Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Blogging from Africa

Recently events in my life include: anti-climatic 21st birthday, 4 day trip to Morocco, and (not) going to class.

Words I would use to describe my first trip to an arab country: colorful, sexist, Muslim, inequality, and wet.

The people who I went with pictured from left to right: Jen(California), Diego(Spain), Charline(France), and me (California). I know you must be thinking about how international I've become, and on top of that we spoke solely in Spanish the whole trip.

To get there, we drove Diego's ride(Pictured) to Algeciras in Spain, and then took an hour long ferry ride to Tangers, Morocco.

We spent a night in Tangers(an ugly port city) where Moroccans constantly tried to sell us any of the following: money, hash, rugs, tea, and food.

Then we took a taxi to Alciras(a small beach town) and stayed at some random Moroccan guys house that was right on the water. here's a picture from the balcony.

and then his wife cooked us Couscous for dinner.
After being in Morocco for 2 days, I realized that every surface was wet from the humidity including: the floor, the walls, the bathrooms, the beds, the windows, and anything else that was left out.

Graffiti in Alciras. While in Morocco I walked, ate, slept, and blogged in my poofy down jacket.

The next day, we took a bus back to Tangers, and then another bus to Chaouen(a small mountain town) which was supposed to be a three hour bus ride, but ended up being about 6 hours. But alas we arrived and got a room in a hostel/hotel which I would describe as semi-janky. But I guess that was to be expected at a price of about 5 dollars a night. Here's a view from the hotel balcony.

My feet pictured with stairs in our hostel.

Here are some women cleaning their clothes at the local river.

What is out of place in this picture?

Shot of a typical street in Chaouen lined with shops and such.

Door shown to scale.

More stuff to sell to the unsuspecting tourist.

While shopping, I used my bargaining skills that I honed a year ago in southeast Asia. I got this rug for about 40 dollars, but It's so nice I feel bad stepping on it and am trying to decide whether I should hang it as a tapestry or just use it as a rug. Suggestions?

Roof top bar on our last night in Morocco. Enjoying the view while sipping on tea.

Group of Moroccan men colluding in a scheme to rip off the tourists.

We drank lots of tea, which is a mix of fresh mints leaves and a lot of sugar unless you specify otherwise.

Couscous was a staple in my Moroccan dining experience.

Enjoying the view minus me.
Moroccan woman sharpening a sharp instrument.

Us, obstructing the view of Chaouen.

Dulces Arabes or Arab sweets, I probably ate about 20 of these in a matter of 3 days.

The end... of my time in Morocco.

In other news, I turned 21 yesterday. It turned out to be not so very different from a typical day of my life in Spain. Some highlights: Pippa and Emilee made me a birthday music video, my roommates gave me a cake, my friend Jen bought me a Doner Kebab, and my other friend Ben bought me a beer. Other than that I watched the latest episode of Gossip Girl, went to one of my 4 classes, drank a greyhound, ate a spanish tortilla, talked to various people from home via Skype, and listened to the Carpenters, Belle and Sebastian, Burt Bacharach, and David Bowie. If you were wondering how I look at age 21 or what I wore on my birthday here is a brief synopsis.

1 comment:

James said...

How did you guess that the first thing I was wondering when I opend your blog was first: how you look now that you are 21, and second: what, oh what, did you wear on your birthday? Thank you for clearing it up! Morocco looked bad assss, im jealous...