So much to write about.
I finally have a chance to sit down and write a blog entry without any other worries. I don't have to pack for some weekend trip nor worry about doing some Cervantes homework...well I do, but I'll put that off until Sunday :). I am going to enjoy this beautiful weekend in Sevilla and not worry about a thing. This week was midterms (or examenes parcial as they call them here) and it was hellish. Not because they were particularly hard, but because I came off of such a high in Morocco back to the "real world." Well, I really can't complain because my "real world" is not a "real world." I'm living and studying in Europe...how lucky can you get? :) I mean as I write this blog entry it is currently November 5th and it is 75 degrees outside and the weather current be more beautiful. This is my life....holy shit!
But lets travel back 2 weeks! I think when I did my last entry I had just settled down after my trip to Barcelona and I was getting ready to see my Mom, Grandma and Sister in Madrid! My class that Thursday was cancelled so I had all day to get ready for my flight to Madrid and meet up with them in the hotel. As I walked into the hotel my family was waiting for me in the lobby and Julie ran up to me and gave me a giant hug. I still will argue with anyone that she's the best little girl in the world. Hands down. I think Michael would too. That being said, it was great to see Mimi and Mom and they filled me on their day (they arrived in Spain earlier that morning and so to catch up with jet lag had attempted to be productive.) It turns out that my 11-year-old sister HATED the Prado, which is the most famous art museum in Spain because of the graphic bloody baroque paintings and made my Grandma and Mom leave. Also one of the customs, or rather common findings, of Spain are the pig legs hanging from bars or restaurants around the city. The Spaniards, unlike me, love their ham, especially jamon (ham) serrano. Julie, an animal lover and someone who gets grossed out really easily, refused to walk by these restaurants. Too bad that's about 75% of the restaurants in the country hahah.
Anyway, I forget a little our exact journey through Madrid but I'll give you the basics. My mom found this company called Madrid Vision; you know those touristy double decker busses that take you throughout the city. That was my first thought, however, it turned out to be perfect for what we needed. There are so many stops throughout the city and you get on and off the bus at the main attractions, or really whenever you want, and another bus comes every 10 minutes. We decided to do one line one day and another line the next. The first day we stopped by a couple of Plaza's and walked around Plaza de Espana where Julie, Mimi, and Mom had lots of fun walking around and buying little gifts at the outdoor market.
I think one of my favorite things we did in Madrid was seeing El Palacio Real, the official residence of the King of Spain, now used for state ceremonies. It reminded me a lot of Versailles with all of the ornate decorations, paintings, and the fact that it is a frickin Palace! We all got audio guides so we could hear about each room without having to do a guided tour. Each room has a number and you punch the number into your audio guide and hear about the room. Well Mimi, Mom, Julie and I had fun trying to make sure that we were all hearing the same thing at the same time. We would say, 1, 2, 3, go! and press the number. Julie had a lot of fun but made us go into each room to make sure that there were no creepy paintings. Mimi, got frustrated with Julie but mom and I shook it off, looked at each other and laughed. Certainly was a generation gap, but to be with them was amazing.
In Madrid I introduced Mom and Mimi to tinto de verano which is like a wine spritzer but they have it on tap at a lot of places. It's so good and refreshing and at 100 Montaditos, a chain where you order mini sandwiches where we could eat because there was no meat hanging in the windows :), they serve them in these big mugs or "jaras". At 100 Montaditos we must have looked like a bunch of fat asses because of how big our sandwich tray was, but we enjoyed every bit of it. Speaking of amazing food, I had perhaps the most amazing Italian food while I was in Madrid. It was the perfect last meal in Madrid, a bowl of freshly made angel hair in a truffle oil sauce. I could not have been happier. I was with my Mom, Grandma, and Sister--3 generations, eating the most amazing Italian food in Spain. Perfect. Oh yeah, and it was pretty frickin cool to see the Renoir exhibit and Guernica, the Picasso painting that I had studied in my Spanish classes in high school.
We got back to Sevilla and it was so nice to be back in "my city." Madrid was great, but it’s so big and it feels like a huge city. To me Sevilla has so much character and feels more European. It was also nice to know where everything was and to be able to be their tour guide of the city showing them my favorite places. We went to the Cathedral, which is the 3rd largest in Europe, the Royal Alcazar Gardens, Plaza de Espana, walked along the river and the Festival de Naciones. Luckily I was able to stay with them in the hotel, which I conveniently suggested because it was on my street, and that way I could spend even more time with them. At first I was a little nervous that while I was in class they would have nothing to do. Then I remembered whom I was talking about and knew that Mom and especially Julie would be kept occupied by the shopping. I was right.
They left Wednesday to go to Madrid for the night so they could stay near the airport to fly home. I left Wednesday night for the airport too, but stupidly didn't book my flight back with them. We decided to take the bus to Madrid in order to fly to Tangier, Morocco because the ferry from Gibraltar wasn't running that weekend. I theory this was a great plan. However, the bus ride there was hell. We left Sevilla at 1:00 AM to get to Madrid at 7:00 AM. We figured we would sleep on the bus and be fine. Well Christine and I were in the last row of the bus and our seats did not recline. Whoops. Lets just say by the time we got to Morocco we were exhausted but we kept on trucking because we were in MOROCCO!
We left Madrid at around 11:30 AM and landed in Morocco and 12:30 PM because there was a 2-hour time difference. We arrived at the Tangier airport and our driver/guide Mohamed, his nickname was "Simu" picked us up and drove us to our apartment in Tamuda Bay. It is mainly a vacation/residential area about an hour and a half away from Tangier and 30 minutes outside of Tetouan. It was a perfect setup. We had a kitchen, 2 bedrooms, a huge couch, access to the pool and a 3-minute walk to the Mediterranean. The first day we walked to a local store, got some cheese and snacks and hung out on the beach. We were literally the only one's there and it could not have been a better afternoon. I was hanging out in Africa by the Med eating food and with great company! That night we went out to dinner at a local restaurant overlooking the sea and had our first Moroccan dinner. I had Chicken Tagine. I don't really know how to explain it except for the fact that it tasted good haha. It was served in this cool clay pot with almost an apricot, curry, almond taste. Whatever...it was amazing and that's all that matters.
Later that night we went to the supermarket so we could buy food for breakfast and for snacks during the day. We ended up making breakfast every day and dinner once. Nothing to elaborate...pretty much eggs, toast and fruit for breakfast, and pasta one night for dinner. The next day we went to Chefchaouen, an older Moroccan city that is essentially all blue. We made up reasons why it was all blue because Simu didn't know the answer. I explained the origins of the great Moroccan war and how they wanted to camouflage the city with the sky. Naturally my Moroccan history bullshit was top notch. Anyway, everything there was incredibly inexpensive and the girls went nuts bartering. Actually the people who own the stores straight up tell you that you don't accept the first price and you barter like crazy. I bought a couple of presents for friends and felt like I was in china town with Dad saying "fi-dollah!" (Everything in China town is five dollars hahah). The architecture and the city was beautiful and we had a great 3 course lunch all for 60 dirham (which is a little less than 6 Euro which is about 8 USD...just to put it in perspective :) )
That night we had some wine that we got the night before at the supermarket and hung out in the apartment. We watched a movie, made some popcorn and just had a relaxing night. I think we were all pretty exhausted from our journey to Morocco and we happy to have a night in...Which we actually did every night. Gladly! The next morning we slept in, attempted to be productive and get some studying done for midterms, but failed miserably and just relaxed...Tough life we live ;) Later that day Simu picked us up and drove us to downtown Tetouan where we saw one of the Kings Palaces and the old quarter of Tetouan. It was a little strange at night and at times felt a little sketchy but it truly felt like another country and very foreign. I actually felt like I was walking through Agrabah...you know where Aladdin is running around in the beginning of the movie?? Except for I didn't have Apu at my side! As we were leaving the old streets of Tetouan this man took us into this huge rug store and showed us the roof where we could see a view of the entire city from the night. It was surreal. The fact that I had an aerial view of the intricate windy streets and shops at night was so amazing.
He then took us inside the rug shop, sat the seven of us down, served us mint tea and explained the process of making the rugs. Some were made out of camel hair, some cactus silk, he was explaining them laying them out for us to see and trying to show off his products. He laid out all the rugs and said Ok; if you like the rug say "wa-ha" if not "la". So we went one by one and he through he rug and we yelled out "wa ha" and "la" and "zmah" which means take it away while his minion was busy folding and putting the rugs away or handing us the ones that we were going to barter for in a minute. He then had us go up one by one with our rugs that we liked and we bartered for the ones we wanted. He started by writing his price on a pad, then we wrote ours and this went back and forth until we agreed on a price. He was a very funny guy, cracking jokes... he said "if you do not have money to feel honey, you need to have plastic to feel fantastic." He did well with 5 out of the 7 of us buying a rug or tapestry, hell I even bought a small cool looking cactus silk rug for a really good price...Who the hell knows what I'm gonna do with it but I really like it and I bought a frickin rug in Morocco!
The next day we took a long scenic drive along the Med and Atlantic Ocean in order to get to Asilah which is known as the "Artistic City of Morocco." I unfortunately was feeling pretty crappy and had the worst stomachache in the world. We were told to be really careful of the water and I was, but I guess I ate something or drank something that I shouldn't have and my stomach was tossing and turning for the majority of the day. 5 hours and 5 Tums later I was fine. But, my favorite part of Asilah and maybe the whole trip was getting to watch the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean. It was so incredibly beautiful and just a perfect way to end our last full day in Morocco. When I was in Portugal the weather wasn't clear enough to see the sunset, but this was perfect. It was a little windy but the sky was clear and I once again was reminded how invaluable this experience is. I'm getting to see some of the most amazing sights, monuments, and having the most wonderful experience with great friends. Truly grateful.
We flew back to Madrid the next morning and spent most of the bus ride back studying but Christine and I kept ourselves occupied by playing games reminiscent of 4th grade like the dots/box game and MASH (a game where you figure out your "future"...its very telling.) When I got back to Sevilla at 12:00 AM I was exhausted and it felt good to be back in my apartment but at the same time I was back in the non-real "real world." I decided any studying that I would do at that time would be pointless and so I passed out really easily and went to bed "early" for a long day of studying/classes the next day.This past week seemed to go by pretty quickly and my exams really weren't all that bad. Cervantes was the hardest, a lot of essays and I'm a good bullshitter when it comes to essays, but its a little more time consuming and difficult when you have to bullshit in another language!!
I had my last exam Friday because our teacher did a review session on Thursday and moved the test back a day, but Thursday night I had the perfect study break. I'm gonna go out and say it...I don't like Spanish food. It's a lot of meat, especially HAM, and just very unhealthy. I'm not a health freak, but it’s a lot of bread and carbs and just not my favorite at all. So needless to say, when I found out that we were having a Mexican cooking class with our interest group, I was thrilled. We met up at the CIEE center and walked together to Maria's (our interest group leader) friend's house. She's actually Peruvian and owns a tapas restaurant, but her friend's husband is Mexican. We learned how to make beef tacos, with fresh tortillas, refried beans, and guacamole. My stomach could not have been happier. The seasoning on the beef was like nothing that I had tasted before and I had just spoken to Maria about how I didn't like the residencia food so she kept telling them to give me more tacos because I don't eat at the residencia! Hahah I was not complaining!! I walked out so full, but so happy.
It's really amazing how quickly these past 2 months have flown by. I'm in Sevilla this weekend and the next weekend but after that and the last weekend I'm here I'm traveling. I have a trip to Valencia, then Poland, then Italy and France or Amsterdam and then finals, and then I'm home home! Holy crap! Ferris Bueller was right with his overly used quote "life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Hasta que volvamos a ver!
P.S! Click here for more pictures of Madrid!
PPS! Click here for more pictures from Morocco!
great! i like your lifestyle! hehe
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