Morocco!

Imagine a sea of people. Men in big colorful hats with gold goblets strung around their necks. The haunting song of snake charmers floating through the air. The occasional monkey howl. The color of tons of stacked oranges in market stalls. The sound of men and women speaking broken English asking for anything out of the pockets of tourists. This is Marrakech.

Our tour started in Casablanca and then went to Marrakech, Essouria, Safi, and last, El Jadida. Our first stop, Marrakech, was by far the most overwhelming. We had lunch in a beautiful restaurant that was through a tiny entrance and up stairs. It room opened up into this beautiful decorated lounge sort of place. We were served Moroccan salads, an array of different cold appetizers of lentils, beets, and other things. Then we were served a beautiful plate of what looked and tasted like pot roast. Then for desert (this was my favorite part of the meal) we were served the biggest most beautiful oranges I have ever seen. They were sweet and juicy and the best oranges I have ever eaten. Then we were served a glass of the most amazing Moroccan mint tea I have ever had. Totally my deal.

Then we left for the markets. As soon as you entered the main square, you were bombarded by men putting monkeys on your shoulders, women grabbing your hands to give you henna, snake charmers hanging, what we suspected, were dead snakes around your neck. We got some pictures with snake charmers and they asked us for 300 Durham, about $35. Of course we said no and they kept harassing us. Thank goodness for our guide because he came over and saved us and we ended up giving them just some coins. I guess in Morocco looking someone in the eye can get you in trouble. I only experienced this once when I looked a Jafar-like guy in the eye on accident. He yelled after me saying that I had beautiful eyes, the eyes of a Berber woman, etc. The rest of the trip, I followed the ground with my eyes.

After exploring the square we went to a palace near by whose entrance you could have walked by without ever knowing it was a palace. Supposedly P Diddy had a birthday party there. Something interesting that we learned was the Prince or the master of the house had usually around four wives and he would hire musicians to play for him in his bedroom. Now, in order to keep the identities of the wives (or whoever else came in and out of his bedroom) he would hire blind musicians! We came to find that a lot of men in Morocco were a bit like pigs. A lot of people were really upset by it, but I guess I am so used to getting harassed when we go to Mexico, etc. that I have learned not to let it ruin my time.

So there was this group of girls in our group who were just too much for me. They wanted to stop at every shop and probably spent $50 at each place…and that’s saying a lot considering the conversion rate from dollars to Durham. They all go the University of Miami and are from long island. Jewish American Princesses if you will. They complained the entire time, pushed to the front of the lines and were just basically brats. My friend Megan and I tried our hardest to avoid them. Although they were annoying, their desire to shop did allow us to stop at a lot of cool shops. I got some great silver jewelry, an iron birdhouse, and some pottery that I absolutely love.

Once we finished exploring the castle, we hopped on the bus and headed for the hotel. We had a few hours until dinner so we set out to explore around the hotel. We happened upon this great little indoor marker filled with all sorts of treasures. I actually made a friend there who gave me deals on everything. This is where I got the birdcage FOR HALF OFF! He even offered Megan 1,000 camels for me to stay there with him. It was pretty funny. After the market we went to Zara, an H&M kind of store that is all over Europe and now the US. I got a cute top on sale and then spent a bunch of money on a beautiful satin top. Then we ate a pretty average dinner at the hotel and then went to the hotel bar for a glass of wine. The wine was awful haha!! Then I hit the sack.

The next day we ate breakfast in the hotel and then loaded up for Essouria. I really did not know what to expect of Essouria, but I can tell you that it certainly exceeded my expectations. Supposedly it was a place that Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger came to hang out. It’s a little beach town with incredibly murky brown ocean. Many of the buildings are bright white with vibrant blue and indigo shutters. We met a local guide there, Rashida (which means wise in Arabic), who immediately admitted that she hadn’t spoken English in a while. She was full of joy and so friendly! She really worked hard to meet the needs of the whole group. We sat with her at lunch and she told us all about Moroccan weddings, her view of American politics, and all sorts of other stuff! It was so interesting to hear her perspective! It was very grounded and well supported!! Anyways she was very sweet and helped me get something different for lunch when I didn’t care for the fried fish.

I just realized that I haven’t said anything about Latvi! Latvi was our guide for the three days and he was absolutely fabulous. He was very in tune to what we liked and disliked and made all sorts of jokes that made it clear he was familiar with American pop culture. There was a fly in the bus at one point and we were all hunting for it. He came on over the speaker in the bus and said “welcome to your Moroccan safari!”haha! He was the first to receive one of my San Francisco snow globes : )

Anyways, so after lunch we got back on the bus and headed for Safi. Safi is famous for is beautifully decorated pottery, so of course I had to get some : ) Then we went to the hotel and hung out until dinner. After another average buffet dinner, we changed to go out to the nightclub that was attached to the hotel called “Night Club”. Unfortunately, the Night Club didn’t open until 12:30 so a group of us played a brutal game of BS (brutal because I lost). Once we got the club we descended two flights of marble stairs into the dance floor and bar area. The bar didn’t take anything but cash so we went to the hotel reception to buy so much moneys worth and then take it to the bar…a bit sketchy, but we got our drinks! After two glasses of sprite and vodka (with very little vodka) we set out for the dance floor. I have to say it was a bit uncomfortable. There was a live band a live singer singing songs in Arabic that we could hardly hear the words to and there weren’t very many people on the dance floor. We also didn’t want to provoke anything so we kept things pretty basic. A couple older guys at one point tried to approach us but we quickly dodged them. Needless to say, we didn’t stay very long.

The next day we hopped on the bus again and headed up the coast to El Jadida. To be honest, I’m not really sure why we stopped in El Jadida. The only thing we really saw there was this underground fortress I guess that was lit by a big whole in the ceiling. It allowed for some cool pictures, but other than that I’m not really sure what the value of the visit was. Then we headed up the coast for Casablanca and saw the most beautiful mosque ever! We even drove past Rick’s Café. I was really happy with the time we spent in Morocco! It was beautiful and different! I can see why is has so much appeal to moviemakers!

I’m sorry it had taken me so long to post this but it is a rather long entry!
Until Namibia!

Boo!

We just arrived in Namibia and Ashley and I are in Swakopmund. I want you all to know that I spent over 30 minutes at an internet cafe trying to upload pictures to my blog and it didn't work...see what I go through for you people?!

Maybe I'll try again another day.
But for now its time to explore!!!!

Jus checkin in! and feeling better : )

I thought I would connect with you all since this Morocco entry is taking much longer than it should. Thank you to all of you who emailed me giving me your strength and love. It means a lot to me! I have to say these past couple of days I have been doing much better. I have sort of let go of a lot of things and have really started to focus on what I want to get out of this trip. I feel a lot more like myself. Not 100% there but almost.

I guess I should tell you about Neptune day. Neptune day is a tradition here on the MV Explorer that happens the day (or in our case the day before) you cross the equator. I have to tell you, I was expecting a bit more than what the day ended up to be. We were woken up at around 7am by people running through the halls blowing whistles, banging on pots and pans, and screaming their heads off. At around 9, we were summoned by “the voice”(our announcer) telling all us “pollywogs”that we had to report to the top deck. On the top deck we found the captain and others dressed up in green face paint and silly bed sheets. The right of passage to be taken by all pollywogs was to have “fish guts”poured on you and then you had to kiss the rings of the kings and a dead fish. I did not partake in these festivities and my excuse was that I had already crossed the equator on a ship (which is true). Then those who chose to do so, shaved their heads, including my dear Sara Wineberg. For those of you who don’t know her, she has been planning this for quite some time now. She is a chameleon, always changing shapes. It began last spring when she cut her long hair short. Then at the beginning of the fall semester, she bleached her hair and then shortly after she died her hair bright purple. I can safely say that I have never seen a girl with a buzz cut that looks as good as hers. Not even Natalie Portman.

Anyways, the rest of the day was left to our leisure and it was absolutely wonderful. It has been warm and a bit humid but just right for sitting outside in the shade. We are definitely moving into summer here, which is nice! I am a bit nervous about Namibia being VERY warm, but I am also really excited to experience such a unique place.

I have also been keeping myself busy by planning some independent travel things. It’s actually a lot easier than I thought it would be! I am organizing a biking in the winelads tour and a township tour in South Africa all by myself! I’m finding that I am actually pretty good at it!

Also my roommate and I have been really getting along. I think we make a great pair. We are both equally goofy and silly and stupid and girly and just fun! Some nights we just hang out in the room together and watch sex and the city. Outside of the room we don’t really hang out so it makes it even more fun when we report our days to each other before we go to sleep every night.

Speaking of sleep I have been having incredibly vivid, strange dreams lately! Like ones where I think I’m awake or where I think I’m hearing things going on outside of our room. Last night I had a strangely real Disney dream in which most of the characters looked like real people. It’s probably from always eating pasta and veggies…or something.

Another interesting thing is going on. I learned yesterday that we are taking a route that ships don’t normally take. In order to take readings of water temp and current, we’ve been dropping 100 pound buoys of the side of the ship! Cool huh?

Well anyways tonight is our preport for Namibia and I can’t wait to step off onto African soil again!

ARGGG

I’m working on my entry for Morocco, but first I need to get this off my chest.

I don’t know what it is about this place, but I am having major self-confidence issues. I feel like I’m in middle school again. I am really afraid of putting myself out there I guess. I spend a lot of time in my room and lately I’ve just been really home sick. I think it has hit me how long that we’re on this ship. How long it is until I see home. It is so hard to get into a routine. The workout room is impossible to get a space in, the food is pretty bad, and every day my schedule changes. Not to mention that my class schedule is whack. On A days I have one class at 415 (besides Global Studies at 920) and on B days I have class at 1215 and then at 2 55 (also after global studies at 920). I thought that being in the play would lift my spirits and keep me busy, but I’m not really feeling the Greek tragedy. Not to mention the director is not very good. He’s very indirect and slow with his direction. We have rehearsals from 730-1030 on some nights and 930- who knows when on other nights.

I’ve also been sleeping a lot not only for lack of feeling like do anything else but also because it’s the only personal space that I have.

I’m having trouble meeting people that don’t think their hot shit. I guess it takes a certain type of person to do something like this. Outgoing, adventurous people. But so many of those people are really arrogant. I’ve met some people that are just so backwards to me. It makes me realize why people hate Americans.

Also, I feel like I finally have really great friends that care about me at school and so its hard to come here and not really have anyone. But then I feel like I havnt established myself enough and put myself out there enough to really have any close friends. I know its mostly my fault for I guess not being open minded enough. I guess theres nothing really to do about it now but suck it up and put a smile on.

Just keep swimming

Spain a little bit late

Last night we left the beautiful port of Cadiz and headed across the straight of Gibraltar. Now we are sitting in a holding pattern waiting to get into the port of Casablanca, Morocco in bad weather.

Let me tell you about my time in Spain. I suppose I left off with the first day. Well the White Town Route was absolutely spectacular. We started in a town called Los Arcos de…something I can’t remember (don’t judge me it has been a hectic few days!). It was a small town on top of the hill with thin streets of cobblestone streaking around tall white buildings. At the top of the hill was a beautiful cathedral, one of many I saw in Spain. Then we went to Ronda, a town that was a bit bigger and less interesting than Los Arcos. After seeing the biggest bull ring in Spain, we headed back to the ship and didn’t get there until 830pm! It was a long day with not very much free time, but a lot of the sights were worth it. We ended the night with a big pan of paella and glass of sangria.

The next day was my first independent travel adventure. Me and two other girls, Lindsay and Lauren woke up early and took a train to Sevilla. The two-hour train ride was beautiful through the Spanish countryside. We arrived in Sevilla and took a bus that dropped us off near our hostel. We stopped for coffee at a place called taste of India or something like that. I got a hot chocolate and it was literally a cup of thick liquid chocolate. Unfortunately, it was too rich to finish so I paid Lindsay to chug it, which she did and almost got sick haha! Then after walking around the square a couple of times we finally found our hostel in a tiny alleyway. Surprisingly, the tiny door opened up into a tall square corridor that the rooms were centered around on each floor. Unfortunately, I was traveling with two girls who are younger and have much less travel experience, so I had to take the reigns on a lot of the business aspects of the trip. As soon as we got all checked in, we set out to explore the city. In my horrible Spanish, we found our way to the cathedral, which was absolutely beautiful and huge! Supposedly Christopher Columbus is buried either underneath the Cathedral or he’s held in a box by some statues, we couldn’t really figure out which. We actually met some people there that were visiting Sevilla from Barcelona where they were studying abroad.

After getting lost and wandering for the majority of the day, we headed back to the hostel to take a nap before dinner. When we got there however, the girl and guy that we were meeting up with had arrived and so we didn’t get much of a nap at all. We did meet our roommate though! We were in a room with two bunk beds, the fourth occupied by an older French man. Fortunately the guy that was with us spoke French and sort of got the down low. He assured us that he was a nice guy. It actually turns out that he has done a lot of traveling and gave us some good tips about South Africa.

We had a drink in the hostel bar and then headed out to find some tapas for dinner. We ended up going to an AMAZING tapas place that was recommended to us by a local. We ate almond chicken, tenderloin, stuffed eggplant and tons of other stuff until we couldn’t eat any more. Then we head to “Alfalfa Street”for a night out. Apparently that was the best place to be. However, when we got there we quickly learned that people really don’t start going out until midnight! So we did some bar hopping and ended up at an overcrowded Flamenco bar filled with drunken foreigners that were making so much noise that the woman doing Flamenco was getting pissed off. She finally started and I have to tell you it was nothing compared to the other flamenco that we saw. Very unimpressive. After a couple drinks at the Flamenco place and we were over it so we went to a different bar that was much more fun! We met some more people that were studying abroad in Barcelona and bonded right away! I hope I can find them on facebook because they were really great! We headed back I think before things really started to get crazy, as we were all exhausted! The next morning we piled on the train with a million other SAS kids back to Cadiz.

Although Spain was absolutely great I have one regret. When we were in the White Towns I saw the PERFECT charm for my charm bracelet, but I didn’t have time to stop and get it. Then I saw another one is Sevilla, but didn’t get it because it wasn’t quite perfect and then never found them again! So my charm bracelet will be without a charm from Spain. Oh well. I had a great time and am really looking forward to Morocco!

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