The end.

I kept thinking that leaving Valencia would be easier than it was. I think once I could start counting down the days left I had on my 2 hands it really started to hit me. This is the last time I'm going to take the bus to the university. This is the last time I'll walk through this park. This is the last time I'll eat at this restaurant. This is the last time I'll walk to my apartment. Things that didn't seem like a big deal really became a big deal to me. I wanted to make sure to see and experience as much as possible. Almost just like my first week in Valencia. I wanted to remember every single little detail.
My last week in Valencia was not as eventful as I had planned. I had planned to do so many things, but I had found out while vacationing with my parents that I had not passed a class the first time I took the exam for it, so I figured I'd better take the exam again during the second exam period. I talked to my professor and he was going to let me take it at the end of the week since I would not be in Spain still for when the exam was scheduled. So for the majority of the week I spent my time slaving away and studying. I met up with Natacha a few times and we would go buy a lunch at Mercadona and then eat and study at the library. Sometimes it was nice to get out of my room. Ana and I did a few more things together. I wish we had been able to do more while I was there, but it was hard for us because she was extremely busy finishing up her law degree. Ana, Natalia and I went to a little restaurant near our flat called "El Gato" one night. It was a bit expensive, but had really nice, traditional tapas. Natacha and I finally went to the Arab/Middle Ages Valencian restaurant I had wanted to go to for forever. (Restaurante Balansiya) It was super traditional and the owner had made all of the decor and plates and music traditional from Valencia in the Middle Ages. We had received a deal online for a 12 course meal split by 2 people with drinks, tea, and dessert included, was 15 Euros. Do you understand how cheap that is??!!? Oh my gosh it was such good food. It was far away. Near my old apartment, but it was so worth it. It's kinda hidden, I think that's why not many people know about it. You name the middle eastern food, we got it. hummus, falafel, tagine, salad, pita bread, kebab, etc. so freaking good. I wish I had known about it the whole time I was in Valencia!!
Natacha and I also went to a little carnival they had in the Turia. We decided to ride the huge ferris wheel, but immediately regretted it when we got sick! I bought some cotton candy and I was so excited, but it literally MELTED before I could eat it because the weather was so humid and hot in Valencia. So sad :( we also made sure to go to Umbracle and Las Animas as well. Her friend Jose from Puerto Rico paid for us to get in! how nice! so we chilled with him and his friends.

It really was the hardest thing saying goodbye to people you saw on a daily or weekly basis. People you almost don't realize. The guy who worked at the bike shop next to my place, or the waitress at my favorite restaurant, or the guy who owned the fruit/vegetable stand I always went to, and the lady who worked at the nearest Mercadona to my apartment. I had some fond little memories about those people and it was hard thinking I wouldn't see them again. The guy at the fruit/vegetable store always remembered that I was the foreign girl and insisted on calling me "chiquita" he even gave me free produce sometimes or would just charge me a flat amount. He was a nice guy. And the bike shop guy helped me with my garbage once, which Ana said he would never do for her or Natalia. He also always had his dog hanging out in our alleyway he was so cute. I it was necessary to be sure to say goodbye to all those people.

The final for the Eurocup was on the 1 of July. We went to a bar/cafe to watch it, Silje, Karla, Jenna, Natacha, and I. It was so packed and so crazy. The people went nuts whenever they thought it was possible to cheer. Whenever Spain made a goal against Italy, the crowd went insane. I had never seen anything like it. The Superbowl doesn't even compare with how insane the fans are when it come to Futbol in Spain. And lo and behold, Spain lived up to their infamous title of being some of the best soccer players in the world, beating Italy 4-0. :) What a way to end my time in Spain, by going out and watching an epic game with the locals.

Jonas and I spent a whole day just chilling. He was leaving before I was and we ended up trying to go shopping for trinkets and gifts for family. We seriously went to just about every shop in the city center that day. We ate at Cien Montaditos since it's super cheap and the olives are divine. Then it got so hot we went to an ice cream shop he knew about and got shakes and sat next to the Xátiva metro station entrance and drank them. We then walked around for a while until all the shops were closed and then sat and talked at a little Plaza off Calle Caballeros. And I went and bought a whole jar of olives for myself from a Chinese store that was still open at 11 at night. That was the last time I saw Jonas until I was going up to see him in Denmark!

I became obsessed with two things before leaving. Green olives and horchata. Oh my gosh. I would go to Mercadona and buy a liter of horchata and drink it all within a day. I think it was mostly because I knew I wouldn't be able to get that kind of delicious stuff once I got back to the U.S. 

 I went to my favorite restaurant 2 times that week, La Rentaora. I went with Ana and her friends before I met up with Natacha to ride our Valenbicis to the Carnival and on my last night there with Ana, Natacha, Silje, and Talitha.

On my last day, I wanted to see everything. I did. I woke up early and went to eat breakfast with Ana at a little place right around the corner from our place next to the Torres de Serrano, I went shopping for any extra trinkets, and then got a ride from Ana to the university to use their internet to print out things, I then rode a bus to pick up a bus ticket for later down to Alicante once I got back from Paris, and then walked back home along the Turia. I wish I had gone down there more. It is so nice. I wish every city had one. I then decided to be touristy and climb up the micalet tower to see Valencia from above. It was amazing, and I was so glad I did it even if it was by myself in the end. I then got back to my apartment and took a short nap, only to wake up and go to the beach with my friend Silje from Norway. :) I waited for her at las Arenas and made sure to find a horchata stand. Obsessed with that stuff! I wish I had figured out my passion for it months before. When she arrived, we found a nice spot by the water but because of all the fires going on in Spain, the ocean was very dirty with lots of debris and soot. She gave me a coin from Norway so I could wear it on a necklace to remember Norway and to have a little piece of it with me all the time. I wish we could have gotten to know each other a little better before, I really liked Silje and felt like we got along really well. We'll have to meet up sometime in the future and going on a traveling adventure or something. :)

I got home and had to change to get ready to go eat at La Rentaora. We all got ready and waited for a bit under the Torres for Silje and Talitha because they were late, which was fine, we just had to get to the restaurant in time to eat dinner. I had a lot of clothes that I had to throw away because I didn't have any room in my backpack, so we grabbed them and Ana and I were going to go donate them at the homeless shelter, but it wasn't even open, so, we chose the next best option. That was to put them near a dumpster and have people raid it and take what they wanted. We ate the brie with violet jam and bread, chorizo, salad of tomatoes and mozarella, pate on bread, and a chocolate lava cake. Delicious.

I said my goodbyes to Silje and Talitha and went back to finish packing. I gave Ana a pack of the glow sticks Mom had sent me and she had never seen them before!!!! I didn't know that was possible!!! wow. So we took pictures with them and talked for a while. It was around 3 and she went to bed. It was hard saying goodbye to Ana. She was always there for me, and I saw her every day. She is such a sweet girl and has so much going for her. I hope to see her again soon. I decided it wasn't a good idea to sleep at all since I had to leave about an hour after Ana fell asleep. When the time finally came, I said goodbye to my room and my house that I'll never see again and went off to the metro station. I walked to Plaza de la Reina until I could find a Valenbisi and rode to Xativa. My last Valenbisi ride. :( I waited for the metro for a little while.and then met up with Natacha on it to go to the airport to leave for our trip to Paris.

Once we were up in the air, I looked down at the city I had called home for the past 6 months. I was almost sick to my stomach thinking about not coming back. I took a picture of the city from the air with my crappy iPod. If anyone else looked at the picture I took, they wouldn't know what they were looking at. But I can look at that photo, and tell you exactly where I lived and the places I walked past everyday. And that is what matters most to me. I want to remember that connection I have with Valencia for the rest of my life.

I'm in Barcelona!

So things are going to go a little out of order. I went to Barcelona with my parents as well. Eh. what the heck. I'll just talk about it all right now.

Barcelona. First day was a chill day. We layed around for a good portion of the morning in Montserrat on June 21 (Thursday). Then we went to go see the monastery in the mountains there. You have to drive up a windy road to get there. It was neat, there was a lot of things up there to see. It didn't seem as old as I thought it would be. Still neat. We just hung out there and waited until later on to watch the boys choir sing. So we sat there and all the monks came out and sang too. It was strange being in their big cathedral while it was all going on. I had no idea what to do. But it was neat. My dad absolutely enjoyed it. He said it was the highlight of the whole trip. We then got back to the hostel and ate dinner there. It was pretty tasty for the price it was. Pasta and sausages and such.

Next day, we woke up suuuuuper early to go into Barcelona and see all the sights. We got up and left by 6 to catch the train into town. Holy crap. So we first went to La Sagrada Familia, the huge cathedral that is the most iconic part of Barcelona. Gaudi, the guy who created the whole thing, left specific instructions for it's completion. Specific patterns for the stained glass windows and everything in there. It was amazing. Probably my favorite cathedral of any I've ever seen and been into. It's so unique. So modern and unlike anything ever created before. It has so many things modeled on nature, with lizard and frog gargoyles to the inside looking like a forest of trees as the pillars. So neat. Definitely worth the money to get into. It'll take another 20 years or so to be fully finished. After that, we went to see some of the other buildings that Gaudi created. Pretty neat, but we didn't want to pay the ridiculous price to go inside...so we walked down to the street called "las Ramblas" there are lots of little booths to buy souvenirs and one of their main markets is in the center to go get food. We then walked down to the port and ate a hot dog. I didn't feel like dealing with eating tapas. So Mom and I had one and a lemon slush while looking at the water and boats. After that we went to the Picasso museum. It doesn't have many of his really famous works there, but there are hundreds of his early work and sketches and lots of prime examples of the evolution of his art. Pretty neat. We thought we would need a lot more time in Barcelona to see everything, but we then went and ate dinner on Las Ramblas and then took a taxi back to the train station. Mom and Dad seemed amazed at the ease I had taking the train back. They were worried we weren't on the right train. Oh mother. ;) So then we got back and crashed because we had to get up for another early day.

We had to get the car back on Saturday in Valencia by 11 a.m. so we got up early and left. Got the car back in time and then took a taxi to my apartment. It was nice to be home. for a week. We didn't spend a long time hanging out though. We packed some of my stuff then headed out to shop a little before going to see the formula 1 race cars Dad was so excited to see. After trying to see the cars for Dad down by the port, we took a taxi to the Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencia and explored around there for a little while. The taxi driver back to my apartment was so friendly and nice. I like being able to speak with the locals, that's where the real heart of Valencia is. Once we got back to my apartment, we went to eat. We went to Cien Montaditos and got some little sandwiches and olives. That's the only place I feel like you can get a decently huge size drink for your money's worth. We went shopping for presents after that and then did some packing. That night we went to La Rentaora to eat since it's my absolute favorite restaurant. Also, since not many people know about it, it's tucked away close to my apartment and usually you can find a table there. Ana and Natalia came later so we chatted with them for a while. We planned to go to el dia de San Juan later that night. It was a huge bonfire on the beach and at midnight you were suppose to run into the water and jump over 3 waves and make a wish. Mom and Dad had to leave early the next morning, so they opted to sleep and I went with Ana and Natalia to the beach. We were late, but got there and had some fun chatting and everything with friends. I met Natacha there so we could chill since I hadn't seen her in weeks! It took at least a half hour to get the tram to leave after though because there was so much traffic.

Awesome trip. Awesome family. Awesome friends. Awesome times. :) Definitely and unforgettable trip.

Slacking. On to France.

So. Last time I wrote, it was about getting into France! No border patrol really. Of course not. This is Europe! So I slept in on Tuesday, June 20, 2012. Mom and Dad went and got some divine baked goods and got our lunch as well. By the chocolate place I had a picture of! Off to drive then! We had a 4 hour drive up to Albi, France, so we hit the road. Once thing Mom noticed, of course, was that there were actually rest areas in France, and they were nice ones! Thank heaven. I swear. There are none on the highways in Spain. Seriously. One we stopped at had a nice little tribute to a part of the Tour de France. It was nice. We also got to snack on homemade butter with sausage and bread. And as a special treat....MACAROONS. Amazing.


Couldn't find parking! I think trying to find parking is the most stressful thing of traveling by car. Never know where to park the thing. Once, we did, we walked up to visit the Albi cathedral. It is the world's largest brick building. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself. The inside was really nice, with a big choir room that was behind the main worshiping part of the cathedral, with a very intricate ceiling. It was nice to have the audioguide to interpret what we were looking at. All of the walls and everything were painted instead of adorned with as many statues. It was unique in that way from all the other cathedrals I have been in. It was nice to see something different. Cathedrals start looking alike after the first 3 or so. We also toured the museum next to the cathedral with some interesting paintings in it. We almost got locked in, haha the guards were speaking to us in French and we had no idea what they were saying but they thought we knew.

BRICKS

Such talent 

Onto where we were staying for the night! I felt like Dad was taking us to the middle of nowhere, cause the GPS seemed to have a really hard time finding it. I thought maybe he had surprised us with camping for the last night in France since it pointed to an open field. Oh was I so wrong. Once we arrived at the real place, it was the complete opposite. We, ladies and gentlemen, were sleeping in a castle for the night. Yes, a small one, but, a castle is a castle people!!!!! It was gorgeous! Dad couldn't find the entrance. haha "But....how do you get into the castle?" The owner, Bridgette, was a really tall, kind, French lady. She showed us to our room, and it was just like I had stepped into Pride and Prejudice. A canopy, large mirrors, a mannequin with an antique dress and bonnet, old photographs, with a beautiful little key to open and close our door. Seriously. Has to be one of the coolest places I've ever been. It had a little hedge maze in the back, a pool, swings, and an old building where they use to keep birds? There was even a tower on our castle. Sweet! There were also old books, and music placed around the house. Very nice feel to the place. We decided to finish off the contents of our lunch for dinner, so we just brought it out and ate it on a table on the outside of the house. We didn't use knives, plates, or anything. We used the paper the bread and things were wrapped in before for our place mats, ate olives out of a packet, Dad was sitting with his shoes off and resting on an empty chair, and we were using our hands. Mind you, Bridgette came to ask us why we hadn't brought out plates or anything. Totally forgot, that in France, they are SUPER uptight about manners and eating with utensils and everything for meals. She probably thought we were the most disgusting people ever. I'm sorry America for shaming your name with such "slobs." Oh well, it tasted so good and that's all that I really cared about in the end. So we soaked it all in for the evening while it lightly rained, then went to sleep.

Wednesday June 21, 2012
Woke up, even slept in, and went to eat breakfast of croissants and intricate jellies. Yes I just described it like that. I guess Dad and Mom had a tour of the castle, I wanted to at least read a little bit out of my Pride and Prejudice book before leaving the castle. After leaving the castle, we were going to see ANOTHER castle. A bigger castle. The one used in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner in it. The Carcassonne Castle. Btw. We went past Toulouse, France, and found out later that day that there was a bank there where 8 hostages were taken and not released for most of the day! Scary! Anyways, we took some less trodden roads to Carcassonne through the French forest roads. It was really pretty. It felt almost like we were jsut driving around Scout Mountain or something. The castle in Carcassonne was pretty touristy, set up with many a shop and restaurant inside and overly priced carriage rides. But it was such the typical castle, you had to be impressed. Lots of towers with a cathedral as well of course. There was a really neat group of men that sang in the church. I was stupid enough not to put my memory card back in my camera before going, I kept thinking I had dropped it! Or someone somehow stole it for some odd reason as passing me by. 

Aw. Mom and Dad

After exploring the castle, we set off for Barcelona. Long ways. And along the way, Dad wanted to go past some more archaic, castle ruins in the French country. Well. That was quite the drive.  Windy and took us a long time. How I explained it to my brother Lane. "so we were going down this random country road in France today, and there's this huge tank in the middle of nowhere, like an army tank, so Dad is like, hmm. let's drive up this road and take pictures of it! It must be some sort of war memorial!!! so we drive, take pictures, and drive down the road some more and it ends up to be a freaking military base. And Dad is just la-dee-da-ing while there are men dressed in military uniforms on base. I was like Dad, make a U-turn IMMEDIATELY. I don't want to die because we were stupid tourists. They'll probably think we are spies! He took forever to finally decide to turn around. Wow. just wow."  

That was quite the experience. Anyways, long story short, we ditched the whole idea of seeing the other castles. The GPS was not leading us to anywhere with inhabitants, not even close, and the roads were getting sketchier and sketchier and we were running out of gas. We took a bigger looking road back to start our journey over again in Carcassonne, and it seriously took us 10 minutes or 15 max, where it took us an hour to get where we decided to turn around at on the mountain roads. RIDICULOUS. 

Drove to Montserrat, a little town outside of Barcelona, a much better alternative, where our hostel was for the next 3 nights. And passed out. Long days of traveling man.

The Basque Country

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Drove all day. Seriously. Left around 9 a.m. and got to Eskoriaza, a small town about an hour drive away from Bilbao, around 5 or 6 p.m. The drive. Was in short. Long. haha ironic word usage there. Pretty sure we only stopped for bathroom breaks and some diesel. It was really cool seeing the landscape change so drastically from desert in the south with ridiculously hot weather, to rolling mountains and forests in the north with cooler, rainier temperatures. The rain clouds just appeared out of nowhere when we went through the first mountain pass. We stayed at a house in the countryside. It was all brand new, the owners, Ani and Alex, had bought the house 10 years ago as an old, abandoned, caved-in house. They started from scratch and made it into a beautiful hotel. Super clean and everything was very tasteful. Ani had another job, so she was gone for a large part of the time. She spoke English, but Alex did not. So I acted as translator for him and my parents throughout our 3 day stay there. Good practice to say the least. haha. So we just hung out there for the night and Alex made us dinner. Salad, steak, olives, bread, etc. Yum! very good steak.

View from our room

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Bilbao bound today! Had breakfast at the hotel with fresh squeezed orange juice. my favorite :) We drove on the million toll roads to get in there and found some parking. Our first stop was the Guggenheim museum. Suuuuper cool building if I do say so myself. The main artist they were displaying inside was really neat. His name is David Hockney and he's a famous painter from England. Some of the modern art was almost disturbing I wont lie, but there was a really neat piece of art made with gigantic pieces of iron called "the wave" I think. You got to explore the spirals and stacks the artist made in that piece because it was that big. There is also a really cool dog sculpture outside the museum covered in a variety of bright and bold colored flowers. It was really hot in Bilbao that day. Dad wanted to head over to the old part of the town next to see the cathedral, so we walked the few kilometers it was away. There was a bridge we went over that looked a lot like some of the modern ones in Valencia. There was a little international fair going on too. When we got to the cathedral we couldn't enter because it is closed to tourists on Sundays. So we walked around and got some bakery treats while waiting for a decent time to go get Pintxos :) They are like Spanish tapas (little servings of food, kind of like appetizers) but they are the Basque version with a slice of bread and toppings on top with toothpicks through them. They are all at the bar and you grab a plate, grab the ones you like, and then the waiter will charge you according to the number of toothpicks you have in total. We ate a few good ones and thought we would go to some other places, but ended up just heading back to the hotel. It had been a long day of exploring for sure.

Bubbles!

Puppy!!

(Photos for this day courtesy of my father, since I guess I forgot to upload mine on my laptop!)

Monday, June 18, 2012

Leisurely took our time to leave Eskoriatza. Had breakfast and talked with Alex about Idaho (We were the first Americans to stay at their place since they opened up in February) and he talked about Basque culture. After that, we headed off to San Sebastian. Yeee. My friend Alberto here told me that San Sebastian was his favorite place and that I had to make sure to go there. It only took us a few hours in the car and then we just picked a parking garage and walked down by the port to eat some lunch, aka more pintxos and tapas!! We stuffed ourselves at one place and had a thing called mosto, which is just grape juice with a fancy name haha. We also met a family there from Soda Springs that was vacationing there for a few days!! What a small world. My dad was wearing a Tetons shirt, so the lady asked where we were from. Crazy man.
Did a little shopping after we filled up on lunch, they had some pretty neat stores. We wandered over to the port and walked down to the beach. There were tons of fish you could see in the sea! It was only about 65 or 70 degrees our and really overcast, so it wasn't good weather to go swimming. Sad day. Got some sand for me and then walked back to some more stores to buy some stuff. We stopped and had churros with hot chocolate, since I had been raving and ranting to my mom how much more delicious their hot chocolate here is. Yum.
And then we were off! To San Juan de Luz, just across the French border from San Sebastian. Got to our hotel, dude didn't speak much English. And. our hotel was above a restaurant! Ha! It was a really small town, and we were only 200 meters from the beach or less, Dad and I didn't feel too well, all that rich food had made our stomachs a little queasy, so we took a walk down to the beach and around the little downtown they had. Walked past an amazing chocolate store that had sculptures made of chocolate. Sweet! Mom saved me from walking into some dog crap. It was quite hilarious as she suddenly jerked me away from it. All the onlookers were laughing so much. I thought a car was going to hit me or something the way Mom reacted. hahaha. You guys probably didn't need to hear that, but it was freaking hilarious after the fact. Saw the sun set behind some clouds that made the sky light up in a pretty pink. Then we walked back to the hotel to get some shut eye.

San Sebastian

San Juan de Luz

Chocolate!

Sunset :)

Leaving Ronda...

Friday, we left Ronda to head over to Sevilla. Dad and I went on a run before having a schmorgesborg of tasty Spanish food for breakfast. It's so pretty running in the countryside, and though my bed always sounds better than waking up and jogging, I never regret it. It's always so beautiful and refreshing. Dad filled up 3 plates. It was hilarious. Mom loved the olive oil we got with our bread the night before, she wanted to drink it. hahaha. We also smuggled some food for the drive later too. The owner seriously was the sweetest lady ever. She made sure to keep us as comfortable as possible. So we said goodbye and left the fairy-tale like farm in the country side to go see La Cueva de las Piletas, it's a cave that was found in the 1920s that has thousands of cave drawings from thousands of years ago. It was kinda scary, the little old man guiding the tour wouldn't let us use artificial light (i.e. flashlights, phones, etc.) and only gave us a few karosine lanterns every 3rd or 4th person to light our path up through the cave. After he dispersed the lanterns, he also locked us into the cave. If something would happen to him, we'd be dead meat. It was really slick, but I'm glad they had carved some steps in. There were some pictures of horses, goats, bows and arrows, a lunar calendar, and fish. There were animal bones found in the cave and also human bones found in the cave that the other humans had EATEN. Dad said, "It's foreshadowing of what's to come." Creeper. The cave ran really deep, surprising to thing these ancient people could make their way that far into the cave without lights or anything. They must have had that whole thing memorized by heart.  Mom made some Swiss friends while we went in, she didn't want to go in. So after that we took off to Sevilla.
Long drive with lots of sunflower fields. Sevilla is a mess to drive through. My gosh. No parking and full of one way roads. We parked in a garage and found our hotel....hostel....smallest thing in the world. filled with many a young backpacker. We got the "special room up on the terrace." We had a bunk bed and a futon sort of thing and a shower. It was seriously probably half the size of my room back home, including the shower. And the bottom bunk was pretty much just on the ground. Hahahaha funny. Then we decided to go to the cathedral to see it. It's the biggest one in Europe, you can fit Notre Dame in it! But alas, it was closed when we got there :'( Sorry parents!!!! So we decided to try and find something to eat at 6 pm. Usually it's IMPOSSIBLE to find anything open at 6 pm serving dinner or any type of real food. But, we found one touristy place selling stuff. Yay! :) No more grumpy pants from any of us that were boiling in the heat. It's was so freaking hot. I don't know how we handled it. The old quarters closed too soon for us to go in their either. So we headed back in the direction we though we came from (a guide led us to the cathedral cause we were going to go on a long walking tour, but bagged it because it seemed like a long time walking 3 hours in the sun.) We made it though! Saw some cool shopping center with a huge Spanish flag on it. Then we dropped some stuff off to go to the flamenco show! Last time I came I was so impressed with it, with the theatre it was in, with the dancers, etc, that I knew that was one thing my parents shouldn't miss. So a guy guided us from our hostel to the place we were going to go see the show. It was NOTHING like the one I had gone to before.....It was in the back of a cafe/bar with fold up chairs all around the tiniest stage I had ever seen. I had no idea how even one dancer could fit on there! The singer, guitarist (made such funny faces and weird twitches he kinda looked retarded), and the dancers were all extremely talented, but it's hard to take seriously in such a place! We definitely went to the tiniest Flamenco dancing place in all of Sevilla. Seemed like this time around everything was much smaller. The hostels, the shows, the parking spaces....We led ourselves back to the hostel thanks to the help of Dad's GPS and went to sleep to get up to drive to Bilbao.

The Sevilla Cathedral. Christopher Columbus's remains are inside this place. (supposedly. The aren't exactly sure where his bones ended up with them switching it around all the time.)

España <3

Flamenco show......What??!

And the road leads on.

Tuesday. Woohoo. Woke up and made crepes for breakfast for the fam and for Ana. We decided to take her with us in the rental car to her pueblo called Pego about an hour and a half south of Valencia since she was planning on going down there anyways that day and it was on our way out of Valencia.
Walked down by the train station where the rental place was and got our car! It was large in European standards. haha. It's a Leon Ibiza. So Ana was our guide out of the city to her house. It ended up being her beach house we were taking her to. Oh my goodness the beach she lives on is AMAZING. I'm planning on visiting at least once before I leave it's really cool. Her mom was thrilled to have visitors even if my parents didn't speak a hint of Spanish and she knew no words in English. She wanted to take us to lunch, so we headed off to a restaurant and had paella. Her mom made her brother tag along, don't know how thrilled he was at that, but he talked with my mom quite a bit about the business he and his dad own. We then set off to go on our own adventure. I think it'll be more fun to use pictures to illustrate our trip so far since I'm a bit behind in my writing, so for now I'm putting pictures up in chronological order so you can see the vast differences in landscapes inside Spain.

First stop. Granada. Last time I came here, it was stormy and windy and cold. This time proved to be much better and I ended up liking it a lot. We got to our hotel and didn't have time to do much else. So we went to a restaurant the owner Pepe suggested to us. The next day, Wednesday, we went to see the Granada cathedral and have an Arab bath. It had different pools with different temperatures, a steam room, and then we got a message as well. Sweet!! Then we found our way up to the Alhambra to see the gardens since we had decided to see the Palace at night. Gardens=So much better in the summer than in winter. We ate some tapas at the bottom of the hill of the Alhambra and then went and found the bus back to our hotel. The Palace at night was amazing! It had such a different atmosphere at night, less tousity or something. We tried going to the lookout point on the other hill of the Alhambra, but our GPS was trying to lead us through these tiny sidestreets and is just wasn't working out, so we just bagged it.

We took off the next morning to head to Ronda, a city in the south of Spain that is a lot smaller than Granada or Valencia. We explored the city for a little while, toured the bull ring there, saw the amazing bridge it is known for where people got thrown off during the Spanish Civil War, and bought some little trinkets. We headed out to the country side to find out hotel for the night. It was a farm in the middle of nowhere that was SO beautiful. Huge room, pool, gardens, and a fancy dinner. The owner was extremely nice and told me that even though she lives so far away from Valencia, if I ever needed anything I could definitely write her a message and she would be glad to help.

Ronda Bull Ring

This is where the bulls would be let out to go into the ring.

Bridge in Ronda

Pretty pictures from the farm we stayed at in the country.

So beautiful. Soak it all in. That's what I did.

Sunflower fields and olive trees EVERYWHERE.

I'm trying to play catch up!

Monday.
Went to the beach. Dad and I went to swim and left Mom on the beach helpless when someone came to ask her to pay for the umbrella that we were sitting under. Sorry mom!! Mom and I went out to swim as well. It's so nice there are very small waves here, but when the "big" ones come in, that's when the fun begins! After getting all sandy and salty, we headed back to my house via tram. We went to Mercadona after so they could experience what I do when I go shopping for food. Mom loved the little cart/baskets you wheel behind you. Got some food for the trip starting on Tuesday, which we really didn't end up taking in the end. We waited for Ana to get done with her exam to take her to dinner with us. Josh came and met the parents and once he left for other dinner plans, we headed out. We decided to go get kebabs at the place I usually go to down on calle Caballeros. At least there is one decently priced restaurant in Valencia. I think both my parents and Ana really enjoyed meeting each other. Went home to catch some z's because we had to go pick up the rental car the next morning to head off on the next leg of our adventure!

I'm being terrible at this blogger thing, I know.

Don't even remember what day I ended off on my last post!

Let's see, toured my parents around Valencia until Tuesday morning where we picked up our rental car to start our adventure. That could be the end of my post.

But that's someone who doesn't care about any detail. I am all over detail. I like it too much.

It's almost been a week, bad news man, I'll get better I swear.

Saturday!
Seems like an eternity ago. Let's see. Took my parents to the Mercado Central, which they had a ball at. I always tend to get really stressed out because of the huge number of people that always seem to be there. We made sure to grab some shrimp for dad, a tomato for mom to try, and a meringue. Those are delish by the way. We then made our way to the jardines botanicos (Botanical gardens) since it wasn't going to be that hot that day. We passed the Torres de Quart as well on the way. I love that they have so many cats in the gardens!!! I miss my kitty, so it's nice to at least see a cat haha. I think Mom really enjoyed that. We went through the jardines de las hesperides (garden of the nymphs) and had some old crazy homeless lady yell at us because she thought we were taking pictures of her. We walked back on the Turia. It's so nice. I should have gone running on it more, but it was either me not wanting to wake up or it getting too hot for me to want to go out and run. Oh well I've walked on it a lot back home from school. We then went to relax at my apartment until dinner. I took them to my favorite little Spanish place. It has the best food. Seriously. It's called La Rentaora. It has awesome brie with violet jam and chorizo and jamon serrano and all the very authentic Spanish dishes. Even paté which we had. When we got back to the Plaza de la Virgen near my house, there was an orchestra setting up to perform...at 11:15 at night! haha That would never fly in Pocatello. So we stood behind them and watched them play the symbols. Pretty sweet. Then we had some fancy Italian style gelato at a place that just opened up by my street. and sat to look at the Torres de Serrano.

Sunday.
Went to the second hand market they always have on Sunday mornings behind the big Mestalla football stadium. Mom had a ball looking at all the little trinkets that they were selling, also all the junk. haha Some guy gave us handfuls of keys and such when we asked how much one key would be. It was great. My dad took a nap on the sidewalk. LOL some cop thought he was a homeless dude and honked at him. We ate at the same little cafe that I had eaten at the first full day I was in Valencia. We had paella and I realized the whole time I ever ordered paella here I kept thinking it was made with chicken, but it was really rabbit. hahaha I kept wondering what part of the chicken they were using because the bones were so little and everywhere. Duh Em. We went through the Jardines de Real and made our way over to the Fine Arts Museum. Always amazing to see the stuff inside there. Went and took a break at my house again. Went to my favorite Italian restaurant that night for dinner! Delicious. Seriously. Best food ever. Love it. Cous Cous pesto, lasagna, tiramisu...all so good. and so fancy!

Longest week of my life!

So as of 11:53 a.m. yesterday, I am done with exams and school here in Valencia!!! Relieved. So relieved. I guess I can't be TOO relieved until grades are published, but for now I'm going to rest easy. The exam I had yesterday though took me almost the full 3 hours to complete!! Lot's of writing and stuff. I am usually a fast test taker, but definitely not on this one, compared to the one I had on Tuesday that took me all but 3 minutes to complete, multiple choice. :)

Lots of studying.

Cleaned like a mother yesterday because my parents were arriving today! They were the last people to get out of the gate, I kept wondering if they had missed their flight here! It's so crazy seeing them here I wont lie. I'm so used to manning it alone ya know? But it's great to see family. You don't realize how important family is until you've been away for a while. It'll be great to see the rest of you when I get back!!

It's so insane. I have less than 2 weeks left in Valencia. My parents are hanging out with me here until Tuesday, and on Tuesday we go rent a rental car and take off on our epic tour of the majority of Spain! Starting in the south and driving up to the north and taking a peek at France as well. :) We get back after almost 2 weeks of traveling and my parents leave the next day to go home! Then I have one more week here, and then it's off to possibly France and then to Denmark! I'm pumped to see my cousin Martin! And hang out with Jonas there!

So today, we took the metro stop Colon to show my parents the center while heading to my apartment. They loved the architecture around. I like showing people around. It makes me pay more attention to things I usually just walk past since I'm so used to living here. We dropped off their stuff at my place and went to look at the big statues and shrines they had out for corpus christi and the Torres de Serranos. and ate gelato. Yum. Then we walked down on the Turia and saw all the pretty flowers in bloom. We walked down to the "Festival of the Nations" which has a whole bunch of shops and restaurants from all around the world; Brazil, Argentina, Peru, India, Morocco, France, Australia, Dominican Republic, etc. They had kangaroo kebabs at the Australian place, Guarana at the Brazilian place, and for the American food stand they were serving up some delicious chicken nuggets, and OBAMA RIBS. hahahahahahahaha whilst playing AC/DC. Ridiculous. Dirty deeds. Done Dirt Cheap. That's 'merica. I got curry. I love curry. Mom got a churrasco kind of hot dog thing at the Argentinian place, and Dad got a kebab from the Brasilian place. We walked around the shops. They were pretty awesome. And then found there was a little tea/shisha place in the back! So we went over there and sat on the small little chairs and drank Moroccan mint tea. The guy working there was so impressed that I knew the singer of the songs he was playing (Amr Diab) and was so excited that I knew some Arabic that he gave me a free little pastry hehe. It was awesome though, we payed 7 euros for 3 glasses of tea, and in the end, we got to KEEP our glasses!!! I was going to ask how much it would cost to buy them themselves, guess I didn't have to!

Walked back home and realized they had started the procession of taking all of the figures to Plaza de la Virgen so we went to the Plaza and watched them wheel in the other ones with bands playing and just enjoying the beautiful weather and such. Great day in Valencia. Great day. So happy my parents are here and I get to share my city with them. It's gonna be wonderful. Give me a reason to go see all the touristy places I haven't seen yet as well!

Well, I'm off to sleep for a bit. I think we are getting up early to see the sights!

"It is said with every language you speak, you gain a new soul."

infestation.

We have killed 3 Cockroaches in our apartment in the past week or so!!!!!

I hate them.

I would so much rather deal with spiders. At least spiders are little things where these buggers are freaking huge!!

This morning I woke up and Ana had left a note on the door to our living room and bathroom and such that was closed. It's never closed. But it read. There's a cockroach in the bathroom. I couldn't kill it! I had no desire to open the doors. But I really had to pee so I opened the first door, nothing. Opened the bathroom door........................................nothing. I was like what?! Did she imagine it? So I went about my day as normal.

When both of my flatmate's got home tonight, we went out to eat tapas and talk. It was at a nice little place that was very Spanish and authentic. Great food. Kinda expensive though, so I didn't get much. Fried brie with blueberry jelly, squid, some bocadillo kind of things, patatas bravas, etc.

So, we get home and had closed the door. Then we opened it to find the COCKROACH. chilling in the corner of our living room. Ana and I refused to kill it, it's just too gross, and Natalia was like fine I will kill it, give me a minute to get out of the bathroom! So Ana and I hid in the hallway while Natalia used the leg of a chair to kill it since she didn't want to use her shoes. Hahahaha we are so terrified of them! They are so scary!

Totally a bonding moment for the three of us hahahahaha.

Back to studying!! I have an exam tomorrow! Wish me luck!

remnants of Morocco

So if you look down at my hand, there is still the faint outlining of my henna I got in Morocco. I love it. I must have been SO much whiter before I got my henna. It's pretty faint though, I don't know if I could capture it in a photo. It's awesome though.

I went to dinner with some friends to an Italian place. It was my friend Juan's last Friday in Valencia, he is leaving tomorrow! So we had some pizza and pasta to hang out with him, and we then went to this discoteca that is outside in the botanical garden thing by the big modern museums and buildings "la ciudad de las artes y ciencias". It was pretty chill.

Today I went to the beach. I love swimming. I never want to get out of the water. ever. It's the perfect temperature too. You don't ever get cold. Though a storm was coming so we had to ditch early. Me Josh and Jonas I mean.

We worked on our Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions as well. Jonas wins. He is obsessed.

Went grocery shopping in the nasty wind and stormy looking ness. Our gas stove is out of gas, so I've been trying to buy groceries that don't involve cooking.

Very unmotivated at the moment to study. I don't want to. But I just have to keep thinking that by this time next week, I'll be finished with school finally. Hopefully. Cross your fingers. I have 2 classes passed, 2 to go.

Here have a picture! I haven't put any of those up lately.

My henna before

Ah. I love when this happens. The towers make my city look so magical. :)

Weird fashion

By the way. On my way to school if I ever take the bus, I go past a boutique with a whole window display of clothing and attire with the American flag on them. That is all the rage here. Our flag is 'so in right now.'

My blog is almost to 1000 page views!!!! :D

Woooo!!! I didn't think my blog could be so popular as to get 1000 page views, but it seems possible with only 2 more page views left to hit it! Cool!! :)

So. Not much going on. Just been trying to paint and draw and read more between study sessions. I realized not including the time my parents will be here, I have 2 weeks on my own left in Valencia virtually. That's really scary! I'm trying to think of things I haven't done yet or places I want to go visit before the time comes to say goodbye to my home away from home.

I went and ate 2 time in the past 2 weeks at 100 montaditos. It's a mini sandwich place. pretty good, and super cheap. No wonder it's always crowded, especially on Wednesdays where you pay only 1 euro for anything on the menu pretty much.

I just want to be at the beach every day! but. I have to study. Jonas came over on Tuesday for the whole day essentially because his internet was out at his place. So that made me have to study and chill on my computer all day. haha. I'm trying to wake up early to go running. That's not working. hahaha. I wish it was. but. My bed is so much more comfortable.

I am writing a bucket list!! How fun eh? I have never actually had an official one, so I decided to start one. Also one of the things I can already cross off my bucket list. That list might end up to be WAY too long. Both of them! So, tell me, what kind of things are on your bucket list? I may have to steal some of your guys' ideas!!

Great weekend!

Alright my pretties, another update on the life of Emily!

My plant died. :( Sad. I tried so many different things to keep it alive, but in the end, I did not succeed...

I walked out of my last class here at 3:30 p.m. last Wednesday. Feels awesome.

I had my first final at 9 a.m. this morning. It was my British and U.S. history class. Surprisingly hard test.

Alrighty, so my weekend went a little like this.
Friday, I went to dinner with Josh. I ate some patatas bravas, he ate a kebab at my favorite little sit down kebab place close to my place. I didn't feel like doing too much, but I wanted to get out of my apartment because I found out my Grandpa Glenn passed away on Thursday. It's really hard being so far away and not being able to be with family at this hard time. I'm really glad I got to Skype with him a few weeks ago. He kept telling me to do a good job and that he was proud of me. I'll sure miss him.

Saturday I went to the Oceanografica in La Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias. We got a half off discount and went with an Erasmus group, so I got to go with Natacha and my friend Silje and her friend Talitha. We saw a dolphin show, that was the highlight. The dolphins were soooo cute. and extremely smart! We also got to walk through 2 of those underwater tunnels with tons of sharks and rays and eels and stuff swimming around us. Walruses are huge too! Anyways, overall it was fun going with friends. Not the best aquarium that I have ever been to, but it was great. I walked there. 5 km from my house, and I walked back. It was such a hot day! We went and ate lunch at the mall that was near, and I bought some cheap flip flops. Later that night I went to my friend Silje's apartment, which I got lost to, (there were two number 9 apartments on the same street!!!!) and we watched a thing called "Eurovision" it's like Europe's version of American Idol, with a singer from each country competing against the others in Europe. Sweden won in the end. The chick did some weird modern dance thing. And some Russian grannies got second. I wanted them to win! It was really fun. and Silje made this DELICIOUS Norwegian apple cake. mmm...I ate so much junk food. There goes all the hard work I did on my diet from the last week! hahaha.

Sunday, Juan came over to study, and then we took a break and met Jonas and some of his friends at the beach. I didn't wear my swimsuit cause last time I went with Cortney, there were TOO many jellyfish for me to go swimming!!! But there were none in sight this time, so I went swimming in my shorts and tank top anyways. :) The water was great. Not so cold you had to get out immediately. It was extremely warm and I stayed in for a long time. Very little waves and shallow so you can swim out pretty dang far. Then we went to Juan's house and ate some pasta for dinner and studied some more. Then I took a Valenbisi back home and did some more studying!!!

I think this weekend was a success. One of the funnest ones I've had for a while. :)

Only two more finals to go next week to be done. woot.

Oh no.

I've been a bad blog writer. I wrote about Morocco, but haven't written about what happened back in Valencia!

Ok. Here's the low down. Actually just the highlights.

-Cortney and I went to dinner at this Italian restaurant I love. We had some DELICIOUS pesto couscous with arugula lettuce. So good. And I had some pesto pasta as well. YUM.
-We went and saw Johnny Depp's new movie....Dark Shadows? I think that's the English title? It was interesting. She thought the candy as awesome as I do. :)
-We played cards underneath the Torres de Serrano, and met some interesting street musicians at 2 in the morning. Crazy. We went to a cool antique store across from the tea shop I adore.
-Cortney left!!! :( sad day. So I dropped her off at the airport and I wont see her for a few more months now!
-I went to school all day Wednesday. I went to the library, and there was a security guard at the front who was wary of letting me in because I didn't have my school I.D. on me? weird. They must be really scared of books getting stolen. IDK.
-I FINALLY met Alberto! The Spanish kid from Valladolid that really wants to go to ISU to study abroad next year. He really wants to go to the U.S. and that's the only option he has. So we'll see if he can get everything figured out. It's been a mess for him. Poor kid. He's awesome! We have been talking on Facebook since February, but our free time never seemed to work out so we could meet up. So it was good to finally meet! We met at the psychology building and then walked to a bar/cafe to talk. We ended up talking for like 4 hours when we both thought we would be done a lot earlier than that. :) I realized where we were at was the same place Josh and I came our first night in Valencia to try to find something to eat at like midnight and they sold hot dogs! Now I know where the delicious hot dogs are sold. I will be returning there someday soon.
-I got Natacha to go with me to Alberto's concert in Carcaixent, like 40 minutes by train outside Valencia, and once we got there it started POURING. Flash rain storm! Geez. I wore the wrong shoes of course, the ones that soak up water like none other. We found the club he was going to perform at at 8, but he had texted me while we were on the train saying because of the weather and not enough people showing up yet, they moved it to 11, and our train ride home was at 10:30, it was the last one back to Valencia until 6 a.m.! He offered that his friend was driving back at like 4 or 5, but I had some homework that needed to be finished that night. So we hung out with him and met some of his friends until we left a few hours later. There was no one in the club, we danced for a while, then decided to just explore the city. Nothing too exciting. But there was a view of the MOUNTAINS! Oh man. I miss mountains so much. Whenever I have the chance to see mountains I get so excited! He also offered to go with us back to the train station, nice. I am sad I didn't get to see him rap!! It would've been SO cool I think. I told him he'll have to just rap for me sometime. hahaha.
-I have finals coming up, so I need to stop being lazy and GET TO IT. Studying I mean.
-Jonas and I made Danish crepes on Friday before I went to see Alberto. So good!! With ice cream and everything. Be jealous.
-Today, we went and chilled at the Turia and soaked up some beautiful Sunshine!!! Whilst being harassed by some weird guy. hahaha only for a few minutes though.

It's so crazy a whole semester is coming to an end already. I need to do more stuff! My parents come for 2 weeks in 2 weeks, then I have about another week or so left in Valencia after that, then I'm off to Denmark!!!! 

Goodbyes are always hard.

Oh my gosh! We were hoping if the old French dude sharing our room was an early-to-bed kind of guy, he would also be an early riser so we didn't have to interact with him at all. We got up around 9 or so to get as much fit in as possible on our last day in Morocco. Cortney and I went to eat breakfast since Josh didn't want to get up. We had the Moroccan crepes, bread, tea, and orange juice again. Sooo good for 2 bucks aka 20 dirham. The employees in the hostel are awesome. Azziz on the first day didn't have the correct change for us when we paid for our room, so he gave us extra and just said, whenever you have the money, just give it to me, no problem.

We got dressed, packed, and decided the Majorelle Gardens were first on our list to cross off. They were up a little north from our hostel. We got to an ATM and took some money off of my credit card, and then tried to find a shop that sold bottled water. We found the super market and went down to the basement of what seemed like a West Wood Mall to the super market. We didn't have small change, and the women that were working at the cash registers were really mean about us not having smaller change to buy some bottled waters. :( sad. We finally got them after going to 3 or 4 different lines and getting skanked out. They must not like their jobs. We walked to the Majorelle Gardens and found them to be much better than expected. It was so green and beautiful, with lots of blooming plants and brightly colored buildings all around. There was one that was colored bright blue with yellow accents that just worked so well with the green of all the plants around it. Such a Moroccan feel, I loved it. There were also many ponds with little fishes in it, and a lily pond with lots of lily pads and flowers and turtles! I think Mom would have really enjoyed the gardens. It was nice to be in the shade out of the sun.

We walked back to our hostel to grab our backpacks so we could catch a taxi to the airport wherever we ended up last instead of having to walk all the way back to the hostel. We said goodbye to Mohamed since he was leaving to go back to Rabat, and to our new Spanish friends, who we would see later on at the airport. Latifa had let us place our backpacks in a locked room so we went to go get her so we could get our backpacks. She told us we should sit down and rest, but we needed to get going. She was such a sweetheart. I really liked her a lot. I wanted a picture with her to remember her by, but she told me she would prefer not to have her picture taken, which I respected. She was so cute, and I said goodbye to her. Hopefully one day I'll be able to come back if she still works at the same hostel that is.

We walked to the square to get some lunch and buy some earrings before catching a taxi, we realized we didn't have enough time to go to any more attractions. So we bought some earrings and got a shawarma in an extremely warm shop. We also had our last glass of fresh squeezed cheap orange juice. It was so hot. I don't remember the last time I sweated that much. Maybe in Dad's sauna back home. How I was wearing a scarf, I don't know. Mohamed had told us the most we should pay for a taxi to the airport was 50 dirham, so we went to the group of taxi drivers and haggled like pros. They started at 150, and we kept walking away until we agreed on 60. We felt awesome cause we didn't get ripped off again like we had the first day!

They wouldn't let me exchange money at the airport cause I didn't have the slip they gave me when they exchanged money the first day we were in Marrakesh. How stupid. And then we waited. We found our Spanish friends and I talked with them about their adventures during the time they were there. Good, I got a little Spanish practice that trip, I haven't been using it a lot with Cortney around. We waited in line and got on the plane. Really short flight home. We all passed out since we had gotten such little sleep the entire trip. Then, we were back in Valencia.....

Man. This trip made me miss Arab countries so much. They are so interesting. It was really cool though, we went and bought kebabs, and then as we were walking to my flat, we heard music coming from the Plaza de la Virgen. It was 11 at night, and there was a symphony playing with a huge crowd gathered!! I guess there were also going to be fireworks and traditional dancers later that night, but I was so ready to go to sleep after so much traveling the whole week.

All in all, what a wonderful and exotic trip! And what an elaborate blog I have to remember it by! :)

Longest drive of my life.

Cortney and I totally saw a Jerusalem cricket when we went to the bathroom tent. Holy cow they are so creepy. When seh saw it, she made it seem like she had seen a freaking viper!! 

I lied. I thought I wouldn't use the blanket they supplied me in my tent. But throughout the night, I slowly unfolded it one fold at a time throughout the whole night. I didn't want to conform! haaaa.

I woke up late.

I missed the sun rise. 

Of course I did.

I'm surprised I slept through it since obviously the Venezuelan guy had gotten up for it. He was so loud. All the time.

The nomads slept on the dunes behind our tent. I thought they would have slept in a tent as well. I suppose they liked sleeping under the stars while there still weren't really creepy bugs and snakes out in the desert. They come out in the summer I've heard.

So we got up and had bread with fresh butter and marmalade and tea. I think the butter and the milk that people used in their coffee was actually camel milk and butter. How cool is that?! 

We didn't waste any time getting back on our camels and heading back to civilization to get in our van again to head back to Marrakesh. The loud South Americans definitely ruined the atmosphere of the camel ride back. Ha the Venezuelan guy said he was a professional rip boarder in Europe right now...Lamest thing I´ve ever heard in my life, I am sorry. We also heard some of them talking and in mid sentence they said "Like a boss" in English. Cortney was like Whaaaa?? Hahaha that's funny that there's some English phrases that they just say for slang instead of translate. We gave Mustafa a small tip and got some pictures with him. Some little kids wanted us to buy these camels made out of grass, so Josh and Cortney got one. Once our van got there, we were off.

Holy crap it took forever to get back. We stopped a lot, so that's good, but we had seen all of the sites the first day, so we just drove today. We stopped for a Coca-Cola and found a frog in the bathroom?!??! A pet I'm guessing?! It was the middle of the desert!
We ate some tagine at a little cafe where there was this little kitty that kept wanting food. It was so precious. I miss my kitty. We tried sleeping while we were going over the passes in the Atlas Mountains again, but we'd be jerked awake by Ahmed flying around a corner. Cortney definitely almost fell out of her chair once. INSANE. The terrain started changing again, and we were back into the nice green side of the mountains, with the cute little Berber villages tucked away. Then we got down to below the mountains near Marrakesh. Oh man. You would think it would be hotter in the desert than in Marrakesh, but it was the total opposite. It was soooooo hot!!! There was no air conditioning in the van either, which didn't help. They went through the Jewish quarter to get back to our hostel. It was amazing to watch Ahmed maneuver through the extremely narrow streets in our big van. I was amazed.

The first thing I wanted to do when we got back to our hostel was take a cold shower. It felt amazing. Though we had to use hand soap as shampoo since ours was all gone. Mohamed gave Josh some of his shampoo to use after Cort and I had taken a shower!!!! How lucky is he. Oh well, the hand soap seemed to make my hair a lot curlier than usual, so I was okay with that.

Mohamed wanted to take us back to the Jemaa el-Fnaa square again so we could buy the things we wanted to buy. We went back and tried to take out some money from my debit card since we were fresh out. But. I guess what we didn't know was that my debit card doesn't work in Morocco because of the large amount of frauds that occur down there. It's one of the like 5 countries where debits cards (at least ones associated with Key Bank) don't work. So we mooched off Josh. Mohamed made sure we tried some interesting Moroccan foods too. We tried avocado milk. That. was delicious! I am now pretty much craving it all the time. Oh. We also ate SNAILS!!! I hadn't tried them yet. So we went to a booth and got a whole bowl full of 'em. You just pick one up, take a toothpick, and pull out the little guy, then eat him. If you didn't think about what you were eating, it was pretty tasty! But if you though about the antennae and stuff, it just made them very unappetizing. Josh couldn't stand them. I was a little bit more of a trooper and ate 4 or 5. You were also suppose to drink up all the soupy stuff they were in. It was nice and spicey. Very flavorful, but I only drank a little. After that, we went to buy some stuff!

We had a little technique to get the best deal, I would go and look at the things I wanted and then sneakily let Mohamed know what it was, and he would pretend he wasn't associated with me, and then would haggle the price with the merchant. If he was selling it for too much and couldn't be talked down, we would head to the next shop and do the same thing. Oooo we are so tricky. :) I bought some baggy pants, cause they are awesome. Cort and I wanted to get some for sure while we were in Morocco. I also bought some other things...like Dad's present! We then went to eat at one of the stalls in the middle of the square and I had some eggplant and breaded cheese thing and APPLE SODA!!! I am gonna miss apple soda. That stuff was delicious. Josh wanted to get his taro cards read 2 days ago, I forgot to mention that. But the lady doing it was so terrible at it, she couldn't even convince anyone she knew what she was doing. Anyways, Cort wanted henna!! So we went and got some more henna done. With Mohamed's help, it was only 2 or 3 dollars to get a huge one done. What a steal! In the U.S. the one I got at the Renaissance Festival in Arizona was 15 bucks and it was tiny! I think I would love to learn to do some cool designs with the henna kit I have at home. Maybe Aneka will let me practice on her. ;)

We decided Mohamed needed to do something he wanted to do, since he'd been playing tour guide all these days. I think he liked that very much that he could do something fun that he enjoyed as well. We decided to go to the new part of the town to see some real belly dancers! He thought I would like that since I told him I took a class last semester. It wasn't far, and it was in a really nice restaurant they were dancing. Man, they were pretty good. Maybe not spot on with the rhythm of the music, but I could definitely not pull out the dance moves they could! Practice makes perfect I suppose haha. We then went to a Karaoke bar because both Mohamed and Josh LOVE to sing. So we went and listened to a whole bunch of people sing some random French songs that I didn't know. But they also had breaks between the singers so we could dance to music we knew as well. It was really fun! Mohamed was hilarious when he was dancing, so I figured, why not be ridiculous as well?! It was awesome, I enjoyed my time there very much. The music was SO loud though. We then went next door because there was a live Arabic band playing!! Now, how many people do you know that have actually listened to live Arabic music?! Uh, I know I definitely know of none! It was late, and I was getting grumpy though, so we went back to the hostel. There was an old guy sharing our room for our last night. It was lame. He was already asleep when we got there, making it difficult to get to my top bunk without making much noise ( I had to bed jump from one bunk bed to the next to make less noise ). Oh well, at least it was only for one night. Woohoo.

The Nomads and camels...a visual peak

Here are some pictures of our day driving and seeing the sights in Morocco! :)

And the safari begins....

EARLY!
I don't like waking up early. Well. I do. But, that's just not me. If I were that type of person that didn't enjoy my sleep way too much, I would love to be an early bird.
We woke up and had to be ready to leave at 7 a.m. to go to the desert! Our guide for the next 2 days, Ismail, came to pick us up right at 7. We packed our stuff and were off! It ended up being that it was only us 3 that were going to be on the tour we had booked. This made our cheap deal even better! We had our very own private tour guide and van. Wonderful. It was the same way in Egypt. The whole time it reminded me of the tour I did in Egypt. Our driver's name was Ahmed, and he didn't speak much English. After getting out of the city, we headed towards the Atlas Mountains. Once we got into the mountains, I had not realized that there were forests and such in Morocco as well as deserts! It was a really neat road, the mountains were green with plants and there were little Berber villages tucked away in many places along the valleys and mountainsides. We stopped at a cafe on a hill top for breakfast. It was nice and cool in the mountains, not as much of a harsh heat as there was in Marrakesh.  We had omelettes filled with cheese. Yum. What I loved about Morocco was the fact that instead of having a salt and pepper shaker, they had a salt and cumin shaker. What an awesome idea! I am so stealing that idea. We also got hot sauce to put on our omelette!!! I have missed spicy food! That is pretty much non-existent in Spain. Everything is pretty bland, no spice. The olives were delicious as well. Probably grown near by as well. We also had the traditional bread served with it as well along with some tea. Then we started on the long drive awaiting us for the rest of the day.

We stopped at a place where the women who worked there demonstrated how Argan oil is made. The nuts of the tree, which is indigenous to Morocco and only grows there, are broken to get the seed on the inside and then the seeds are placed into a grinder, then put into a press, and pressed until they can extract the oil from it. The rest of the pulp is then made into soaps and other things. Argan oil is used for a lot of things. Most typical uses of it is to protect and gloss hair and skin, but it can also be used in cooking and to make things. We got to taste Argan honey, and a kind of Argan spread used like Nutella. Of course the place we stopped at was extremely expensive, so none of us ended up buying anything. It was 10 Euros for lip balm! I think I'll stick to the stuff I get in the U.S.

We then headed to the "windiest road in Africa" and a huge pass in the Atlas Mountains. Our driver was insane. I mean, he was the man, but he was so gutsy. He would pass people with blind corners up ahead of him and a cliff to one side of him, he drove ridiculously fast even around corners, and he definitely got into his music. We got to listen to traditional Berber music the entire way. Berbers were the original inhabitants of Morocco before the Arabs invaded. Most of them now live outside of the major cities in villages and speak Berber. Man, I got pretty sick though going on that road. I know Mom would not have enjoyed herself on that drive. We stopped to see some beautiful views. The mountains were probably some of the biggest I had seen in my life. Everyone honks here. Not as much as Egypt, but it's a lot different than the U.S. where here they honk not only if they are upset at something, they honk to say hello, or let them know they are passing, etc. The terrain started to change after the pass, many of the mountains reminded me of ones in Utah. Once we got down to lower elevation (I think we were at about 2500m), the landscape started looking more barren and more like a desert.

We took a road off to the famous Ait Benhaddou Kasbah. A kasbah is a type of Islamic city that is usually built on a hilltop, making it easier to defend. The buildings are built out of mud and there is usually a wall surrounding it in order to make it more protected. There are many in Morocco, and the Ait Benhaddou Kashbah is famous because many Hollywood films were filmed here including Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, the Prince of Persia, the Mummy, and Kingdom of Heaven. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and in order to protect the inhabitants, they built a new city across the river from the original kasbah for them to live. Only 10 families still live in the original kasbah. It was crazy. We stopped to take pictures of it from afar, and then drove closer. There was so much stuff that had been left and abandoned by Hollywood. Crazy. We went into a man's home, who was actually an extra in many of the films. It's hard to fly in hundreds of extras, so they gave many of the locals jobs doing so. He had kept some of the props from the movies that we got to see; swords, shields, spears, etc. We went into this room that was built into the rock of the hill that was used in jail scenes in some of the movies. It was only lit by a lamp and we were served mint tea and home-grown almonds. They were delicious. Very neat. We then hiked up to the top of the city to the house the leader of the city would have lived in. We made our way back to the van in the new city. As we crossed the bridge we saw a lady cleaning her clothing in the river and some little kids playing in the river. It was cute. The inhabitants must be a little wealthier than most, "they even have a pizzeria" Cortney and I noticed at the same time. On to the next stop!

We stopped for lunch at a city a little ways away. We had kebabs and couscous. Ismail and Ahmed never ate with us, I think that is protocol for most guides though usually.

The van was not air conditioned. It was so warm in there! We downed water like it was no one's business. We got into the van after lunch and saw another famous Kasbah next to the restaurant we ate at and some famous Moroccan movie studios.

Our next stop was an overlooking of the largest valley in Morocco, and it was FILLED with palm trees. I had never seen so many palm trees in my entire life. It was like a pine forest replaced with palm trees. It was amazing and it spanned for MILES. Very impressive. That would have been a very nice site to see if you had been traveling in the desert for weeks.

We finally got to the desert to get on our camels!!! Ismail dropped us off and we got on our little camel train. Not as scary getting on this time as I remember it being when I first rode a camel in Cairo. I am really glad I decided to drag my clunker of a camera all the way down to Morocco. I think I got some really nice pictures from it. We totally sang "Walk Like an Egyptian" and many Arabic songs along the way. The beginning of the ride wasn't in sand dunes or anything, it was next to some palm trees and it was more of a dirt terrain at first. We saw a goat herder! He was fun with his cute little goats. We got into the sand dunes and saw in the distance the circle of tents that would be our camp for the night. The guy who was guiding us there was a nomad! He is a Berber and his name is Mustafa. He stopped our camels and we headed over to put our stuff in our tent. There were a few tents in the circle, and he led us to our tent. We came out and he made us Moroccan mint tea as usual and chatted with us. He had been working doing this for a few weeks and he said that once he had worked in Marrakesh for 2 years, but he didn't like the life of living in the city so he went back to his family. He said they had moved because of the rain though, so he had to go find them. They move depending on the rain and seasons, and they mostly rotate between certain spots. He was funny. He knew Spanish better than English he said. Another group of people on camels came in, and we found out we were sharing our camp with a group of about 20 South Americans. When the arrived and joined us for tea, a very loud Venezuelan dude asked us if we spoke Spanish, but we decided since Cortney can't speak Spanish, we weren't going to speak Spanish with them, so we said no. It was kind of nice just listening to what they were talking about. And I realized it was SO easy to understand what they were saying. I must still be very used to Latin American Spanish more than Castellano. We went and sat on the sand and just enjoyed the quiet of being in the desert with so much space. I miss that so much. It's such a change living in a big city where you never see the stars at night or hear silence.
We were summoned to dinner and headed to the main tent. We sat at our own table and Ismail came and joined us for once! The nomads of our camp had prepared Tagine, a Berber dish consisting of chicken and vegetables. It is named for the clay pot that it is cooked in with a base that is round and with a sort of coned top with a hole for steam to escape. Honestly, I think it was the tastiest chicken I had ever eaten. It was perfectly moist and delicious. They cook the meat in the middle of all the vegetables, which is an excellent idea. We had a heap of bread to eat it with as well, and for dinner we had juicy melon! Oh man, it was such a good dinner. We left afterwards and sat on a dune again just looking at the ridiculous amount of stars that were out. It was so beautiful. There was just a small glow of the small towns that were near. I just could not believe how surreal it felt, being in the Sahara with nomads and my best friend. What more could a girl ask for if she wants adventure? Ismail taught me some more Arabic words, which I am always willing to learn. He also said he does this tour at least 1 or 2 times a week along with other longer tours. I bet he gets extremely tired of that long drive.

The nomads then built a bonfire and started playing their traditional music on drums that they had made themselves out of camel hides and skins!!! It was neat!!! So neat. We just danced around the fire and enjoyed the atmosphere of the whole experience. Mustafa came over to me and started trying to teach me how to play the drums. I am really bad at rhythm obviously. It was hard for me to get it down. He was amazing at it though and he sang along with it as well in Berber. I asked him what they usually sing about, and he said usually it's things about how peaceful life is in the desert, about how loud it is to live in a city and how it is better to live in nature, or about the history of their ancestors and their adventures, or of course about love. He was also joking around trying to think of western songs he knew of. He said the other night him and his friends made a version of Bob Marley's song "No Woman No Cry" entitled "No Camel No Cry" instead. He was hilarious. I really enjoyed talking with someone with such a different lifestyle than my own. It would be so neat to live with nomads for a few months just to see how they function, without cell phones and everything. All that you own and all that you value is with you. Not so dependent on technology and to be with your family all the time. The only drawback was how extremely loud and annoying the South Americans were being. It was a little irritating. They kept trying to make this experience more like a party on the beach instead and it got old really fast. We decided to hit the sack after a while since we had yet another long day ahead of us in which we probably couldn't get much sleep on the drive since it was so windy and Ahmed was such a crazy driver. It was super hot inside the tent and I kept thinking there's no way I was going to need the blanket they had provided for me on my little mattress.

I climbed into bed listening to the music of the nomads on the dunes behind our tent thinking, this is the life.