¡Listo!

Well, now that I've edited all my photos from this past weekend, I can blog about it.  (I don't generally like my photos unless I get to edit them.)  So I'll try my best to sum this past weekend up pithily and not have you spend an incredible amount of time reading about it.

One thing I would like to mention straight away: flights around Europe can be expensive or dirt cheap, depending on the company.  It's amazing how cheap, too.  Meagan was looking for a flight from Milan to Rome the other day, and depending on the day, you could get a flight for 7.99 euro (without any outstanding fees such as the credit card charge).  7.99!  That's ridiculous!  (We ended up having to choose one that was slightly more expensive because we were looking at the wrong day, but still.)  This is with the company Ryanair, a probably-very-weaselly corporation that makes its money by offering the cheapest price around, even if that means cutting costs and jobs and itineraries and other corners in order to do so.  I'm not really complaining, though, since we got to Barcelona and back for a really cheap rate as well.  If only we had a cheap airline in the States...

Anyway, our flight with Ryanair left the (unbelievably tiny) airport of Sevilla in the mid-afternoon to go to Barcelona.  (Really, though, the Sevilla airport is tiny.  Think one or two "mini-"terminals with no walkways extending from the gates to the planes.)  The flight was actually quite pleasant (except for the landing, but we were fine) and we ended up getting there about 5 minutes early, which I guess is common for Ryanair, according to them.  (Of course, that can be arranged by making your anticipated arrival time on the schedule later than the actual arrival time, but whatever.  Again, not complaining.)  The view from the plane was great, too, overlooking a great stretch of the Mediterranean.  At one point, we saw what we thought might have been one of the Balearic Islands, but it was awfully small and quite close, too, so we weren't sure.  Anyway, it was great.

We landed at Barcelona and made our way through the public transportation system to go to the hostel.  It was a group of 7 of us (which was going to be 8, but one person didn't end up coming with us), and we were split between two different hostels.  My group's was actually located near the center-ish of the city, and it was actually located on Barcelona's 5th avenue, right in the same area as the Louis Vuitton and Valentino stores.  Needless to say for a hostel, it was really nice.  (There was even a glass-window "lift" in the center of the lobby!)

We didn't have much time to do anything that day because our flight got in in the evening, so we just walked around for awhile, towards Plaça Catalunya, a very big hang-out spot in the middle of a big intersection, complete with two fountains, several more statues, pigeons, and lots of children running around.  We found somewhere to eat, where we were kind of met with disdain by the staff (probably for being American), and where the food was good but served in small portions.  That was okay, though, because it was good.

Let me elaborate on the "met with disdain" comment.  It's not that we were disapproved of; rather, we were just obviously foreigners.  For some background info: Barcelona is located in the autonomous community of Catalunya, of which it is the capital city.  Catalunya has always had a past history with Spain of being rebellious, as has the Basque Country and other provinces of the north.  This is partially because Catalunyans have their own language, Catalan.  It is not a dialect, nor is it a variation on Spanish.  If it's a dialect of anything, it's a dialect of Latin.  In fact, even though it looks very similar to Spanish (except for the weird double-consonant pairs or vowel-consonant pairs like ix, tx, tg, or ig), it sounds more like a mix between Portuguese and Italian.  Catalunyans are very proud of their language and of their own representative culture, whatever that may be -- it's hard to tell in Barcelona which is a very cosmopolitan city in its own right.  Going off of this, Catalunya developed along with Spain, but very much apart from Spain too.  It's right on the Spanish-French border, along with the small country of Andorra, so it's somewhat distant from the central capital of Madrid.  Catalunya was the center of a lot of industrial activity during the Industrial Revolution and it's probably the most valuable province to Spain economically and technologically.  Madrid may be bigger, but Catalunya is more progressive.  All this is to illustrate that when Spain was under Franco and heavily advocated for centralization galore, Catalunya, which had previously been given even more power as a separate entity within Spain, was once more deprived of its right to that autonomous status.  And let's face it -- it had a lot to gain from being on its own, mainly the fact that it didn't have to carry the rest of Spain on its shoulders.  (Without Catalunya, Spain would not be nearly as wealthy as it is today.)  A lot of people in Barcelona speak English, Catalan, and castellano (or Castilian Spanish), but I think they resent it when people can't speak Catalan, even though they know it isn't a very widespread language.  They even prefer speaking English over castellano.  So the service at this restaurant may have been a little begrudging towards us, but I guess all in all, they're used to it.  I suppose that doesn't mean they have to like it.


Explanation done.  On to the rest of the trip!  Meagan and I got up the next morning early to go to La Sagrada Familia, the famous basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí that (still) has yet to be finished since it started being built in the early part of the 20th century.  (The white parts of the model below are the parts that still have yet to be built.)  Let me give some future travelers some advice: if you're going to Barcelona, you need to do two things to make sure that you have a good Sagrada Familia experience.  One, buy your tickets in advance (the line to get tickets was around the block, even before 9:00), and two, get there early, whether you have your tickets or not (see above parenthetical comment).  We were treated to a fairly empty basilica versus an incredibly full one, and as such, were able to get pictures like this without people in the way:

Obviously, it was amazing.  There really isn't anything like this building.  Gaudí was so revolutionary in his architecture and that is clearly evident, especially in the heavy influence of crazy mathematical shapes in his work.  There were TV screens in the main part of the church that explained how he achieved sculpting hyperboloids and ovacular structures.  It's pretty ridiculous.  And wonderful.  But at the same time that it was wonderful, it left me feeling kind of hollow.  I don't want to discredit anything about the basilica, but I found myself wondering what it was really built for, Gaudí or God.  Of course, I didn't know at the time that Gaudí was actually a devout Catholic, so in retrospect, it puts some of my qualms to rest, but it still felt weird to be taking pictures among other amazed tourists in the middle of God's sanctuary.  I got past it, though, as you can see from my volume of pictures.

Later, we went to another Gaudí invention, Parc Guell, which is quite far out of the way of the main drag of the city (a.k.a. where everything else is).  It was packed, of course, but just as amazing.  It's a very tall park, in the sense that each main section is built on top of the other on the hillside where the park is located.  I found it very ingenious.  Between the amount of people and the rule against standing on anything historical (which we quickly discovered after grumpy park guides kept calling all of us tourists maleducados, which basically means "badly educated" and is much more strong of an insult in Spain than in the U.S.), it was very hard to take pictures.  But here are what I have to offer:




We, of course, didn't make it to the whole park, but what we saw of it was amazing.

We made our way back down through the city to La Rambla, which is the famously exciting street in Barcelona full of street vendors, performers, and just really awesomely weird people.  We wanted to go to the outdoor market that one of us had heard about to buy food and other items for lunch (since none of us were keen on eating out and spending more than we had to).  Well, when we found it, we were amazed.

This place is called La Boquería, and let me tell you, it was one of the most wonderful things I have seen on this trip!  The market was made up of lots and lots of booths selling one thing or another under a covered pavilion, all for really cheap (except for the chocolate, as Meagan and I found out too late).  We ended up getting bread, strawberries, and some juice for a really good price (but then we got chocolate and paid way too much for it -- I think the woman felt bad for us because she knew we didn't expect it, so she gave us some extras for free too).  I wish we could've spent more time just looking at everything, but we had to go.  Some pictures:




We ended up walking down to a cool pier (called something along the lines of "La Rambla del Mar" or "La Rambla of the sea") and sat and ate under a monument to Christoper Columbus.  The statue was surrounded by several lions that you could climb on to take pictures, like this one below!  I sadly did not get any of me.  But I'm not that broken up by it.

At this point, we were all pretty tired, especially having gone onto the actual pier to lie down for a quick breather.  Our next stop, though, was the Picasso Museum of Barcelona.  Picasso, as I mentioned in my last post, was born in Málaga, a city which is very proud of that fact.  However, he did not spend his entire life there; he actually spent most of his education in Barcelona, so of course there was a museum here too.  I actually preferred the one in Málaga because I felt like it was more classic Picasso, but this one chronicled more of his progression as an artist.  I found a new admiration for Picasso for doing whatever he wanted to do. Did you know that Picasso was an Impressionist first?  I didn't.  The museum took works from every artistic "period" of his, including sketches and "studies," a fancy word for sketches or planning phases of a bigger work.  My favorite was one that made use of Pointillism (which is a fancy word for "dot art"), but for the life of me, I can't remember the name of the painting.  I wish I could to show you.  Also, in the museum was Picasso's take on the famous Velázquez painting, Las meninas.  Above, I've put a side-by-side comparison.

The day was almost over and we still hadn't made it to the beach yet, so we decided to go see the Mediterranean.  The beach was about the same as it was in Málaga, but this time we saw it at sunset.  (Another difference: there was a nudist there too, which was strange because we didn't see any signs for a nude beach and nobody else was nude.  Interesting.)  I wish I could've put my feet in the sea, but it was really cold and I had socks on, which came with the incredibly unappetizing idea of putting my wet and sandy feet back in them afterwards.  I'll have other chances, I'm sure.

We returned back to the hostels, all pretty tired out, but we still had plans to go out that night.  Elizabeth really wanted to go to this part she had heard of from her friend and also from her guidebook.  It was a very old bar, with a specialty in serving absinthe, which as you may or may not know, was illegal in the U.S. until four years ago (according to Wikipedia).  I didn't get one, instead opting for a beer and getting up in the morning, but I did try a few sips and I have to say, it was incredibly strong.  Like, incredibly.  Evidently, also according to Wikipedia, absinthe is not a liqueur, but a spirit.  Go figure.  The bar was also cool because evidently Picasso and Hemingway both frequented it a long time ago.  To take absinthe?  Maybe.

That night, we went to sleep very contentedly, and the next morning, we didn't do much but walk around, back to Plaça Catalunya for a bit, and then make our way to the airport to fly home.

All in all, I love Barcelona.  Like, really love it.  I can't say that I prefer it over Sevilla, but I definitely love both of them, albeit for different reasons.  Sevilla is more like Charleston, SC whereas Barcelona is more like Chicago.  Two very different styles, yet both are fantastic.  I highly recommend that you go, and longer for a weekend.

Speaking of places to go longer than a weekend, I'm leaving for Paris today!  But only for the weekend.  Nonetheless, it should be fun!  Wish me luck on this adventure, and that I will be able to survive a country that speaks a language I don't understand.

Nick

I should preface this by saying that it has always been a dream of mine to go to the Costa del Sol, which is situated on the Mediterranean edge of the Southern coast of Spain, directly to the east of Gibraltar.  Don't ask me why I've always wanted to go there, because I don't know.  Maybe I saw a picture in a book somewhere, or heard Sra. Carr (my Spanish teacher from middle school) talking about it, or maybe I heard my own mom talking about one of her many adventures when she was younger.  Who knows?  In particular, Málaga had always been the dream city of choice.

Well, imagine coming to Spain and having your señora tell you that you shouldn't go to Málaga because it's fea (ugly).  Nor should you go to any of the other places on the Costa del Sol because they're filled with tourists.  (I decided not to mention that Cádiz is also filled with tourists when Marisol said that I should go there instead.)  In a way, she was right, but in another, she was completely wrong.

A bit of a side note: I hate it when locals here try to tell me where to go without me asking them.  Obviously, they are going to know the city of Sevilla and the province of Andalucía and basically the rest of Spain better than I ever will, but just because one place is prettier or more exciting than the other does not want to make me go there any less.  Besides, everyone is going to have their own opinion anyway: case in point, Meagan's señora doesn't like Málaga either, so she told her to go to Marbella.  When I told Marisol this, she frowned and said, "¿Por qué?"  The moral of the story is, unless I ask someone for advice, what they tell me about places I plan on going is not going to keep me from going there.  Everywhere in Spain will be different than America.  I want to see all places: the good and the bad, the bonito and the feo.  (Marisol says that if she were to come to America, she would listen to the locals to determine where to go.  But if I told her not to go to NYC because I don't like that, even though she says she wouldn't go, I think she would.)

Anyway, side-note over.  I can definitely see where Marisol is coming from in terms of what Málaga looks like, but I still disagree.  More on that later.

As you may or may not remember, our story left off in Arcos.  My itinerary was incredibly complicated to get to Málaga from Arcos, because there's no direct transport (at least, not on Saturdays) between Arcos (or better yet, Jerez de la Frontera, the city next to Arcos) and Málaga, nor is there any transport at all in that direction really.  Oh well.  So this is what happened:

• 8:00 a.m.: take a bus from Arcos de la Frontera to Jerez de la Frontera.  Because even though Arcos is on the big map of Spain that I keep going back to when describing places geographically, there is no transportation to and from the city except by bus and by car (which I don't have and am not even allowed to legally rent).  The bus came a little late, but that's fine -- the ride was only half an hour long and I had more than enough time to walk across the street in Jerez to the train station to catch the:
• 9:33 a.m. train from Jerez de la Frontera to Dos Hermanas, a small pueblo outside Sevilla that I didn't get to explore for fear of missing my connecting train at:
• 11:31 a.m. to Málaga.  Meagan and her parents were on this train as well, but they had gotten on at Sevilla.  And let me tell you: I mentioned the other day that my favorite paisaje had been on the way to Tarifa from Sevilla (one of the many steps to get to Morocco), but this train ride was even better.  The first half was pretty unmemorable, maybe also because I didn't have a window seat.  However, at one point, I closed my eyes for a little bit, not more than a minute, and when I opened them we were in a tunnel.  So that was weird, but then when we exited, I looked outside, and literally, we were riding along the side of a cliff.  There were plenty of mountains all around us, and they were all incredibly tall with incredibly sheer cliff faces.  Even more incredibly, there were people scaling these cliff faces.  It looked like something out of Avatar, except for real.  (I wish I had pictures, but it was too sudden for me to get out my camera and awkwardly lean over the stranger that was next to me to get a picture out the window.)  We drove through several more tunnels, finally exiting the mountain chain, much to our dismay.  Also astounding: we were literally 15 minutes from Málaga, which is at the beach.  I guess it's true what they say about going hiking in the morning and going swimming in the ocean during the afternoon.

Every year, the first couple weekends of March, several cities/pueblos in Andalucía (and I'm assuming other places in Spain as well) have a gigantic festival called Carnaval, which is basically the equivalent of Mardi Gras.  Of course, the bigger the city, the bigger the festival.  The one in Cádiz is particularly famous for being an every-night-for-two-weeks blow-out, where you dress up, get trashed, pass out, and do it all again the next day.  (I'm sure it entails more than that, like things that are actually cultural, but I wouldn't know -- I didn't go to the one in Cádiz.  I just heard about it from other people and that's what they talked about.)

The Carnaval that I did go too was in Arcos de la Frontera, a small-ish village almost directly south of Sevilla and west of Cádiz.  Chris (my roommate) and I went with Marisol's vecinas (neighbors), 4 Spanish girls who all study at the University of Sevilla and come from Arcos.  When we met them the first time, they said they were from Cádiz, which we took of course to mean the town of Cádiz when they were actually referring to Cádiz province.  Then we found out that their town was named Arcos de la Frontera, and that made more sense.  (Upon arriving in Arcos, we also found out that 3 of the 4 didn't actually even live in the city proper, but a little bit outside of the city.  And Chris says to María, who takes English classes, "Okay, so where the f*** do you guys actually live?"  Laughter ensued.)

After finally getting to Arcos after a mix-up with transportation involving broken cars, mis-numbered train cars, and a non-existent bus schedule, Chris and I stayed in our hostel for awhile, waiting for the night's festivities to start (and so that he could watch the UNC quarterfinal game of the ACC tournament on his phone).  I should mention that Arcos is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen from a distance.  María told us that it sits on the top of the mountain and slopes downward, and while it may have been a bit of an exaggeration, it literally does sit on top of a hill.  Rather, it sits on half of a hill, because one side of the hill is not a hill at all, but instead a humongous cliff face.  So imagine you see this cliff, rounded at both far edges, and on top of this cliff and sloping downward on either side is this quaint little village.  I tried to get pictures the morning I left, because the sun was peeking through the rainclouds (that thankfully were not there the night before during Carnaval), but none of them turned out very good.  (I would recommend this Google image search.)

Anyway, María picked us up and we drove into the city to meet everyone.  We got to meet some pretty cool people, some who we already knew and some who we didn't.  We walked up to the main part of Arcos -- interesting: when you go to downtown Arcos, in Spanish, they say, "subir" (going up), because downtown Arcos is at the peak of the "mountain".

The amazing part about Arcos was that even though all the architecture and structure in Spanish cities is amazing, somehow Arcos managed to top it again.  For example, their cathedral is built on a slant, a slight one, and so in order to keep it from going further than the Tower of Pisa has ever gone, they built archways over the street next to it in order to support it.  These archways are extremely tall and the street goes right under them.  I can't really put into words how it felt to walk under them nor how it felt to look up at them while doing so, but it was amazing.  Not to mention, the labyrinthine nature of the streets made me feel like I was exploring some brand new place that no one had ever visited before.  It's an odd feeling to try and describe.

Anyway, we got some drinks and celebrated, and then we went to the main plaza.  One of the customary things to do during Carnaval is to listen to agrupaciones musicales, which are basically groups of about 12 people, all dressed based on a theme costume, who sing songs based on the adventures they have in their costumes.  (The breakdown is about this: one bass drummer, with a hi-hat on top, one snare drummer, two guitarists, and then the rest are singers.)  The most popular one in Arcos, evidently, is la policia, a group of 12 guys that sing songs that are funny and witty (at least, from what I can tell by what I caught).  It's very Spanish, very entertaining, and very, very fun, although challenging to understand.  But that's okay.  (A lot of the guys that we had met through our neighbors were continually concerned that we, Chris and I, were having a good time. I guess they were hoping that we liked their home?  Of course we did.  There's not anything like it in the States.)

So we kept on.  After la policia, we kind of wandered a little bit, not really knowing what to do.  Some people split up and went to their favorite pub, some people (including me) stayed around the center.  We ended up back at the main plaza 3 or 4 times, and at that point, it was getting kind of late.  So in the end, Chris and I visited by the town favorite pub and then returned back home. Chris was going to stay in Arcos over the next day, which is evidently when Carnaval really kicks off, but I had plans to go to Málaga the next day and I had to get up at 7 the next morning.  At this point it was 3 a.m.  But that story continues tomorrow, as promised!  Overall, Carnaval was really, really fun.  And although I was kind of hesitant about going at first, it definitely paid off.

Let me tell you about the rain in Spain.  Whatever you've heard about this rain, whether it be from My Fair Lady or some other source, I'm not sure it is correct.  While Sevilla is flat, it is not considered "in the plain."  We're just gonna make it clear right now.  This means that it should not rain a lot, right?

Wrong.  Granted, it rains here less than it could, I suppose, but it does rain a lot.  For weeks at a time.  Because that's how it works, really.  It'll rain for a week or so at a time and then we'll have 3 or so weeks of sun.  It's a pretty good trade off when looking at it from a distance, but in the moment, it sucks.  Take this week, for example: it has been raining since last Sunday.  That is 9 days ago.  9 days of rain.  Normally, I like rain.  I like standing in it and dancing in it and getting completely drenched.  But I do not like rain in Sevilla, at least not right now.  I will tell you why.

1. It's cold.  The rain is cold here.  And maybe that's because it's March, but that doesn't really matter.  9 days of cold rain is infinitely worse than 9 days of warm rain.
2. Walking is a principal form of transportation.  This can be said for two of my three "semi-permanent residencies," Sevilla and UNC-CH.  Walking is a very large part of everyday life here in Sevilla, and even if you do want to take the bus or the metro to escape it, you will still have to walk for at least 5 minutes in the rain.  I guarantee that.  And last but not least:
3. THERE IS NO ESCAPING THE RAIN.  The thing about Sevilla (or Spain in general, really) is that there are no truly "public" places; that is, there is nowhere that you can just duck inside to take a brief respite from getting drenched.  For example, at UNC, there is the Union.  Or Lenoir.  Or the Student Stores.  Or any class building, the library, or anyone's dorm/community hub.  In Spain, here are your options: cafe (where you will have to buy something), store (where you will also have to buy something), monument visit (which costs money), or any other place that isn't free.  We do have the university, but it's cold.  (And so are all the aforementioned places.)  Nor can you go over to someone's house, because that's against popular customs here.  So even if you wanted to take a brief pause from the rain, it's not like you could unless you wanted to go back to your homestay, which is also too cold, especially when you're wet.

If there's one thing I'll give Spain credit for, in terms of reliability, punctuality, and overall organization, it is their train system.  Obviously, Europe is famous for having better public transportation than most cities (especially those in the States), which is clearly evident in Sevilla.  Buses are everywhere and so are bus stops, which are conveniently marked with the route number of the bus you want to take.  Sevilla doesn't have the most accomplished metro, but it goes pretty far, has frequent stops, and is impeccably clean (though that is probably due to the fact that it's pretty brand-new, having opened in 2009).  There's also a tram that runs the length of Avenida de la Constitución, the main drag of downtown Sevilla, and a bit beyond it; while it's slow, I suppose it cuts walking time at least by half.  Sevilla also has the incredibly innovative system of public bikes, called "Sevici."  These public bicycles can be parked at several stations all over the city.  What you do is you check out a bike, use it for 30 minutes max (although you can swipe your card again for an additional 15 minutes), and then park it at a different Sevici station closer to your destination.  It's ingenious, really.


As for transport outside of the city, depending on how far you have to go, taking the train is a wonderful option.  As you would probably guess, it serves closer destinations better, but with the high-speed AVE train (which I will be taking to Madrid when my parents are here!  So excited!), you can easily get to Barcelona from Sevilla in 6 or so hours, whereas before the invention of the AVE it would take maybe 12 to 13.  Crazy, right?  And the normal trains don't go slowly either, by any means, maxing out at 160 km/h.  I don't know how many mph that is, but it sounds like a lot nonetheless.  Anyway, trains are cheap, fairly fast, and efficient.  No train arrived more than 10 minutes late on my entire weekend excursion, which involved taking 4 different trains over the course of two days.  (More on that in a separate blog post.)  The platform was always announced in a timely fashion, and boarding was easy.  The RENFE website is a bit difficult to figure out if you don't speak Spanish, and sometimes there are problems with paying, but otherwise, it's fine.  Tickets can also be bought at the station.


What surprises me is that for a country that seems to be so nonchalant about punctuality and reliability and warning people in advance if something changes, the train system is very tightly run.  Even in the big stations (which evidently usually doubly serve as shopping malls, as we found out in Málaga), things are easy to find and get to in enough time to catch the train.


Not to mention, the smaller stations are absolutely gorgeous.  Every one is different, and every one has some kind of decorative aspect to it.  The two smaller stations I got to visit this weekend were in Jerez de la Frontera and Dos Hermanas.  (I also went to Sevilla's other train station, San Bernardo, which is closer to my house, to go to Jerez the first day.  It's ugly, like what you'd expect a metro tunnel to look like, but I'm not counting it in the "beautiful small stations" category because (a) it's underground, and (b) it's in a big city.)  Jerez is actually a fairly decent-sized pueblo, but Dos Hermanas is essentially a suburb of Sevilla, maybe what Fuquay-Varina is to Raleigh.  For example, here is the station at Jerez de la Frontera, photographed here with my neighbor, María, turning to look at me:

So it's been a week since this actually happened, and I apologize for that, but I will try my best to recap our trip to the fullest.  We'll go step by step.

It all started when Elizabeth mentioned that we could go on a 3-day trip to Morocco for quite a good price.  This was near the very start of our program, so of course we, screaming "We love traveling!", all jumped at the opportunity, booking ourselves in the program without a second thought.  All was well and good, the applications went through for most people, and when they didn't the people at the office in Sevilla spoke English, which is always a good thing when you're dealing with money.

Well, then protests started happening in Morocco, with the more serious ones being in bigger cities like Marrakech, Casablanca, and Rabat.  We were not going to be coming anywhere near these places, but we were staying in Tangier, which is the biggest city in the northern half of Morocco.  So there was cause to be nervous, even if in retrospect, it was somewhat foolhardy to do so.  Needless to say, a lot of people got cold feet, and whereas before a good 12 of us were going on this specific trip, that number had been cut in half.  (Evidently, it was more than just UNC in Sevilla's program that dropped out -- there were 200 people going, but we all managed to fit in 1 1/2 buses.)  Us 6 (Meagan, Elizabeth, me, and our friends Callan, Christina, and Will) all stuck around, mainly because (a) when would we ever get to go to Morocco again? and (b) they would only refund 40% of our money if we dropped out a week before the trip.

So that was settled and we commenced our journey!  It started off on a great note: Elizabeth and Callan kept joking around and calling this a "couples retreat" (with them facetiously included) because Meagan and I and then Christina and Will both make up couples.  (It was a kind of you-had-to-be-there joke.)  Between that and the magnificently beautiful drive between Sevilla and Tarifa (seriously, it's the most beautiful thing I've seen since I've been here), everything was going smoothly.

We got to Tarifa and commenced the unnecessarily long process of getting tickets for and boarding the ferry.  The ferry was cool, and actually pretty nice -- and of course, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar is incredible (although going to Morocco, we couldn't see anything because we crossed at night) -- but the entire experienced was marred by the fact that the travel agency guides that we were traveling with took our passports without cause.

Which brings me to a big point I should make before I continue: this trip was poorly organized.  Granted, the guides always knew what they were doing, but they didn't tell us anything about where we were going, when we were going there, what we were doing, if there was anything potentially dangerous going on, etc. until the time actually came to do it.  That's fine, I suppose -- I can go with the flow pretty easily.  What I can't deal with is when you take my most important lifeline from me (a.k.a. my passport) and don't tell me why until you give it back to me, especially when going to a less-stable-than-Spain country on a completely different continent.  (I'm not trying to be dramatic; Meagan and I were just freaking out together, especially since ours were the last passports to be given back to us.)  Of course, it was a perfectly good reason that they took them from us: it made crossing and getting stamped go faster.  But could you please tell us?  Case in point: my mother asked me for the name and number of the hotel we'd be staying at.  I didn't have that information until I got to the hotel.  Itinerary of things we were doing?  No.  Numbers of my tour guides in case we got separated?  No.  Maps?  No.  It was really kind of shady.  But all in all, it was fine.  We never separated from the group and we never got stranded anywhere.  But I'm jumping the gun.  Proceeding:

We got off the ferry and took a 5-minute bus ride to our hotel in Tangier, which was very, very nice.  All our meals were provided for, but even so, we were told to be wary of the water and anything that was going to have to come in contact with it while still fresh (i.e. vegetables).  But the food was awesome.  I just have a really soft spot in my heart for Arabic food and spices.  Whenever my mom cooks with fennel or cumin at home, it's always one of my favorite things.  Not to mention, what with the Arabic influence in Spain, it was nice to see (and taste) the roots of that influence, whether in the food, the architecture, or the lifestyle.

That was day 1.  Day 2 consisted of three things: camel rides, the village of Chefchaouen, and lots and lots of (unfortunate) down-time.

As we rode up the mountainside to the highest point in Tangier and then down again, we were offered this great view of the city, which looks magnificent from above.  (You will know this if you have seen The Bourne Ultimatum.  That hand-to-hand chase/fight scene he has with the assassin, the one where he's jumping over the rooftops to chase him?  We were in the city where that takes place.  SO COOL.)  It's just too bad that the most we saw of Tangier was from our hotel or through a bus window.  Anyway, we traveled a little while along the coast of some ocean, to get to this side-of-the-road stop where stood -- I kid you not -- 5 camels with their 2 trainers.  We all got a chance to ride the camels -- and I know that I should be more excited to ride a camel than I am to see the ocean -- but going down on the beach was more of an experience than riding the camels in a circle for 30 seconds.  (Although, one of the trainers was the funniest person ever -- he kept shouting the 8-10 English words/phrases he knew in a loop, even if they had nothing to do with camels.  Examples: "Oh my God!"  "Cheese!"  "Giddyup, camel!"  Also, all of these were in a distinctly Arabic accent.  Another you-had-to-be-there moment.)  Anyway, we reasoned that the water we saw was the Mediterranean, but it very well could have been the Atlantic.  Either way: awesome.




We then proceeded to see this cool cave, called The Cave of Hercules.  It was right on the shore, so you could see the waves crashing in through the orifice, but other than that, that's all it was -- cool.  With a name like "The Cave of Hercules" you would expect a bigger cave, or at least more of them.  But it was still quite wonderful to see.


We then proceeded through back-roads to Chefchaouen, otherwise known as the blue-and-white village.  Literally.  This place is SO blue.  I don't remember the significance of it, but I know that each color, especially when painted on the doors of the houses, means something in regards to your ethnic background or religion.  (I would guess, since the majority of places have blue doors/walls that blue would refer to an Islamic religious background or at least an Arabic ethnic background.)  We got to Chefchaouen just in time for lunch, and let me tell you, the food was even better than at the hotel.  In one of the dishes, there were these yellow-ish slices of some kind of vegetable.  Upon trying them, we discovered that they were lemons, somehow with the skin and rind blanched off of them so that you could chew through the outer flesh of the lemon.  They were so good.  Later, we took a walking tour through the bluest blue of the village, which was amazing of course.  The village is on a mountainside, and the streets aren't really organized.  But that doesn't matter because the part that we walked through was full of mainly pedestrian streets, which allows for a lot more spatial conservation and, secondarily, creative innovation in terms of structural construction.  It was really unique and different.



We walked for awhile, all in the same group, around with a tour guide.  About the hardest thing for me to do, though, even amidst all of these unique experiences was to have to refrain from holding Meagan's hand.  Which is completely reasonable, given the fact that it's out of respect for the Islamic religious tradition, but it was painful.  But we tried our best and managed to get through without even the littlest sign of affection, because that's what respect is.  WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE OTHER DETESTABLE POINT ABOUT THIS TRIP:

THE PEOPLE WE TRAVELED WITH.  UGH IT MAKES ME SICK.  Basically, I have discovered through talking with people in other study abroad programs I have met while being here, that the ratio of guys to girls that study abroad is about 1:6.  There are always a very small number of guys compared with the number of girls.  Well, out of the hundred or so people that went to Morocco, about 8-10 of them were guys (not including our tour guides, who were part of this problem that I'm about to explain), so it was an extreme example of this ratio.  The rest were girls.  This makes very little difference normally, except that when everyone except for us 6 from UNC and maybe about 5 other people in all are the most annoying, irritating, rude, disrespectful people ever.  Not just the girls or the guys: all of them.  The girls we traveled with, on the matter of respect, had none: they constantly complained about the state of things in Morocco; they showed the most skin possible, either because it was too hot or they wanted a tan; or they constantly said stupid s*** to get attention, especially when it involved criticizing Moroccan culture.  And most of the time I just wanted to slap all of them.  I mean, come on: yes, Morocco is a third-world country, so yes, you are not going to be pampered like you always have been your entire life.  But it's a way of life and not respecting it is a crime, especially when it could be offensive to the native population: showing skin is NOT appropriate.  But I suppose in the end it's your loss because you're the one that's going to end up looking like a prostitute.  No wonder the foreign perception of American girls, through movies and music and all that, is that they're easy.  The girls we were traveling with were the epitome of hard-partying, stereotypical disrespectful people that couldn't give two s***s about anyone lower than them.  But the guys were even worse: they catered to this.  Especially our tour guides.  Their job is practically to flirt with girls and flatter them with attention so that they can keep making money, even when it comes as an insult to the places they are visiting.  We stopped at the bathroom on the way down, and one of the tour guides came in and said, out loud to the bathroom, "Man, I'm lovin' the amount of girls on this trip."  I mean, they're responsible for these people.  They could put a stop to it, but I suppose they would feel like doing so would make them feel too juvenile.  Well, that's too bad, because they were juvenile.  The whole thing just made me sick.  Really, really sick.  (Rant over.)

Anyway, the point is, that us 6 from UNC tried to be as respectful as possible of local culture, religious preference, and such.  And we succeeded.

Moving on: that was pretty much the end of day 2.  We had to leave Chefchaouen early because there was going to be a peaceful protest in the main square where we were going to do some shopping.  And even though the protest was going to be peaceful, trying to keep track of 100 Americans in the middle of it is not easy.  (Especially when they paint targets on each others back and scream, "I'm American!", due to their disrespectful nature.  UGH.)  So we went back to the hotel and chilled idly for a long time.  A long, long time.  (Unfortunate.)  Then there was dinner and some kind of party that we didn't go to.  So that was day 2.

Day 3 saw us get up early and travel to Tetouan, the second largest city in the north after Tangier.  And they're right -- it is big.  Evidently, it's separated into Old Town and New Town, where Old Town is further separated into the Arab Quarter, the Spanish Quarter (or the Catholic-Christian quarter), and the Jewish Quarter.  We got a chance to walk through a thriving open-air market (which again was met with dissent and discontent from the snobbish in our group), down some side-streets, and through a great plaza where evidently the king comes to speak when he has to give a speech.  All in all, it was very cool.  Things we learned: the Moroccan constitution guarantees religious freedom, even though the majority of the population is Muslim (which, in retrospect, shouldn't be surprising, but still was); some of the rooms of hotels in the Old Town can be rented out for 2 euro a night (which is about 20 dirham, Moroccan currency); and that the Moroccan way of life is incredibly strenuous and difficult.  Yes, seeing the market was cool, but in a way, it was also very sad.  I've never had an experience where I get to see first-hand a family that lives without basic provisions that we have in the U.S. and it all at once made me feel very fortunate and very guilty.  And it got me thinking: how much of the stuff that we have in the U.S. is unnecessary?  If Moroccans can be happy with what they have, then certainly we can too.  That's a message that I feel has been preached several times over, but that doesn't make it any less true.

After that, we went to a Moroccan rug store, where I'm sure they expected us to buy a lot of things, but really, we had very little money and very little space to transport a rug back home.  Christina, however, did manage to bargain her rug down to 50 euro, which is amazing in and of itself.  I don't know how she'll get it home, but I'm sure she'll find a way.  (She was obsessing.  Completely justifiably though: they were beautiful!)  Then we went to an apothecary, or rather, a natural pharmacy, where he showed us several organic cures for ailments such as stress, muscle tension, dry skin/eczema, and other things involving spices and herbs.  It was really cool to see it, and also got me thinking how well they worked over modern medicine in the States.  (Of course, I feel like the FDA would've cracked down on this place hard.)  We went to lunch and had authentic cous-cous (!) and some Coke, which was served in bottles with labels in Arabic (basically awesome).  Then we got a chance to go shopping in the bazaars in one part of the market.  This would've been great if we hadn't been standing around for almost 2 hours.  After I ran out of Moroccan money, I didn't have anything to do expect wait.  And the thing about the market is, it's not in a straight line, so no matter which way you go, you're liable to get lost.  So we stood in this plaza for a long time, waiting for something, but we didn't know what.  (Again, poor organization on behalf of Discover Sevilla.)  When we finally did leave, we boarded the bus back to Tangier to get back on the ferry and come back to Spain.  Crossing the strait was infinitely more rewarding this time, even if the boat rocked harder then it did on the way over here, because you could see from point to point the coast of Africa to the coast of Europe.  It was really unique to be in the waters of what could be the Mediterranean and what could be the Atlantic.  After that, we commenced the long journey back home (which was also interrupted by a "15-minute stop" for dinner at a cafe on the side of the road, but what was really an hour-long stop for dinner at a cafe on the side of the road, at which none of the six of us except for Will ordered anything).

Overall, it was a rewarding experience.  I know I complained a lot, but it was still a trip to Morocco, no matter how annoying the people were or how poorly organized it was.  A few of us thought it wasn't worth the price we paid for it, but the way I see it, it was.  It was totally worth it.  I don't know if I'm ever going to get back to Morocco again, but I sure would love to (especially since we didn't spend hardly any time in Tangier, which was the most exciting part for me).  And I know I couldn't have gotten there on my own.  If you ever get the chance, I would really recommend you do it.

Nick