Morocco Day 2

3/22/10 about 3/13/10 Back to Morocco. I wrote this portion on our first full day there (have made a few changes). We just got back to our hotel room after an amazing day in Morocco. It is so beautiful, so not what I expected. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The mountains jut out into the sky majestic. Scattered white buildings line the green mountains and spot the plush valleys. It’s obvious the country is developing but the poverty does not slap you in the face as it does in many other countries, including Costa Rica and Bali. The people look fairly happy or content at least. They stare at our bus drives by. They look with interest, envy, or desire to make money. Overall, it feels like a mix of many places I have been Costa Rica, Bali, Granada, California, Nevada, Hawaii and so on, but there is a distinctly unique atmosphere as well. The people remind me of the pictures I have seen of people from Nepal. The kings face and the country’s flag are everywhere. People stare at our bus like it is made of gold. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be on the other side, what our bus symbolizes or what they think of us. Tourism, mainly French and Spanish is a main industry in Morocco and the sales men know how to speak Arabic, French, Spanish and English. Naturally Northern Moroccans speak more Spanish because they are closer to Spain and were colonized by the Spanish. Southern Morocco had the same experience but with the French, so they speak more French. I doubt whether many people can read or write, but they can operate a business and converse in multiple languages. Bargaining and pressure selling are not my thing and wear on me after a while, but it is just life here. They get offended if you don’t bargain! I like the minarets. They are everywhere you look. I like them and their ceremonious call. It is haunting, majestic, peaceful and calming. Really, they are everywhere you look, close and in the distance standing tall guarding. They are reminders of what religion predominates, a way of life and the country as a whole. I was told about the women, that they weren’t in the streets, but that’s not true. They are there even some at night. Not all have head scarves and for those that do they don’t seem like a burden or like they are forced to wear them. They seem like a fashion thing, a way of life and a source of comfort. The women don’t look unhappy. The little girls don’t look sad. I even saw some school girls in skirts (with nylons). It’s not what I thought. It is obviously a male society with shop owners, restaurant workers and people in the street predominantly male, but the women seem okay. I never would have thought I would feel this way after seeing women in a Muslim, African nation. We were offered hash and hassled of course, called guapitas, stared at and all, but it was not as threatening as I had thought. Morocco is truly exotic. The first place I have been to that I think fits the term. What we did on this day (added now since somehow I did not think to write about it then): We woke up in our comfy hotel room after about 6 hours of good sleep and went to the restaurant to take part in the breakfast buffet. Yum! I love breakfast so much! Big breakfasts are the best thing on the planet! Trust me, I have spent two months in a country that puts no weight on breakfast, so I was elated to have a wide range of choices at that time in the morning. I went for the stuff that seemed more local, a type of meet with goat cheese, pancakes type things that were wonderfully fluffy, light and decadent with honey, thin sweet bread stuff, croissants, coffee and orange juice. It was so wonderful! I ate way too much and then loaded on the bus with everyone else. We drove for about two hours up to a mountain city call Chef Chouen. Because the king was also visiting the city this same day there were military and police stationed about every hundred feet for the ENTIRE trip, up mountain roads! There were three distinct uniforms the guards were in. When the king eventually did pass they all would have had to turn and face the other direction out of respect, kind of like in jail! No, but really, isn’t it interesting that they stand there all day protecting the king and the they can’t even look as he drives by? Pretty crazy. Well, we got to Chef Chouen did a tour of the “blue city” named for its blue and white houses and went to lunch. It was another great three course extravagant meal with so much food. I love the food there. We luckily were able to fit out the door of the restaurant and into the street in order to go shopping/haggle for whatever type of goods we could find. Gina and I did some of this and then followed are guide’s advice and headed for a restaurant with rooftop seating to look over the square and drink some tea. After about 3 hours of free time we got back on the bus and headed to the hotel. Once we made it back to our room I wrote the gist of what is above. After this we made our way to the hotel bar and ordered a bottle of white wine, watched soccer and waited for dinner. Another amazing meal awaited us plus Discover Sevilla’s surprise Moroccan band. It was quite a hoot! They entered with trumpets and the most mind numbing drum I have ever heard, went for a costume change and headed back with a whole different routine. We had four acts all together, one of which involved fire and dancing dangerously while balancing it in different manners. After all this fun I headed to bed and Gina went to read in the lobby. One more day to go…

Montar a Caballo en Donana

3/22/10 about 3/21/10 Montar a Caballo Yesterday was a day I had been looking forward to since January, I got to go horseback riding on the beach in Donana National Park. I had originally signed up by myself for the full day excursion that included, bus to Huelva (about an hour and fifteen from Sevilla), a two hour horse ride and free time at the beach, but luckily Elena decided she wanted to go too, so I had a companion. We met at 8:00 AM and walked the half hour to the bus’ pick up spot through fairly empty streets. The only people up I think had not gone to bed. We took off on time and drove an hour under heavy clouds. As we went with Discover Sevilla we go to watch The Office and listen to music on our way. We got to the stables were about fifteen horses were saddled and ready to go in an arena. I made friends with the horse that Elena ended up riding and then got put on Trujillo, a feisty gelding since they knew I had ridden before. After everyone was in the saddle we filtered out and began following the lead Spaniard and his horse, which had to be one of the biggest horses that isn’t a Clydesdale that I have ever seen. Our horses were a mix of solid brown (thoroughbreds?) and solid whites, not appaloosas, but not really sure quite honestly. There are pure bread Andalusian Horses so maybe they are them. Out of all 15 or so I only counted 3 mares. This made for an interesting two hour ride since almost every male seemed to be an alpha that did not like the others, but we made do without anyone getting hurt. We followed a trail past the camel barns, through the sage brush, trees and partly sandy dunes down to a beautiful and almost deserted beach where we got to ride for a ways. My horse just wanted to and frankly needed to run, but my stirrups were not tight enough and the other horses would have joined in the frenzy, so we weren’t allowed to do so. We meandered our way back to the stables, horses rushing to get home and constantly nipping at each other. When we got back Elena and I headed for the board walk to find lunch. We passed many of good looking restaurants and shops and opted to eat lunch in restaurant on stilts over the sand. It looks like a pier, but I don’t think the tide ever comes in that far. We had a tuna and tomato salad and then a giant dish of seafood paella that tasted strongly of the ocean. We sat and ate for a few hours staring out at the beach as the sun burned its way through the clouds. We then walked the length of the board walk, it must have been a mile and as we made our way back I got raspberry sorbet from one of the best looking ice cream shops ever. It was all I could do to stop myself from getting a giant fishbowl sundae. We than headed down to the sand and filtered our way over the black sound to the seashell laden white sand to sit. We, especially Elena, collected lots of pretty shells. There are so many it is overwhelming, but really fun. At 6:00 pm we began to make our way back to the bus, stopping so I could have a café con leche on the way. At 6:45 we boarded and headed for Sevilla. We made it home just in time for dinner at 9:00 pm. It was a beautiful day and I did not get sunburned. It was worth the wait.

Getting to Morocco

3/20/10 About the last few weeks and Morocco (3/10-3/12) Okay, I am going to warn you up front that this going to be a long one. It has been a while since I wrote but that is because we had midterms from Monday the 8th through Thursday the 11th and then on Friday the 12th Gina and I went to Morocco. The weekend before finals Montse and Cecilia went to England to visit Borjah (Montse’s son who is my age and is studying English and working in Bath). Gina and I took the opportunity just to relax at home, make a few big salads and prepare for the week, i.e. study and do homework. My exams went alright and I got my big paper done for American Studies and even went to the gym a few times. Our bus with Discover Sevilla (if you come to Spain and want planned tours of here, Morocco, Portugal or really any place in Europe they are the people to go through, you’ll see why soon) did not leave until 3:00PM. We were so excited that we were ahead of schedule, but all turned out okay. Our bus filled up with other American students studying abroad in Spain, a few young American tourists and the parents of a girl from Texas who is going to school here. Guess what? There were 54 of us and only 10 guys, again! What is going on with American men? Do they not want to travel to Spain or are girls just more prevalent abroad? So, at 3:00PM our bus headed out of Sevilla for Tarifa near Algeciras and Gibraltar (we actually saw it from the bus and it is just a rock, well people live there and all but it is basically a huge rock that belongs to the British). We made one pit stop and arrived at the port to catch the fairy about 3 hours after leaving Sevilla. On our way down we got to watch Catch Me If You Can (their buses have TVs) in English! It was a nice break but hard to focus on when all you want to do is check out the scenery. At Tarifa we unloaded off the bus and filtered into the waiting area before going through customs. The harsh reality of the dangers of the place we were headed were posted there on the wall in the waiting area in the form of a missing persons ad. Her name I believe is Amy Fitzgerald. She was 15 in 2008 when she went missing from Morocco. ATTENTION, this is no joke! Do not ever go to Morocco without an organized group! Human trafficking is a huge problem still in this world we feel is so modern. It is serious and we should all be aware of it. I can’t forget her face. It is so sad. I couldn’t help but keep looking at the poster until we walked away to go through customs and go aboard the ferry. As we boarded the ferry we gave our tour guides our passports for whatever they had to do and found an area to sit where we were all fairly close together so our passports could be redistributed to us at a later time. We chose the second floor seating area. The ferry had food, alcohol and a duty free store. We pulled out of port as the sun was beginning to set for the North Africa (which we could already see by the way, beautiful mountains, Africa and Spain are so close it looks like you could swim from one to the other, it’s not a good idea though). It took about a forty minutes and we came into port at the obviously (although it was almost dark) more developed, pretty, resort looking Tangier. We debarked with the realization we were in Africa trying to settle in, had our passports checked as we stepped off the ferry and made our way up to the waiting areas to meet our local guide, Amena. We filtered out and down to exchange Euros into Dirham. Then we waited for about an hour as our bus made its way off the ferry and through customs. As we waited the minaret sounded with prayer. It was so awesome, a really great introduction to the country! We happily boarded our bus as soon as we could and headed for our hotel. During our hour or so long drive to M'diq where the Hotel Kabila is we were introduced to Amena, watched The Office and I stared out the window looking at all that I could. We went through the city so I saw people in restaurants, some women, more men and a significant amount of activity. It was so intriguing and I couldn’t wait to see it in the day light. Before we reached our hotel we passed the palace where the king was staying (he travels around and has lots of palaces). Every 20 feet or so there were three guards in three different uniforms, one with a red cloak and sword! I can’t really describe it, but it was from another period in time for sure. Shortly thereafter we reached our four star resort and headed straight for the dining room for our first Moroccan meal. It was so good! We sat at a table with a couple from Texas. The guy is studying abroad here and the girl had just arrived right before catching the bus in Sevilla from Houston to visit him. They were very sweet. We had bread ready on the table, ordered some wine, were each served a salad, and then a giant thing of chicken with veggies and cous cous was put in the middle of our table. We ate a bunch and then enjoyed a yummy desert. Afterwards we picked up our bags which had been unloaded for us and our room key and headed off to bed.

A Bit of a Rant-Some Important Info on Study Abroad

3/9/10 I am dedicating this entry to general advise and for the emotional up and downs that study abroad can take you through. It is not meant to scare anyone or to suggest that I am not happy or to say that study abroad is not worthwhile. Study abroad is amazing and it is an experience that I think everyone should go through because it teaches you about yourself, about other people and proves that you can survive in an unfamiliar environment. Let me start by saying that your experience will differ depending where you are in your life. I know this should be obvious, but whether you are mature, younger, older, have ever study abroad before and why you are studying abroad will have a huge affect on your experience. The majority of students studying abroad are young, in their first few years of college and have never studied abroad before. The freedom to drink and to do as they please enables them to party as if they will never get to party again when they return to the states (well for those that aren’t 21 it will be more difficult I guess). It changes peoples’ personalities, clicks form and people will do things that they regret. For those who are further along in their development this can become seriously annoying and hard to deal with. Lots of caddy behavior takes place and immature comments and action occur. You will experience people who hate where you are and want to go home or to the nearest American establishment immediately. Please, don’t be this person. It is obnoxious and offensive to your host culture. Being home sick is natural but don’t bond with someone over these feelings and turn them into negativity because it will negatively impact your experience and make you miserable. The cultural adjustment curve of the honeymoon, dislike and happiness phases is true for the most part, but realize that you can become unhappy in random situations but it will likely go away. There are times that you miss everything at home, the food, the people and the comfort of knowing how to react in every environment. It is important to remember that most of the people surrounding you are not bad people, but that you are at different stages in your life and you come from different places. There are students from all across the country, from all types of universities and areas of study. This makes a difference in how you view the world and can mean you view things differently than those around you even though they are American. What is important is that you keep centered, remain respectful to you host culture, family and institution, have fun and learn all that you can. Make the best of your trip and if you are unhappy remember you came here for a reason and that you will get to go home eventually, but don’t live for that moment. Live to take advantage of your trip and experience where you are at.