I am still living! I realized that I hadn't posted on here in about a month, but it has been quite a busy month!! The biggest event that occurred was definitely my trip to Morocco which was a ton of fun and really interesting!! Cross another continent off the list, Only Asia, Australia and Antarctica left!! haha Anyways we started out for Morocco by busing to the south of Spain!! Then we took the 35 minute ferry across the 14km strait of Gibraltar to Tangier, Morocco! We had arrived in Africa! The ferry was really bumpy because it was a "high speed" ferry, which only means that it was high speed for the size boat. We got into Tangier which was, as thought, pretty sketchy! As we left the port there were three guys that followed our group of five, which consisted of me, Esteban, Kali, Anna and Lauren. Apparently five Americans, three of which were women, attracted some attention from some of the local teens. They followed at a decent distance which wasn't too bad and luckily when we stopped to eat lunch at the beach they lingered for a minute and then moved on. We enjoyed lunch beside the beach, consisting of a tortilla (like an omelet with potatoes in it) sandwich, orange 
juice, a
nd some chips. After that we hailed a taxi and made for the train station. Lucky for us, most of the people in Tangier speak at least a little Spanish. All five of us crammed into a "gran" ("Large") taxi, which was a midsized benz from like the 80s, and the taxi didn't seem so large... We arrived at the train station and, after some confusion and the printing out of the wrong tickets about three times, we bought our tickets on the overnight train to Marrakesh, which left later that night. After securing our travel to Marrakesh, we decided that it was time to explore the city a bit, as we had about nine hours before our train was scheduled to leave. We hailed another "gran" taxi and headed to the center of the city to just wander around a bit. It didn't really matter where we headed because we were just going to take a taxi back to the train station, so we were free to wander through the city without worrying where we were. We took some pictures overlooking the harbor and walked around that area before taking a little break, as we had all our luggage with us at this point because we weren't spending the night in Tangier. We took a break in a little place in front of a mosque. The mosque had a clock which was set to time in Mecca which was pretty interesting and we were also sitting beside the mosque when the call to prayer was sounded. It was really neat to be sitting there right beside the mosque as people all over dropped what they were doing and flocked into the mosque. People came from everywhere! Each person taking off their shoes before entering the mosque. It was a really cool experience. After that we walked through a little garden in the middle of the city and just looked around, it really wasn't much of a park but from the top of the little hill you could see for a long ways around the city. It was really different to look around and see all the poverty and such, but on top of every house there was a satellite dish. It's funny that that was the luxury they had and treasured. We saw a little market and walked through it to see what they were selling. Most of what they were selling looked stolen or fake and the rest was fruits or vegetables. We explored this market section of the city only to find ourselves in the middle of a meat market. I should mention that Anna is vegan when she is in the United States and the middle 
of a Middle Eastern style meat market is just not the place for her haha so maybe ya'll can see the irony of this situation. Needless to say we skirted out of a side street pretty quickly only to find ourselves in the middle of a different market. The markets seemed pretty endless so we just continued to wander until we felt that we had seen all there was to see and decided to head back the way we came which was a bit difficult as we hadn't paid a ton of attention as to where we were headed on the way there. Slowly but surely, after a few missed turns, detours, and backtracks, we made it back to where we started. We stopped in a tea cafe and had some mint tea which was incredible!! We hung out there until around dusk and then we headed to see a last little bit before dark and as darkness fell we began looking for another "gran" taxi to take us back to the train station. This turned out to be a little more difficult than we had previously thought. As we stood on a street corner looking rather confused a Moroccan man walked up to us and said he wanted to help us find what we were looking for. This translates to "I want you to pay me when we get there" in morocco haha So we were a little skeptical when he said that he didn't want any money but as it turns out he really did just want to help us which was really nice. We turned about three corners and we stood staring at about 100 taxis sitting in a parking lot waiting. Then we picked one and he took us back to the train station. We grabbed dinner in the little restaurant in the train station which was surprisingly good. Then around 930PM we departed for morocco on the night train. We boarded the train to find that each little sleeping room had two beds whic
h meant that I was the odd man out and got to split a sleeping car with some Moroccan man that was in his mid to late twenties, built like a football center, and he spoke only french. Needless to say there was very little smalltalk and I didnt spend much time in the room until I was ready to go to bed. I hung out with Anna and Lauren in there room for a little while until I went to bed around midnight. I should mention that these rooms were about 10x7ft and the huge Moroccan guy didn't fit in his bunk haha from his knees down hung off the side of the bed as he laid crossways on the bed which was smaller than a twin. After a restless night of sleep and the Moroccan man answering his mother who called his phone in the wee hours of the morning, Anna woke me up by beating on the door because she thought we were there, we were about an hour out... I was not too happy, but I was up. We hung out in the hallway outside the rooms and waited to arrive in Marrakesh. We disembarked and hailed a taxi to the Riad (A Moroccan House that had been converted to a hotel) which had about six rooms, two of which our group occupied. It was owned by Thierry Dugast, which if u couldn't guess was a french man! He was really nice and got us all settled in and made our dinner reservations for us. After getting settled in the Riad we headed out to explore Marrakesh. If you haven't figured it out yet this trip involved a lot of exploring Moroccan cities. We just kind of wandered through the city, but I kept up with where we were a lot closer than in Tangier. After explorin some of the city we headed back to meet with Muhammed, the "travel agent" that planned our desert excursion for us. So we met with him and gave him half of the money for the trip and then headed out to see some more of the city. We wandered through a lot more of Marrakesh haggling with the different vendors for things. We walked through the main market square and saw the different snake charmers, women drawing henna, and men with monkeys. Abbey would have died! All those snakes around. As we were walking through the square one of the monkeys jumped on my shoulder and tried to get in my bag but I sloughed it off as fast as I could because it looked pretty gross! After that we looked at the huge minaret that was part of a mosque. We set off to find where our dinner reservations had been made, which proved more difficult than you would think because all the street signs are in Arabic, which none of us read. After some intense searching and asking policemen, we finally located the restaurant. We decided to head back to the main square and look around a little more and then got some tea at a small cafe. We killed some time drinkin tea and watchin the sun go down over the square. After tea it was time for dinner! It was an authentic Moroccan restaurant with a bellydancer show during the meal! The waiters were hilarious. They would mess with you during the entire meal. They would start to hand you something (menu, etc) and as soon as you were about to grab it, they would act like someone behind them had said something an
d pull whatever they were holding just out of reach. Also while he was serving soup he held the bowl up above eye level so you couldnt see that he wasn't really filling the bowl and then as he handed the "full" bowl to Kali he dropped it in her lap. Her face was priceless!! Dinner was amazing, we had salad, lamb, vegetables, cous cous, and desert! It was a three course meal! After dinner we took a taxi back to the riad and passed out! The next day it was up early to head out into the desert! We awoke early the next morning and had breakfast which was incredible. We had moroccan bread which is kinda sweet and is kinda like pita bread. We had fresh jam and butter, it was amazing. Then we began the 8 hour trek out to the desert in the SUV or as they call it Cat-Cat. We picked up our guide and we were off! The drive was interesting as we drove through the Atlas mountains! It was also a bit scary as I am convinced our driver thought he was driving in the Indy 500! It wasn't too bad except for the times he passed on the solid line! There were a couple times when we passed on a switchback, the likes of which, I have never seen. I'm pretty sure these roads would be illegal in America, but o well, we survived!! After a bunch of different stops, one of which included fording a river on foot, in order to go see a Kasbah(Moroccan castle), we finally arrived at the side of the road haha. We met our camel guides and of course our camels!! Stebs was the first one up on the camel and the next was Kali. Kali was hilarious because camels don't really stand up like most other animals its more like a normal animal with hydrolics. The front end stands up first and then the back end and its all a bit jerky!! The facial expressions were hilarious!! Anyways, a camel ride is a ton of fun but let me tell you, about an hour and a half of riding a camel, did I mention I made the horrible mistake of wearing shorts, I was ready to get on solid ground. After dismounting our camels we walked to our desert home, which consisted of a berber tent with some mats, a rug, and some blankets. It was already dark by the time we got to the tent so we threw our stuff down and then lit the lantern and waited on dinner. Dinner was pretty good especially considering that we were in the desert! We had ment tea and typical moroccan food which was a tagine of vegetables and chicken with bread and some oranges for dessert. Right before dinner started our driver (Who weighs about 275) freaked out and jumped up and started dancin around the tent. Turns out that there was a huge spider that had come into the tent and he didnt like spiders. So for the next five minutes all four guys attempted to kill this massive spider while the girls freaked out. Eventually we killed it and sat back down for dinner but I'm not sure if the girls fully recovered for a while. After dinner we played some cards and hung out for a little while until we went out to the campfire to listen to some authentic berber music sung by all the guides. It was pretty cool to hear the songs even though I had no idea wat was being said. Some of our group got up and joined in the dance too which was pretty funny to watch. After the music and campfire we walked out a little farther into the desert and looked up at the stars. I don't think I have ever seen so many stars!! It was amazing!! After our little field trip into the desert we decided it was time to get some shut eye. Our guide chose to sleep away from the tent outside in the desert. I decided I wanted to sleep outside the tent also so I dragged my mat and blanket out beside the tent and just looked up at the stars and the moon. It was surprisingly bright outside, but I was so tired that it didnt matter. The rest of the group chose to sleep in the tent. I woke up around 330 AM because the moon was so bright and I decided that I would head into the tent because it was too bright outside for me to sleep. I laid down in the tent and was attempting to fall asleep, when I heard some whimpering from the other side of the tent. I realized that Anna was wimpering about something so I asked her wat was up (she gets a little scared in a tent in the middle of the desert with bugs and such haha) she said she was cold but didnt want to go and get a blanket which was just across the tent. So I got up and gave her a blanket. After that I went back to sleep only to b awoke before sunrise by anna who told us we were gunna miss seeing the sunrise in the desert. She was only off by about an hour, I coulda killed her. After getting up and watching the sunrise I walked out into the desert to take some pictures away from camp. I took pictures and just walked around for about an hour it was nice. Then we came back to breakfast and had bread with some homemade butter and jam with coffee. After breakfast it was back on the camels, and let me tell you, I was sore from the day before!! The ride back was significantly less comfortable than the ride there!! After our 1 and 1/2 hour ride back it was time to pile back into the SUV and head back. We all were not too excited about climbing into an SUV for the 8 hour ride back. Needless to say we were significantly less energetic on the ride home and not very interested in seeing the scenery, most of which we had already seen. We all napped on and off on the ride home. Finally we arrived back in Marrakech and all showered, which was definitely necessary!! After showers and such we decided to go and get dinner in the city in the market. So we set out toward the market but Anna was still tired because I dont think she really slept in the desert...so she didnt come with us to the market. We arrived at the market with no problems and found a little restaraunt stall from which we could get some food. The food was surprisingly good for a little stall in the middle of an arabic market square. After dinner we walked around the square for a little while and then we headed back to the hotel. This is where we encountered some problems. None of read Arabic and normally we just take a taxi back to the hotel but we didnt have enough money to do that so we decided to walk. We started the walk back and needless to say we got a little lost. Not really lost but we were sure of our exact position. After asking for directions a few times we were getting close and we asked one final time and the guy said he would take us. We told him that we didnt have any money and he said that was no problem and acted like he was just doing it to be nice. Anyways we talked to him on the walk back and about three blocks from our riad he turned and said pay me. We were like we told you we dont have any money and at that point I knew where I was, so I just started walkin toward the riad but Esteban was still talkin to him so I couldnt get too far ahead. Eventually he showed us his scarred up arms and was like pay me trying to intimidate us but all we had was like 10 dhm between us which is like 1 euro and that only made him more angry but eventually we made enough noise that everyone was lookin at him so he just left. We hurried back into the riad, and luckily he had just completely given up on folllowing us. After that we headed to bed because we had to be up early the next morning. The next morning we had breakfast and then headed out after paying for the riad and finding out that carolina had won the final four game. We finally found two taxis and got to the airport. I really enjoyed Morocco but I was definitely read to be back in Spain where I could communicate with people!! All in all Morocco was a ton of fun and some very memorable experiences!!Madrid
We arrived in Madrid around noon on the eve of the national championship. We checked into our hotel and Lauren and Anna found a room in the same building. After getting settled in we set out to find somewhere to watch the game and also to buy our tickets for Toledo and to go back the Sevilla because Lauren and Anna were goin back to Sevilla the next day. We found an internet cafe and checked our email and facebooks. We let our parent know that we had made it out of Morocco safe and that we were back in Spain. After that we set out to find a place to watch the game. We found an Irish pub that was close to the hotel and they said they would remain open to watch the game. We were pumped and so after that we headed back to the hotel to rest up a little before a long night because we were alreay really tired from the Morocco part of the trip. We all napped and laid around until dinner time. Anna and Lauren had been in Madrid before so Anna recommended this tapas place called El Tigre which is in Chueca (The gay district of Madrid). That made it a little interesting to get to but the bar itself was amazing!! The food was amazing and you would never have known that it was in the gay district. After dinner we headed to the bar to get some seats and to make sure they didnt close the bar before the game started or anything. So we watched a little bit of MLB action before the coverage even started for the National Championship. It finally started around 230AM and then the game didnt start until around 330AM. We were pretty pumped up when the game came on, it was great to actually watch the boys play on a TV instead of my computer screen. The game turned out to be rather boring as far as a national championship goes, we took the lead and never looked back but I cant really complain that we killed them. Esteban left with about 6 mins left in the second half and Anna fell asleep for the majority of the second half which was pretty funny, because she is kinda germaphob and she was asleep with her face on the nasty bar. After we won we sang the alma mater and then headed home to the hotel around quarter to 7AM. We got home and passed out. The next day, or the same day, however you wanna look at that, Esteban Kali and I headed out to Toledo. It was pretty neat to walk around because it has a very medieval city feel to it. We just walked around and enjoyed the city. I decided to head back to Madrid about an hour earlier than Kali and Stebs because I was tired of walkin around. I hung out back at the hotel until they got into Madrid and then we met at the Prado museum. It was cool to see all the art but there wasnt a ton that I was interested in there!! After the museum we went back to the hotel and pasesd out because we were all dead between morocco and stayin up for the game. The next day we decided to see all the sites around madrid. We saw the Reina Sofia museum which is a lot more modern art which I surprisingly liked a good bit of. We saw most of the big tourist sites around Madrid and then we headed back to the bus station to catch our bus which left around 6PM. The bus ride back, about 6 hours, was not near as bad as I would have thought. Other than being a little hot it wasnt bad at all. We got back into Sevilla around 12:15AM and had to walk all the way across the city back to the apartments. We literally walked in and passed out. All in all it was a great trip, but we were completely and totally exhausted!!
