Moroc'N'Roll, Babyyy!

My trip can be summarized thus: WOW. But I've got a lot to write about (gird your loins, it's going to be a long read over your breakfast coffee), so I'm going to try to work in order here. Gotta keep myself on track. Here we go...

After the last blog post on Tues night I had Barnaby presentation on Weds and Jean's class as per usual. Both went well. Back to the flat after Shakespeare, and I realized that there was no way that I was going to the pool, I had too much to do! Packing, pub quiz, fretting about little things like forgetting my toothbrush (which I still managed to do. Remembered the paste, but not the brush. Brilliant.), and generally being excited about my trip! Pub quiz was great. Dr. King came again (which was useful because he could give me my stipend money in advance- we usually get it on Thursday in class), and we did OK. Not great, but whatever. Bonded some more with our rival British team and with Louis, AKA Pub Quiz Guy (the Questionmaster, you might call him). It was great, and it exhausted me effectively so that I went straight to bed when I got back to the flat.

Woke at 4:15, was out of the flat by 4:45 and walking towards King's Cross to catch my train to Gatwick Airport (I promise it's a well-lit route, so it wasn't all that sketchy even though it wasn't yet 5 in the morning). Arrived in plenty of time to pick up my ticket and catch my train at 5:20. Smooth sailing on to the airport and onto my plane. Flight "left" at 8, but didn't actually til maybe 8:40, but we still arrived in Marrakech before noon.



We flew over Gibraltar



Welcome to Marrakech!

Did the money exchange thing (about 10 dirham to 1 euro if that gives you some idea), and met a guy from the program that I was traveling with, Snow or Sand, named Simo. There were three girls from Syracuse University that had flown in with me, but they were staying in Marrakech for the SoS program there, while I was headed further south for surfing in Agadir. The three girls were really nice, I liked them a lot, and Simo was cool too. Anyway, our car got pulled over by a cop while they were driving me to the bus station where I could catch my ride down the coast, so I missed my bus by less than 10 minutes. So I had to wait til 2:30 for the next bus down the coast.

Moroccan Currency, the dirham

Chilling, chiling in the bus station, met a really sweet woman named Reet from Holland and was chatting with her. She lives in the Canary Islands, but was going to Agadir to meet up with her parents on their yacht. Nice, right? Anyway, she was adorable and we had a really lovely time chatting. On the bus we had assigned seats, and I was sitting next to a very nice man named Houane who spent much of the journey teasing me for my French accent and generally helping me to brush up on my French speaking skills. Skills that I spent a significant portion of the weekend thanking God for. Seriously. Close to three hours later we arrived in Agadir and I'm starting to wonder where the hell I'm going to meet this Charlie character that Simo told me would be meeting me at the bus station. Reet was so sweet, and she wanted to make sure that I was well taken care of before she disappeared. Turned out to be unnecessary concern on my part, because as soon as I went into the bus station, a guy called out "Katherine?" and thus I met Charlie. (I think because my debit card says Katherine he had the idea in his head that I go by that. We sorted it out pretty quickly though) So Charlie was the Snow or Sand trip leader guy, and he carted me upstairs to meet the other two students on the trip, Brittany and Cameron, as well as the woman who owns the riad we stayed at, Maria. Really cool lady, Maria. She's Portuguese and Spanish, and speaks those two languages plus French and English. I felt pretty unaccomplished next to her. But I got used to that feeling over the course of the weekend, because pretty much every other person staying at our riad was European and they all seemed to speak at least three languages. Yeah, not like that makes a person feel inadequate or anything...

So we grabbed some food and then headed back to the riad which was actually in a little town outside of Agadir called Taghazout.

Because I arrived later than expected, not til around 6, we went back to the riad and basically hung out til dinner (which wasn't all that long of a wait). Know how I thought I'd have one traditional Moroccan dinner? Yeah, well we had them every night, and the food was amaaaaaazingggggggggggggg. Could I tell you what, exactly, I was eating? No, probably not. Does that matter? Not even a little bit. The riad was set up in a square shape, with an inner courtyard/pool area, and that's where we ate each night. It was buffet-style dining, and there were a bunch of tables set up around the pool, so we were eating with all of the other guests. We met all kinds of people (hah, people. Who am I kidding? Extremely attractive, mostly male, European surfers. Awesome.) Dinner the first night started with a tuna dish and then a starchy main (I repeat, I don't know names. I just know that it was tasty). We were all pretty wiped, the other three hadn't gotten much sleep the night before either, so we bailed before dessert and went pretty much straight to bed. In fairness, it was close to 10 by that point, so it wasn't completely outrageous for us to crash.

Next morning we were up at 8 for breakfast to be ready to head to the beach by 9. Met some Austrians over breakfast, and ate with the Swiss guys. And on to the beach! We rode in this Land Rover with about 12 surfboards strapped on to the roof, and were basically just squeezed in where there was room. Beach for day one was called Banana Beach. Excellent :)


Without the boards. Still a sweet vehicle.

  

Banana Beach!




Charlie, Cameron and Brittany. Getting excited!



Stretch it out



Yes, that is a camel.

We got suited up, and Mounir (our hottie Moroccan surf instructor) brought us down by the water to warm up. Meaning we had to run. Totally didn't sign up for RUNNING! But, I repeat, he's a stud, so we did as we were told. Stretched and then learned the basics of surfing! Incredible. All too quickly, Mounir was saying that we could head on out into the water and try to put what we had just talked about into practice, and away we went! For the next maybe three hours, I battled with the waves and generally crashed and burned. Mounir and Maria (owner of the riad) were both out in the water with us, surfing and helping us to surf. Over the course of our surfing, we met more people staying at our riad, notably a group from Alaska (Sue was my favorite), and two Swedish guys. Broke for lunch around 1ish, and basically I collapsed on the beach. Had some yummy pita sandwiches with some sort of pink mystery meat inside and then passed out on the beach for some time. After vegetating for a while, we rallied and headed back out to the waves. Surfing part two lasted probably til 5 or so, and then we packed up and headed back to the riad.




'nanner beach




And again.


Plan for the evening included heading to a hammam, a traditional Moroccan bath house, and Mounir was going to drive us into town, but we hung out with the Swedish guys and Mounir on the riad's terrace for a while and had a beer before heading out. Interesting note about Morocco and beer: it's not illegal, but it's hard to come by. Charlie, for example, went into town on Saturday evening and was offered hashish in exchange for beers. He politely declined, but it seems useful in explaining how easy some things are to come by, while others remain difficult. But the riad had beer. Little pony bottles, but it was cold and delicious.


Part of the terrace



View from the terrace

Time to roll out, and we headed into the center of town (Taghazout). Last week was an Islamic holiday, celebrating Abraham NOT killing his son, and sacrificing a ram instead, and the celebrations continued from Wednesday (the actual feast day) through Friday (the day we were going into town). Part of this festival included young men and boys parading through town, many dressed up in goat skins. Goat skins, you may or may not know, STINK. So it was with a smelly welcome that we drove into town. The picture that I'm snagging from Brittany really doesn't do these guys justice. I mean, they're DECKED OUT in these skins, and they paint their faces, and they each carry a goat foot which they whack you on the arm with (a girl at the hammam explained to Brittany and me that it's a blessing. Bruising, but a blessing nonetheless).

I hope you can see this well enough that you can appreciate these outfits. In any case, they were all parading through the streets, so it was a little bit tricky getting to the hammam. We arrived in one piece without running anyone over (Mounir was making me nervous on the drive there, and kept laughing when i would grab the "Oh, Shit!" bar on the ceiling of the car. You know, the bar that your parents grabbed at constantly when teaching you how to drive. And he reminded me more than once that he's never been in an accident. Which wasn't all that comforting because you've got to see how Moroccans drive. Staying in your lane is very much an optional thing in Morocco. And people were just chilling, walking in the street. Insanity), and Britt and I headed over to the women's side while Charlie, Cameron, Mounir and the two Swedish guys (Victor and I forget) went in to theirs. At this point there was a bit of a mix-up. And cause for me to again thank God that I took French in high school. The ladies inside asked if we wanted massages, and said that there was an extra fee for it. We didn't have money, but tried to explain that we were pretty sure that we had already paid for that out front with the guys. It got lost in translation though, and Britt and I ended up heading into the steam rooms, naked, with just a packet of shampoo, a bucket and a ladle each. We had a blast splashing around, and did so for maybe 40 minutes before starting to lose interest. Bonded with some of the ladies inside (Britt got into a splash fight with one of them, and I befriended a little girl who was slip and sliding around on the tile floors in her birthday suit), and then we headed back outside.

We were waiting outside for the guys for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but we got to watch all the parade-participants as they marched and danced and drummed on by. The bolder boys would come up and practice their French with us (a few knew a few words of English, too), and the shy ones would peek at us from behind the others and maybe give a little smile before running off to watch us from a distance. We got a lot of blessings (meaning I had a bruise on my arm the next day from being whacked so many times), and the others eventually arrived. At which point we discovered that they had all been stretched and washed and exfoliated, and that we should have been, too. No matter, they got the money back and Charlie told us that he would make arrangements for us to get massages the next night. Which was perfect, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We arrived back in plenty of time to hang out by the pool before dinner. Had an amazing lamb dish, followed by the fluffiest couscous I ever did eat, and finished with two rounds of dessert, first bananas marinated in brandy en flambeau, and then cookies with traditional Moroccan mint tea. SO GOOD. We hung out for a while, but Cameron and Charlie headed to bed around 11, leaving Britt and me behind to befriend some more European hotties. We re-united with the Austrian guys from breakfast, and played some Texas Hold 'em with them before they headed to bed, too. At which point we decided sleep was probably a good plan and headed off ourselves.

Woke up bright and early the next morning (excitement? I dunno. But I was up well before my 7:45 alarm, and headed up to the terrace to check out the views).

Pretty sunrise

Had breakfast and helped pack up the Rover for another day at the beach. Went to a different beach whose name escapes me, but this one didn't have rocks to scramble through in order to get into the deeper water, something that my feet greatly appreciated. Another morning spent surfing, except that this time I STOOD UP! TWICE! IN A ROW! SO exciting, seriously. After doing it successfully, I managed to continue wiping out and went back to being bad at surfing, but for those two rides I was Queen of Surf. Beautiful.

Beach day 2



Me, Mounir, Britt and Cameron

When we broke for lunch on Saturday, we didn't intend to surf anymore. Guys with camels would walk along the beach offering to give camel rides, so it was during out lunch that we did just that :)




I'm on a camel :)



Maroc'N'Roll!

 After lunch, we made our way back to the riad, got cleaned up a bit, and headed to Agadir to check out the souks (the market) there. SO COOL. I bought a really beautiful blanket, and a bracelet that I love. Generally we had a grand time bargaining with the vendors, and I had fun practicing my French. Two Swedes went with us (different ones from before), named Pierre and Gule. They were really nice, I liked them. Back to Taghazout, and Cameron, Britt and I went for a walk down to the beach to watch the sunset.

Entrance to the souk

Arabic stop sign

Diva pic! That's Taghazout in the background



Brittany and Cameron in the doorway to the riad

 After our beach wanderings, we went back to the riad to hang out for a little bit before Abdul, one of the staff at the riad, drove us to get our massages!!!! The ladies at the massage parlor were wonderful and kind and there was soft music playing and we were SO sore from two days of surfing that those massages were JUST what the doctor ordered.

Electric tea lights, whoah!

Heart-shaped towels. Mood? Yes, please.



We had a mini photo-shoot

In short, the hour-long, full body massages that we had were INCREDIBLE. Head to toes, complete relaxation. And Whitney Houston songs, as covered by wind-pipers, were playing in the background; what more could two American girls ask for?

After we headed back to the riad and grabbed some grub. More delicious, amazing, incredible food. And after dinner, Mounir appeared! We were considering going into Agadir with him and a group of Spanish guys, but we had to catch a cab at 3:15 in the morning and weren't sure that the guys would be back in time, so we nixed it and smoked hookah instead! It was fun, but being a non-smoker, they kept laughing at my inability to hold as much smoke in my lungs as them. Oh well. We hung out all night, and stayed up late enough that it would've been silly to even bother going to bed, so we didn't! Which was definitely fun and worthwhile, but meant for a long day of travel on Sunday.

Cameron, Charlie and Brittany were all on the same flight back to Florence (Cameron and Brittany are studying there for the semester, and Charlie lives there now) a couple hours before mine, but I traveled with them rather than have to get back to Marrakech by myself in the morning on little to no sleep (none, as it turned out). The no sleep thing wasn't TOO big of a problem because I slept the whole bus ride to Marrakech, cat napped in the airport, and conked for the flight back to London.

Nope, can't bring your pick axe on board!

Made it back in one piece, exhausted but feeling pretty blissed-out that I had just spent my weekend in Morocco. It was amazing and incredible and wonderful and fantastic and beautiful, and I'm SO glad that I did it. Ugh. So glad.

Basically was catatonic when I got back, but I still found the strength to amble upstairs to watch darts on TV with the other kiddos, skype with the poppa and the momma, and head to bed.

Yesterday I worked on a paper for Dr. King (I know, it's killer going from writing about my trip to Morocco to have to swap back into the doldrums of PAPER-WRITING!) and then went with Ruthie to meet up with our British pub quiz friends for a drink. That was fun and extremely relaxed, and then we headed back to the flat to meet up with our boys (who didn't want to walk to the first pub because they're incredibly lazy), to go to a DIFFERENT pub so we could play darts. Which was surprisingly fun. They apparently spent much of the weekend watching darts on TV and going to the pub we visited last night, so I think that's going to be a thing for the next week. Because I only have 8 days left. GASP!

Class with Susie today, and I've basically been sitting here blogging since I finished manging on my lunch. I'm about finished, I think, and the Elton John that's been my companion during this marathon blog-session is really calling for me to sing it out loud, which is hard to do when you're typing. So off I go!