Moroc 'n Roll

مرحبا الأصدقاء!

According to Google Translate, that says, "Hello friends!" in Arabic (waiting for Saleh to correct me). It should be on the right side of the page instead of left and the exclamation point should probably be somewhere else since in Arabic you read right to left but you know what I'm just doing the best I can.

Since I'm continuing from my last post, let's jump right in.

Friday
We spent the morning walking through a park on our way to the meeting point for the program that was taking us to Morocco. The park was just another beautiful part of Sevilla. Once we met up with the group (and our friend Saleh that joined us there), we loaded a bus that took us to the ferry port which was about a 3 hour drive from Sevilla. Let me tell you, a 3 hour drive is way more manageable when you're on a bus with a bunch of friends (let me just clarify, at this point it was myself, Angie, Alex, Bo, Saleh, and Cody). We arrived to the ferry (casually taking a ferry to Africa) and obviously I got motion sick on the hour-long ferry ride so that was splendid. Nothing Dramamine couldn't fix. Then we got to Africa!! We took a bus to our hotel which was about an hour away. There was a lot of traveling but it was 100% worth it so no pasa nada.

The countryside in Morocco was absolutely amazing. There were cows and goats just chilling on the side of the round (alive, not roadkill). The occasional donkey was the best though...nothing I've ever seen before. Also on the drive, I saw a ton of mosques. Luckily I had a source of information (Saleh) that didn't mind being grilled on all of my questions about Islam because apparently I forgot everything that I learned in high school history. The mosques are pretty small and simple, mostly due to the fact that since Muslims pray so many times a day, there need to be many mosques available so instead of having 1 huge, extravagant mosque they have small ones all over the place. Once we got to the hotel, we ate our first Moroccan meal. We had couscous with chicken and then fruit for dessert which was delicious. At night, our little group played Spoons, which I obviously won (don't worry Noreen, I didn't let you down). That's about all we did at night since we were so tired from traveling. The real fun started Saturday.

Saturday
After breakfast on Saturday, we headed to Chefchaouen which is also known as the blue city. The city is painted a pretty shade of blue for religious reasons and also to keep the bugs away. Whatever the reason, the color was awesome:

After our walking tour given by the cutest old man I have ever seen in my life, we went to lunch at a restaurant called "Aladdin" (is that racist? They named it themselves so...). Lunch was great, and then after we got some free time to shop around the town. Shopping in Morocco = haggling. I'm TERRIBLE at haggling. I think I just feel bad or that I'm insulting the vendor by offering such a small price for their good. I mean, most of the time they didn't make it themselves but still I feel so bad. The first purchase was a blue (the same color blue as the city) tapestry for my apartment next year. Saleh speaks fluent Arabic, so he asked a man to take us to the place were a lot of things were made. We walking into the shop and I saw the little old man at the loom making all of the goods in the store:

THIS IS WHAT MAKES IT HARD TO OFFER THE SMALLEST AMOUNT OF MONEY POSSIBLE. Look at him! I just want to give him all of my money. Once I finally picked one out, they said it was 500 dirham (50 euro, around 65-70 dollars). Then I offered 600 dirham. Just kidding, but that's about how good I am at haggling. I offered 300 dirham and ended up getting it to 350. Either way, a great price for a tapestry that was handmade in Morocco.

After probably spending way too much money on other things, I began to realize something. Brace yourselves, this paragraph is going to get messy. Being in Morocco and interacting with Muslims there made me hate even more how Americans have such terrible connotations of these people. The people I met in Morocco were probably the nicest people I have met since I started traveling around the world. I mean yeah they want to overcharge you for goods but everyone does that, and it works on me. But seriously, it's pathetic that Americans think so poorly of an entire population of people just based on one small sample of that type of person. I always hated that stereotype but I hate even more now having been to an Arab country and interacting with the people there. So anyway.

I ended up buying a few things and then telling myself to stop. Then buying some more things. Overall, I left Chefchaouen with many new goods in my pocket. I'm just telling myself that hey this was made in Morocco and you can't (actually you probably can) get this in America. We left Chefchaouen and headed back towards to the hotel. Once we got to the hotel we ate Moroccan meatballs (no I do not know what makes them different from other meatballs) for dinner and had chocolate mousse for dessert which was delightful. At night, there was a "sangria" party which was literally the equivalent to a frat party that served jungle juice. During this party, the program guides surprised us and brought in some Moroccan performers. There were drums and dancing and fire and it was all really cool! Can't believe I had the experience to witness this amazing culture.

Sunday
After breakfast Sunday morning, I had to pack my bag with all of the things I bought on Saturday. Not easy. Then we got on the bus and headed towards Asilah. Asilah was also painted blue, but not to the extent that Chefchaouen was. There were some really cool beach views from this town. I never realized that I have never seen the Atlantic Ocean this close, which is weird seeing as the USA has an entire Atlantic Coast. Oh well.

Hey

So we walked around Asilah for a little bit and then got to shop some more. Luckily, I upped my haggling game and bought some more things...so many things. Once I finished breaking my bank, we loaded the bus and headed to the restaurant for lunch. We had kebabs with spicy chicken and french fries. I think french fries are a pretty universal food. After lunch we went to the beach because we had some free time. This beach was beyond gorgeous and I actually went into the Atlantic for the first time ever! It was exciting. Unfortunately I do not have any pics of the beach, I didn't bring my camera with me in fear of ruining it somehow. It was just really pretty.

After the beach, we hit the highlight of the trip. CAMEL RIDING. Let me just get this out of the way, the camels were not treated very nicely at all and the amount they had to stand up and lay down (on a cement platform) in order to load people on made my heart hurt. Apparently not badly enough to keep me from riding one. Come on, I was in Morocco! Don't judge me. Riding a camel was basically like riding a horse, just way higher up since they have a hump and all. They are also way cooler looking.

They are just so great. I wanted to haggle the owner for one, but then I didn't know how to get it back to the States. Don't worry, I also have a pic of me actually riding the camel:

Yeah...we were in a parking lot. But hey, the beach was pretty! If I had my way, I would have been riding that camel through the Sahara Desert. But we can't always get our way, can we?

After we rode the camels, we headed to a restaurant for free time. The plan was the program was going to take us to some caves but since the King was in town (ugh) we couldn't go. Ugh, royals. I did get to see an African/Atlantic sunset though!

I was eating when the sun actually went down, when am I not eating? So after this, we began the excursion back to Barcelona. We took the bus to the ferry port and waited there for about 2 hours for the ferry. This time, I took Dramamine before the ferry so I would for sure knock out. Dramamine did not fail me. The ferry left at 10:30 Spanish time and got to Spain at 11:30. Then we began the drive back to Sevilla, which was 3 hours. We made it to Sevilla at 2:30am. Since the airport didn't open until 4am, we found a TexMex restaurant and I had easily the worst nachos of all time. I don't even want to talk about them. Around 4am we took taxis to the airport and waited for our 6:30am flight back to Barcelona. I was so tired. We landed in Barcelona at 8:40 then caught a train into the city. I got to my homestay at 9:45am, then turned around and headed to school for my presentation at 10:45. Needless to say, I am really, really exhausted. It was all definitely worth it though!

I am so incredibly happy I went to Morocco! European culture tends to be somewhat similar to American culture, no matter how much I complained about it initially, but this was completely unlike anything I have ever witnessed. That feeling I got when I heard the call to prayer (imagine the tornado siren, but this was voices telling everyone it was time to pray I think) was amazing, like I am actually in Morocco. I can only hope one day I can return or maybe even explore Central Africa. There is so much in the world for me to see, better get started!!

This weekend I am staying in Barcelona, thank goodness. I need to rest up and get some homework done. Currently preparing for my spring break traveling around Italy..LOLZ HOPE Y'ALL ARE HAVING FUN IN PCB/PADRE.

Angela

I might not be Catalan, but I might be Spanish

So with Valencia, Sevilla, and Morocco, this past week has been probably the most eventful and interesting week I have had since I got to Spain. Because it was so eventful, I have decided to split the week into 2 separate blog posts just so everything is more comprehensive. I'm always looking out for my readers. Let's start from the top then, shall we?

Tuesday
On Tuesday Bo and I departed Barcelona for Valencia in order to see Las Fallas, the festival that is held annually in Valencia. We got there around 11 pm and the party was in full swing. My description of Las Fallas is: firecrackers, fireworks, fire, loud noises that sound like bombs, smell of sulfur, food. So within the first hour or so that we got there I heard tons of these bomb sounding explosives going off and it was terrifying. Valencia is not for people who are easily startled. At 1am there was a firework show. I guess there is like a week long competition of who has the best fireworks and then Tuesday night (rather Wednesday morning) at 1am is when they debut their main show (that might be entirely incorrect so don't quote me on that). It was probably the coolest firework show I have ever seen. And that's all I have to say about that. Forrest Gump, anyone? Anyone?

Wednesday
My roommate Natalie met Bo and I in Valencia and we started walking around to look at the fallas. A falla is one of these massive structures that the people of Valencia build with the sole purpose of burning them down during the festival. The fallas are incredible. So detailed and colorful and awesome then they go and burn them...I don't get it but I guess that's culture for ya. So here is what a falla looks like:

So yeah. They burn that shit to the ground. Makes sense, right? There were a bunch of these of all different designs all around the city and at night they burnt them. Here's a video I took of one of the children's fallas (just a smaller structure) burning down (also we were definitely in the front row because we thought it was a good idea until it felt like my face was actually melting off) there are a ton of (amazing) fireworks in the beginning but it will start burning towards the end:

This is one of the adult ones burning. I don't like this video as much because I kept switching how I held the camera but I think it's definitely worth it to watch. Also, don't mind me in the beginning criticizing Bo's pronunciation of the word "amazing". Here it is:

In addition to seeing all of the fallas, we spent some time walking around Valencia which was a beautiful city. We found a ferris wheel which is obviously a great option to see a lot of the city in a small amount of time. Natalie is some sort of freak and has never been on a ferris wheel so it was a great experience. I just really like this picture:

It was definitely super cool to see this festival because I will never ever see this type of thing in the US. Definitely a fire hazard. Also, I'm pretty positive I have experienced a small sample of what life was life back during WWII. Literally there were firecrackers that sounded like bombs going off every 10 minutes or so and every single time I was startled. Also it hurt my ears. I guess with the exception of a ton of people dying and the world being at war I got a small taste of what an air-raid was like, right?

So we didn't sleep Wednesday night so this is an awkward transition...

Thursday
After we watched the adult falla burn down (it started at 2am...the Spaniards don't sleep), we went back to the hostel, packed our things, and left for the airport to catch our flight to Sevilla. We got to the airport around 4am and I was dead. My face lotion was also confiscated at security so this calls for a minor venting: how come airports in Europe all have different requirements?? I actually think they do but they all check for different things like my face lotion has made it through every other airport but WHATEVER it's done I'm over it (obviously I'm not). So we got on our flight and it was not the best flight but we made it to Sevilla alive. We arrived at 7:45 and literally wanted to nothing except sleep which was awkward since we couldn't check into the hostel until 12pm. So we went to the hostel and slept in the lobby until Angie and her friend Alex (who were meeting us in Sevilla) woke us up when they got there. After that, I went to lunch with Angie and Alex (Alex is Angie's friend from home who is visiting for spring break) and we walked around Sevilla for a bit. The hostel offered a free walking tour which was nice so we went on that later and got to see some sights of Sevilla. Sevilla is absolutely gorgeous and I wish I had more time there! After the walking tour, our friend Cody met us in Sevilla. There are just too many pictures to choose to post in the blog so make sure to check out Facebook later and see all of them. Here's a sample:

Plaza de España

Catedral de Sevilla

We did not go out that night in Sevilla due to preparations for Morocco! Instead, we ate dinner at the hostel which was awesome. Hostels are actually pretty cool, if you're at a nice one. We met a bunch of people who were also going to Morocco the next day so that was nice to make more friends before the trip. We also met a German guy who helped me improve my German. I'm basically fluent. I can add to my list: can count continuously to 40 (formally reading: can count 1-10, 12, 20-29). The hostel we chose was definitely the best hostel I have been to and also easily the cheapest. I was content.

We spent some time walking around Sevilla on Friday but since Friday was mostly dedicated to Morocco, that will wait until the next blog post. Stay tuned!!

Angela

Wiener Schnitzel and Apple Strudel...enough said

Well, my parents have left Europa and I have 6 weeks left here. Weird.

So, having my parents here was a blast. Let's start from the top:

Monday
I had class until 1:30 and then I took my parents to my usual lunch place. It's a little bakery type place that has amazing bocadillos for super cheap. Usually, I go here with Kat and since she's begging for a blog shout out, here it is! So after we ate my favorite bocadillos we headed to Parc Guell. Parc Guell is a really famous landmark in Barcelona and if you Google Image search the city that's what will come up. So after hiking up to where the park is (after our hike up Montserrat the previous day), we made it. It was pretty crowded and I'm pretty sure Noreen was about to hit someone. Wouldn't put it past her. After awhile, we finally got some of the pics we really wanted:

For dinner Monday night we went to a kebab place which was actually really good. Much better than the place we went to on Sunday night so that was good. I should have taken a picture of my food but I didn't. Please forgive me.

Tuesday

I had class all day Tuesday so I sent my parents on the bus tour around Barcelona. I hope they enjoyed it. For dinner Tuesday my dad made me grilled cheese and ham and it was amazing. Man, I've missed that meal.

Wednesday

After class ended at 1:30, I met up with my parents for lunch with Angie and Bo. We went to Bo De B, which is a really popular sandwich for the abroad students (seriously, I have never seen a local there). It was cool to have my parents finally meet some of the people I hang out with here and they loved finally being able to talk to them instead of just seeing pictures. After lunch my mom was gracious enough to buy me an FCB jersey. I picked Neymar Jr. because he is cute and only 22 so there is still hope for me to date him. Then we went to Sagrada Familia. Here's a little history about that: there once was a man named Gaudi. He was chosen to design Sagrada Familia. It was his life work. They started building it in 1882. Gaudi was hit by a tram and killed in 1926. Building stopped. Building resumed in the 1950s. It's still being built. It is not as historical as other cathedrals and churches in Europe but you will never see anything like this place again in your life and I high suggest going:

Thursday

After I finished class, we went to the airport for our flight into Munich. The flight was pretty uneventful, just played some cards with Noreen and obviously lost a lot because she refuses to lose. Once she dies, I will become the champion of everything. Until then, I lose. We got into Munich and somehow figured out how to get to the hotel. The hotel was definitely not 5 star, but no pasa nada (for you English speakers, that means "no problem"). We went walking around and got some awesome Bavarian pretzels. It was great.

Friday

We took a train to whatever town has the Bavarian castles in them. The train was around 2 hours, plenty of bonding time for the fam. Once we got there, we got some great views of the Neuschwanstein castle and a tour of the Hohenschwangau castle. It was interesting and full of great photo ops. 

Casual. After we saw the castles, we went back to Munich to get ready for our trip to Salzburg. Before we left we made sure to get some German bratwurst and it was great, obviously.

Saturday

We woke up and got on our high speed train to Salzburg. Once we got there, we spent some time wandering around Salzburg which is such a cool city. I got to see where Mozart was born, so I guess that's casual. Here is the view of Salzburg and me looking swell as always:

This pic is actually from Sunday, sorry. It started raining pretty badly so we ended up just going back to the hotel for a bit to rest and such. Once we dragged our butts our of bed to get dinner, we found a really nice authentic Austrian restaurant so naturally I ordered wiener schnitzel and it was AWESOME:

Sunday

SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR. I love this movie and I was so excited to finally see where it was filmed and learn more about the movie. I was fangirling the whole time. Unfortunately, the weather was not in our favor but that doesn't mean I didn't make the most of it! Here is me on the alter where the Captain and Frauline Maria got married:

Just one of the few pics of me in front of SOM landmarks. More to come on Facebook. In the meantime, here's one more pic of me with some apple strudel because it was amazing:

After this, we embarked back to Barcelona and I had to say goodbye to my parents which was really sad. I'm very lucky they came to visit me, not to mention lucky that they're giving me this opportunity. My dad now wants to travel all around Europe so I'm hoping to score an invite and see all of the places that I can't visit this semester. Here's to hoping.

Tonight I am taking a train to Valencia for a festival tomorrow. The festival is called Las Fallas and I'm pretty sure they just light a lot of things on fire but apparently it's pretty awesome so I'm excited! Then after Valencia, we are going to Sevilla on Thursday morning and spending the day there. On Friday, we are leaving for Morocco with a program for the weekend so this is definitely going to be a busy week and I'm so excited to see more cities in Spain. For now, I have to go to class and I'm not in the mood for proofreading so SORRY.

Angela

The Parents Take On Europe

YAY MY PARENTS FINALLY MADE IT TO BARCELONA! After a huge debacle that was so stressful for everyone involved.

So my parents were supposed to leave on Wednesday, March 5 at 4 pm Chicago time and arrive to Barcelona on Thursday, March 6 at 12:15 pm Barcelona time. Happily awaiting their arrival, this is the text I receive from my mom around the time of their departure (I was expecting it to be somewhere along the lines of, "Boarding now! Can't wait to see you!" but no):

"Omg, they will not let me out of the country. My passport has to be valid for three months after our return date and mine expires June 2nd. I have to go to the passport office tomorrow to get a new passport, our arrival will be delayed by a day."

BUZZKILL amirite?? So then it was catastrophe with my mom going to the passport office and MAYBE getting her new passport on Thursday but it might have been Friday and it was basically just a mess and I didn't know if/when they were coming and it was awful. But, they're here now so YAY!

I showed off to them how I was able to get us from the main train station to the apartment that they are renting no problem. Didn't even get lost (which is actually really surprising considering my past journeys in Barcelona). So we arrived to the apartment and unpacked and rested for a bit. Then Fernando (my dad, for all of you who don't know. We're on a first-name basis.) wanted some coffee so he was looking for a McDonald's to get some. How American. I said he wasn't allowed to do that here so we took the metro to my homestay and stopped down the block for some coffee and chocolate croissants. After our coffee, I took my parents to meet my host mom. This went well since my dad speaks fluent Spanish and old ladies love him so I hope I gained some brownie points with my host mom. My host mom's daughter was over with her boyfriend and son so there were plenty of Spaniards there. You can tell how flustered Noreen (my real mom) got in a room full of people conversing in Spanish and she has absolutely no idea what's going on. Practice makes perfect, Nor. Afterwards, we went to the grocery store to pick up some things and headed back to the apartment to rest up for a full day of tourism on Saturday.

My parents were jetlagged and I obviously wasn't so they slept about 13 hours on Friday night and I slept like 7 but I didn't want to wake them up so we got kind of a late start. First, I took them to the main plaza of the city and showed them where I've been going to school. Then Fernando decided he needed coffee (literally drinks so much coffee...it's the Spanish blood) so we went to Starbucks. How American. After Starbucks, we went to the Catedral de Barcelona. Fernando was AMAZED to say the absolute least. He just kept saying, "are you kidding me" and "can you believe this" like yes I can believe this it's right here in front of my face and no I am not kidding you this is real. He could not get over the beauty of this cathedral and claims that he still won't go back to Catholicism but he seemed pretty damn convinced by this cathedral. Here's a pic of the 'rents in the cathedral:

More pics to come on Facebook, stay tuned.

After the cathedral, we went to Barceloneta which is basically the boardwalk along the Mediterranean Sea. We people and dog watched for awhile and it was pretty cool. My parents love the dogs here, my mom likes to guess the breed/mix and my dad likes to comment on how cute it is or the sweater it's wearing. Barcelona is a dog lover's paradise (do you hear that, Grandma? I know you're reading!). Here is us on the beach:

Once we finished people and dog watching, we went to the Columbus statue which was very exciting for Fernando. See, in American schools we learn about King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella who reigned over Spain in the 15th century. Little did Fernando know, the king's real name was Fernando. We just learn "King Ferdinand" because it's an Americanized name. So here is my dad pointing to his name on the Columbus statue, happy as can be:

After this, we walked down Las Ramblas (the main touristy street full of shops and markets) for a bit. We also went into La Boqueria, which I will let Noreen tell you about because she was absolutely appalled by it. After Las Ramblas, we concluded our day and went home.

Today, we went to Montserrat. I already went there with my school back in January but I thought my parents would like it so I took them. The hike was a little rough, but thank goodness there were plenty of dogs also hiking with their owners to keep my parents occupied. "Look at that one! Oh he must be so tired look at his little legs!" or, "Wow, is that a Greyhound or a whipper?" for miles. We made it to one of the highest points of the mountain and stopped for lunch and a quick nap. Obviously we took a selfie while we were up there:

All in all, we walked almost 10 miles today (about 3 of those miles were uphill) so we are dead. Well, they're dead. I can do 3 more. Tomorrow, I have to go to class so I will meet my parents after class and we are going to Parc Guell, which is Gaudi's main work of art in the city. If you don't know who Gaudi is, stop being so damn uncultured and look that shet up. 

Just a quick announcement: my mom thought that 1) Gaudi and Dali were the same person and 2) that Barcelona was in the south of Spain. I have a lot of work to do.

Angela

Oh, we're halfway there...

It is taking everything I have in me to resist typing the rest of the song. Oh well.

So like the title states, I'm shockingly halfway done with studying abroad in Barcelona. Time has seriously flown by and I can't believe I only have two more months left here. I know those 2 months will fly by (especially with all of the traveling I'll be doing but we'll discuss that later) and although I'm super excited for the months to come I know I'm going to miss so many things about Barcelona. But whatever, why dwell on it now when I still have 2 more months. LiVe iT uP dRiNk iT dOwN that's what I always say.

I literally have nothing to blog about because for the past week I have been marathoning Downton Abbey in between studying for midterms, so here are just some tidbits in no order of importance.

1. I had the best chocolate croissant I have ever had in my entire life yesterday. Usually the chocolate croissants just taste like a chocolate bar stuck in the middle of a croissant but this one had melted chocolate and was warm so I'm assuming it just came out of the oven. It was absolutely life changing and I can't stop thinking about it. Is this love?

2. Mercedes does our laundry once a week and some of my clothes haven't returned. I don't where they went and I also don't know how to ask about in Spanish. I just want my clothes, is that too much to ask for? Apparently.

3. I'm really at my wits end with Gato. She never stops making noise for me to pet her and if I do I might go into anaphylactic shock and she doesn't seem to understand that. It used to be tolerable but sometimes at dinner I quietly say to her, "shut the f**k up before I cut you" because Mercedes has no idea what I'm saying so why not, ya know?

4. I really don't know how I'm expected to go back to Champaign after studying here for a semester. Like, sorry Morrow Plots but you just don't even come to close to the monuments I walk by daily in Barcelona.

5. I miss Chipotle. I miss it a lot.

6. I held American money for the first time in 2 months the other day. It made me realize that my mind has fully adjusted to Euros and I'm not looking forward to adjusting back. Maybe I'll just stay in the EU forever...

7. I can't wait for my parents to come. I can't wait to pretend like I'm an expert at Barcelona and pretend that I know where everything is (I don't). Even though my mom will read this and know my secret, my dad will be none the wiser. He will also believe everything I tell him so time to make up some wild stories about the "history" of Barcelona.

8. Gelato has taken over my life. It is so good. I usually get strawberry and chocolate in the same cup and my life has never been as great as it is when I'm eating that gelato.

So those were just things that I wanted to say.

Today I went to the beach for the first time. It was really fun and it's a cool environment down there. It was also very windy and a little bit chilly today so here I am, the beach babe herself livin' la vida loca in Barcelona:

My parents arrive on Thursday FINALLY so expect some wild blog posts about Fernando's first time in Europa. You will not be disappointed.

Angela