Dear Readers,
I know I was absolutely awful about updating my blog last week, but realistically, there really wasn't that much to write about. Here's the summary: I was sick with a sinus infection (and a sore throat briefly) and I had midterms. So I basically only slept and studied and ate. Beyond that, I didn't do anything interesting. Soooo... that was last week.
This weekend however, was quite interesting. I spent the weekend in Morocco with 14 other girls who came here with Arcadia. I was really nervous about going on this trip because I'd heard that a lot of people got sick. And it was a country I knew absolutely nothing about. I'm sure there were other things, but those are the two big ones. As it turned out, as long as I was smart and didn't drink the tap water, I had nothing to worry about.
Friday morning we had to be at the Madrid airport (Barajas) at 11:15am. So I met Kami in Zocodover at 8:15am to catch a 9:00am bus. As it turns out, the rest of our group was also catching that bus, so we all got there together. I really like Madrid because of the Metro system. From the bus station we pulled into, we took the Metro all the way to the airport. Granted it takes 45 minutes to get there, but it's cheaper than taking a taxi. So we got to the airport and we finally found our guide (Alan). He was a bit odd, but very nice. He was dressed exactly like my dad dressed when we travel (which made me laugh!): quick dry, cargo-type pants and a button up quick dry collared shirt. Maybe it's just a guy thing? I don't know... Anyway, we made our way through security and then grabbed a bite to eat since we were all hungry (I didn't have time to eat breakfast). From there we went to the gate and got on the plane.
The plane ride was only 1 hour and 5 minutes. We flew from Madrid straight into Tangier. When we got off the plane, we made our way through customs and whatnot and then waited outside for our bus. From the airport we headed to a women's center where we had lunch and talked with three women who study in or near Tangier. We ate couscous with chicken and vegetables on top and listened to the women answer Alan's questions about what life is like for them in Morocco. We learned about the head scarf and how it's generally a personal choice whether to wear it or not, we learned about dating (or lack of dating) customs, among many other things. After lunch we got a tour of the building and took some amazing pictures from the roof of the square below. We finished up talking to the women and moved on to our next place.
On our way to the next place, Alan surprised us with camel rides on the beach at sunset. More than a few girls had been talking about how they were going to be really disappointed if they returned to Spain without having ridden a camel in Africa. So sure enough, they got their opportunity! People's reactions to the camels were hilarious! They couldn't believe they were actually going to ride camels. And ride camels we did. Briefly. It wasn't a very long ride, but it was certainly more than enough. Having done it before, I considered skipping it, but then I thought to myself, "Who in their right mind would skip riding a camel??" So I rode a camel.
We stopped a few more times for bathroom breaks, but eventually we made it (about 3 hours later) to Rabat (the capital). The first thing we did was walk around the city for 3 hours with local kids about our age. I was with 4 other girls from our group and 3 Moroccans. They were very nice! They were very interested in what life is like for us in the United States, probably more interested than we were in what their life is like in Morocco. My favorite part was when the guy I was talking to asked us for "stupid American jokes". Apparently he really likes stupid jokes. And he asked specifically for stupid jokes. He also told me about a book he was reading by an author that uses metaphors to explain humans. It was cheesy, but it was a metaphor I hadn't heard before. He used a pencil as his metaphor. There were 5 ways it related to humans: the eraser, the led inside, a sharpener, how a pencil is guided by a hand and how a pencil always leaves a mark. Like I said, they were definitely cheesy. I don't think I have to explain how each relates to humans, right? The three people we were talking to were all very nice. We all went and got coffee/tea/juice after our walk and then headed back to meet up with the rest of us. The second thing we did was meet our host families. I was grouped with Kami and Anny and we got VERY lucky with our family. The wife of the house picked us up from our "meeting spot" and showed us how to get to the house. We walked in the door and were immediately speechless. The house was beautiful. It was completely made of this really pretty tile with an enclosed patio in the middle and room around the outside. Our room was the TV room and consisted of a TV (obviously), and three couches on three of the four walls. We each slept on one of the couches with a big heavy blanket as our covers. The first night we were there, their maid understood that I was sick and (using olive oil) massaged my chest so that I would be able to breathe. She then proceeded to massaged Kami and Anny's backs (voluntarily... we never once asked her to do all of this). We got there and ate dinner and then tried to talk, but it was hard because they didn't speak English. Each house was expected to have at least one English speaker, but the husband wasn't there the first night. When we had trouble communicating, we went to sleep since we knew we had to be up early anyway.
The next morning we met at 9:00am and went over to a park with Roman ruins. The park was beautiful: very green... and with lots of cats. We stopped to snack a few minutes after getting there and one of the cats kept sticking its nose in the bag hoping to find something. We had to keep scaring it in order to save the food. They were cute, but I can't say I wanted to touch one. We finished snacking and moved on to the ruins. The ruins were pretty cool, though in all honesty they sort of look like any old ruins... We wandered through the ruins for a bit and then moved on to the ruins of an old mosque.
The mosque was actually pretty cool. The grave of the current king's dad and grandfather were there. The grandfather was a very important king in Morocco history, especially for Jews. When the Jews were kicked out of Spain (you are all going to laugh at me for this... I had to look up how to say that in English. I couldn't remember how to say "expulsar" in English!), they fled to Morocco. When the Nazis came looking for them saying that they needed to be returned to their country in order to be "collected", the Moroccan king told them that all the Jews were officially Moroccans and that they are under his protection. That king had guts to stand up to the Nazis just to protect the Jews. I think he's officially my new favorite king.
From the mosque we went back to our home stays to have lunch. After lunch we had a few hours to relax. I napped for a little bit while Anny went to get her hair cut. When Anny got back, she Kami and I headed to our meeting spot again for yet another activity. I actually don't remember what that activity was right now... I might have my events mixed up. We might have walked around with the 3 Moroccans now instead of the day before and just gone straight to the home stays... Oh well. Anyway, later that night we met at 6:30pm at our meeting spot to talk with a Peace Corps person and another person (he was part of a scholar program, but I can't remember what it was called). Their stories were actually really interesting. Peace Corps had crossed my mind at some point and so it was particularly interesting to hear his stories. From the meeting we all ran home quickly to grab what we needed for the Hammam (I'll explain what that is in a minute) and then met back at our spot at 8:15pm to head over there.
Now... What exactly is a Hammam? Well, to put it simply, it's a public shower (one for men and one for women). Keep in mind it's their definition of a shower, meaning they give you a bucket of water and a cup and you dump water on yourself. So it's really more like a bath. But the catch here is that it's one big room and you go basically naked. Women go with just their underwear on. Fortunately for my group, it was just the 9 of us in a room (and yes, we all went with just bottoms on). It wasn't as scary as we thought it would be. We were all awkward at first because it's not normal for us to expose that much of ourselves to people we really don't know all that well. Let's just say we all know each other quite a bit better after this trip. Experiencing the Hammam was definitely an experience. I wasn't sure I wanted to do it, but in the end I decided that "when in Morocco, do as the Moroccans do". Our host family provided us with buckets, cups and shoes to wear and as Kami, Anny and I walked down the street to meet up with everyone else, we got shouted at by guys saying, "Going to the Hammam??" and "Ooooooh Hammam!" Everyone knew where we were going. I didn't like that part very much, but it was worth it in the end. After the Hammam we all headed home, ate dinner and then went straight to bed.
The next morning we met at 8:00am and headed back up north to a city called Chefchaouen. On our way there, we stopped in a little, remote town and ate lunch with a family there. It was our chance to see the lifestyles of people who live in rural areas. We had couscous with chicken and vegetables (again) and made our own sandwiches. It was all very good. We finished eating and sat around talking for awhile. The women didn't speak English, so we had a guy with us who was our translator. We talked about any number of things. One of the most interesting topics, in my opinion, was marriage. She asked us if any of us where married. When we said no, she asked us if we wanted to get married. All but three of us raised our hands. She asked those three why. The answers were more or less what you'd expect: independence, travel, etc... I thought it was very interesting to see the other side of things.
When we all ran out of questions, we got a tour of the house, which took about 20-30 minutes as people took pictures and stuff. Then we continued on our way to a city called Chefchaouen. It was by far my favorite city. It used to be a Spanish colony, so they spoke Spanish. We realized at some point that that was the longest we'd all spoke English since September. We all go maybe a few hours, but an entire weekend? I don't know about them, but I was sooooooo happy to speak Spanish again. I didn't realize how much I missed it. Anyhow, we got to the city, walked to the hostel we were staying at and then had a few hours to wander around the city on our own until we met for dinner. We all, of course, went shopping. I bought: a bracelet for my "sister" since next weekend is her birthday and I won't be here, a keychain for my "parents", a scarf for me and a henna tattoo. I started with 20 euros and when I exchanged my money back into euros at the end, I got back 9. I only spent a total of 11 euros. Morocco is very cheap!
At 9:15pm we met for dinner. It was amazing! I got a Moroccan salad (which is basically just cucumbers and tomatoes all blended into a sauce type thing) for an appetizer and chicken kabobs as my entree. I'm not going to lie... my decision for the kabobs was greatly influenced by the fact that they came with french fries. I am totally my mother's daughter... Dinner was actually a lot of fun. I was at a table with 8 other people, including our guide. The conversations were so entertaining! Ana was trying to explain to us something her mom taught her how to do, but she was either having trouble explaining it right or we just weren't getting it. Either way, it was soooo funny.
After dinner we headed back to the hostel and had a brief meeting with everyone. Our guide wanted to know how impressions of the trip and what personal effects we think it will have on us. He was going to hold the meeting on the terrace, but as it turns out, our hostel was filled with people smoking TONS of weed and they were hanging out up there. So we had our meeting in his room instead. He lit a candle and turned off the lights... Apparently he wanted it to be a very... intimate meeting. After the meeting we all headed to bed because we were exhausted.
Monday morning we had the option of getting up early to go on a walk to the highest point in Chefchaouen. They were planning on leaving the hostel at 7:00am and I wasn't sure I really wanted to get up that early. But of course as other people started moving, I woke up and decided I would go with them. I'm really glad I did! It was a LONG walk up, but totally worth it for the views. It was amazing. I'll get caption on my pictures on Facebook soon you all will know which ones I'm talking about. We stayed up there and had a brief snack and then made our way back down to meet up with everyone else for breakfast.
We ate breakfast at this little place in the Plaza Mayor in the middle of the city. The food was good, but I couldn't eat very much just because I don't normally when I travel. I was sitting next to Kati and across from Grace and Ana and we had an adventure with bees. They kept flying all around us because they liked the sweet tea and food we had in front of us. Well, at one point, a bee landed on Kati's tea glass and proceeded to fall in! It died instantly since it couldn't swim and Kati had to get a new tea. From then on, it was a game to try and trap the bees in our tea glasses. It kept us entertained for the duration of breakfast... :)
Breakfast finished around 9:00am and we were given 2 hours to wander around as we wished. I headed back to the hostel to finish packing and then hung out with Grace, Kati and Ana until it was time to go. At 11:00am we left to head back to Tangier to catch our plane to Madrid. It took 2 1/2 hours to get back to Tangier. And I had to pee the whole time. It sucked. Finally I asked if we could make a rest stop because I was on the verge of exploding. Fortunately we were able to stop before making it to the airport.
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, which was good. We landed back in Madrid around 6:30pm and then took another 2 hours to get back to Toledo (counting the Metro and the bus ride and everything). I walked in the door around 8:45pm-9:00pm ish and no one was home. I was a bit offended at first, thinking, "You haven't seen me in almost 5 days and no one is home to say hi when I get here?? AND it's a Monday night! Where in the world could you be?!" So I decided I would take a shower and wait for someone to get home. Well, I walked into my room only to find that the whole room had been cleaned. But not just cleaned... rearranged. The bed and desk and everything were still in the same spots, but all my clothes and books and stuff had been moved. I ended up going on a scavenger hunt to find everything! All I wanted to do was take a shower! I also wanted to empty my backpack and put all the dirty clothes in my hamper... but I couldn't find it! I looked everywhere for it... In both of my closets, in the kitchen by the washer... in my sister's room. It was nowhere to be found. I finally gave up and just decided to take a shower. I was in the bathroom about to get in, when I finally found my hamper. It was in the shower. In the shower?! Who keeps their hamper in the shower?? I just laughed, moved it back to my room and took my shower.
I got out and still no one was home. I was beginning to get very sad now because I was so excited to see everyone after almost 5 days. So I grabbed my computer and figured I would catch up with people on Facebook until someone showed up. Around 9:30pm my "dad" called and asked where I was. I said, "... At home?" He said, "Oh! We were hanging out in Paraíso waiting for you to call us so we could get you from the bus station!" I felt so bad! They were waiting just to pick me up! I told him that I wasn't sure whether I should call or not because I don't want to be a burden. I will happily take the bus if it's easier on them. I didn't realize they were expecting me to call! He said that they were leaving right then and that they'd see me soon. I suddenly wasn't so sad that no one was home when I got there...
They got back, we talked briefly and I headed to bed pretty soon after that because I was exhausted. Thank goodness for Spanish holidays because there was no class on Tuesday, so I could sleep in as long as I wanted! :D
*****Stories I forgot to add*****
1) Turkish toilets. I can't believe I forgot to add this part in! It was soooooo funny. First it's important to describe what a Turkish toilet is. It's very simple: there are places for your feet and a hole in the middle. You put your feet in the designated spots, squat over the hole and do your business. It took some definite getting used to!
2) About the toilets... There was no toilet paper. Moroccans apparently don't believe in using toilet paper. How do they clean themselves you ask? You have no idea what you are asking... but since you did... They use their left hand. Yes, their HAND. It's disgusting. And I didn't see much soap in the bathrooms, so I'm not sure how they wash their hands... Like I said, you were going to be sorry you ask. A funny story about this is that we were told NOT to use our left hand when eating out of a shared bowl of food at a meal. We now understand why. I'm sure we would get some very disgusted looks if we took food from a shared bowl with our left hand. Ewwwwwwww!!! I was telling my host family about this part of the trip and that was all they could talk about. Forget the other cultural differences... they only wanted to talk about the toilets and lack of toilet paper! Hahahahaha....
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