Morocco

Sorry for such the long wait!  Here are my adventures from Morocco!

The last day in Spain, I got an eye infection and stayed inside until we left the port.  We departed from Spain around 8 o’clock that evening and arrived in Morocco the next morning.

While on the ship, we had pre-port meetings to prepare us for Morocco, but I definitely was not prepared for what I was going to be experiencing.

First of all, we were arriving at the very end of Ramadan, which is pretty much like our Christmas and Easter.  The day we arrived was the last day of their fasting.

Our ship was about half an hour walk from the ship to the entrance of the port, so they had a charter bus for us to take to the city.  As soon as we left the port, we were bombarded with taxi drivers offering us to give us tours of the city and take us around.  They would follow us down the street and wouldn’t really take no for an answer.  As soon as we got rid of one, another would come up and offer us the same thing.  We finally got past them and onto the main road.  There were so many shops on the side of the road selling everything, ranging from paintings to rugs.  All of them were offering us “very good prices.”  We exchanged some money for durans, which is about 8 durans for every one of our dollars.  We found this little shopping center of the road, called the medina, which is in the old city.  There were many more shops in there.  As soon as we stepped in we were being haggled and pulled this way and that way.  It was very overwhelming.  We asked one man where we could find an internet café and he said he would take us to one if we stopped at his shop first.  So we started following him down the street and we a little bit nervous.  He was walking about ten feet ahead of us and kept turning around to make sure we were with him.  When he turned back forwards, we took a side alley to get away from him and make our way back to the main street.  We walked around a bit more on the main road, trying to find internet, but most stores were closed due to the holiday, so we headed back to the ship.  It was very overwhelming because we were hassled so much and it was very much a sensory overload.  We had just been in Spain the day before and now we were in Africa.  Here we were in very different cultures and without very much preparation time before hand.

On the second day, some of my friends and I went into the city to see the Mosque.  We walked along a road that is by the water and leads right to the front steps of the Mosque.  Unfortunately, when we got there, it was not open because it was the first day that the fast had been broken.  So, we decided to walk up into the city from the Mosque to try and shop a bit and look for something to eat.  Walking up into the city, we found that very few shops were open, so we headed back to the ship, and stayed on for the rest of the day.  That night, we went to Rick’s Café because they had free internet.

The third day, I went on my zip-lining trip.  We took a bus for about three hours (boy am I thankful for drum corps and being able to sleep in buses) into Marrakech and enjoyed a local meal at one of their restaurants in the main market place.   After a wonderful meal, we had a couple hours to shop around the market.  We went into this square that had a bunch of allies full of shops going in different directions.  We shopped for about two hours until we finally found our way out of the shops.  We then took the bus to our hotel and we swam and played Mafia for a little while we waited to go out to dinner.  We took the bus into the heart of Marrakech to a restaurant where we would be eating dinner and seeing a belly dancer.  To our surprise, the belly dancer started dancing with the boys in the group and pulling them up to dance with her, which was quite humorous.  We then headed back to the hotel to get some rest before zip lining in the morning.

The next morning, we headed out about an hour outside of Marrakech to the Atlas Mountains.  We arrived at our ropes course and got suited up in harnesses and helmets.  The very first thing we had to do was a rope bridge, and I was so scared.  For those you who don’t know, I’m terrified of heights.  So I start going out, trying not to freak out, but I had to look down to make sure I didn’t miss a plank.  When I was about a third of the way out, I feel someone running out behind me.  It was one of the guides working with us.  He asked if I was afraid and I told him that I was.  He had me stop and look around and I realized I had an amazing view of a little village in the mountains.  So I continued walking, still terrified, and this guy! He starts jumping up and down and shaking the bridge.  I just stopped and held on for dear life.  He though it was hilarious.  I was so angry.  We then got to the zip lining part, and it was awesome!  I was scared at first, but once I got going, I realized how amazing it was.  We got to go on four different zip lines and one of them is the longest on in Africa.  After we got done zip lining, we got to enjoy and home cooked meal.  The guide who had been so mean turned out to be really cool and we all fell in love with him.  He would ask us if we were happy and when we said yes he would say “I’m so, so happy.”  It was really hard to leave all the guides when we finished with our meal.  After that, we started our four-hour drive back to Casablanca.

The last day in port, we finally got to take a tour of the Mosque and it was absolutely amazing. The details inside were so intricate and all the designs in the wood had been hand craved and painted.  There are pictures, or will be, on my facebook.  After that we went into the city to buy last minute souvenirs and exchange our currency back.  I bought myself a painting and then went into the exchange center to turn my 70 durans back into dollars.  They told me they couldn’t do it because it would only be $8 and they didn’t have that small of currency.  So, there I was stuck with 70 durans that I couldn’t do anything with.  One of my friends went back up the road to buy something else, and I saw this lady who was about 80 sitting on the sidewalk on a little piece of cardboard asking for money.  So I gave her 20 durans and she was so thankful.  I went back over to my friends and realized that I had a pocket full of money that I couldn’t do anything with, so I just gave the rest of it to her.  So was so happy that she started kissing my hands and thanking me.  I went back to my friends, and when I looked back at her she was alternating between thanking me and thanking God for the money.  70 durans would feed her for at least a week.

Overall, I Morocco grew on me, but I doubt I would go back there again.

Espana!

Hola!

This “academic voyage,” as we’ve been told to call it, is AMAZING!

We started with some rough seas, due to an approaching hurricane and a storm a bit further north. I got super sick and missed my first day of classes. It was pretty terrible. But I’m much better now, after a couple days I got my sea legs and found a medicine that works to help with my seasickness. My classes are really cool and seem like they will be pretty easy. Everyone on the ship is really nice and I’ve made lots of friends.

The staff on board is really sweet. They clean our rooms everyday and serve us at meals, not like on a cruise, but they clear our plates and refill our drinks. There are a couple waiters that are really nice to me and treat me like a life-long learner (there are older folks on the ship with us that can sit in on our classes and take the trips in the ports, also). They always bring me fruit punch, even if it is not being served with the meal. I feel pretty bad about it, because I don’t ask them to do it, but they keep doing it.

After 7 days at sea, we finally arrived in Spain. And let me tell you, it is beautiful here.

The Spanish definitely have a different schedule than we do in America. Their day doesn’t start until about 10, when they have coffee. They eat breakfast around 11, lunch around 3, and dinner around 9-10. On the weekends, they buy drinks and go to the parks and drink together until around 12, then go to bars until 2, and then go to the clubs and they go ALL night. Everything is closed on Sundays and no one goes out at night.

On the first day, I explored the area with this girl I had met at lunch. They have these four walking tours that you can take independently, so we decided to take one. There are four colored lines painted on the sidewalk that take you past different areas and buildings and into the heart of the city. So, we explored for about two hours. Then, I met up with some friends on the ship and we walked to one of the beaches that is close by. Little did we know, all the beaches in Cadiz, maybe all of Spain, I wouldn’t know, are optional tops. So, we saw lots of boobs. Well, not lots, but enough. Don’t worry, mom, I kept mine on. That night I went to a Flamenco club with my music class and it was so awesome. It was a club that all the locals recommend for Flamenco, so a bunch of our teachers showed up there. But the dance and the music was so passionate, it was amazing. Then, I met up with some friends and we tried to go to a club, but ended up walking the entirety of the island for about three hours before calling it a night and heading back to the ship.

On the second day, I walked around the town again with some more friends. We tried to get to the castle a little off the island where the last James Bond was filmed, but found out it was closed because it is under construction. So we just walked around the city some and looked for souvenirs. I then went back to the ship for a nap, and wound up running into my other friends who were going to the beach. So I went with them. We had dinner and the ship and we going to try and go back out and see the sunset on the beach, but we missed it. We walked around for a bit looking for anything open and stumbled upon some type of ritual/hazing. It was really strange. There was a group of young men carrying a platform with cinder blocks on top and they had to take one step at a time. We had no clue what was going on, but we think it was a frat initiation. After walking around a bit, we joined the huge group of SAS students on the step of the cathedral to use the Internet. Later, we went to find a club we had heard about and when we got there, it was empty, so we just had a good time with our little group. I talked to the bouncer in my broken Spanish and it was pretty cool. After awhile, we headed back to the ship and passed out.

The third day was a bit more boring. I had pretty much been explored most of the city, so I spent some time on the Internet with some friends. That night, we went back to the same club as the previous night, and it was once again empty. So, we started walking back to the ship. This guy passed us and said “hi” and we were surprised because it was English. So we stopped and talked to him. He was from Ireland and had been in Cadiz for about four years. So he told us about some local bars and where all the hot spots were and at what time people go to them.

The next day was pretty easy. We went shopping for souvenirs and just relaxed. Later, around midnight, we went to one of the bars our Irish friend had told us about. It was actually really cool. And there were people there! It is a Cuban bar, and the owner is English and his wife is Cuban. They teach Spanish classes every Monday and Tuesday, so there were a lot of people in there that spoke English, which was awesome. Around 3:30, we went over to the club and there were people there! We were very surprised, but happy. So we stayed until 4:30 and went back to the ship.

The last day, we went to the beach. We didn’t stay long, because my eye was really bugging me. I went back to my cabin and took out my contacts and went to sleep. When I woke up, I couldn’t open my eye, so I went down to the doctor. Turns out I had an eye infection. I had to put eye drop in my eye every hour for 24 hours, which sucked. But it is better now. We left that night around 8 o’clock and headed towards Morocco!

Some things I learned in Spain:

You can get by if you know a little bit of Spanish

They don’t party until 2

A 20-minute walk to them is about 40 minutes

The beaches are topless

Overall Spain was awesome and I would definitely go back again.