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.

Morocco day 2

Isn´t all this detail so exciting????!
day 2. woohoo.

Today was our only full day in Marrakesh so we figured we´d make the best out of it. We woke up and Josh and I went to go eat breakfast while Cortney showered. It only cost 2€ and was delicious. It consisted of freshly squeezed orange juice, bread, tea, and freshly made Moroccan crepes that the women of the hostel had prepared (I am not sure what they call it so that´s pretty much what they looked like to me were really thick crepes).  Well worth the money for sure.  We then got ready for the day and headed out with Mohamed as our guide! He wanted to go with us to the Jemaa el Fnaa square and there was no way we would say no to that. He took us through some maze of roads to get to the square, a much different route than what we had taken the night before, good thing he was there to guide us. While on the way to the cafe, a woman grabbed Cortney's arm and wouldn't let her go, wanting to give her henna.  She kept insisting it was free because there was a festival tomorrow, and when Mohamed and I came to see what was going on, she grabbed my hand as well and started doing one on mine! Of course in the end, she asked for payment. It was ridiculous. So we overpaid her and learned our lesson once again. It was amazing though to watch her make ornate designs on my hand in less than 30 seconds. I was amazed. We ended up at a really awesome café sipping Moroccan mint tea that was up on a terrace overlooking the whole square. It was amazing seeing the city from above. It was nice sitting there for a while watching the locals do their daily chores and business on the bustling streets below. 

We had our hamam scheduled for 3:30 p.m. so we had only a few hours to see some more things. We took off to the souks to get to the old Qu'ranic school (Ben Youssef Medersa) where children used to go to be taught about the Qu'ran.  Mohamed had some things to do back at the hostel, so he dropped us off at the steps of the school and told us he would see us later.  It cost 5€ to view both the school and the museum that was near as well. There was a beautiful courtyard decorated with traditional Moroccan motifs and with a peaceful reflection pool in the middle. It reminded me a lot of the courtyards that can be seen at the Alhambra in Granada as well.  The rest of the rooms in the 2 floor building were full of rooms for the students who attended the school. There were some with rooms above the other that could only be reached by ladders that were built into the corners of the walls. There were also a few rooms that had been set up to show what they would have looked like when in use.  We then went to the museum that was mostly filled with artwork and traditional things such as costumes, camel saddles, and Moroccan lanterns. There was also a very beautiful covered courtyard in the museum as well with a very impressive metal chandelier in the middle. We didn´t have much time until our hamam, so we saw the basics of the museum and decided to try and find our way through the souks to the other side where the main square was located. Mohamed had told us before leaving that all we had to do was go straight the whole way and we would eventually find our way out. He was right! I was amazed. we didn´t get lost once while in the maze of souks. There are so many sights to see and scents to smell while in the souks. The air always smells spicey with hints of cumin and other middle eastern spices and leather with vendors selling everything from leather shoes, traditional clothes, magnets, dates, and even lizards and turtles! They all want to be your best friend or compliment you in hopes that you will buy something from their shop. A few of them tried complimenting Cortney and I saying ¨ohhh look at those chickens. Chickens with lemon sauce.¨ I don´t know if they were trying to say we were a tasty dish or what, but we just laughed a lot about it and kept adventuring to the outside.  We got to the hostel after a long hot walk and waited until the ladies came to get us for our hamam.  Josh wasn´t lucky enough to get one. :) One of the ladies came and got us holding some buckets. We went ot get Caroline, the woman from Switzerland, in the other building and grabbed some more things and then set off for our next adventure!

The hamam was one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever experience, life changing even. Cortney said the whole time we were in there, she felt like an agent working for National Geographic doing some sort of article on Moroccan lifestyles.
It wasn´t far from the hostel, maybe a 5 minute walk. The building was not what I was expecting. When I was thinking of what the hamam would probably be, I kept comparing it to the Turkish bath I was lucky enough to experience while in Jordan 4 years ago. It consisted of sitting in a steam room, scrubbing your skin, getting cold water flicked on us, and a massage: in other words, the high life, the luxurious life kind of thing. A traditional Moroccan hamam is really a bath house for women and their children.  It is used many times as a social gathering as well. No men are allowed in and women can gossip and talk amongst themselves.  The building consisted of a wide spacious room for changing and drying off where we started.  We had brought our swimsuits, but it ended up that a traditional hamam does not use swimsuits seeing as it is a place to bathe. So the woman who had come with us, her name was Latifa, told us to undress. At first I felt so awkward. In western society, we have so many taboos that should be followed. This was something I had never done before. That is not something that occurs regularly back in Idaho. Definitely not. But as I sat there waiting to be taken into the other room, I began to feel a lot more comfortable and at ease. No one was staring and they were all doing their own thing. We were led into these 2 other rooms that were tiled, with hot water faucets that ran along one wall to fill your buckets up with. The tiles were heated and nice and toasty to sit on by I´m guessing the hot water pipes that ran underneath them. And then we started the whole traditional hamam experience, with many coatings of henna and orange masques to cleanse our skin that we let soak while laying on the hot tiles, and scrubbing the dead skin off that had accumulated over the years. That was pretty disgusting to see. The amount of dead skin that I had on me. Gross.
All in all, I seriously would never have imagined I would have been so comfortable in a situation like that. It was such an amazing experience. Most likely, if you visit an Arab country, you end up bonding and making friendships with the men instead of the women. The women are reserved and conservative so you don't get to speak with them much. This gave me the opportunity to make relationships with the women in the Moroccan culture that is normally hidden from the outside world and to see their real personalities come to light. It was also so nice to be in an environment where body size doesn't matter. I did not see one ugly person there, and they were all so comfortable in their own skin. The media in our western society tries to conform all women into a certain square. A certain look and a certain body size.  But that´s the unique thing about humans, no one is the same. Each one of us is different and that´s what makes this world so interesting to live in. Of course in 2nd and 3rd world countries there is not as much media that guides the standards for body size like there is in the western world. Many of the people in a country like Morocco are just working for their next meal.

My skin felt so baby soft after the hamam! I felt as good as new. :) Though they had used all my shampoo in the hamam for the rest of the trip, so I would figure that out later. We decided to head out to the square again since the evening is when all the fun begins down there! We stopped at a little place to eat before getting to the square and ate some more of those thick Moroccan crepes (msemmen) with some more mint tea of course. This one was filled with some type of delicious cheese though. I tried to enjoy it as slowly as possible, but that wasn't going to happen, it was too delightful! And ridiculously cheap. We then headed towards the square and hung out there. Cortney and I wanted to at least get ourselves some scarves to wear on our desert safari we were going to take off on the next morning, so Mohamed went with us to find a good price on scarves. He refused to pay more than what he thought they should be worth, and if someone wouldn't give it to him at the price he wanted, we moved on to the next scarf store. We found some pretty ones we liked and then decided it was time to try some traditional soup!
We had soup at one of the booths in the middle of the square again. It was about 30 cents a bowl and tasted like a mixture of tomato and chicken noodle soup. You ate it with this ridiculously sweet sort of candy pretzel thing that was so sweet I couldn't stand eating it alone, only with the soup. We also tried the 40 cent freshly squeezed orange juice, now that was a little piece of heaven in a cup!
After that, we decided we should go back to the hostel since we had to wake up so early the next morning. We just hung out in the hostel and on the roof. We drank this yummy soda pop that was apple flavored up there while we just talked and hung out. We still didn't get to bed at the time we wanted, but we were hoping that we would be able to sleep while on the long drive to the Sahara that we were going to make in the morning.

Pictures to ease the pain of waiting

While you are waiting for my enormously long post on day 2 of Morocco, here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

A slight detour to Marrakesh

I've been yet again a terrible blog poster. But I promise this blog will make all your waiting worth while.

I just got back Saturday night from Morocco!!!!

I got to go with my best friend Cortney and Josh. It was amazing. It definitely blew my breath away. It may have been bad motivation for me to come back to Spain...hahahaha. So. Here we go. This blog I will not be sorry to write detail upon detail of this fantastic trip.

I'm also going to write this in present tense throughout the whole way. Deal with it.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012
So. I had an essay due. Josh helped me edit it an hour before we left. Our flight was at 4 and the gate closed at 3:30 but at least this time we had remembered to print off our boarding passes. No 60 Euro fee! :) We got on the metro at 2:30 and I was a little stressed about getting there so late, but all in all, it worked out fine.  We got our tickets stamped at the Ryanair booth and headed for security.  Some dude kept staring me down, it was weird. Also, when we went through security, Josh's deoderant looked like a gun. It was creepy. seriously. But it was all good. We waited in the huge line and were on our short flight to one of the greatest adventures of our lives.
There were too many clouds to see much throughout the flight, but once we were about to land, we could see the expanse of farms and little houses, and then desert. I was so excited I could hardly sit in my seat. It had been too long, far too long, since I had set foot in an Arab country.  Josh and Cortney kept thinking that they were going to have to rely solely on my little knowledge of Arabic to get us through the trip....only if the only words necessary to know were colors, foods, and body parts would that be the case! hahaha We exchanged our money for dirhams, ***SPOILER ALERT*** (it's a good thing I had withdrawn some Euros out of my account before leaving and exchanged some of my American dollars as well) and then we set off to find a taxi to our hostel!
Bartering. Ugh. I remember that being kind of the bane of my existence.  It can be kind of fun, but it seems like the first few times at least you get ripped off. Badly. Like us for our taxi. Oh well. Lesson learned. Some guy came up and gave us a "good offer" and we ended up paying 250 Dirhams for our ride to our hostel.......25 Euros. Never again. That's as expensive as it is in Valencia! Anyways. One of the first things we saw on the street was some cab driver get off and throw rocks at some kids trying to sell sweets on the street in front of us! I think it freaked Josh out quite a bit.  We went around the old town, which is walled off from the new part of town and ended up getting dropped off at some random alleyway...the taxi driver told us okay you go left then down there and then again and right and.....the worst directions ever. So we blindly commenced our journey into the alleyway labyrinth.  We ended up in a small market and figured that we had taken a wrong turn and walked back into the alleys when a guy popped out of nowhere asking if we were searching for the Riad Miassin. It was all in French, but it was a start! So he led us towards the right direction and in the end got us to the doorstep of our hostel where a guy was waiting outside for us.  (The sign for the hostel was just written on the wall instead of having a sign sticking out to make it easier to find.) We were welcomed in and the guy introduced himself as Aziz and had us go in.  We sat down and they offered us some famous Moroccan mint tea (they kept calling it Moroccan whiskey, that is what almost every single Moroccan meant to tell us). We met the other guys who would be helping us out while there, Mohamed, and Brahim (pronounced like Bryan with an m!), and also, since the tour we were going to take later on was associated with the hostel, we were able to pay for that as well right then and there so we didn't have to worry about it.  The other nice thing about that was that they had already planned to pick us up at our hostel the morning we were going to go on our safari.  One of the ladies who works there also invited us the next day to go to a traditional hammam with her and a lady that was from Switzerland, so Cort and I accepted. I was just so happy to be in Morocco. I could not wipe the smile off my face, even if Josh was doing all the talking that I wanted to do! I wanted to practice my little Arabic on the hostel workers. :) The interior of the hostel was so beautiful.  Very traditional Moroccan, and an awesome deal for the 7 euros a night we were paying per night to stay there.  They explained that the hostel consisted of 2 separate buildings and we were situated in the opposite building.  We weren't given any keys, so if we left and would like to enter our building we could just knock on the doors or something since there was always someone working 24 hours so they could open the other building for us.  They then showed us to our room where we had a 6 bed room all to ourselves! Yay! There were some creepies across the way from us, but they left the next day thank heavens.  Our building consisted of a big square.  The rooms bordered the outside, with a large square hole in the middle to look down on the bottom floor. We also had access to a terrace on the roof that had some nice couches and a shower! hahaha.  Anyways. We got settled, and then. We started our adventure! Aziz had given us a map of the city and had pointed out the main places we should see.  We had just a main road to follow to get to the Jemaa El-Fnaa square.
We ended up on some street with some little shops and some old guy dragged us in to his shop and kept telling us that pictures were free. I am so wary of people like that since the whole situation in Egypt.  I was very untrusting to say the least.  I knew of all the little tricks and cons that they love to pull to get some money out of you. I was ready for anything I felt like.  Eh. Well he was nicer than I thought, so that's good! We then got to the square. I don't know if I've ever seen such a sight in my life. There were so many smells and sights I had never seen before. There were snake charmers, and fortune tellers, and games, and henna artists, and singers, and dancers, etc. The first thing we ended up doing was getting sucked in to getting some pictures taken with MONKEYS! They just sat there on our shoulders, and tried to eat my camera strap.  Then another guy came with another monkey who sat on my head and picked at my hair. I felt very dirty. But seriously. I chilled with a monkey.  They also raped us for our money.  I think for taking pictures with the monkeys we paid seriously like 8 euros... it was horrible.  Then we had some snake charmers come and try to wrap some snakes around us. I wouldn't let them do so.  But they made Cortney and Josh pay a butt load again for just some pictures. Aiiiiiiii. We decided then that we wanted to go into the souks. So we entered yet another labyrinth. Woohoo! Some guy wanted to be our friend and Josh wanted to look for a shirt, so he led us to, oh wouldn't you know it, his cousin's shop or something, because his shop was a shop full of essential oils and such.  He didn't know much English, so he decided to converse with Cortney and I in a mixture of Spanish and French, so one of us would understand the beginning of his sentences, and the other would understand the other half. It was hilarious. He was funny. We ended up letting him take us to his shop and we got more yummy tea! We had some weird presentation given to us about the different things they offered in some broken Spanish and then translated into French for Cortney while our little friend just watched his friend give the "presentation".  We ended up buying some delicious smelling orange blossom stuff just cause we liked the guy and he was really nice. Yummy! After that we got back to the square and decided we were hungry. So some kid kept wanting us to go to his booth to eat. It was hilarious. He said Josh looked like Obama. He also got many other nicknames including Eminem and Denzel Washington. They must just call you whatever comes to their mind first when we say we are from the United States. We had a shmorgasboard or however you spell that, of food. We had kebabs, bread, spicey sauce, couscous and chicken, and grilled vegetables all for like 5 euros each. Maybe still overpriced, but hey, we were celebrating being in a different country! We decided to head back to the hostel since it had been said that you should'nt be outside too late. We didn't take a turn at an intersection we needed to make so we got lost a little, but with the help of a map and some random dude who wanted to help us, we figured out what went wrong.  Crossing the street was insane! Of course there was maybe just 4 or 5 working stop lights in the town, but that didn't mean that they used them at all. So we just had to kind of go and dodge the insane number of mopeds, old motorcycles, cars, and horse carriages that would come at us.
We got to the hostel and Josh wanted to smoke hookah, so Mohamed went and prepared some for the top of the roof on the main building, so we headed over there and hung out with Mohamed and 2 Spaniards. The one Spaniard was a metal singer (We later found out he also mixes opera and Christian music with that?) And we sat up on the roof in the tent telling jokes and playing Uno for a large portion of the night. We headed back to our side of the hostel and were just getting into bed when the call to prayer started. I think they are so beautiful. I had missed being woken up at the absurd hour of 3:30 a.m. to hear them. We ran up to the roof and listened while it was being played out. Mohamed came up and translated what the man was saying, prayer is more important than sleep... It was great, Mohamed was so impressed by the amount of Arabic that I knew and it was fun to tell him all the words that I had learned. Now if only I knew how to make complete sentences instead of only words!!!! One day I'll get there. The Arabic in Morocco is a lot different than any of the other dialects spoken in the Arab world.  It has mixed Spanish, French, and Berber words into it, making the Moroccan dialect a lot harder to understand for other Arabs.  We got along really well and he decided he wanted to take us to a cafe in the morning the next day to see a different view of the city. So we finally hit the sack and slept for as long as we could.

This is just a preview,
Day 2: to be continued...

Ain't nobody got time for this.

Cortney is here with me!!!!!!!!

So happy. Yay. :)

It's been a long time since I've written anything, I'm sorry! At least I'm writing something in my blog before we head off on an adventure to MOROCCO!!!!!!

Yes you read that right. Morocco. We are so excited. I'll have plenty of pictures to post don't you worry!

So since Cort has been here, we had an American party. A ton of friends came over and we made American tasty stuff for them like hot dogs, french fries, s'mores, and rootbeer!!! The rootbeer was a hit with all my foreign friends, which I was amazed at.  All in all, it was an awesome party. :)
We have done a lot of wandering the city, not having a real target to hit, but just having a good time wandering around and seeing all the pretty sights. We ate gelato, and paella, and last night we even tried an Arabic restaurant as a sample of what we're gonna get down in Morocco. yay!!!

What else.....I haven't spoken much Spanish lately, though I did sit and talk with Ana for an hour or so yesterday.  She's been gone because her mom broke her finger and has a cast on up to her elbow so she can't do many things by herself. I also had to speak with one of my professors about an assignment which I felt  pretty impressed by how it went. Really nice guy. Oh interesting fact.  It was mother´s day over here on Sunday, which isn't until next Sunday over there....good thing!!

Anyways. I am off to do some packing! You all will get an AWESOME blog post once I get back. Seriously. I am so excited to get back into an Arab country. AND RIDE SOME CAMELS!!!!

ADIOS! or in Arabic, MASALAMA.

I hate Spanish.

So today is one of those days. I swear. I am bipolar here. One day I feel like I'm invincible and can take on the whole Spanish world with my mediocre Spanish, the next day, I can't even form or write an articulate sentence...Like today. I made myself sit and work on my essay that's due next week for almost 3 hours between my classes, and I could not for the life of me write a good sentence. I hate Spanish today. Tomorrow should be better. That's the outlook I always have to have when days like these hit. Right now I'm going to hit up my yoga mat for a little break, and start typing again. Hopefully by the end of this essay, it will make sense. I've been working on it for almost 2 weeks now, I hope I'm not TOO repetitious...I'm getting to the point where anything else BUT writing this sounds pleasant.

Oh look! like my blog! I've been so negligent of it lately, with trips and friends coming, but here I am for once, being dutiful. Just cause it's something else to do =P

Off to my yoga mat.

On a better note, my best friend Cortney comes tomorrow!!!!! I can't wait to have a blast with her. Also, t-6 days until we leave for Morocco! It has been on the top of my list of places I wanted to go to when I got here, so I'm gonna make that happen.

Talk to you when I get my essay done. hahahahahhaa.

17, 18, 19, 20

17. What is the thing you most wish you were great at? 
Directions. If someone tells me, head east on Carter Street....WHAT THE FREAK IS THAT?!!?! Tell me left or right or something. 

18.What has been the most difficult thing you have had to forgive?

Is it sad that it took me SO long to think of something for this? I guess there was a guy I was dating who found out this other girl he liked was coming back to town. So when he found that out, he wanted to date her instead, but didn't tell me and instead, made up all this stuff about how horrible of a person I was for reasons to break up with me. Was not very nice at all. And then we started hanging out all the time as just friends and we had the BEST time ever and we got along so well, but then he pretty much never talked to me again the night before she came home. It was kinda sad. But it's all good now. We aren't great friends or anything, but we're always friendly to each other. 

19. If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?

Southern Utah. I think part of it is because my dad loves it so much. It's one of our absolute favorite places to go camping and roadtripping to. It would be so awesome to be so close to all that beautiful earth, with beautiful weather, but some season changes, so you can still enjoy the heat of the summer.

20. Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.

1-Touching a soldering iron when I was 3 years old that was under the truck that my dad was fixing. I didn't want him to know that I touched it when he came back out of the house, so I didn't cry until I had ran into the house and slammed the door shut.

2-Shooting a grouse when I went hunting with my dad when I was younger. I had the illusion that I had shot it all by myself, until a few years back I was told that my dad had actually shot it and just told me I had shot it. Childhood=ruined.

3-Going down into my brother Lane's room to draw with him while listening to Enya or the Tarzan soundtrack. I thought my big brothers were THEE coolest.

I'm getting bad at this.

Holy crap. It's been ages since I wrote something! how mean!

So. Let's see. Friday, I went to class, blah blah blah, then I went and saw The Avengers that night!!!! SO AWESOME. and it even came out a week before it did in the U.S...I feel so privileged. =P Good looking guys and action all the time! and some good jokes as well. I went with Jonas and Josh, and I ate awesome candy! They don't have the boxes of candy like you get in the Pineridge 10, they have containers full of gummy candies that you pay for depending on the weight. Yummmmm.....
Saturdayyyyyy
I went to Alicante to visit Will! Natacha went with me, we left by train at 7 a.m. and came back at 9 p.m. so a short trip, but it was nice. Will knew so much about his city! I was impressed. We ate crepes for breakfast and then hiked up this mountain with an old fortress on it. It had a wonderful view of all the city and of the beautiful beaches as well!! Such pretty water!! It's all turquoise and clear with white sand. Very ideal Mediterranean. Too bad the majority of the day it was overcast and RAINED on us. That's why we cut our journey so short. We ate tapas at Will's favorite place. Delicious. We ate this chicken with a sort of caramelized balsamic vinaigrette on it and cheese. yum. and some tasty potatoes as well. Then we ate gelato at an awesome gelato place. The hazelnut gelato was DIVINE. They had cool tiles on the board walk near the beach, they looked like 3D cubes, they were so mesmerizing. I had to keep telling myself to look at the pretty beach and port and such instead of just at the tiles. haha. Will also taught me how to buy fruit at Mercadona since I have never learned how to haha. My raincoat has come in handy so many times while on trips outside Valencia. It appears that every time I leave to go somewhere, the weather decides to be lame and rain on us so I have learned my lesson and make sure to bring my rain coat everywhere. Since we didn't get to eat dinner in Alicante, Natacha and I went to eat a kebab here when we got back. I love Valencia. It's so nice to come back after a short little trip. :)
Sunday!
I woke up and went to church. I explained yet again that I can play the piano, so the new people I met were extremely excited. Precious. There were a few younger people there that I hadn't met before! So that's good. It's also nice because members know where Idaho is since they know where Salt Lake City is. So much easier to explain. I walked back home afterwards and took a siesta. I woke up and ended up being pretty lazy for the rest of the day.
Today, I didn't do too much either. I cleaned a little, did some homework, straightened my hair for once with my roommate's straightener, and bought my ticket home! I get home July 17th. Man, my days are now numbered.

Until next time!