Hello everyone! As I briefly mentioned in the previous blog, I spent this past weekend in Tarifa, Spain and Morocco, Africa (in a city called Tangier, Tanger in spanish). I experienced so much in such a short period of time, and had one of the greatest weekends ever! I tend to err on the side of way too many details and my guess is that this is going to be really long, so I'll title my paragraphs in CAPS so those of you who aren't in the mood to read another one of my novels can pick and choose what you wanna read! Here we go:
GETTING TO TARIFA Tafira is a small surf town in the southernmost tip of Spain. Our round trip bus ticket to get there was only 23 euros (about a 3 hour ride). The bus was totally full. We got off when the bus driver said we had arrived in Tarifa and had no clue where we were. The town was really neat, there were surf shops everywhere and every other car had a surf board strapped to the top of it. In spite of all this there were barely any waves. Maybe we just weren't in the right spot. The bad thing about Tarifa is that it is constantly VERY windy. You get sandblasted while you're on the beach! After asking 3 different places for directions and calling our hostel to ask them how to get there, we finally found The Melting Pot.
THE HOSTEL We were greeted by an Australian guy working the check-ins and there was a chalkboard outside the front door with our names on it welcoming us for the weekend. So hospitable! The hostel was great, very nice facilities. We were sleeping in a room with 8 beds but the hostel filled up and once that happens they still allow people to stay there at a discounted price, you just don't exactly know where you're gonna end up sleeping. For example, there was a tent set up out on the balcony that 2 people slept in, and in our room of 8 beds, there were actually 12 people sleeping in it because if you share a twin bed for the night it costs half as much. All of the couches in the lobby/living room also had people sleeping on them. It sounds chaotic, and it kind of is, but it's a good time. Definitely not something I'd want to do for an extended period of time though. Everyone is around the same age and people speak all different languages so that adds another intersting element to things. Since we booked ahead of time we each had our own beds reserved for us---good move on our part. The 12 of us in my room were sharing 1 bathroom that had no cold water (this was weird...usually it's the hot water that is lacking but not here!) After we got settled in the hostel, we went to a near by pizza place for dinner. Yum!!!!! One of the pizza places gave you scissors to cut the pizza with, I thought that was a really neat idea! We went out later that night to check out the nightlife. We are yet to visit a city in Spain lacking in this area, but I decided to go back earlier than usual with a few people because we wanted to be atleast partially rested for our big day on Saturday.....
DAYTRIP TO AFRICA: THE FERRY We woke up Saturday morning to go buy tickets for the 11:00 ferry that runs continuously througout the day from Tarifa to Morocco. It is 2 hours earlier in Morocco than Spain so we actually ended up arriving at our final destination around 10 a.m. Morocco time. As one would expect, the 11:00 ferry left the dock around 11:25....nothing happens on time around here, and I LOVE it. It was a 35 minute ferry ride, and this was a really cool boat. I was videotaping all over the ferry until one of the guards sternly approached me and informed me that my videotaping of the ferry is "STRICTLY FORBIDDEN"......pretty sure those were the only 2 english words this guy knew. Oh well, I still got some footage of it! Imagine 3 floors of airplane seats with tables between them, 3 cafés, a duty free shop, and a customs counter. That was the ferry. It was nuts how big the waves were in the ocean for our ride over there....someone told me they were 10 feet or so, I can never tell when I'm above them though. Regardless, walking around was a challenge, there were people stumbling all over the place. TERRIBLE ferry ride for anyone who gets seasick because it wasn't even almost a calm ride. I'm not usually affected by things like that but by the end of the ride even I was feeling a small bit nautious. I got in line on the boat and got my passport stamped (We all get really excited each time we get a new stamp!!!) and then walked off the boat and set foot in Africa for the first time in my life!
A DAY IN MOROCCO There were 14 of us who went to Morocco together. When we got off the ferry we were immediatly approached by multiple "official" guides who wanted us to pay them for a day tour. One man, Jamal, came up to us with his proposal: He would take us all around the city for the day to do all the important things and it would only cost us 5 euros. He said we didn't have to pay up front, only at the end IF we are satisfied and that everything we would do during the day was free with the exception of our shopping purchases. It sounded too good to be true because of how cheap it was, but we didn't have many other options so all 14 of us nervously piled into his massive van and the tour began. First we drove throught the main parts of the city, got out to look at some important buildings/monuments, then went to a lookout point where you could see much of the city. Afterwards we strolled through some local markets, and walked through their version of a grocery story. I almost had to leave because the smell nearly made me sick. There was a ton of meat just sitting out in the open at room temp waiting to be bought. Whether it was a pile of hamburger meat or an actual carcass of whatever animal it used to be, it was so gross. People would just be sitting on the ground with their fruit/vegetables/dead chickens/or whatever spread out on the ground in front of them for people to buy. This was unlike anything I've ever seen before. There don't seem to be any sanitation expectations for the food, granted we were out of the very touristy part of town and seeing exactly what the locals do. There are definitely restauraunts and other nice places that have clean food depending on where you are. The sewage system is not the best either, so parts of the city smell rather foul at times. I felt like I had stepped into a different world which was so strange since I was less than an hour away from Spain. The main languages of Morocco are Arabic and French. Because of this, I couldn't read any of the signs but I was able to talk to many people using my Spanish, so that was nice. I didn't know what to expect as far as how we would be treated, but I was pleasantly surprised. There are definite extreme cultural differences as far as clothes, women's role in society, etc. but regardless, as an American female wandering the streets, I was treated with utmost kindess and respect. (With the exception of the CRAZY street vendors who will swarm you and follow you for hours....I had one on my tail trying to sell me some bongo drums. Even though I made no eye contact with him and didn't speak to him, he kept following me. When we would go in shops, he'd stand outside and wait for me to come back and keep yelling "You now buy drums. I make you student deal. 5 euros, only 5 euros. No, you no have 5 euros? OK I make you extra special price. 4 euros and 50 cents, you no find better deal in all of the world...." You get the point..... This was going on in the midst of our big group and I wasn't singled out by any means, I'm pretty sure there was one Moroccon to each American trying to sell us stuff. I experienced a little bit of this in the market in Cancun, but it was nothing like this. Our guide removed us from the market scene and we went on to experience other stuff. Most locals not selling things were happy to see us, they would yell out in choppy english as we pass, "You, you Americans we welcome you here to Morocco!!!!" Interesting fact: Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States' independence. We visited a spice shop which included a very interesting demonstration of how to use all of the natural herbs, etc., we visited a rug store which included visiting the quarters to see the people in action making these rugs (this made me sad, it looked like a giant strip of sweat shops with people slaving away.....there are pictures of this). Each rug is 100% hand made with all natural dyes. In the rug shop we were served their own version of mint tea which was SO DELICIOUS. It was safe to drink because the water had been boiled. Probably my favorite thing of the whole day was when I got to RIDE A CAMEL!!!! I was sooo excited. We also got to dance around like fools with a local Moroccan band that was playing in the street (pictures of this also...) I loved getting to experience Morocco; these are the types of experiences that will shape the way I look at the world as a whole as well as the life I live in America. This was definitely one of the most unique things I've ever done, and it was by far one of the most enriching and eye-opening experiences that i've ever had. I would love to see more of Africa, even just more of Morocco; I was only in one tiny section of one small country of Africa for an extremely small amount of time, so I've only see a tiny tiny part of what their lives are like but regardless, I have been changed by the experience. I thought his was neat: Tangier is Morocco's second most important industrial center after Casablanca (anyone seen the movie?!) and they rely heavily on tourism, which I believe is part of the reason we were treated so kindly. We've got money, so they want us to come back and spend it in their country. If they are mean to us, we won't go back and spend money there. I felt pretty safe the whole time I was there, you just have to use common sense just like in any city. Once the sun sets I certainly wouldn't want to be out in the streets alone but overall, I felt good aobut where I was. Another thing I thought was interesting about this place is that Tangier offers 5 different types of educational systems: Arabic, French, Spanish, American, French, and English. The beggar kids on the streets could speak about 3 or 4 languages each. It blew my mind. I loved these kids though, I wish I could have stayed and played with them all day! You're not really supposed to give them stuff but we couldn't resist and almost all of us gave them our drinks and some small coins. I could go on forever about the different things I saw/thought while I was there but I've gotta stop somewhere.....we eventually made our way back to the ferry boat and paid our guide, and gave him many many thanks. We were so lucky to have him, he was excellent and stayed true to his word from the start about what we were doing/payment/etc. We made it through customs and took off on a much more calm ferry back to Spain since the waves had partially died down. That night we went to bed early since we were exhausted from the day's activities and Sunday woke up and had a leisurly breakfast and just chilled at the beach all day until we had to catch our 5:30 p.m. bus back to Sevilla.
I PROMISE I'M ABOUT DONE... I just began the last week of my session 2 class, final exam is on Friday. Some of my favorite people are leaving on Sunday so it will be really sad to see them go. I cannot believe how fast this time is flying. At this moment, I'm going to begin the photo uploads, so those should be available in the next hour or so. Oh and one last thing: Sevilla's socer team won the King's Cup for the fourth time in a game yesterday......the entire city was going NUTS......imagine center grove high school student section, except it's not just a student section, it's everyone. They don't mess around when it comes to team spirit! That was really fun to see, parties in the streets alllll night long with honking and Sevilla flags and colors everywhere. It was a big day for los Sevillanos!
I hope everyone is doing well......message me and tell me what is going on in your lives!!!!!
Miss and Love you ALLLLL!!!!!! =) Kristin