A weekend in Africa.

Morocco. Where to begin? It was sooo cool, but an extremely different culture. It was the first time I felt truly stared at by everyone on the street. Although not all the women were dressed head to toe in the traditional dress, just by wearing jeans and normal shirts we stuck out like sore thumbs. There were bars were only men were served, and instead of sitting around tables when they were together, everyone was in one long line on one side of all the tables facing the street. There was also an eastern style toilet in one of the bathrooms. You know, the hole is the floor, stand up and go for it. I waited for the western toilet.

It took a long time to cross the border on Friday. Probably like an hour and a half or so. I don’t know why that was, but whatevs. So we got to the first city, Tetuan, which is apparently a fishing town. We didn’t really do too much in Tetuan, because we got there later. We ate dinner at the hotel, which was a delicious chicken with a lemon sauce. The hotel was lovely and we had a beautiful, what I think was Oceanside, view of the Mediterranean. So, after watching an episode of Friends in English with Arabic subtitles, we fell asleep to the waves.

The next day we went to Tanger. It was much bigger and bustling than the first, smaller town. We took a walking tour, and then had free time. We visited a rug store where we were showed many rugs and told a little bit about how they were made and such. They always say “You don’t have to buy anything,” but they are a bit insistent on at least your looking at some products…So when the man was finishing up his demonstration, this little Moroccan man who was translating for the Frenchies sitting by us goes to me and Colleen, “Come with me, I want to show you some more rugs. You are in good hands. My name is Abdul.” So, naturally, Colleen and I followed him up a stairwell, taken aback by his eagerness, but he wasn’t sketchy. So, we go up to this room and he’s showing us all these rugs like, “which would you like” and I was like, “Abdul, these are all very lovely, but I’m not really in the market for a rug.” And he, like every salesman in Morocco claimed, “It’s not expensive. A good price just for you. Because you are students, I will give you good price.” So he shows us these rugs that he wants 180 euros for, which is about $250, but the thing is, you’re supposed to barter. So eventually we got him down to 35 euros, more like $45, but I don’t know if that was necessarily a bargain or what. Then we took pictures with him and it was great. Refer to Colleen’s facebook for those.

Then we continued onto our free time to the markets. Seriously, though. The way we were stared at in Morocco makes Spain feel like home. From the market I got the tea pot and sweet tea cups I have been wanting, so I was very happy with that purchase. I also bought this silly camel that I think is so cool. I’m really excited about that. Oh, we also went to a “pharmacy” that I think I would tag more as an apothecary. They had spices and your good old “cure all” creams for dry hands, psoriasis you know, magic lipstick. I bought some spices, including saffron because it was 5 grams for 5 euros, which I’m not sure how expensive that is in terms of a better price than in the US, but I just know that saffron is supposedly very expensive.

Then we ventured on to Chefchauen which was a littler town. Very quaint, very blue. I loooved our guide. He was this little man (common trend in Morocco) with his robe and Fez and when we got off the bus, Colleen was taking a picture of me with the mountains in the background and he goes, “Helloooo, another one.” And he shook my hand in our picture. Haha. He was a hoot. Everytime someone took a picture with him, he said, “Helloooo.” Let me tell you though, speaking of the men, there are some really attractive Moroccan men. I am very attracted to them as a whole. Alright, so more walking tour with funny Moroccan guide, and cute little kids who don’t want their pictures taken. You have to ask there because it’s one of those cultures where they believe it steals your soul to have a picture taken of themselves.

Speaking of which, strange experience. When we were in some cave, I took a picture of some girls who were on our tour, and when I was done with that, two Moroccan girls get my attention, and I couldn’t figure out what they wanted at first. If they wanted me to take their picture or what, but turned out they took a picture of me in the cave. Weird, no? It’d be like if you were visiting Mt. Rushmore and asked some random person from another group to stand in front on the mountain so you could take a picture. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t want to take pictures of themselves and want someone in the picture, or if they thought I was a funny looking American, but whatever the reason, it made me chuckle.

So overall, Morocco was really great. It was beautiful in its rolling hills and little markets, but I don’t think that I could live in a culture where I felt so absolutely out of place. If given the opportunity though, I would go back.

Africa. Check.