An African Adventure

This past weekend I was in Marrakesh, Morocco! With this song stuck in my head the whoooooole time haha :) This was one of the trips included in the program--and boy does API take care of us!

We stayed in a very nice hotel, my favorite part was the tea man sitting on a pillow in the front lobby handing out tea and cookies to anyone who crosses his path. 

I'll spare you guys the details, but let's just say I spent a third of this trip pretty sick. It started in Seville with what I'm convinced was food poisoning. I had a day of health while there, a day of pure wretchedness on my stomach, and left with it okay again. WHEW! 

We had a great tour guide who took us to their Palacio Real, which was very neat, but quite similar to the ones we've already seen in Spain. There were more stray cats and dogs..but not as many as Costa Rica! Another thing that was very different was the many many languages we heard. Among the most common were Arabic and French. Many of the tour guides knew anywhere from 2-5 languages including: Arabic, French, Spanish, English and Italian. I've been somewere where the majority of the people literally can't work without knowing at least 3 languages...pretty neat!

The tour guide lead us into this natural pharmacy, where we got a presentation about natural medicines, spices, oils and cremes that are very common in Morocco. Apparently Morocco is one of few countries whose people mainly eat and use what they produce. Therefor, their diet is very natural and what I would call "pure." One of their most prized spices is saffron, which is a very expensive spice, should you buy it anywhere else is the world.

I really enjoyed bartering with the vendors at the central market! Normally in markets where the price is negotiable, I get so annoyed at the silly game, but this time it was fun! The general rule is you shouldn't pay more than half of what they first tell you. Lots of people in my group (including me!) scored some really good deals.

In my opinion, one can not go to Morocco and NOT ride a camel. I mean come on! Almost everyone in our group decided to splurge for a camel ride. They picked us up from the hotel, gave us tea, bread with oil and lent us the typical arabian head covering. The guides didn't speak much english, so it was interesting trying to communicate with them in Spang-fre-rabic :) I rode the mommy camel to a baby who was running along side us the whole time. However it wasn't the kindest mother..it kept biting my friend who was on the camel in front of me! ..Nothing too serious, she'll probably have a few bruises at worst. The ride was awesome--perfect temperature, sun and company. But the BEST (and saddest) part was...........the stray puppy the guide picked up. Another girl and I got to hold it while we on the camel for a good duration of the ride. It's sad that the puppy didn't have a home, but I like to think that I gave it some love for a solid 20 minutes of it's life. I was on cloud 15. Just ask the girl in front of me who had to listen to me squeal sounds of happiness the whole time.

So now, my Morroc-ified self is back in Sevilla and doing well. I realized when I got home that I had missed Gracia over the weekend! She welcomed me with 'dos besitos' (ie- 2 little european kisses) and a huge smile. I also learned that she spent all day Saturday in the hospital! She had bronchitis for a while, the medicine she got wasn't helping. And I guess over the weekend along came the flu...and she needed to go in. The doctors must have worked their magic because she isn't coughing at all any more. yay :) I also heard stories about Tally's crazy weekend in Cadiz...it was their big Carnaval celebration. The Cadiz Carnaval is a mixture between Halloween, Oktoberfest and Mardi Gras all wrapped up into one little spanish city. People are on the streets literally allllll night. It looked like a fun time. 

No blog post of mine would be complete without: More random Spanish notices:

• Older women cook less healthy than younger, "modern" women. 
• Totally normal, and even cool to wear tights under shorts. You stand out if you don't.
• To casually call your girlfriend "buddy" or "babe" or "girlfriend," you call them "guapa" which means pretty. 
• To describe someone as tipsy, the word they use here is "happy." I like it. 
• People like to travel but many are VERY content in Seville and haven't ever left Spain. 
• Men who have bald spots keep their hair long to try to cover it.   
• People don't go to each others houses to "hang out"--ever! You leave the house if you want to see someone other than your family. 
• Store and home owners sweep their sidewalks out front. I've even seen someone mop theirs. 

Obnoxious American Sighting: In Starbucks today, an american lady proceeds to say, "I'd like a medium Chai tea late made with skim milk, a muffin, a chocolate chip cookie and a small cup of milk." Simple sentence in english yes....but YOU ARE IN SPAIN!!!!!!!!! Are you that ignorant to just waltz right in and in plain english expect them to understand your precise and picky order??? The workers didn't understand everything... I mean if we were in the US and someone orders their late with skim milk in French, would you understand them?? Anyways, the cashier uses the english he knows to accommodate this woman and they get 3 of her 4 things figured out. The plain milk gave them some trouble, and after the lady refused a coffee with milk, and then a hot milk, she turns to me and goes, "can you explain to them that I want a cold cup of milk?" as if they were silly for not understanding in the first place. AHHHHHHH. I wanted to pull my hair out right then and there...well actually, HER hair out :) haha