Morocco: Fes

Our excursion to Morocco began with a 24 hour bus ride to the city of Fes. Granted, this bus ride was broken up by late-night gas station stops, a ferry ride, and more stops the next day for the bathroom and lunch, but it was a long, long, long time to be on a bus. Unfortunately, I have trouble sleeping on moving vehicles, so I slept a whopping three hours between when we left Salamanca at 4 PM and arrived at the ferry station at 7 AM. When we got on the ferry, I'm lucky I didn't just fall asleep before I got my passport stamped. It was a close call.

When we finally got off the ferry and on the road again, I have to admit I was surprised by how green everything was. I mean, it makes sense if you think about it, given that we were on a coast and really not that far from southern Spain, but when you think "Africa" you definitely don't think of green coasts. Or at least I don't.

Anyway, the hotel in Fes was beautiful. We were originally supposed to stay at a 4-star, but that one didn't have enough availability for us (between all the ISA groups, we were about 150 students…) so we got booked at a 5-star instead. Now, they told us roughly a thousand times to keep in mind that the standards for these stars are a little lower in Morocco, but this hotel was super nice.

And the beds were super comfy. So comfy that Megan and I almost slept through dinner, which was supposed to be at 8. We woke up at 9. And Megan doesn't remember the conversation I had with the waiter when we came down for food, that's how zombie-like we still were when we got to the lobby.

On the bright side, being this exhausted meant we got a good night's sleep before we were off bright and early for our short tour around the city of Fes, and then to the Medina, the giant marketplace in the city.

Our first stop was a location where they make pottery, and they showed us what they use for the whole process, from the pile of clay in a corner, 

to the colored tiles they use, 

to the men who chip these colored tiles into tiny pieces that are used in the mosaics around the city,

to the molds that are used when making fountains, and how they set the mosaic, piece-by-piece.

Then we finally entered the Medina for real, just streets of little shopfronts stuffed with bottles and fruits and saran-wrapped bricks of candies. One shop was full of cassette tapes.

We went to a carpet store where they fed us mint tea, showed us a lot of carpets, told us we were the "future of America" and that buying one would be an investment, and then proceeded to haggle the bejeezus out of anyone who decided to buy a carpet. I was one of the students that just took advantage of the free tea and then watched everybody else attempt to haggle with the super-skilled Moroccan salesmen.

Next, we went to a Moroccan pharmacy, where they sold things like spices, oils you could use for perfume, Argan oil which you can pretty much use for anything (bought some), magic headache/allergy medicine (bought some), and magic green lipstick that shows up pink when you put it on (bought some o' that too, I'm SO excited to whip it out when getting ready for something with other girls, just to see their reactions), kohl eyeliner, tea, and so on. Definitely my favorite place we went.

After all this, we went to lunch, where the food was the usual fare of the realm–cooked veggies (carrots, zuchinni, potatoes) and chicken, with couscous. And bread.

And Arabic Coca-Cola that my friend ordered. That too.

Next, we visited a tannery. As in, we literally saw the whole process. Not in great detail, given the horrible smell from things like dead animals and pigeon excrement (the white bins, the chemicals are used to condition and soften the skin), but I have now seen where your leather jacket came from. It's not pretty.

And last, but not least, in the Medina, we went to a scarves/clothing shop. They have people hand-weaving the scarves, which are super long so you can tie them into a turban. Which I totally learned how to do.

And my friend Samantha tried on one of the traditional dresses.

Then we were finally done with the Medina. After a break at the hotel and dinner, we went to the final activity of the day, which was referred to as an "authentic show" on our itinerary. This involved bellydancing, drums, audience participation, and a short magic show even (the bird appeared out of nowhere, it was nuts).

Good News: I Survived the Desert

But, given that I didn't get home until 11 AM this morning (we left Meknes at 10 AM yesterday...), am running on nothing but coffee and the fact that I finally got an awesome hot shower, and still need to go to classes, I'm probably not gonna have details on my Moroccan adventures until tomorrow or Friday. Sorry team!

In the meantime, here's the Sahara. And the Moroccan/Algerian border. And me doing a cartwheel. While wearing a turban. Happy Wednesday!!

Morocco Route

So to my current knowledge, these are all the fun places we're going to visit this week, which will involve the desert, carpets, camel rides, and all kinds of culture shock adventures. Obviously, I'll have photos when I get back! Until then, I'll be pretty much completely cut off from the world–it's super expensive to make calls from Morocco so I'm not even bringing my cell phone, but I'll be with tour guides and ISA directors who will have their phones all week, so don't worry!

Ay de mi Alhambra! (Pomegranate City, cont.)

 I have a feeling I'm about to attach a ton of photos, so I'm just separating our Granada trip into two posts. After lunch on Saturday, we met up with ISA to go visit the Alhambra. Thus the title, that was one of the first things I read in my Spanish literature class in high school, and it stuck with me I guess?

Anyway, the Alhambra, as best I can remember, was basically the final holdout of the Arabic empire during the Catholic inquisition. It means "red castle", which our tour guide was very happy to point out that also kind of translated to "colorado" (colored red) when he found out where the majority of our group was from.

They have super cool irrigation there too. I was very happy.

Also, we kind of accidentally stalked a wedding for the first part of our tour… they were just trying to take pretty photos and we were going the same direction… towards the church at the top of the hill!

Here's a palace. It's square on the outside...

…and round on the inside!! I don't recall why. But it's a pretty sweet design, especially if you look at it from above.

And there were cats all over… we don't know why.

Ladies and gentlemen, the majority of Fall 3, the lovely people I've spent the last few months with!

So this is the sneaky way that one of the Catholic kings got his two cents in without messing up the lovely arabic decoration–the double headed eagle symbolizes Carlos V of Spain & Carlos I of Austria, I believe. Don't quote me on the exact details, but I do know he was king of both and therefore had two different titles, thus two heads. The insignia is definitely not part of the original decoration though.

Arabic detailing

Old-school wallpaper

Also, it's October and the gardens still look like this. We're not in Colorado anymore.

Alhambra from the Generalife gardens on the other side of the hill. There's the church on the left, the square/circle palace in the middle at the top of the hill, and then the buildings that start on the right side and go down the hill towards the left are a series of arabic buildings with insanely detailed decorations and really pretty gardens.

So, this is the point in the tour when my friends, for whatever reason, were insanely hyper, and when we stopped for a mini-bathroom break (this was a 3 hour tour, for the record), decided that our audio tour headsets were Secret Service headsets… Which led to all kinds of nonsense, including the group decision that our ISA advisor who was with us was now El Presidente, and our tour guide making a joke about the Chinese Mafia when an asian tour group walked by a few minutes later… I can't completely explain the utter ridiculousness combined with the hilariousness of  the whole ordeal, but I promise it was funny. 

Ok but back to history & stuff now. We finished the tour of the gardens and got back on the bus, and took a little siesta at the hotel before going out to do our usual wander-then-eat evening. We tried to find a tapas place that ISA had recommended (they give us a little info sheet whenever we go on excursion, which includes restaurant recommendations like the Mexican place we found on Friday night) but it was a magical little place that apparently doesn't exist, so the group split up–half went to instant gratification at an Italian place nearby, and Britt, Matt and I went to get tapas on a street we'd been on near the hotel. After dinner, we met up with the rest of the group and went to a tetería where people could get hookah and tea and desserts, and we just stayed and talked there for the rest of our night.

Here's a photo of the sunset I took at the end of our bus ride home on Sunday, which was pretty much all we did. Unfortunately, the girl across the row from me got carsick and threw up… twice… and that was the most eventful part of my day. Glad I grew up driving mountain roads and have an iron stomach, or we could've had a real problem.  We'll just leave it at that though, no one wants to hear about that!

But when we got home, María had dinner ready for us, and had spent some of her weekend making pastries. She made the dough and everything, and they tasted like the best cream puffs you've ever had in your life. So that made me very, very happy.

Pomegranate City

Beginning your day with an 8:30 bus time is not what I would call the most fun I've ever had. Especially if you are planning to be on that bus for roughly 8 hours. We did stop twice for a quick rest stop and for lunch, but that's still a LOT of time on the bus. In any case, we arrived in Granada after 8 hours, two movies (Million Dollar Baby and Casino,), two bocadillos (sandwiches), and many, many short naps.

About an hour from Granada

After checking into the hotel, we decided to go wander the city and track down a place to eat dinner. We ended up in the shopping district, so we wandered around there for a while, ran into some pretty city scenery, and almost found the Cathedral (we could hear the bats screeching as it was getting dark, that's how we knew. The bats in Salamanca scream all the way through our French class, it's horrible.)

For dinner we found a Mexican restaurant (after wandering in the rain for a while, part of which involved me walking into a very deep puddle and soaking my shoe…). But the food was fantastic. We were all starving by the time we got our food so we downed it all in about 15 minutes from when our waitress brought out the first plate. But the food had actual spice in it!! That was a big win of the night, which made sitting there with my jeans soaked to the ankle slightly more worth it.

After being fed we were all much happier, and we headed back to the hotel to meet up with ISA for a flamenco performance. Which was also incredible. You have to have a crazy sense of rhythm and be able to move your feet to two different beats to do it, which is hard enough without adding the other moves they do. It's amazing

The next morning, we got up and had another fantastic breakfast at the hotel. I'm telling you, I'm going to miss Spanish hotel breakfasts. They serve good stuff, and there's no syrup involved which I actually really love.

After breakfast, we walked up to the Capilla Real, where the Reyes Catolicos (Ferdinand & Isabella) are buried along with their daughter, Juana la Loca and her husband. Photos were technically prohibited… but that never stopped an army of college students armed with digital cameras, right?

Outside of the Capilla–this was technically acceptable.

The graves beneath their pretty marble carvings up above

Yeah I took this photo of the altar without looking. Sneaky awesomeness.

So if you ever studied Columbus in school, there's always a photo of this cool box that the King & Queen give him before he sails off to the Americas… turns out the box is real!

After the chapel, we did more tourist shopping, obviously. We're really good at that. And just wandering cities in general. It's the best way to see it sometimes. We ended up in a marketplace where everything was all shoved together and it was hard to tell one store from the next one, because they all carry roughly the same set of merchandise. I got some postcards, but nothing too exciting.

 Oh yeah, and we found this fountain next to the awesome kebab place we ate lunch. Foods America needs to start loving more: kebabs and peach juice. They don't have to be together, although that's not bad either...