Sep 2008

Hi everyone,

I just got back from Marruecos (Morocco) a few hours ago and I am super tired. But I want to write a blog before I fall asleep and forget small funny details!! So here goes:

Day 1: Gibraltar - so first we took about a 3-4 hour bus trip to Gibraltar. We checked into our hotel, on the Spanish side, and then made our way over to the British side for a bus tour of Gibraltar, a hike up the rock, and dinner. Gibraltar is a very weird city. It has a mix of all sorts of different cultures. Spanish/British accents are so funny. It's very small and completely under construction like all the time. An interesting fact is that even though Gibraltar is only like 5 by 5 miles, it has like 25 miles of tunnels...those aren't exact numbers cause I don't remember, but it was something like that. The tour was great because it brought us RIGHT to the monkeys!!!!! and they were EVERYWHERE!!!!! First we went to the Caves...there are sooo many caves in the Rock. They were amazing. They are the type of caves that are always moist. There is even a complete "theater/stadium" thing inside for concerts and plays. Crazy!! But the best part was when we got out, and led into the gift shop of course, we looked out the window and there they were!! Monkeys everywhere. I was in heaven. Luckily I had a sandwich in my back-pack that I could "eat" and get stolen by the monkeys. I took it out and ripped off a little piece and handed it to the monkey sitting near me, and he looked at it, and ran over to me and grabbed the rest of the sandwich out of my hands! The don't eat meat so he ignored the turkey and ate the bread and cheese. It was sooo funny to watch him eat it. A few other monkeys came over to help, but it was very territorial. He wanted this sandwich to himself. I have so many pictures of monkeys I don't know what to do with them all. We could even touch them...a little. There were babies and old ones and big ones and small ones. I loved it. After the tour we took a hike up the Rock...it is STEEEP. I huffed and puffed quite a bit...but the view was spectacular. The city looks much pretty from a distance! haha Afterwards a few of us went to a Pub with Javier, the director of IES, and had fish and chips! We all went to bed pretty early that night since we had to get up at 6:30 the next morning for our venture to Africa!

Day 2: Tangier, Rabat: Early, early in the morning we caught a ferry from Algeciras, Spain (just next to gibraltar) to Tangier. First we met up with our guide, Rick, who is an American dude who has led tours all over and now is working with this group in Morocco. He doesn't speak Arabic or French or anything, he was just good at planning things and carrying them out. He also lives in Granada. From there we took a little walk through this little food market- there were some intense animal guts going on and it smelled horrible. Flies are EVERYWHERE in Morocco- gross. Then we went to DARNA, a women's center in Tangier. It is a center funded actually by Spanish money, that helps women learn useful skills like reading and writing, sewing and secretarial skills. We took a little tour and then met up with this lady who studies somewhere else in morocco. She spoke English, and we talked with her a little bit about Ramadan (we were there during Ramadan!) and some other things like dating, the culture, arabic languages etc. We had just learned a lot about this stuff in my Islamic Civ class the other day so it was pretty cool hearing it from her. It's ridiculous how many "dialects" of arabic there are. It's really no wonder why arabic countries can't be united and identified as arabic when everyone identifies with a different language and history. There is classical arabic (Koran is written in this) and Modern Arabic (what people learn in schools, very similar to Classical) and then there are like 10's of dialects. In Morocco they speak Darija (or Dariya). In Algeria something else, Syria something else etc. And in Morocco there is also a Berber language that is completely different. In books, newspapers, tv Classical is spoken, in School classical and French is spoken, and outside of school dariya is spoken and berber. Sooo..most Moroccan people know 3 languages if not more! ANYWAY - we had this nice talk with this student and then they served us this amazing Mint/Green tea...it is like the national tea of Morocco! haha. It's sad though since it's ramadan, none of the Moroccans could eat/drink with us until after sun down. The ladies at the Center then made us lunch. COUS COUS!!! it ROCKED! In fact, everything I ate in morocco I LOVED. After lunch we began our drive to Rabat (which was our home base).
On the way we stopped at Asilah along the Atlantic Coast. It's this little beachy town thats really pretty. We took a walk though the Medina (the old part of town surrounded by walls) and took lots of pictures. SO many cities here have the White painted walls with blue paint all over. It was started by a Jewish tradition actually (Blue and White!!) and then they also added a lot of Green because that is a very important color in Islam. When we were done in Asilah, we drove our 3 hours to Rabat to meet our homestay families.
BUT before we got there, Javier and Rick surprised us with CAMELS! we took a little ride on the backs of camels. It was pretty sweet. I've got lots of pics!
About 3 of us lived with each family. I was with 2 other girls, Addie and Karla. We had a great family and home. We had a real toilet and shower!! The beds were all around the room in sofa style, and everyone just sleeps around it. Us 3 had our own room, then the aunt and the 2 sons slept in another room and the mom and dad had their own. But everyone slept on these funny couches, except the mom and dad. We loved our family. The 2 sons that we met (out of 4) were both Professional Volleyball players for the National Moroccan team!!! Isn't that crazy..they were 19 and 24. The other 2 sons both live in New York! The 24 year old has PERFECT English - one reason being he has had an American girlfriend for 4 years now. The 19 year old spoke very well too and he hasn't even studied it before! He's just learned it from his brothers girlfriend and TV! Moroccans are amazing when it comes to languages. Both of the sons also speak French fluently. The mother was hilarious. She only new a few words in English like eat, sleep, shower, welcome, and maybe a few more. But we was soo welcoming. I felt more comfortable with her sometimes than I do my host mom in SPain! Everyone in Morocco was more welcoming and friendly really than any other group of people I've met. We communicated mainly through hand motions and the few arabic words we knew, the few english words she new, and her sons. She was so great though, she tried explaining to us that she liked us because we are girls (since she has 4 boys) by grabbing her boobs and then saying "No" pointing to herself and making hand motions for penis and then holding up 4 fingers!!! hahah She just kept grabbing her boobs! it was so funny. Anyway, her younger son Mustapha, took us for a little walk around the Medina and then we came back and ate some food. I could write a whole other blog about all the food...so I might just wait. Then we met up with our group of 15 and took a walk again. We were exhausted so we hit the sack at 10 pm that night (to us it was 12 because of the time difference) and passed out. It was frustrating though, because in Moroccan we can't drink the water, so we had to always use bottled water, even for brushing our teeth!

Day 3 Rabat: On day 3 we woke up pretty early again (8) and went to a little school for a discussion with this professor. We talked about politics and women/gender issues. It was very interesting to listen to and talk about. We learned about the new Family Code that was started around 2004 or so that gives Women the right to know about divorce, have a say in whether she wants one, who gets the kids, the house and such. before a man could just divorce his wife without telling her and kick her AND the kids out. It also restricts polygamy by giving the Wife the right to say no I don't want to be a second wife or something. After the discussion we went to visit the Chellah ruins. They are old Roman ruins surrounded by more recent Muslim ruins built around it. There is this pool of eels there that is supposed to be a "fertility" pool. You were supposed to throw money in it with the eels and it gave you fertility. But it was surrounded by Cats! Cats are EVERYWHERE in Morocco...almost as many as the flies! Apparently, cats are more "sacred" or respected than dogs there so they are treated better. I was in Heaven again! Although also sad to see so many stay kitties, but most of them get fed often because people like them. It made me think about Daisy a lot and I got very sad a few time. After the ruins we went to the Mausoleum of King Mohammed the 5th. It is built in this old unfinished mosque that some crazy dude tried building but his empire collapsed.
After that we went to have lunch with our families. We had a delicious curry chicken and potato dish. Once lunch was over we went out to meet up with some Moroccan students who study English and we took a walk around the Kasbah and the sweet Markets. We did lots of shopping and bargaining. It is very stressful. I don't like it. I felt bad because more than talking with the moroccan student we were set up with, we mainly used him for helping us bargain. We couldn't understand what was going on, and we sucked at bartering for better prices. I did get some fun stuff though!! The currency is Durams. 11 duram to 1 euro about. After shopping we went home to Break the Fast with our families. This is at sunset and they have a very traditional meal to break the fast. This type of soup, bread (hobbs), these sweets, and dried dates! It is delicious! The best part comes up next though. After dinner we went to the Hammam. These are the Arabic Baths! The girls went with one of the host moms and the boys went with Jose and Javier. I've described the baths before I think, but ancient ones. This was a modern bath. It was 3 rooms just like the old ones, cool, warmer, hot. and you go in with buckets, fill them up, soap up, scrub down, wash, repeat, and get clean. It was strange though. All the girls decided to do it the right way...topless. All of the arabic women were either naked or topless so we actually felt more weird and out of place going with tops on than not. I've never in my life done something like that. I don't even show my stomach in public! But it was soo much fun. We went in and it was just like amazing sisterhood bonding. I know it sounds ridiculous and you kind of have to be there to know what I am talking about. The host moms just started grabbing us and scrubbing us. It was like monkeys grooming each other, but cool haha. You got people to scrub your back for you, your arms. It was wild. And to be honest, when I left I felt sooo clean and calm. It was definitely an experience I will never forget and I think my group bonded a lot. I really got to know the girls better! haha After that we pretty much went to bed. Throughout our stay with the family we spoke with the older son a lot. He was very interesting and kind. We talked about Obama - he wants, and about Palestine/Isreal. That was slightly more awkward. I don't really know much about the topic unfortunately...not enough to back up my side. He of course has a biased towards the Muslims and me the Jews...we kinda stopped shortly after starting that convo.

Day 4: Rif Mountains, Chefchaouen - The next day we woke up early again to be on the road by 8. We drove to the Rif Mountains to have lunch with a local rural family. It was really fun. They made us cous cous, which was amazing, again! We sat outside in this kind of gazebo type thing that the family built themselves. It had an amazing view of the mountains. We weren't really supposed to take pictures there so we had one designated photographer- i'll have to get the photos from her! The family was so kind though and they kids were adorable. living in the rural areas of Morocco is very different. They have an elementary/middle school near by, but the closest high school is 1 hour away. The kids have to leave their family and go live their during school. This family believed in education a lot, but many families do not. The wifes brother, who was our translator has a masters degree even (he's finishing it), but he has no job because jobs in Morocco are very hard to find, and a college degree doesn't always help. Anyway, they took us on a little walk around their land..it was beautiful..i did take pictures of that! They gave us a fresh plum from their garden and we took pictures together. THey have a 2 year old boy who is absolutely precious. OH and by the way, this is where I went poop for the first time in a turkish toilet! YEAH kate. Our group bonded a lot over poop conversations hahaha. This girl in our group hadn't pooped for 4 days and this other guy was pooping a lot haha and we discussed how to poop without sitting on a toilet and well..it was pretty entertaining. we knew everyone's business! Anyway, after we spent the afternoon with this family we started to head towards Chefchaouen, northern morocco. Checchaouen has a Moorish and Jewish history and therefore has this tradition of being painted blue and white. It's really cute, and a little more touristy than the other places we visited. It also used to be a Spanish territory so most of the people there also speak Spanish, which was a nice change from only Arabic and French. We stayed in a Hostel named Yasima. It was really nice actually, we took over the whole hotel. We did some shopping and then got dinner at this cute arabic restaurant. I got Chicken Tangire or something like that...its a way they cook it...its like stew cooked in this clay pot and covered and cooked for a long time. Its delicious!! After dinner we headed back to the hostel and we all went up to the roof and had a little "reflexion" conversation. Our guide turned off all the lights, we sat around with blankets and lit a candle in the middle! haha. There was lighting and thunder over the mountains so the atmosphere was pretty cool. We had some good conversations about our trip and I think we just bonded some more. After the serious stuff we decided to tell some silly things that happened. THere were 2 guys in our group and they of course lived together in Rabat. They started telling this ridiculous story about their host brother and an awkward thing that happened in the bathroom...it was hilarious...no need to go into detail here though. Then when all was said and done and we were laughing about their story and told us it was completely made up!!!!! They totally made up everything and on the spot! It was amazing haha, their detail was soo impressive and they never broke the story. I don't know how they came up with this idea, but it was funny! It was a good note to go to sleep on!

Day 5: Walk in Chefchaouen and Ceuta, then Spain - In the morning we woke up at 6:45 to go for a walk up to a pretty look out point in chef. We had to get on the rode at 8 so that was the reason for the earliness. It was nice, but very steep and all steps!!!! argh steps. Anyway, then we hit the road. It was a 2 hour drive to Ceuta. Ceuta is a Spanish city/territory in Africa so we can "walk" across the Moroccan/Spanish border. It is a very shady area. They told us that sometimes it is really crowded and there are things you have to prepare yourself for...seeing sad things, children trying to get across, people not being accepted and such. but there weren't many people when we went. In this area, that night/morning it had RAINED a shit load and it was flooding and there was lightning and thunder. It was crazy. We all got pretty wet. There was one boom that was so loud it made car alarms go off!!! There was this creepy guy who like bribed or something the passport stampers to stamp peoples passports ...we didn't really know what was going on, but it looked like he would get paid by people and then go slip something little to one of the guards and that passport would be stamped...i dunno what was really going on. But we got through just fine and took our ferry to Gibraltar. The ferry ride was crazy though because of the storm, it was sooo rocky. it was like a roller coaster no joke. My mom would have died i think!!! At least for the first 20 mins...you could barely walk around without falling over.
Well thats it. Everything went really smoothly, my group bonded over all sorts of things - hammam nudity, inability to poop/how to squat...and OH how Javier, our director, is GOD. We all love him..and are always amazed at how cool he is. He speaks like 7 languages, has been and lived like everywhere and is always calm and laid back. We love him...he is like our dad away from home.

OH and today I have like 30 hives around my body and a got a shot in my butt! haha I don't know where they all came from, but I woke up this morning very itchy...who knows if it was from Morocco, or I am allergic to something here or what...but I'll keep you posted...I am totally fine though, just itchy!

Love
Kate

Hi,

just a quick update...nothing exciting has been happenin' here the last few days. Just the normal days. It's getting a bit cooler now, which is kinda of nice. Granada, we have realized, has very distinct temperatures from morning to day and to night. It can get very cold during the mornings and at night, and still be very hott during the day...its quite confusing. I've been moving my classes around a little. I've dropped my "experiencia del otro" and I am hopefully adding this film class called "Images of Women in Mediterranean Film", yes it is in English....which I was trying to avoid, but I think I might need a break. At the same time I want to really learn Spanish and I am worried that with having an American roommate, and having a class in English that I really won't learn as much Spanish as I would have hoped. I was going to take a class at the university of granada, but I psyched myself out and I don't think I am going to anymore. We do have this thing though, starting soon, called "intercambios" and it is when we get paired up with a Spanish student and they are just like conversation buddies. So I really want to take advantage of this and hopefully make up for my lack of Spanish use while at home.

Ok well, we leave for Marruecos (Morocco) on THURSDAY morning! I probably won't write anything until afterwards so its gonna be a while. But I am sure I will have LOTS to say when I get back. I've bought more ear plugs and baby wipes for the trip, and I am planning on stealing toilet paper from my Senora! Wish me luck!!

Love
Kate

I know a bunch of you have facebook and can see all these pictures, but for those of you who don't, I have added a few onto my picture gallery...i will also add a few here on this blog! Click on the pictures to see comments I've made!

I've had a pretty awesome weekend! In my last blog I wrote that I had something exciting for this weekend. Well it didn't quite turn out the way I thought it would have. There were 2 things I was thinking of when I made that comment and neither of them happened. I was going to go to this amazing beach about an hour away, OR get FREE tickets to the Davis Cup in Madrid. haha...well neither happened, but I still managed to do some sweet stuff here in Granada.

Thursday night wasn't all that exciting, but the rest was fun.

Friday: First I had to wake up at 8 am to go to a walk with my art history class. We went to the museum at the Alhambra, which is built in Charles V's palace he built when he conquered Granada. After the museum we went to the
"banuelos" or arab baths from the 11th century. I believe they are the oldest baths this well preserved left! So far I've seen 2 different sets of baths, the first one (in Ronda) was bigger, but this one was prettier. I didn't bring my camera, but it pretty much looked the same, just more quaint. After my walk, Carrie and decided to take another walk just around our neighborhood. We went to this really nice park called "Parque de Garcia Lorca". Its really close and its so pretty. Perfect for runners and making out people hahaha....in Spain so many people just like get in on in public. Apparently its totally acceptable (to a point of course). We talked about it in class, and think it has a lot to do with the fact that kids here live with their families sometimes till they are 28-30 so they need to get out and have some fun other places! haha Anyway, we found some really fun playground equipment to play on and met this cute little boy who showed us how to use this sweet "zip line" that the park had. I would say it was about 15 yards long. It was sooo fun, and i got so dizzy cause the rope you jump on, you twist before hand so when you are done it unwinds. Anyway I was so dizzy i just fell off. Carrie got some great pictures of me! haha
That night we went to this great arabic restaurant called "Kasbah", apparently its pretty famous because it was mentioned in Rick Steves book about Granada. It had a great atmopshere and was delicious! After that we went to this great tapas bar called 380. The tapas were so good and the atmosphere was young and modern! That was pretty much the night

Today (saturday): we woke up at like 12 and didn't do anything much until after lunch. but the weird thing was that it turned out that our senora's son, Dani, came over from Madrid last night, and today her daughter and husband, and grandaughter came over, but our senora served us lunch and then reset the table for her family. We felt kinda like we were kicked out or something....but whatever, we had work to do
The best part of the day came later. We had found out that there was a fashion show going on, so around 8:30 we went to Puerta Real ( a plaza) and checked out the free outside legit fashion show. We saw pretty dresses, normal street clothes, and then BOY IN UNDIES!
After the show, we went to this amazing music festival on the outskirts of Granada, technically another city, but it was only a 10-15 min ride. It was SOO hippie. I was dressed so inappropriately wearing a white button down shirt and jeans and flats, while everyone else was wearing the hippiest clothes ever, but it was still saaawweeeet. It was called Mujeres del Mediteraneo (women of the Mediterranean). It was celebrating women musicians pretty much. We saw 3 bands preform and the crowd and everyone was just soo great. we were dancing like crazy, so hot, and so fun. Carrie and a bunch of other girls in the program got a chance to go on stage and dance with the musicians!!! there were like 1,000 people there so that was pretty CRAZY! I took so many pictures! hahah
We were all so hungry and so when we left we got these things called "Shwarmas" - its like a pita with meat/fallafels and veggies and sauce and deliciousness. It was the perfect end to a great night!!! it tasted sooo good.
Tomorrow we plan on just doing more homework and sleeping.
HOpe all is well!!
miss and love ya'll hah
Kate

Bueno,

so we started classes on Monday and I have been sooo busy with them. It is so tiring taking 5 classes in Spanish that when I get home, and after we eat lunch, I either have to work or I pass out.

Here is my schedule

Monday: Grammar class in the morning, then an hour break, then Islamic Civilization then lunch at 2:30

Tuesday: Grammar, Flamenco Practice, Experience of the Other (all right in a row) then I eat lunch at the center because I don't have enough time to go home, and then Flamenco theory at 3:30

Wednesday: Grammar, Islamic Art, Civilization, (all in a row) then lunch(2:30)...then I come back at 4:45 for Art again but this is like fun walks/visits around the city

Thursday: Grammar, Flamenco practice, Experience of the Other then lunch at 2:30

I guess most people have more night classes than that, but whatever. Monday and Wednesday I start a 9:50 am, but Tuesday and Thursday I start at 8:40 ewwww.

It's kind of overwhelming having all my classes in Spanish so I might drop one and add Women in Mediterranean Film in English, I haven't decided.

As for buying books, it wasn't too bad. I only had to buy one real book for 21 euros for my grammar class. The other material were all like photocopied packets that all together probably cost 31 euros, soooo I'd say thats pretty damn good compared to the states!!!

All the teachers are awesome. Fabiola, my grammar teacher, is really hard to understand, but she is super nice. She doesn't shave her arms which is kinda funny, but she is short and cute. My flamenco teacher is SOOO fast. She like doesn't understand we can't follow that speedy haha but she is also really sweet and sexy (at least when she is dancing). My Civilization teacher is awesome. He has this sweet glasses and kinda reminds me of a thin Robin Williams cause he always has these sneakers on, glasses, and his arms are hairy.

Last night was really nice. Carrie and I went to tapas with some friends and sat out side. It was really nice. I really like Julia and her roommate Katie, and then Brady and Will. I have discovered the BEST drink EVER. Its Coconut Malibu with Pineapple juice. DELICIOUS!!!! And the tapas were pretty good too...these little burger things and tortilla espanola and some other things.

Today we had an orientation for our trip to Morocco! It was CRAZY. This trip is gonna blow my mind. We aren't doing the touristy things. We are going first to Gibraltar and spending the night there and seeing the MONKEYS! Then we go to Morocco on a ferry and end up in Rabat (the capital). We are spending 2 nights with Moroccan families!!! There will be like 4 people per homestay. The families like don't speak any English or spanish so it's gonna be interesting.

People there really do wipe themselves with their left hand and shake/eat with their right! GROSSSSS. We were told we have to bring toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Some of the homes might also not have showers or toilets or some combo or something. We probably won't be showering much on this trip! Also they eat with their hand, not utensils, so they have to use their right hand! It's like weird to use their left (duh, it's gross and dirty! hahah). SO I am not supposed to use my left hand while eating there so it's gonna be tough since I am SOOO left handed hahah.

This is gonna be quite the experience and I am sooo psyched yet terrified at the same time hahaha.

I'll try and put some pics up soon of Sevilla and Ronda.
I have some interesting plans for this weekend, but I will reveal them later depending on what happens..... I know it's bothering you isn't it! hahah

Hope all is well in the USA. Please email me or leave a comment or something! I love hearing from people.

Oh and today I went shopping and bought a dress for like $19 and a little purse thing for 9!! not bad huh?!

LOVE
Kate