MOROCCO

Bus Ride to Marrakech
After our rough day at Sea I was ready to get onto land. I stepped off the ship in Morocco excited to see the country…..and then I was thoroughly disappointed when I saw tractors and cranes everywhere! Our port was less than beautiful. But I remained optimistic. We began our drive from Casablanca to Marrakech. Casablanca was a very industrial looking city. The place we drove through was pretty run down but I was excited when I saw an advertisement for some type of juice. It was written in French and then repeated in Arabic right underneath! Arabic and French seem like two strange languages to pair together but that is what they speak in Morocco. We stopped for a restroom break on the way and I was shocked to see a squatter for a toilet. Now I am all about cultural experiences and trying new things but let me tell you it was NOT easy. Another fun fact they don’t believe in using toilet paper!!! They choose to wipe themselves with their left hand instead. So when you are doing any type of business transaction like with money or a high five or a handshake you must be sure to do it with your right hand because they see the left hand as waste. This is only true for some parts of Morocco. And no worries I carry around a little supply of T.P. for sticky situations like those! We continued our journey to Marrakech and I again was shocked at my beautiful surroundings. When I envisioned Morocco I though desert, snake charmers, basically I was picturing a scene out of Aladdin. What I got was something much different, beautiful colors. The grasses are so rich and full of color. I have never seen so many bright shades of green before it felt more like I was in Ireland than Morocco! There are tons of little villages spread all over made out of stone and clay. A lot of Moroccans live off the land and raise sheep and goats. Moroccans do a lot of strange things in order to earn Dirham’s (their currency) from the tourists, so they put their goats in trees! Literally they place them on different branches on purpose and then the goats have no way of getting down. They charge tourists to take pictures of them but our bus driver sneakily pulled off the side of the road and we snapped a few shots.

Marrakech
Oh my goodness as I got off the bus in Marrakech I was immediately over whelmed. We walked into the main square where all the entertainment is. They have all different types of people roaming the streets trying to make some money. There are snake charmers, henna artists, men walking around with monkeys, dancers (but the dancers are men dressed like women, it would be socially unacceptable in the Muslim world for a female to dance like that in public), there are these men dressed in elaborate colorful costumes with gold funnels all over them they call themselves watermen. You pay them a few dirham and they pour water in their funnels ha it sounds stupid but it was pretty cool. The men with monkeys are really not cool at all though. They walk around and throw monkeys on your back without you asking them to and then demand money for their services. We had a few close calls with these type of people demanding money from us when we never even asked for their services. This was one part of Marrakech that I didn’t really enjoy. After this we went to lunch at a traditional Moroccan restaurant! It was really really cool. This looked like a scene from a royal Arabian palace! The walls were covered floor to ceiling in elaborate tiles, the windows were stain glass, ahh it was just so cool. So as for the food we had lentels, lamb, cabbage, rubarb, and for desert we had an orange. I am not a big fan of Moroccan food but the atmosphere made up for the food ten fold. After lunch we walked around the souks and I used my bargaining expertise! It was really fun actually I never thought that my French skills would come in handy but they sure did! Everyone was looking for me to help them translate to lower the prices. We then headed to the hotel to check in. But of course I had to do some more shopping, so me and 3 girls set out to explore the newer area of Marrakech. It was really interesting as we were walking passed all of the coffee shops and all the chairs outside are lined up facing the street. The only people sitting there were men. Morocco is a Muslim country and a lot of the women are “busy”at home. The other girls and I were going to stop for some tea, mint tea is Morocco specialty but we felt to awkward sitting with all the men so we decided against it. After dinner we all got a few drinks at the hotel bar. Then us and a large group of semester at sea kids were off to find a Hookah bar. For anyone that doesn’t know what that is it is a huge middle eastern thing where they smoke flavored tobacco out of water pipes. I don’t really like hookah but hey when in Morocco! So we finally found one that was right next to the train station. The famous train station from Marrakech Express? Apparently it’s an old song or something but everyone thought it was so cool that we were there ha I just went a long with it. Then it was back to the hotel to get some rest before our busy day of traveling!

Essouria
On the way to Essouria our tour guide made a pit stop at this really cool shop where the women make the product in one room and then they sell them in the room next door. These women work 9 hour days. There were like 4 different stations set up. The first one had 4 women sitting there, these women cracked the shells of the nuts with stones then sorted them. Then the women across were churning the nuts into oil, then there was a woman like padding down the excess nut oil. It was really really cool to see maybe you had to be there I hope to upload pics of it soon. Then they let us try some samples of the almond butter and oil, it was SOOO good and even better because I got to see them make it. After that our tour guide took us to this really pretty overlook that had camels to take pictures with!!! It cost 50 dirham to get on it so I decided to just sneak a picture while holding the camel by the reigns! I got caught but my tour guide fought with the man in Arabic for me and got me out of having to pay them cause they were ripping us all off. SO I got my wish I got to go to Morocco and see a camel but I didn’t hurt my butt trying to ride one! After that we continued to Essouria. I LOVED Essouria. It was gorgeous. It is this little fishing harbor town which was just so pretty. The buildings there were all white with indigo blue shutters and doors! Walking the streets with the locals as they drive their donkeys and carry their raw meat to sell at the markets, I couldn’t belive that I was in Morocco!!! I was in Africa! How crazy! Anyways we went to this really cool silver shop. In Morocco they belive that their children should learn a Moroccon handicraft at a very young age. There education is generally only an option if you already have money. So they start their children working 6 hour days learning a handicraft either before or after school. They start them young so that they have time to figure out what they are good at. The silver shop we vistid was one of these schools which teach Moroccan children how to make jewelry. Its really cheap because all they charge you for are the materials. I got a gorgeous ring from there for 140 dirham (like 20 us). I was soo excited. We then went to lunch in the actual harbor. That was a treat too it was cool because all the boats there are that same indigo blue as the shutters and there are seagulls flying around everywhere. But not the nasty like rat seagulls we have at our beaches they were actually really pretty! After lunch we headed to Safi where we would eat dinner and sleep.

Safi
Safi is where a really big phosphorus plant is. When the wind blows the town kind of smells of it which is a little gross. I stumbled upon this really cool shop with all these water color paintings. It was the first place I had been to in Morocco where the store owner did not harass me to come into his store so I was intrigued. I decided I wanted to pick up a little piece of art in every country so I bought a tiny post card size painting. I gave him a little extra money than the painting cost and I have never seen someone so grateful before. It was awesome and now the painting means so much more to me. After that we headed to our hotel. Man our hotel was cheesy!!! Ha our beds had baby blue velour covers and we watched silly French sitcoms for hours in our room! Ha one really cool thing about traveling with Semester at Sea is that people of all ages are traveling with you. Like some teachers, staff, families of them etc. Our neighbors for the night were the dance teacher and music teacher and there little 3 year old son!!! He was so cute so instead of going out in sketchville like a few students decided to do we stayed in the hotel and watched sleeping beauty! It was really fun and being with people of all ages like that makes me feel a little more like home.

El Jadida
In the morning we left for El Jadida. Here we went to an old Portuguese fort . Our tour guide here only spoke French so most people had no idea what was going on. From my understanding it was a fort that they used to use to gather water. We went inside and the floor was covered with about 3 inches of water. There was a big whole in the ceiling in the middle where the rain and light come down so they could tell the time. I got some AMAZING pictures of this I can’t wait to upload, once I do you’ll all know what I am talking about. We then went to lunch, it was Moroccan again so me and a few other students snuck off to the Pizza shop a few streets down! After lunch we headed back to Casablanca. I was zonked so I slept most of the way. When we got back we visited the 3^rd largest Mosque in the world. Oh I forgot to tell you all over Morocco they have this crazy intercom system like everywhere and like evey couple hours they have pray time and this recording of a man singing in Arabic comes over the loud speaker reminding everyone to pray! It sounds like a crazy siren at first when it went off we were all like what the hell is that? By the end of our journey we were all accustomed to it. One time I was waiting in line to use the washroom when the siren came on. A Moroccan woman who was working at the store threw a rug down in front of me and began praying. The washroom had become a place of worship just like that with the use of a rug. I wondered why she had chosen such an unfortunate place to pray so I asked her in the best French I could “Why here”and she said Mecca. They pray facing Mecca where their holy land is. In Casablanca we also had a chance to visit Rick’s Café which is in the movie Casablanca! We then returned to the ship and I took a nice hot shower after traveling around this crazy, wonderful, different, mysterious land!

HUGGGGGGGGGGE WAAVEESS
Leaving Casablanca the Captain came on the loud speaker and told us to secure our rooms and remain indoors. He said we would be experiencing some large swells as we left the port. The port was too shallow to turn the stabilizers on so the boat would be a rockin. My roommate and I made our way to the room and put all our breakables on the floor. Sure enough the boat started rockin, and rockin, and rockin. We decided to turn off all the lights so we could see the waves out the window. BAD idea!! It was soo scary we turned off the lights to see a wave coming our direction that was taller than our window. (We are on the 4^th floor of the ship which is pretty high up) While the lights were off we heard boom boom bang krrrplonkkkK! Our chairs were on the floor, our beds which are semi bolted to our walls were sliding down towards our dresser and vanity! Our side table which weighs about 50 pounds had fallen! Our TV was sliding on its axis. It was INSANE scariest and most fun thing I had experienced yet. We thought we were safe in our beds but oh no we weren’t!!!! I took a video of my messed up room to show everyone when I got home. Afterwards me and my friend Win decided to go on the deck and find out about everyone elses experiences with the waves. Well what we found was a bit scarier than we had anticipated. A few people were seriously hurt. A TV fell on a professor while he was in his room and he had to get stitches, a boy broke his leg in the piano lounge the piano fell on his leg and like trapped him, we saw a girl icing her neck and face which were cut up and swollen she was in the Union which is at the front of the boat where it is the most rocky. It was chaos in there apparently people had fallen all over each other, furniture was trapped on people it was bad news bears. Everyone is ok but it was a bit scary at the time. We are cruising now though!!! We have clear skies and calm seas predicted for the next few days! Woo hoo. Well I am off to go do some homework and maybe head to pub night. Miss and love you all. Congratulations on your confirmation Anton!!!