April showers are no joke in France. It has rained multiple times a day every single day since I have been back from Barcelona.
On a happier note, I finally got to go in my backyard. I went downstairs to find the backdoor open and no one around. I went out to enjoy it for a bit. It is so beautiful. A true European garden.
First FULL day in Morocco (aka second day)
Let me start with last night’s dinner. After sleeping off most of the day in the room, the crew got up to get some dinner at the hotel restaurant. It opened at 7pm, and we got there at 7 on the dot. They weren’t fully prepared at that time and we were the only people there. But at least we got a nice table and the fire was burning strong then (it is surprisingly cold here at night). Full dinner menu included a delicious Moroccan veggie soup, two large breasts of breaded chicken with vegetables and rice and a dessert of flan (not so good). Everything was delicious and in total the meal was 160 Dirham each (about 15 euros). Little did we know that that was actually a rip off, but I will get to that.
During dinner there was a kitten roaming about, not owned by the hotel or anything. Keep in mind that this was the third floor indoor restaurant of our hotel. I thought it was actually sort of cute because it would come up and rub its face on my hand and wanted to cuddle. Later I rubbed my eyes and the next thing I know I was sneezing uncontrollably and my eyes were swollen shut. By the way I am allergic to cats.
They are everywhere here, but I know better than to pet them now. Anywhere where there is food, there are stray cats. I must have seen thirty today alone. On the streets, in shops, restaurants. At dinner there were two climbing the tree.
But anyway, after breakfast we wanted to get a tour guide and explore the medina. The front desk was surprisingly no help at all. So we just wandered out on the street. Soon enough there were people stopping to talk to us, and by us I mean Alan and kept offering to take us to the medina. We obliged for one, who was a bit too pushy for my taste, and followed him to see the shops. Instead he took us for a ride. He leads us down these back alleys and kept introducing us to his “brothers”. We would ask to go to the shops and how far they were and they kept saying “oh ten minutes”. We wandered so far in and then wised up and turned around and got away as fast as possible. They followed us of course and would let us be until finally we found a main part of the medina, overpaid them for their near-mugging us and sat down at a place to eat. Even then, they lingered for an hour or so until we were done eating and hassled us as we left the medina. We walked back to the hotel only to find them waiting their with more people to hassle us more for everything from tours to directions for money exchange. One guy offered to sell us drugs and clearly had never learned the meaning of the word no. Once we lost them, the crew and I bolted back into the hotel to recuperate for a while with movies.
Bright side: our hotel has one channel that plays movies in English all day long. We love it and would probably spend all day in here if it weren’t weird. So we watched some more movies, walked back to the medina for dinner and had some delicious food, a whole meal for around 5 euros. Now that is what I call a deal.
Since it was dark and the walk to the medina was long, we decided to take a cab back to the hotel. We hailed one, got in and asked for hotel batha. The guy gave us a weird look which we understood once he drove down a street, turned the corner and dropped us off. We had no idea how close we were and looked like total fools. He gave us the cab ride for free probably because he felt bad for us clearly being so dumb. All in all I would say it was a decent day.
Night 1 of our amazing and crazy Morocco trip.
Alan, Becca, Ellen and I took a late night train into Paris last night. It was really our only option for traveling since our flight this morning left from Beauvais airport (about an hour outside the city) at 9:00 am. The brilliant plan made by our cheap asses was to sleep in the Montparnasse train station for the few hours of sleep that we could get.
Then shit got real.
We decided to go see the Eiffel tower at night, since we were in Paris, and why not? All was great until we missed the last metro back to the train station. No fear, we cabbed it. Unfortunately, none of us planned for the fact that Montparnasse closes at night. Freezing, bags in hand and nowhere to sleep we went from full hotel to full hotel begging for a place to crash.
Thank god we met the nicest man I have ever met in my whole life. He was manning the front desk of a hotel when we stumbled in looking like death and practically crying for a floor to sleep on. He offered up the lounge and was actually apologetic that it was under construction. He gave us wifi codes, pillows and a couch to sleep on. Even turned off the lights so we could get some shut eye.
So the adventure begins.
Let me just say that this weekend was incredible. I absolutely love London and had so much fun with all of my friends. Like we said, shit got real, and most of the time it got real weird. We are all exhausted an need to get our lives back together (I am doing a 24 hour detox tomorrow) but we still managed to have fun all the way to the very end.
Yesterday we got an early start and it was totally worth it. After the first day in morocco, with the creepy guys that nearly kidnapped us, the crew and I decided to find a legitimate tour. It was amazing.
We started at nine with a panoramic birds eye view of the medina. It was outstanding. The tour guide said that the medina has 950 acres and 330,000 inhabitants. We saw it from the perspective of the ruins of a castle that the Merinids had built. His tomb and his wife’s tombs were also right there.
We followed this with a view of the current king’s palace gates and a drive through the Mellah, a traditional Jewish community.
A quick drive down over the river and up a hill led us to another panoramic view of the medina from the perspective of a fortress built by Portuguese prisoners.
Other things on the itinerary:
The ceramics cooperative
A view of the tanneries from a terrace
Weavers cooperative with beautiful rugs
Lunch at a great restaurant (at a special discount)
A trip through the fruit and vegetable market
Shopping in Nejarine square
Seffraine Square
The mausoleum of Zaouia Sidi Ahmed Tijani
University of Kaitouine
Weavers cooperative where we bought scarves
And much much more!!
Our tour guide was incredible and it was an overall great day. I feel like I have seen so much of Fez and now I can go home more cultured and definitely happy!
First day in Morocco.
The crew and I took an early am flight this morning from some crazy outskirt part of Paris. Similar to London, we had to catch a coach for an hour to get there. Our flight was actually delayed which, in other circumstances would have been super annoying. But seeing as it was only 20 minutes and we didnt have to hear ryanair’s “on time flight” crap I would say I preferred it. The landing was really rocky though which made us all feel a little queasy (for a minute or two I felt like I was going to have to chunder in my beanie). What really got me was the fact that nearly the whole cabin apart from us gave the crew a big round of applause when we touched down. I’m pretty sure North America stopped clapping in the mid-90’s unless there is some sort of overcome flying obstacle. The landing wasn’t even smooth!
Then let’s get to the cab ride. Perhaps one of the more bizarre and sketchy moments in my life. The cabbies all stand around the exit of the airport (no car in sight) looking like predators waiting for their prey. Since there weren’t any other more appealing alternatives, we just went for it and the cabbie took us around to wear he had his 80’s Mercedes 4-door parked, unmarked apart from a small practically illegible bumper sticker that said “fes taxi”. For all we know, he could have just driven us to a remote location and robbed us. For a few minutes in the ride it felt like he actually was doing just that. We were in the car for about 25 minutes listening to California King Bed and Where is the Love (along with French and Arabic commercials) while we passed through what I can only imagine to be a large part of the city. There were farm animals in what must have been orchards on the side of the road. Seriously dozens of sheep, chickens a cow and a horse.
I actually enjoyed seeing the palm trees that were all over the place. I haven’t seen one since home so it made me feel a little more comfortable. The cab ride was like culture shock. I was amazed at how Morocco puts such beautiful detailing in to parts of their city, like tiling and architecture, but can’t manage to clean up the trash that litters fields or the rubble of crumbling buildings that just sits on the side of the road. I looked out my window and saw mainly men and a few women’s dress in traditional covering clothes around their homes. Ellen and I are probably the only blonde people in this city right now. I got a little kick out of seeing a Hyundai Elantra parked on the side of the road that looked just like mine, as well as the McDonalds which looked like a haven in this environment.
Apart from the surrounding environment, the ride itself was crazy. Morocco has paved roads with designated lines and everything, but they may as well have not even existed. Driving here can be described in a few words: accelerate, honk and shoot the gap. If two cars in either lane are too slow for you, no worries! Just squeeze yourself right in the middle to pass real fast an lay on the horn. I felt like I was in a real life Mario Karts. Thank god we made it to our hotel in one piece although I can’t say our cabby was the most knowledgable; we were right in front of our hotel before he even recognized where it was at.
Our place is beautiful and traditionally Moroccan. Lots of open outdoor space and intricate details like painted wood and tiled fountains.
Bonus time: we get an English speaking movie channel in our room! Like true tourists we sat and watched movies in the room for a few hours and fell asleep before even going out into the city. And now it is raining real hard outside so it doesn’t look like we are going anywhere for a bit.
More adventures to come!
More about London:
The weekend was so great. The perfect mix of active and relaxed, sightseeing and partying, eating and not getting nearly enough sleep. Even the flights and buses were enjoyable. There were a few moments where I felt some regret, like I didn’t do enough sightseeing (didn’t even see Buckingham Palace, oops). But then I realized that I would give up seeing any of the London sights to spend that time with my friends here. London will always be there, Westminster Abbey isn’t going anywhere, but I will never be able to experience that city again with the people that I am with now. And that is worth everything.
The weekend included highlights such as:
- Seeing the Poitiers-Biard airport, if you can call it that. Such a joke, smaller than a Target store, only one gate and one flight out per day. The security was in a hallway!
- Taking a Ryanair flight for the first time. Scratchers anyone?
- Using the London Underground. At first I hated it, but by the end of the trip we were on good terms. Mady and I could already navigate the city on our own. We even conquered the bus system!
- My first hostel experience. A 9 person room, where only 2 people brought towels and we pre-gamed there multiple times. Can you imagine the smell after a few short days? It wasn’t necessarily bad for me (that’s what she said), but I feel bad for Becca and Ellen who were robbed and lost several hundred dollars worth of Euros.
- Having an incredible time at the Roxy dance club, 7.95 GBP for a pitcher of cocktails (including Long Island Ice Teas and my personal favorite, the Dirty Habit).
- Being tricked into going to Madame JoJo’s by Ben’s friend. 60’s-70’s funk night at a gay bar in SoHo.
- Enjoying the food: McDonald’s, Burger King, Chipotle from home. A traditional English breakfast, Nando’s chicken and more! So delicious.
- The London Eye, Big Ben, St. James Park, Hyde Park, 221B Baker Street and acting like a stupid American Tourist.
- Seeing the Hunger Games!
It was a weekend for the books. “The situation escalated to the point where it was no longer funny and someone should have probably informed the authorities.”
