ruins.  These are the municipal archives, of the city of Malaga.  They look like this: