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
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