Crossing Borders: Four days in Morocco

[Thursday, 4:00pm, my home-stay apartment in Madrid]

Today marks the completion of my first month abroad.  Life is moving so fast.  I had done so much in the first three weeks that I thought my trip to Morocco would help slow things down.  Well, for the most part I was wrong.  It’s going to be hard to describe all the experiences had, things seen, and places visited in one short blog post:

Wednesday night:

About twenty Boston College students, ten students from other American universities, and I hopped on a painful, overnight coach bus ride from Madrid to Algeciras (a southern port city on the Strait of Gibraltar), arriving at 7am, weary but eager to begin the journey into Africa.

Thursday:  

After splitting into two groups of 15 and meeting our Morocco Exchange trip leader, we boarded the fast ferry to Morocco.  It was my first time on a boat on the open ocean, and I did not expect such a large ferry to rock that much.  But, not to be swayed (pun intended) and unwavering J, I made it to Tangier, where we ate lunch and had our first discussions about Moroccan and Islamic culture with three university students. 

After, I had my second first-time experience of the trip: a camel ride - on the beach of the Atlantic Coast for about two minutes.  It was surely awesome, but camels smell awful, and I can’t imagine riding one for any extended amount of time.

Next we had a tour of nearby Asilah, a peaceful coastal town with blue alleys and walls where artists display their colorful paintings.  We then drove three hours to Rabat (Morocco’s capital city situated on the Atlantic Coast) where we met and had dinner with our host families. Two other BC students and I stayed with a very nice and cheerful lady (Her husband was on a trip to Germany, where two of her three married daughters live).  Unfortunately our host-mom did not speak any English, so communicating became a mixture of Charades and a multi-language guessing game.  Besides Arabic, she spoke a little French, which is Morocco’s other official language.  Thus, in order to communicate the words we couldn’t readily act out, we would speak in Spanish, hoping she would recognize some similarity with the few French words she knew.  And luckily it sometimes worked, as when our “La ducha” became her “Ohhhhh… la douche!”

Eating in Morocco was an experience of its own, both due to how we ate and what we ate.  Of course we had the classic Moroccan dishes: couscous and tajine, served with copious amounts of vegetables, meats, spices, bread, and bright-colored sauces.  And we would eat using just our hands to scoop food out of a center platter.  But more remarkable is that our host-mom would all-but physically force us to continue eating, no matter how full we were, saying “Koul! Koul!” (“Eat! Eat!”) and pushing more and more food across the platter or simply putting it in our hands for us.   Though she was all smiles about it, we did not want to offend her so we ate… and then we passed out.  

Friday:

We woke up early, had a small breakfast, and made our way through the rabbit’s labyrinth of narrow, indistinguishable alleys, multiple turns, and varying smells until we found our group meeting point.  After viewing one of Rabat’s shantytowns from our van, we visited an NGO where we had our second open discussion with Moroccans.  Among other topics, one comment compared George Bush to Osama bin Laden. 

Later that day we visited the ancient Roman ruins at Chellah, explored the Kasbah of the Udayas (a beach-side fortress), shopped in the Medina of Rabat (a huge market), and walked around with Moroccan students.  After meeting with a Peace Core Volunteer (who seemed a little too frustrated with her lonely, impoverish placement in a remote mountain village), we had one of the most unique experiences of the trip: visiting a hammam, or public bath.  Basically it’s a full-body, dry-skin-shedding scrubdown and hot shower that leaves you soft and refreshed.

Saturday:

We woke up early again and drove three hours to a village in the Rif Mountains with dilapidated houses and roaming animals.  We took in the beautiful views, ate lunch, and had a discussion with a local family (through a translator).  One woman added to our growing list of things to ponder: we asked where in the world she would travel if she had the opportunity; she responded that she would rather stay right where she was (in the middle of the mountains without running water or any sort of city comforts other than a small TV) because she already had everything she needed and enjoyed. 

Later we drove to the beautiful mountain-side city of Chefchaouen where we settled into a hostel, had a delicious Moroccan dinner at a local restaurant, and shopped around the Medina where I bought a henna tattoo on my forearm and a mini djellaba (see the white hooded pullover in the picture below).

Sunday:

We woke up before the sun rose to go on a short hike up to a mosque that overlooks the city, had a classic Moroccan breakfast, and then drove to the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta where we walked across the Moroccan-Spanish border and took the ferry back to Spain.  After spending a few hours wandering around the streets and port-side boardwalks of Algeciras, we hopped on an overnight bus to Madrid, catching a glimpse of the illuminated Rock of Gibraltar on the way and arriving in Madrid on Monday at 6am. 

Some Fun Facts:

-Total Expenses: $302

-Types of transport: two metros, three coach buses, one tour van, two fast ferries, and one camel.

-Moroccans are hooked on tea.  As the national drink and considered a form of art, tea is basically the Moroccan replacement for alcohol (which is forbidden in Islam) and is consumed throughout the day.  We drank the traditional, super-sweet, “gunpowder” mint tea with every meal - it tastes quite similar to a liquid version of spearmint gum, but it’s sweeter than southern lemonade.

-Most of the time, the southern Spain and Moroccan landscapes looked more like Ireland than my vision of Africa.

-The typical Moroccan male clothing is a djellaba, which is a sort of hooded robe that gives the Moroccans a mystical, Yoda-like appearance.

-We asked a Moroccan for a typical joke.  Here is what he told us (apparently many Moroccan jokes involve “crazy hospitals”): ‘The doctors at a crazy hospital gave their patients some objects to use as a way to test if any of the patients had become sane. One of the patients was given a ladder, a paint brush, and some paint.  The doctors came across the patient on top of the ladder using the paint brush to paint the ceiling.  The doctors thought maybe this guy could be sane; painting the ceiling seemed reasonable. So, to check, they asked the patient if they could borrow the ladder.  The patient replied, “Ya, sure. Take it.  I’m holding onto the paint brush.’

-Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States as an independent nation in 1777.

-99% of Moroccans are devoted to Islam.

-They sell the old-school orange-flavored drink “Tang” in Morocco.

-Yes, I wear basically the same ‘black jacket and jeans’ outfit every day.  And not just in Morocco.

Feel free to contact me if you want to know more about my trip.  I’ve loved all the comments and emails so far.  Keep it up.  (charliemegaman@yahoo.com)

Roll Tide,

Chas

On Top of the World: My weekend in the Alps

[2:30pm, Homestay Apartment]

This past weekend was amazing: incredibly cold, incredibly expensive, but amazing. And I wouldn’t change a thing. The pictures below will speak for themselves, but here’s a recap:

Sixteen or so friends and I flew Thursday night from Madrid to Geneva, where we caught a 2.5-hour bus to Interlaken, arriving at Balmer’s Herberge hostel (Switzerland’s oldest and one of the top ten in Europe) at 2am.  Though I shared a room with 7 other people, the beds were actually quite comfortable and Balmer’s offers free breakfast and chocolate snacks, its own popular nightclub, and an outdoor hot tub.   

Day 1: Skiing in the Alps

Friday morning we woke up early, hopped on a mountain train, and spent all day skiing at 7,500ft in the Swiss Alps.  Since I think the last time (and the only place) I had gone skiing was in sixth grade at Hidden Valley in St. Louis, where the biggest vertical drop is 310ft, I had my fair share of (controlled) wipeouts from time to time.  But eventually I got into a groove, and by the end of the day I was making my way down the slopes like the mountain man I was born to be.

Day 2: Skydiving, Hot Tub, Lakes and Family Dinner

The next morning, we got up early again and headed to see one of Interlaken’s beautiful lakes (see pictures below).  We got back to the hostel just in time to be picked up by our skydiving instructors, driven to the drop zone, suited up, and within an hour I was in a tiny plane flying above the mountains at 13,000ft.  Five minutes after takeoff, without having time to think about how freaky it was to jump out of a plane, the buzzer sounded, the side door went up, and I was hanging out with the instructor snug on my back and nowhere to go but down.  The initial drop is the coolest feeling in the world: first free-falling, rolling head over heels, then leveling out, spreading my arms, doing a few fist-pumps, and dropping for 45 seconds; then pulling the shoot and gliding down alongside the snow-covered mountains to our snow-covered landing zone below; and within nearly 12 minutes since pulling myself up into the plane before takeoff, I had landed safety on the ground, ears hurting, but ecstatic.  The whole thing was unreal.

Later that day I visited the other Interlaken lake, which was beautiful, but with the temperatures approaching negative and the winds howling, it was the coldest I had ever felt.  Within two minutes of arriving at the bus stop, we were running into the nearest restaurant trying to recover feeling in our hands and feet.  Luckily, back at the hostel we had the hot tub to plunge into!  But unfortunately, it was more of the YMCA, lukewarm hot tubs.  Add that to the icicles forming on our heads, the decision to run wet and freezing back into the hostel sounded more pleasant after a while than crossing our arms and near-shivering underneath the water.  But being in a hot tub at night outside in the Alps was unbelievable.

That night we enjoyed a big Italian dinner with all our friends at the hostel (Thanks to Amanda and the crew) before heading downstairs to the nightclub and getting our dance on.

Day 3:  Downtown Interlaken, Superbowl in Geneva, and Sleeping in the Airport

Day 3 we woke up and strolled around Downtown Interlaken before hopping on the bus back to Geneva.  With record cold in other parts of Europe, Geneva too was absolutely freezing.  Add that to the fact that everyone we met there said the city “basically sucks” (and it’s incredibly expensive), we decided to drop our bags at a hostel, walk to Mr. Pickwick’s (“the oldest English pub in Switzerland”), and spend the next seven hours in our own private room, going in and out of sleep while trying to catch parts of the Superbowl.  At 4:30am we hopped on a metro bus to the airport, where we learned that our 6:45am flight had been delayed until 12:30pm. So we slept some more in the airport: all 20 or so of us passed out at the Starbucks and then on the floor near our gate.  The whole time in Geneva was basically a big, worn-out daze; with 32 hours between sleeping in a bed, it felt good to get back to my home in Madrid.   

Some Fun Facts:

-Total Expenses: €785

-Types of transport: 2 Madrid metro trains, 2 easyJet planes, 2 coach buses, 4 Swiss mountain trains, 4 chairlifts, 2 vans, 9 Swiss metro buses, 1 Swiss train, and 1 Geneva tram.

-We went skydiving at -11 °F; -13°F is the legal limit.

-Places I slept: Balmer’s hostel, 2 mountain trains, 2 coach buses, Mr. Pickwicks bar, Starbucks and on the floor at the Geneva Airport, and 1 easyJet plane. 

-I’m sad I didn’t get a Swiss stamp on my passport.

Coming up: Tonight I leave for a 4 day trip to Morocco. From the Alps, to Madrid, to Africa in three days: pretty unbelievable.  

Remember to send me an email if you would like to receive updates on new posts at charliemegaman@yahoo.com.  And feel free to comment below.  

We're doin it big,

Chuck Diesel

Panther's Milk, Go-go dancers, and Ice-skating!

[11:00pm, home-stay apartment]

Week 3 in Madrid, and wow have I been busy!  These descriptions are going to be short and sweet:

To begin, last Thursday night all the BC students in Madrid went to a flamenco show, which was good... but once you’ve seen one flamenco show, the non-sense singing and angry stomping isn’t quite as entertaining the second time, especially if the dancers are sweaty, old ladies and you’re only sipping on orange soda.

But the next day I went ice-skating!! Yes, ice-skating, in Madrid.  Pretty awesome.  But more unique is the crew I was with: a girl from BC, an Argentinean we had met earlier in the week named Herman, a British girl named Vicki (Herman’s roommate), and an American girl who was couch-surfing in Herman’s apartment (except Herman doesn’t have a couch… so she slept on the floor).  Needless to say, the experience was anything but ordinary.

That night my BC friends and I danced until the morning at one of Spain’s more famous nightclubs: Kapital.  Go-go dancers, multiple DJs, an air-gust system, and seven levels, including a house-music dance floor, a Spanish-hits dance floor, a soul, funk and R&B dance floor, and a mojito bar. It is the epitome of a late night party.

Over the weekend, we had our first official Botellon in the beautiful Retiro Park, drinking €1.50 cartons of Don Simon Sangria (I’m sure my brother Ben fondly remembers his times with “Uncle Don”). Then we headed to the Reina Sophia museum to see the 20^th-century paintings of Dali and Picasso, including the famous “Guernica”, as well as other contemporary art, which was rather trippy and eccentric; it was the kind of art that makes you ask “This is art?” or the kind you would except to come from a less-than-sober/sane artist or a two-year old.  But I’m no art appraiser, and some of the stuff in the museum was quite interesting.  And after the museum, we headed down the street to El Brillante, Madrid’s most famous place to go for Bocadillos de Calamares (small baguettes with fried calamari).  Hot and chewy calamari on fresh, slightly crispy bread: rather delicious.

That night we went to another of Madrid’s well-known bars, El Chapandaz, with a cave-like design and a “stalactite” to dispense their infamous Leche de Pantera (Panther’s Milk): an awkward mixture of gin, rum, milk, and cinnamon.  Worth trying and drinkable, but it’s nothing to drool over. 

Other interesting little tidbits from this past week:

Jaywalking:

No matter how narrow or how empty a street is, if the green man on the post isn’t lit, the Spaniards do not cross the street. What’s up with that?  Even on the side-streets where cars pass maybe once an hour, or even if you could hop across from sidewalk to sidewalk, there could be ten or more people standing on both sides waiting for the “Go” signal. 

Drugs and Alcohol:

-In Spain, they are introducing breathalyzers in parking garages for people to test their BAC before leaving for €1.  Good idea? 

-On cigarette packs in Madrid, instead of the innocent surgeon general warnings we have in the US, it says in giant letters “Fumar mata” (“Smoking kills”). Spaniards, however, still remain in the top five in consumption of tobacco in Europe. 

-Also, Spain is the world’s largest consumer of cocaine, and has the second highest percentage of citizens who have tried Ecstasy, third for cannabis (which isn’t too surprising considering private consumption is legal and “associations” can grow cannabis and share it among members).

-As for alcohol: Spain has more bars than all the rest of Western Europe combined.

Betting:

The Spanish are obsessed with lottery tickets, bingo, and betting in general: Spaniards bet twice as much as Americans or the British, with the average adult gambling nearly $1,000 every year.  To put that in perspective, the average Spaniard loses more on gambling each year than he/she spends on milk, fruit, and vegetables combined.  

Today I went to see the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace (see pictures below). 

Tomorrow I leave for a weekend trip to Interlaken, Switzerland, where I hope to do some skiing, maybe some sky-diving, and hopefully stay warm in the process.  Most of Europe is just beginning a near-record cold spell, and all I have to pack is clothes for the spring. Wish me luck.  

And next Wednesday night I will begin a 5-day trip to Morocco!

Also, apparently the email subscriber gadget did not work.  If you would like to receive updates on new blog posts, please send me an email (charliemegaman@yahoo.com), and I will add you to the update list.

And keep the other comments and emails coming.  Much love.

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