No more school!

I am done with finals! I had my last (and hardest) exam this morning, History of Spain (Modern Age). My Grammar and Islamic Culture exams were last Thursday, which was nice to get two out of the way before the weekend. Friday morning my friends and I went back to Nerja; we only thought it appropriate to spend our last weekend in Spain at our favorite beach. The weather was absolutely gorgeous all weekend, for once no clouds in the sky at all. I came back Saturday evening instead of staying all the way until Sunday. I wanted to go to church one more time and then I had a study group with two friends all afternoon for our History exam. Church was pretty rough because the pastor made an announcement that it was the last Sunday for all of the foreign students and then had us all go up on stage (there were at least 20 students) and said a prayer over us. Good grief, everyone was crying. That was when it really hit me that I am almost done and will be leaving all of these amazing people that I’ve met. Basically, Sunday I did not want to think about going home.
Monday I had my Art History and POE exams, which went pretty well. That evening we visited Feras (our friend who works in the kebab place by the school) to say goodbye and eat our last kebab. Then we went to Hannigan’s and Sons for the Monday night Pub Quiz. The plan was just to stay for one drink and not participate in the pub quiz because I needed to go home and study, but funny how things work out. A few hours later, we left after an interesting 6 rounds of pub quiz, and Diana Ross made another appearance in the Music Round!
After the exam today I met up with Cassandra and Whitney to have our last churros con chocolate at Café Futbol. While we were eating Mitch and Jeff stopped by and we had to say our goodbyes to Jeff because he’s leaving to head back home this evening. I really hate saying goodbyes; the worst is going to be tomorrow night when I have to say goodbye to Whitney and Cassandra after we hang out one last time. I’m going to miss seeing and hanging out with them every day, and Iowa and Indiana aren’t exactly close to Texas. This evening we are going to the piercing/tattoo place in the Centro Comercial (the mall) near our house so Cassandra can get her tattoo. After dinner we three are going to a teteria to have tea and crepes one last time. This has certainly been a week of “last times,” we’re trying to fit all of our favorite things in before we all have to separate. I’m pretty much all packed and my bags are just barely under weight limit, yes!

Coming to a close...

As the semester comes to an end, finals are beginning. Ugh. I strongly dislike studying, and it is even harder when you´re trying to enjoy your last bit of time in Spain. We had our program´s "Bye-Bye" dinner Monday night at a restaurant in the Albyzin. My close friends and I grabbed the end of the table and had a pretty interesting evening. There was so much food! About 4 courses! Things got a little messy and the table cloth was left a little worse for wear. At the end of the evening Veronica and Jose gave us all a CD of a lot of the songs that have been popular in Spain this semester, and of course Jose made sure a Diana Ross song made the cut.
Monday I finished my Art History paper on the development of prehistoric art, yay cave paintings! Today I had a presentation in my POE class on Texas, and today was also the last day of classes because finals start tomorrow!
Tomorrow I have my Grammar and Islamic Culture finals, but it will be good to get 2 of them over with before the weekend. For our last weekend in Spain we thought it only appropriate to go to the beach! So off to Nerja again Friday morning. On Sunday I´ll go to church one more time here and then a few friends and I will have another all day study-fest of History. Our study group did pretty well on the midterm so we decided to have one again. Monday I have final exams in Art History and POE, and the test of death, History, is on Tuesday. This means that I have absolutely nothing on Wed, the day before I leave! This is probably good because, in all likelihood, I will be packing all day because I´m too busy until then studying. Of course we´ll have to go out for Tapas one last time and have one last kebab and saw goodbye to our friend Feras, whose kebab place we always go to. But don´t worry, we are all Facebook friends with him now so we´ll be able to keep in touch. We´re trying to convince Sara to invited him to her wedding next summer, I think he´d show up. Better yet, he should cater, kebabs for the reception!

Amsterdam and Sevilla

A couple weekends ago Whitney, Sara, and I went to the Netherlands. We stayed in Amsterdam and made a day trip out to Leiden (a 30 minute train ride) to visit Sara’s friend Amanda, who is studying abroad there. Some of the highlights of the trip: I really enjoyed going to the Anne Frank House on Thursday. It was where she and her family hid, in the back annex of her father’s business, for two years before their discovery by the Nazis. It was cool to enter through the hidden entrance behind a bookcase and be in the room that used to be Anne’s. There is glass covering the walls of her room preserving a lot of the original photos/magazine cut-outs that she pasted on the wall to make the room homier. We took a tour of the Red Light District and learned about the history of prostitution, only legal there since 2000. While prostitution is legal, pimping is highly illegal, so each woman is her own independent business.

The second day we went to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, which was tons of fun; I’d never been to a wax museum before. We took pictures will all kinds of famous people including, but not limited to, Obama, Humphrey Bogart, Sean Connery, Rembrandt, David Beckham, Lance Armstrong, George Clooney, Oprah, and Marilyn Monroe. After the wax museum we took a free 3 hour guided tour all over the city, free is always nice.

Saturday morning we took a train out to Leiden to visit Amanda. On the train ride we passed gorgeous tulip fields that were incredibly bright with color. Amanda picked us up at the train station and showed us around town a bit; we even stopped off at her favorite bakery to try it out. When we returned to Amsterdam in the evening we did a little bit of our tourist shopping. There are an uncomfortable amount of bachelor parties that go on in Amsterdam. I think I would be a little worried if my fiancé was going to a place were prostitution was legal… While looking at postcards we were accosted by one such bachelor party. They were doing a photo scavenger hunt and needed a kiss from random people. Unfortunately for them, we did not participate and they received the universal hand signal to go away when they kept pushing the issue.

We spent all day Sunday traveling back to Granada. We flew from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, Germany where we had an hour layover before flying to Madrid. Then we had to catch the dreaded Madrid to Granada bus that wastes five and a half hours of my life every time.

This past Friday (May 1st) we went to Sevilla for a bull fight. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it and could appreciate it for the artistic aspect of man vs. beast. We had a group of old men sitting infront of us who kept explaining everything to us; I think it made them feel good to be explaining things to foreign girls. We also went to the Cathedral in Sevilla and saw the Tomb of Christopher Columbus. The bull fight was in the evening and we didn’t get back to Granada until 2 am.
Saturday I slept a lot, obviously, worked a little on my Art History paper, and did a bit of shopping. Sunday was El Día de las Cruces (Day of the Cross) and there were large, extravagant crosses all over the plazas in Granada that we went out to look at. It also happened to be El Día de la Madre (Mother’s Day), so Whitney and I bought flowers for Isabel; she was so excited when we gave them to her.
Last night we went to Hannigan & Sons Pub for the Monday Night Pub Quiz. We really aren’t that great with random trivia (although Whitney and I got the answer to “Who was the Queen of the Netherlands?” right after our recent travels), but we had a lot of fun. Whenever we didn’t know the answer to a question, which was fairly often, we made up an answer. Diana Ross made quite a few appearances on our answer sheet when the question was about a person.
Tonight Cassandra, Sara, Whitney, and I are going to the mall to get Whitney's belly-button pierced. Cassandra and Sara got theirs done earlier this semester; I hope my parents appreciate that I have not (and do not plan on) piercing anything while I'm here. Tomorrow I have my Phonetics Final and will continue to work on my Art History paper; I need to find out if it's suppose to be 4 or 5 pages long... Whitney and I wanted to go to Barcelon this weekend, but tickets and hostels weren't working out so we're planning on going to the beach instead. I actually bought a new swim suit on the way home today, so can't wait to get a chance to use it. Only 16 days until I am home! Unfortunately, I have to go to classes, write a paper, and take finals during that time. Why can't I just go to the beach and fully enjoy the last 2 weeks in Spain?

Berlin and now Amsterdam!

It has been really difficult to be productive this week. Good thing it’s another short week! Whitney, Sara, and I begin our Amsterdam journey tonight with the 12:30am bus to Madrid and a flight Thursday morning. I found out that I actually didn’t miss too much class work on Wednesday last week and was able to get notes from the classes I missed Thursday when I was in Berlin. I also found out that I did fairly well on the History midterm that I was so scared about getting back! So, all good grades, except I still haven’t gotten back my Islamic Culture one, but I’m pretty sure I did well on that. Yesterday I got a letter from my grandfather (I love mail!) and the best package from mom, full of DayQuil/NyQuil and Tylenol PM! I think I’ll be set for the rest of the semester, although I am feeling significantly better than the entirety of the past month. Alright, so while I’m off in Amsterdam here’s some light reading about my trip to Berlin last week:

April 14 (Tuesday) 11:15pm
I am currently hanging out at the bus station waiting for my 1:30am Supra bus to Madrid that will actually take me straight to the airport, so I won’t have to worry about messing with the Metro. Unfortunately, the Granada city buses, namely good old number 10 near my house, stop running around 11pm. I didn’t want to pay a lot for a taxi to the bus station so I just got here early and will hang out for a couple of hours. My flight from Madrid is at 8:50am tomorrow, so I will get to Berlin around noon-ish. I am pretty excited about traveling somewhere without anyone and yet having someone waiting for me at the airport when I arrive!

April 15 (Wednesday) 9:45am On the plane!
So normally I would just now be waking up to get ready to go to class, he he! This Supra bus experience wasn’t really what I had expected, nothing like the one on our Paris trip. First of all, around 1:30am there were two buses about to leave for Madrid and neither of them were my bus. So there was a bit of confusion there until the Supra bus pulled into the station. I took some Tylenol PM to help me sleep, but I still didn’t sleep that well, off and on the whole trip. Then the dumb bus stopped for ½ an hour half way into the journey; I thought the Supra buses were suppose to be non-stop! This journey also lacked a stewardess giving out endless snacks, like the one Whitney and I had before Paris. But what was really aggravating was that the bus went to the Madrid bus station, not the airport! I had to get off, grab my suitcase, and get on a separate bus that took me to the airport.
And I hate the stupid Madrid-Bajaras airport, it is so dumb! I did self check in just fine around 7:15am and my ticket said the flight would be out of gate M. To get to gate M I went through security, long line but not ridiculous, and then went downstairs and took a train/subway a little ways to the separate section of the airport. In the area of M gates I looked at the Departures board and all it said was my flight was at gates HJK. A couple of things wrong with this: First, that’s 3 possible sections of numerous gates. Second, I had just left HJK because my boarding pass said M! Grr!! So I just went into the bathroom and tried not to look like I had just ridden a bus through the night. Then I ate my orange for breakfast outside the Starbucks, which I have still resisted since arriving in January, and watched the departures board. It wasn’t too long before it showed a real gate for the Berlin flight, H6, great. So back downstairs and on the subway to get to H. Then I had to go through security AGAIN! What the heck?! Eventually I got to the correct gate and was still there about 15 minutes before boarding even started. I’ve already had to go to the bathroom on the plane, which I don’t like doing, because I was forced to down my water bottle not once, but twice, before each trip through security!

9:55pm Berlin!
This was the first time traveling between European Union countries that I’ve been asked to show my passport. Then the police man kept asking for my Spanish Residence Card and didn’t believe me when I told him the Spanish Consulate only gave me a student visa. Finally he just said “ok, it’s your choice” and handed me back my passport and I left the baggage area. Ok, jerk, it’s actually not my choice if I don’t have one. It was also the first time traveling this semester that I had someone waiting for me when I landed and that felt so good! It’s a good thing my great-aunt Claudia came to pick me up because it would have been pretty stressful locating her apartment from the airport on my own. From the airport we took about a 30-40 minute bus into the city. Then we waited about 10 minutes at a bus stop outside the main train station for another bus which dropped us off about a block from her apartment. Her building was the only one on the block to survive WWII and is the only residential building surrounded on both sides by businesses. It is also on a dead end street so it is a nice and quiet location. Their balcony overlooks the Spree River with all its boats and they live near a bus stop, train stop, and metro station. What a perfect place to live!
Peter was at home and then we ate sandwiches for lunch out on the balcony. Then Claudia and I basically just walked outside and took a boat tour at 2:30pm until almost 6pm. It is such nice weather here now, mid 70s! It’s warmer and sunnier here than what I left in Spain. Unfortunately, the tour was only in German, but Claudia pointed out important place and translated what she could for me. Berlin is so lush with grass and trees everywhere. There were tons of people sitting on the banks because of the nice weather. On the boat we had wine spritzers and just talked and caught up with each other, its been about four years since we last saw each other.
When we got back we all went out to a local restaurant for dinner; its nice eating earlier and not waiting until nine for dinner. We all had spargel, white asparagus, which was quite delicious and just came into season. Later we took a walk around the city, and went by one of the three opera houses and the plaza where Nazis had conducted book burnings. I love being with people that know they city, so I can see local favorites as well as all the tourist sites.

April 16 (Thursday)
I slept in this morning until about 10, awesome! My first thought was, “ha! I’ve already missed a class and should be half way through my 2nd one of the day.” Today Claudia took a city tour on top of a double-decker bus. This one was in German and English, so it was much easier to understand! It was a hop-on/hop-off bus ticket, so we got off at the Holocaust Memorial to look around a bit. The memorial is basically hundreds of coffin-like blocks of concrete at all different heights; some are flat on the ground, some you can sit on, and some were about 3 times as tall as me. The new American Embassy is also right there across the street and Claudia told me about getting to attend its opening gala. Then we got back on the bus and drove around the Reichstag, where the government meets (it has a large glass dome you can walk up through) and by the Hauptbahnhof, the main train station. We went through a roundabout with a large column in the center where apparently Obama spoke before the election (or maybe inauguration) and thousands of people attended. (Too bad no one famous has come close to Granada this semester. Tom Cruise was in Madrid at one point promoting “Valkyria,” but I think he’s crazy.) We also passed tons of embassies; there are at least: American, Australian, Mexican, British, Dutch, Finish, Saudi Arabian, Moroccan (I was able to name that flag after my last trip!), Italian, Korean, Chinese, French, and Japanese embassies in Berlin (and those are only the one I actually saw). We ended our tour at Checkpoint Charlie and then met Peter at a chocolate store, yay! So I did some damage there and then we went to a café and had iced coffees outside. I’ve decided this is how coffee should be drunk from now one, with ice cream, whipped cream, and through a straw!
After our coffees we went back to the apartment and Claudia and Peter were going to do some work, so I grabbed a map and set out about the town. I discovered the huge mall, but didn’t go in, a synagogue, and took the metro back to the Holocaust Memorial to get some more pictures. For dinner Peter cooked pasta (my favorite!) and we had Chateau Tessyier wine, which was cool because of the family name, Tessier. After dinner Claudia and I went up into the Reichstag dome and saw the city at night; the dome itself is also very architecturally interesting.

April 17 (Friday)
This morning I had a Berliner for breakfast, a jelly donut that JFK called himself during his infamous visit. We didn’t have any definite plans for the day so we headed over to KaDeWe, a huge department store, we think bigger than Harrod’s in London. On the way we stopped to have a bratwurst. KaDeWe certainly was huge with at least six floors. The 2nd highest floor was entirely of food; it was like Central Market on steroids, with sections for everying: cheese, pork, ham, seafood, and more. Within every section was a bar/eating area specializing in that type of food (a potato one, seafood one, etc.). We ate lunch at one of these bars in a meat section.
After lunch we went to Alexander Platz to go up into the TV tower that overlooks the city, for a daytime view of Berlin. We bought tickets, but you can’t enter until the number on your ticket is called, and our number(s) wouldn’t be called for 2 hours! So we headed over to the Galeria department store to kill some time the female way. We also went to a café for a drink and there was an interesting group of German men nearby. We saw them go through many rounds of beer and a few shots and even heard some singing. There was even a nice rendition of “It’s Raining Men” when it began to sprinkle.
Eventually we got up into the tower, and I had though the Reichstag was high, it looked almost flat from up there. It was cool to see the city during the day and point out all the places I’d been too. On the way back home on the metro we were checked for tickets. (I really like the system in Berlin. There are no turn-styles to go through, so you are basically on the honor system. You have to buy a ticket and validate it in a separate machine and then hold onto it. Every now and then there are random checks and if you don’t have a validated ticket it is an immediate 40 Euro fine, without excuse.) Once the doors to the train closed and everyone was securely inside a man dressed in everyday clothing whipped out his ID and stared checking everyone. A man and a woman had to follow him off at the next stop, so I think they were busted.
A little before 7pm we walked to the restaurant we had dinner reservations at. It was a local place with each room decorated differently; we were in a room decorated like a kitchen and the room next to us was like a dining room. Friday and Saturday nights they have a man come and play the piano and sing. He began shortly after we were seated and, according to Peter, was singing a bunch of old songs about Berlin, that was one word that I could identify. The music was nice with dinner, which I had duck! It was really good, but I wouldn’t say it was exactly like chicken. I also tried some of Claudia’s pig’s foot and Peter’s venison, both good. Good thing I’m not picky and adventurous, at least when it comes to food. We walked back home by the river and under some apple blossom trees, a very nice way to end the trip.

April 18 (Saturday) 1:45pm On the plane to Spain.
Berlin trip over, back to Spain. Claudia and I left a little after 9am and said goodbye at a bus stop where I got the bus that would take me to the airport. The line for check-in was pretty long; I’m definitely more of a fan of self check-in, but there were none. I still set off the metal detector through security though there was no metal on my person. So I was able to get pretty friendly with a nice German security lady that patted me down/felt me up before letting me leave the country! Eventually we got on the plane, boarding at the scheduled time of take off. The plane is suppose to land in Madrid at 3:30pm and I would like to make the 4:30pm bus to Madrid. It takes around 45 minutes to navigate the metro from the airport to the bus station, but hopefully I can make it if I run.

5:45pm
I did not make the 4:30pm bus, ugh! Even with rushing off the plane and practically running through the airport and metros, I got to the bus station at 4:40pm, how frustrating! So I had to wait for the 5:30pm bus, but it turned out alright. Normally Madrid to Granada buses are full, but I have my own row. Sometimes there is even a bad movie to watch, but today it’s X Men 2!

I am so excited about going to Berlin! I leave tonight at 1:30am on a bus from Granada to Madrid (about a 5 to 5 ½ hour ride) and then fly out of Madrid to Berlin at 8:50am Wednesday morning. My Aunt Claudia already has all kinds of stuff planned for us; I believe a bus tour, boat tour, and maybe even some biking are in for this week. Then I leave Berlin around noon on Saturday to fly back into Madrid. Then I will have to take the bus back to Granada and I will probably get home around dinner time. Good thing dinner is so late here! It’s been very nice only having two days of class after an entire week off, not a bad way to ease back into school.
Easter Sunday in Spain was pretty good. In the morning I went to Iglesia Santa Domingo, a church near my school, to watch the beginning one more processional. This one was called Facundillo and was a processional led by children. It was so cute! The children were carrying the image of Jesus on their shoulders, but it was a significantly smaller float than all the previous ones. Even the image of the resurrected Jesus holding a cross was miniature compared to the images of other processionals. The image was actually tilted because they had bigger kids holding the front of it and smaller kids in the back, so Jesus was almost looking up to the sky! When the processional passed, I went to church, which was good as usual. I like it sometimes when we sing some of the same songs that I sing in church back home, like “My Jesus, He Can Move the Mountains” is “Mi Cristo, Puede Mover Montes.”

Semana Santa

This week I’ve pretty much just chilled around Granada. Tuesday (April 7) Whitney and I went to the Granada airport to pick up her cousin who is visiting for the week. This makes 3 sets of visits for Whitney to my none, bummer. Then I started figuring out scheduling stuff for classes next semester and had a Skype date with Mom. Wednesday I set out in search of a book to read. I’d prefer a book in English because then I can read for fun without seeming like I’m doing any work. However, no English books were to be found, but it’s alright because I found one of my favorite books, Wicked, in Spanish. So I have started reading that. Then I watched a processional before dinner and then a couple with my friends after dinner.

Thursday morning Whitney, her cousin, Sara, and I went to Café Futbol for churros y chocolate for breakfast. I also got freshly squeezed orange juice which was delicious and a nice change from the continual hot chocolate I get for breakfasts. That evening we all met up to go to a Flamenco show at a restaurant in the Albayzin. When we walked up to the restaurant we located free ticket lady who got us free entrance to the show and drinks. The show was scheduled for 8pm, but this is Spain and it started at 8:20pm. It was actually real flamenco! Not like the Aladdin musical we went to last month! There was a guy playing guitar, a guy singing, and a girl dancing, wearing a black flamenco dress with big red polka dots. It was really cool; I had forgotten how important singing is in flamenco and the guy sang really well. I really liked the dancing too, how the stomping of her feet became music along with the guitar playing.

At midnight the Silencio processional began and it made it down to Plaza Nueva, where we were waiting, at about 12:45am. This processional is one of the most famous ones in Granada during Semana Santa. They turn all the street lights and business lights out so the city is dark and the only light comes from the candles in the processional. Everyone is completely silent, including the crowds watching, and you WILL get shushed if you try to talk. The only sounds you hear are the shuffle of the feet of the people in the processional and the eerie drums playing. Every processional is done by different brotherhoods from churches and has an image of Jesus and Mary (we would probably refer to them as “floats” so think large scale), usually from the 17th or 18th century. They keep these images in remarkable condition; Jesus always comes first and the Virgin ends the processional. In the Silencio processional, however, there was only a large image of Jesus on the cross, which looked a little creepy floating in the air all lit up in the dark. There were tons of people there, I will be glad when Monday comes and everyone goes home. I thought Granada was crowded before, it is absolutely ridiculous now. It took my ½ an hour longer to get home than normal because of the shear number of people in the streets.

Today a lot of my friends are off to the beach in Nerja. I elected to stay home because I’m still not feeling too well and I don’t think a day on the beach would help too much. Also, I’m glad I didn’t go because I woke up this morning and it is cold and rainy! Hopefully, they get some sun on the beach but usually Nerja has the same weather as Granada. This afternoon I have a Skype date with my best friend Jen, which I am excited about because it feels like I haven’t talked to her in forever. Then a couple friends and I are going to go to a movie, we’re thinking the Aliens & Monsters cartoon looks pretty good. Ooh! I am really excited about the new X-Men movie coming out, it hits Spain May 1st.

MOROCCO!!!

I’m back from Africa!! The past four days in Morocco was such an incredible experience, one that I would not trade for anything. I’ll try to capture everything for you.

Thursday, 8:30pm (April 2): I had my final midterm of the week today (History, really difficult, don’t want to talk about it), and then I was free for Spring Break! We just left the Granada bus station to head to Algeciras and have officially begun our journey to Morocco. Holy crap, I am going to Africa! Right now I have a mixture of excitement, nervousness, and shear panic. I have to keep reminding myself that if it wasn’t safe and a great experience, it wouldn’t be included in the cost of the program. I have lots of tissue/toilet paper and found some hand sanitizer, so at least I am prepared in that important aspect!

Friday, 8:30pm (April 3): Oh my goodness, I don’t even know where to begin. After we arrived in Algeciras our Morocco guides, Rick and Ben, took us to our hostel for the night (we spent the night in Spain and would cross the border in the morning). This morning we walked to the ferry station and ate breakfast at the cafeteria there. Eventually we got our passports stamped (yay! That’s one thing I don’t like about not having to do customs within the European Union, no stamps to all those countries you visit) and got on the ferry to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. We went out on the deck for a little while during the crossing but it was crazy windy and we kept getting sprayed by ocean water. I am in Ben’s group, a group of 15 girls, and he gave us a little bit of info on the way over.
Once we landed in Tangier, Morocco we put our backpacks on a 15 passenger bus and went to exchange money (about 11 Durhams for 1 Euro). Then we took the bus into the city (Tangier) and went to an open food market. I don’t even think words can explain that. The fruits stands were gorgeous but the piles and piles of different colored olives were my favorite. The meat was another story. How many chickens were just killed and plucked today? But the worst were the skinned lamb heads just chilling in a pile on a counter. Ben got us fruit, olives, and water for snacks the rest of the day.
Then we walked to the DARNA women’s center (a place for abused/single/poor women to go during the day and take various classes on textile skills to help their chances in the work force) and talked with two Muslim girls and a guy for a while. It was really interesting and we learned a lot about the culture and religion, also touching a lot on women’s rights in Morocco and how they are changing for the better little by little. We ate lunch there after having a tour of the facility and had couscous with chicken and veggies, which I really enjoyed. Good initial experience of Moroccan food.
After we left we got back on the bus for a while. I fell asleep and when I woke up we were on the side of the road next to a beach and there were CAMELS! I got to ride a camel on the Atlantic coast in Africa! Be jealous. It was so much fun and a little scary when they are standing up and laying back down, but I did not fall.
Then we drove along the coast forever, stopping for a short paseo (walk) through Asilah, which had a gorgeous lookout point over the ocean, and ened up in the city of Rabat. We are staying with families here in Rabat for two days and I am with Tosha and Sara. Our host mother, Semmar, is really nice but keeps speaking to us in French, convinced we understand! Dinner was really good (soup called harira, bread, crepes, olives, apples, and strawberries), and I definitely decided that I like Moroccan food. We found out that another American girl from New York, Meghan, is stay with the family for a few months and volunteering as an English teacher. When she got here she was able to explain some things to us and help translate because she knows some French.

Saturday 11:15pm (April 4): So pretty much every guy’s dream of a girl’s locker room came true tonight when we did the public bathing, called a Hammam. Basically we all wore bathing suit bottoms, but no tops, and went into a tiled steam room with buckets of hot water. We sat on the floor and used the buckets to wash our hair first. Then we used soap that looked like soy sauce packets that the place had given us and let it soak into our skin for about ten minutes, but you could soap up your own back so we had a nice train of soaping up each other going on! After rinsing off we used exfoliating scrubbies to get rid of dead skin, again making a scrubbing train to make sure all the backs got done. We were in there for about an hour, it felt so refreshing and clean. It was also nice that it was just our group of 15 in there for the majority of the time (at the end of the hour two Moroccan ladies came in with their small child, all dressed quite similar to us). Apparently the Moroccan women do this process once or twice a week for their bathing. It also seems like it would be a great time to socialize for them.
This morning we went to a university and a female professor spoke with us about women’s rights (a popular topic for us) and education in Morocco. Not going to lie, I was feeling pretty crappy and found this pretty boring. But I did buy a book written by another professor there about views of Islam and culture, hopefully it will be interesting. He even autographed them all for us, too bad I can’t read Arabic.
Then we went to visit the Roman ruins of Chellah, which were pretty cool. I’m generally a big fan of ruins. There were ruins of a mosque, tombs of ancient sultans, and an eel pond. By the eel pond there was an old man selling hard boiled eggs. According to legend, women with fertility problems would buy eggs and throw pieces into the pond. If the eel ate your egg piece(s) it was suppose to bring you luck with bearing children.
We returned to our homes after stopping at an ancient mosque that was begun in the late 12th century and the Mausoleum of King Mohammed V. The sultan who started the construction of the mosque died four years after work was begun and out of respect for him it was never finished (this didn’t really make sense to me because I think you should finish something out of respect for someone, but whatever) and there had been an earthquake in the late 20th century that had caused a lot of damage. Basically it had a minaret (a tower in every mosque that is used for the call to prayer) of 40 meters high, although it was to be 60 meters high, and tons and tons of pieces of columns in a large open area. Ben told us people still come here to do their prayers and the whole area is packed on Fridays, the Muslim holy day. There was also a beautiful mausoleum nearby that we got to go in; I absolutely love Muslim art. In there are the tombs of the current king’s (Mohammed VI) father, uncle, and grandfather
At home we had couscous for lunch, very similar to the kind we ate in Tangier yesterday. There was also a large glass bottle of coke, with Arabic labels, and fruit. Then we got to spend some time in small groups with some Moroccan students that spoke English. We walked all over the old Medina (old city) through the markets and out into the city. Almost everyone ended up as this pool bar and we had tea and cokes together. It was really cool talking with students our age about different cultures, beliefs, daily life, etc. They were all so interested in the US and traveling since it is so difficult for Moroccans to leave their country, they have to have a visa to leave and it is impossible to obtain one without tons of money. While we were walking around I got a henna tattoo on my right hand/arm. The lady did it SO fast and it was so pretty; I had to be really careful for about ½ an hour though while it dried. It was a little weird at first because the paint comes out of a syringe, so I was a little freaked out when a lady came at me initially with a one of those.
Then we met with Jess, a Fulbright Scholar here working on a topic about abortion in Morocco, and Darren, a former Peace Corps officer in Chad and Morocco. After listen to all the interesting things they had to say we went to the Hammam. After bathing we ate dinner with Meghan and our host mother at home. We had soup (kinda like pea soup?), bread, laughing cow cheese (!), salad, and a strawberry/orange juice/smoothie drink.

Sunday 8:30am (April 5)
This morning we left our homestay family after having breakfast (1/2 coffee, ½ milk drink and baguettes with jam). Before we left the house Semmar gave us each a piece of paper with her name, email, and phone number for “if we return,” the verb she used in French sounded like the verb “to return” in Spanish so I understood that one (Meghan was sleeping so we were on our own).
Being in Morocco has made me a little frustrated with my host family in Spain who were very against us going on this trip. I’ve felt very safe here, the hosts are very kind, hospitable, and intelligent (fluent in at least 2 languages), and the houses were bigger and cleaner than our Spanish piso. And they did have a western toilet, not a hole in the dirt in the backyard my host mother and sister told me I would be using, ha! I do really want to take an introductory French class right now after this experience.
So some random things I’ve learned about Morocco:
-The only piece of law that makes it an Islamic country is the incorporation of the “Family Code” from the Coran.
-A man is now limited to 4 wives, whereas he use to be able to have as many as he could afford. Now he must ask permission from the 1st wife to take a 2nd wife and he is still obligated to care for her. They often take 2nd wives if there are fertility issues with the first, and apparently it will be the 1st wife that encourages her husband to find another wife to continue on the family with.
-About polygamy: the Coran says you must be just will all your wives and love and treat them equally, but that you will not be able to. Apparently a lot of people just ignore this last phrase.
-There are 3 things you are forbidden (punishable by law) to speak badly about: Allah, the country, and the king
-A Muslim man can marry any woman he wants but a muslim woman is forbidden from marrying anyone but a muslim man, because religion is passed down from the father and this ensure the children will be Muslim.
-Moroccans are technically not allowed to date but they do anyway
-Turkish toilets = porcelain hole in ground with food stands, squatting (praying to God you don’t pee on yourself or fall over), and pouring water down the hole to flush. They do have western toilets, but we did encounter some Turkish ones.

Monday 11:30am (April 6)
We just crossed the border back into the Spanish city of Ceuta and I, as well as a lot of other people in my group, feel pretty ashamed to be Americans. At the border there was a horrendously long line of Moroccans pushing, shoving, and crowding at one window hoping to get their passports stamped. When the window we were suppose to go to was closed to police just held them up and allowed us to cut ahead of everyone to get stamped. When I got up to the window a Moroccan man, who had definitely been waiting hours longer than I had been, put his passport through the window. The police man nearby yanked it out of the window and told me to go ahead. Then we had to cross the street to get into a very pushy line to show our stamp and actually be allowed to cross the border. The police were very slow scrutinizing everyone’s passport and even rejected some people and made them turn around and leave. But when any of us got up there they barely looked at the “USA” and let us through. It was so sad; the police even said “Americans first” to a few Spanish women trying to enter into a Spanish city!?!? This is not how things should be; it is just so unfair and people are definitely not treated equally. I feel like people hate us, and rightly so; I would hate us too if I had to be on the other side of this.
6pm: Yesterday after leaving Rabat we drove a few hours to the Rif Mountains. I really enjoyed the long drives to our destinations. Besides one shanty town we passed, it was always really beautiful to just sit and look out at the countryside. On the way up a mountain we stopped and picked up our translator and went to a village to visit one of the sisters of the other group’s translator and her husband, Hammid. The house was not a hut as “villages” tend to be portrayed; it was actually quite nice, cool, and comfortable (all 17 of us were able to fit comfortably), minus the Turkish toilet, which I’ve actually gotten pretty ok at. We sat down and had snacks of bread, cheese, and veggies and then ate the couscous the sister prepared. While eating we talked with the family about their life. He had bought a van with his brother and they have a “shuttle service” business of taking people, goats, whatever, from the city to the village. Also, he and his father built the house in only a month. It was such a pretty day and we went for a walk up into the surrounding mountains. We walked up to a high peak and looked down over a valley, it was incredible. Thankfully I managed to abstain from falling although heights are definitely not my thing. We took a group photo up on the mountain, the Central College students are going for getting the cover of the program’s brochure, so we’ll see about that. After we left the village we drove some more north to Chefchaouen. When we first got to Morocco we drove south along the Atlantic Coast and now driving back north we’re going through the mountains.
In Chefchaouen we took all our stuff from the van and walked through the medina and checked into our hostel for the night. We had free time from about 6:30pm until we met for dinner at 9pm to wander through the medina and all the shops/markets. I discovered that I am crazy good at haggling, just don’t be afraid to say no and walk away and they usually give stuff to you for the price you want. I got some earrings, a skirt, a ring made of camel bone, and a plate. The last shop that Bridgette, Sara, and I went to was owned by two brothers, Abdellah and Bruce, that are friends of Ben. They were so nice and chatty and had a stay a while for tea. Abdellah speaks 7 languages (Arabic, French, English, German, Italian, Russian, and Japanese) and travels all the time (clearly he has money). He got very excited to hear that I live in Texas because he is going to his home in Juarez, Mexico this summer and invited me to come hang out. Although he also asked me to be one of his women, I respectfully declined that offer.
We ate dinner as a group in a restaurant in the Medina. I had harira soup, vegetable pastel, and goat’s yogurt with honey for dessert. After dinner we went back to the hostel and went up on the roof for some “reflection time.” It was nice to be able to share about everyone’s thoughts and experiences about the trip since we haven’t been able to do that yet. Ben gave us all presents, musk to make things (like your sock drawer) smell nice and desert rose stones created by extreme temperatures in the Sahara.
This morning we left the hostel at 6:50am for a walk to an ancient and abandoned mosque on a mountain across from the town. Again, gorgeous view. The town is painted white and blue and looks really similar to the Albyzin in Granada. We sat up there and ate breakfast that we had brought along and then all climbed up into the minaret. Then we returned to the hostel, grabbed our stuff, headed to the van, and drove to Ceuta (which is a Spanish city on the African continent, so we entered into Spain while still in Africa).
At Ceuta we had to get out and walk to the border because our driver wasn’t allowed across. Then we dealt with the awfulness of the border that I already explained. Once in Ceuta we took taxis to the ferry station and got on the ferry right before it took off at 3pm (Spain time, Morocco is 2 hours behind). This crossing seemed much shorter than the first, but I had to take some Dramamine because I was getting pretty dizzy. We said our goodbyes to Rick and Ben because they would have to run off the boat to try to make their 3:50pm train to Granada (Rick lives in Granada and Ben was coming to visit for Semana Santa). We were not in such a rush because our bus to Granada wasn’t until 5:45pm, so we got off the ferry and walked to the bus station. When we got there at 4:15pm Rick and Ben were sitting inside; they’d missed their train and were taking our bus, so we all just hung out in the bus station for a while.
Some things that I have learned from my Morocco trip:
-Bring tissues and hand sanitizer everywhere
-Go to the bathroom and fill up your water bottle wherever you can because you never know when the next opportunity will be.
-How to be flexible and get (way) out of my comfort zone
-For the most part, negative stereotypes of Moroccans are ridiculously unwarranted.
-It is very difficult for Moroccans to leave their country. Visas are impossible to obtain unless they are rich. They are so intelligent but so restricted.
-Life is so unjust. Americans are spoiled. The first page in our passports even say in a nutshell “let me through without any questions/problems.”

Tuesday (April 7)
When we got home from the bus station last night Whitney and I were quarantined by the Isabels. We walked into the piso and they told us to leave everything in the bathroom and immediately shower. I sat in the living room with the family (because I wasn’t allowed in our bedroom) while Whitney showered. During this time little Isabel (age 43) began berating me with all her negative opinions and stereotypes about Morocco. This actually surprised me because I would have thought big Isabel (age 71) would have been the one to be more prejudice but she really wasn’t. So little Isabel and I have pretty much the best debate of my life (in Spanish), pretty sure it’s safe to say that I won. I just tried to explain to her that we spoke to a lot of Moroccan women who believe they do have some rights, not as much as Americans or Spaniards, but little by little they are gaining them. How the Moroccan king should not be considered the dictator she believes he is, how the people are very intelligent, and how poverty exists in EVERY country, even the “wonderful” United States. Mom you would have been so proud of me, I was SO angry at all the unnecessary prejudice, stereotypes, and refusal to listen, but I did not yell or scream at anyone, ha ha ha! I really think she just didn’t expect me to disagree with her because usually when they rant and rave about some global issue Whitney and I just listen and say “ok.” But this I really felt strongly about, having had some first hand experience, and refused to just sit by. Today little Isabel has not mentioned anything about the Morocco trip.
After the cleansing/quarantine process was complete Whitney and I met up with Cassandra and her parents, who arrived a couple days ago, at our favorite kebab place for dinner. We visited with them for a while and found out that there luggage has still not arrived from when they got here over the weekend, so they have been in the same stuff they traveled to Spain in since Saturday. Hopefully there luggage shows up soon because they were only going to be here a week anyway. Plus, her mom brought Pop-Tarts, Lucky Charms, chocolate, and Tylenol PM in her suitcase for us girls, find that luggage!
This morning Whitney and I went to the Granada airport to pick up her cousin Tandy who is coming to visit. Isabel had invited her over for lunch so we all went back to the piso and had paella, yum! We’ll probably take her shopping today and then watch some of the processionals later this afternoon. We saw our first processional last night on our way home. It was really a cool experience to see the brotherhood dressed up and the ancient floats of Jesus and the Virgin (some of these floats are from the early 15th, 16th, 17th centuries).