Calm down there tiger

Location: Siena, Italy

I had a nice long day in Siena today. It was absolutely beautiful and I love the city. Although, I can see how it may be slightly boring, which is surprising with so many students!!

We left early at about 9 and took the almost 2 hour train into Siena. From there we took a bus to the Piazza il campo which is the main piazza in the city. It's fan shaped and has one section for each of the contrada (which are like the neighborhoods in Siena). Each contrada has it's own water fountain, church and museum. They are each represented by an animal which is on every corner in that contrada and on the fountains and flags and stuff. My favorite was Brucco the caterpillar (it was really cute) but we didn't get to go there. The only one I saw was the turtle one which is called Tartuca. One of the pictures is of their baptismal fountain. The rivalry between the Contrade is still really hyped up and there is an annual horse race called the Palio where each contrada chooses a jockey and then everyone draws a horse and it's one of the biggest events in Tuscany. It's a HUGE deal to win this thing.

Anyways, so I was supposed to meet up with Frances, but she forgot about me (thanks Franny) so I got a really crappy slice of pizza in the piazza and sat there and waited for her to remember me - which she finally did. As soon as she showed up (I may have cried I was so excited to see someone I knew) we started off to see the city in a couple of hours. We walked first to the Duomo which was really awesome. It has a really cool story in that the main part of the church was built in the mid 1200's. In the early 1300's they decided to double the size of the church by building on a new nave and would have made it the largest Duomo in Italy but then the black plague hit in 1348 and the place was literally just stopped in the middle of construction and never resumed. There are two walls build and some of the bases for the columns are there. It's pretty freaking awesome, especially since it's not done.

After this, we walked to this amazing hill where we had some beautiful views of the city (and it was extremely sunny and beautiful so we could see forever!!) and then we walked down to the garden at the base of the hill which Franny tells me is a community garden where anyone can just plant their crops and then they all trade them around when it's time to harvest and its amazing. There were so many little green sprouts coming up and the place was utterly packed full of plants. From here, Miss Padon needed to go home to get some meds before she had a planned excursion at 5 so I headed off and walked up to the main fortress. It was so cool. It had to be the highest point in the city and had stunning views in all directions. It was also surrounded by this huge brick wall and a gorgeous garden. It also had an old roman theater in the middle that would have been really cool to see a show at.

After this, I was getting a little hungry, so we walked back into town past the futbol stadium and up to get some of these little cookies that Franny told us we couldn't leave without eating. They were like lemon squares with almonds on them but in cookie form. They weren't as moist as lemon squares but they were close and it was cookie dough. And they were soooo soft and had powdered sugar all over them. So I got one, and then after I ate it, I went back inside and got 5 more. Oops.

And if I hadn't had enough of the sweets, I decided to get some gelato for the walk back to the train station. I got pistachio gelato and hazelnut gelato and I have never tasted anything pistachio flavored that tasted this much like pistachios. OMG!!! It was so amazing. Seriously good. I also got a piece of pizza for the train ride back that was mozzarella, tomatoes, mushrooms and artichokes and it was wonderful.

Mmmmm :) I love Italian food.

As soon as I got home, I decided to just do some laundry and then me and the 3 other girls in my hostel chatted for a couple hours before going to bed.

All in all, a very successful day.

XOXO

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Vai via? E perché?

Location: Florence, Italy

Today was relatively relaxed. It was Raine's last day so we got up super early (7:30) to make the hike up to the top of the Duomo before the crowds started. The hike was really hard. There are 460 something steps and they are all very narrow and steep. There were over 200 in a row on a spiral about 3 feet wide. It took us about 20 minutes to get up to the inside round about where you are right below the start of the fresco of the roof of the dome. From there you could literally touch the bottom of the painting.

I'm not sure why I was surprised, but the painting quality is actually relatively poor. I understand that on such a big scale, it would be almost impossible for it to be much better. And I also understand that the artist who painted it (Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari) didn't actually paint the entire thing themselves (they had a lot of apprentices who would to the rough draft and the main artists would focus on things like faces and other defining features). But it just seemed kind of sloppy. The scene was beautiful though. The bottom most tier was of hell, with a sort of purgatory earth and then heaven on top with Jesus at the very top. It had all kinds of different types of devils, demons and wild animals and even little flying angel looking demon things hovering in the middle. It was a beautiful scene.

After this, we had about another 10 minute hike up the last 150 or so stairs (going up to the very tip top of the dome) and had some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The city was cloudy but there was pretty good visability so we really got lucky. The mountains surround the entire city and the duomo is right in the center so it was really easy to see pretty much anything.

The hike down was really scary. The steps are so narrow and I really thought I was going to fall at least 15 times. When we did finally get down, I said bye to Raine (who was going to Pisa for the day and then flying back to London from there) and I headed to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see the statue of David. The museum itself was kind of boring. There were some really pretty paintings but nothing too exciting. I did really enjoy seeing some unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo. There were 3 sculptures that were intended to be eventually placed as part of a tomb for this pope and then they ended up burying him in a cathedral or something like that, so there were these three sort of half finished carvings that were really interesting.

Of course, David was beautiful. I mean, the statue is really amazing. The proportions and the build of his body are perfect and it's a very large statue. Unfortunately, they won't let you take any pictures (and they have someone standing there making sure you do not) so I didn't get any, but it looks just like the fake one, only... real.

After i finished there, I walked down to the Piazza Pitti because I wanted to go inside the Giardino di Boboli and the Forte di Belvedere, but you had to pay like €20 to get in and that sounded lame so I parked in the Piazza on the ground to protest and read for like 2 hours. The sun was out for most of it and it was beautiful.

The boys decided to wait and leave in the morning, so we may go to dinner tonight, I'm not sure. If not, I will definitely be in bed early because I did not sleep last night hardly at all.

Off to Siena tomorrow to see Francis (a roomy from Theta) who is studying for the semester. I'm not sure I can express to you how excited I am to see her.

XOXO

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Catching up with some old friends

Location: Pisa, Italy

Not much else of Florence was seen yesterday. After sending a couple of e-mails, I headed to the Duomo to go inside and possibly go to mass (It was Sunday after all). I sent the Aussie boys an e-mail telling them to meet me at the Duomo at 5 if they got the message in time. We were having a really hard time getting a hold of each other on the phone.

I left and did a decent amount of walking. I walked up to the Piazza San Marco and sat and had a drink and watched the pigeons and people chase each other around. I walked down past the Galleria dell'Accademia where the statue of David resides, down past the Basilica di San Lorenzo, the Central Market and the Piazza della Repubblica (where I found some nice restaurants I would like to return to). I headed across the old bridge (Ponte Vecchio) and to the Piazza Pitti in front of the Palazzo Pitti where I sat and read some of my new Tuscany and Florence guide book. Then I walked back up the river through the Galleria degli Uffizi (well not actually through it, but through the courtyard) and then through the Piazza della Signoria (where the fake David statue is) and then ended up at the Piazza del Duomo and the Duomo itself.

The inside of the Duomo was awesome. There was a lot of artwork on the walls which I was really impressed by. Quite a few murals, some stuff painted directly on the walls and then just some nice, normal sized paintings. Mostly of bishops and knights and important people. There were also tombs of a couple of bishops and the rotunda was of course, beautiful. After I was done touring the inside, I went and sat on the steps outside to wait for the boys and I read some more of my guide book. Right at 5, I saw them walking across the square and then walk right past me and off towards the train station. I jumped up and ran over to them and found out, to my surprise, that they never got my email and just happened to be walking past the Duomo right when I was looking for them. I mean, literally, the bell tower was going off that it was 5 as we were talking about how crazy lucky it was that they walked by.

We went back to their hotel and then to dinner at this really great restaurant that Greg's uncle had suggested. I had the most amazing ravioli with artichokes and spinach inside and with fried artichokes on top of it. It was so incredible. After this, we headed to get some gelato and then to this club which had a great shot deal for the night. We get to the bar, which is really close to the University, and almost all of the people in the place were either American or Australian. They were playing the NFC championship on the TV, €1 shots (like, REAL shots) and it was perfect. We stayed there all night, had a great time, met quite a few people and headed back to the hotels at about 3.

This morning I got up to go meet Andre (the Brazilian from Paris) at the train station. He was coming in from Venice and only was spending the day in Florence. Problem number one was that the only thing he really wanted to see was the statue of David and, of course, the museum was closed (all museums here are closed on Mondays). So, we decided to go to Pisa and the Aussies headed to Siena. The trip was short and we didn't spend very much time in Pisa. We were initially hoping that we could get there and then go to Siena afterward to meet the rest of the crew, but that didn't work out.

The tower was amazing. I mean, it was really cool. It looks so fake. It literally looks like it was built that way. The entire foundation is sinking into the ground. Andre got some good touristy pictures of us pretending to hold it up and what not, and he said he'll post them on facebook, so look for those. After we got back to Florence, I took him to the fake David in the Piazza della Signoria and we got a slice of pizza as an early dinner snack. Gid and Shaun were both tired after traveling and walking around Siena all day so Greg, Andre and I went to dinner at a really shady place near Piazza Republica. The guy said he would give us 10% off because we were Australian (good job Greg) and so we said ok, but the food was just so/so and they ended up trying to scam us by adding €1 to each of our dishes on the bill. Whatever.

Andre leaves soon for Rome and the other boys leave tomorrow (probably) for Vienna so I'll be back to being all alone in Florence, but I think I'll be able to figure out something to do. I have a flight booked to Prague so I will more than likely keep that reservation for next week. I'll keep ya posted :)

XOXO

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Are you David?

Location: Florence, Italy

Florence was LOVELY yesterday. The temperature was perfect, not a cloud in the sky. It was great. I started the day late (after I finally caught up on all my sleep) and went to a cafeteria only to find... (drum roll please) a TURKEY sandwich!! I hadn't had turkey since before I left so I was so excited, and even though it was just a little sandwich with only cheese and turkey and it was €4 I was still so excited to eat turkey that I bought it. After this I got my first of many bowls of Gelato (Mango and Papaya today) and then I walked around and saw the Duomo and then walked down to a really interesting old outdoor museum. There were about 20 statues around and most of them were absolutely beautiful. The museum surrounded this big plaza in the center and then ran down the side towards the river.

All of the statues were authentic except for the one of David that I took the picture of. The actual statue of David is inside a museum a couple of blocks from my hostel and this one is located where the old David statue used to stand. A bunch of students recreated it and I think some people were genuinely confused as to whether they were looking at the real thing or not. Another statue that I took a picture of was another recreation (the close up on the warrior looking guy holding a dead guy). Except, this statue was created in like 640 AD which was amazing to me that a recreation of another statue still happened early enough to be it's own statue. Crazy!!

Also, everyone in most of these statues is naked. Well, let me rephrase that. Every statue in the ENTIRE city, the people are naked. I mean, these people are not modest in the slightest. And there are lots of statues with very obvious hints to homosexuality. Just right out in the middle of squares. Very vulgar things, but very interesting.

After this I walked down a long corridor (where I saw the smoking statue) and down to the river past another big museum. The river was so pretty and was lined with all of these Mediterranean Tuscan houses and the sun was setting and it was just perfect. I walked across the old bridge and over to a more residential area of town where there were a lot of really pretty lofts and churches. After this, I meandered my way back to where I came from and past a bunch of black market purse sellers.

Once I was back at my hostel, a girl in my room, Rain from China, was going to o up to the top of this Garden to watch the sunset so I said lets go, we got a bottle of wine and headed up. Unfortunately, we were a little late, so we're going to try again today, but we did sit up there and people watch and drink our little bottle. After this, we came back to the hostel, where the guy who owns the place was just getting off work so he asked if we wanted to go get some food, which of course we did, so we all walked back across the river to a cute little restaurant by the church with the violinist. We sat down at 8 and didn't leave until almost 11:30. I had the most amazing Gnocchi with a Radish and Gorgonzola sauce (it was incredible) and then we drank a ton of wine and had chocolate cake and just sat there and talked about (of course, get three drunk people from different countries together and what do you start talkin about) solving all of the worlds problems, the war in Iraq, communism... all very light topics for a first time dinner together ;)

Once we left, we went down to a couple different clubs and had a couple drinks before retiring relatively early (relative to Spain that is) at about 1:30.

Today, obviously, I have spent most of my day uploading pictures. It literally has taken me a couple of hours so be grateful. I'm gonna head out now and get some food... I think the word of the day is Pizza.

XOXO

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The bird flies away to Italy

Location: Florence, Italy

Yikes, today was rough. After my near mugging incident I was a little shaken up so I drank a little too much vino for dinner and things only went downhill from there. We went to the clubs again, which was great fun. Things start to get clear again at about 5:30 when me and one of the boys were walking back to my hostel to get my backpack but we sort of got lost and then somehow, randomly, 3 of the other guys found us wandering the streets and directed us back where we were supposed to be going. I got my backpack, caught the metro to the bus station, took the 2 hour bus ride to the airport and then the 2 hour flight to Rome. From there, I got on a bus to the metro station, metro to the train station and then took a slow speed (so it was free) train to Florence which took about 3 hours. I slept for most of the traveling because I hadn't slept last night, but it was a rough morning to say the least.

Florence is beautiful!! It's warmer than Barcelona by a little bit and I'm already in love with the city. Plus, the people here speak Italian and I could listen to it for hours and I have no idea what they're saying at all. Even when they're yelling at eachother (which seems to happen quite often) it just sounds so pretty :) I'm glad I will be here for a long time. I haven't had any good food yet because I haven't been hungry yet today, but I think I'll be hitting that up in the next hour or so. Nothing else really to report. Hopefully my weekend will be exciting. Gid, Shaun and Greg from Australia are meeting me here tomorrow and staying for a couple days and then Andre from Brazil is coming in town on Tuesday so I'll be kept busy with old friends (Ha!).

XOXO

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There's nothing quite like singing in the streets

Location: Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain

Well, participation went well. Turns out I was in the company of 9 Irish guys who were on basically a winter break binge trip. We went to the clubs last night and the night before and both nights, I wasn't in bed until after 7 AM. It's been very fun, but I'm getting a tad tired. My 9 Irish body guards have definitely been nice because Barcelona is a pretty scary place. I actually caught a guy undoing my purse trying to steal my phone today on my way to dinner. The boys were telling me that 2 of them got mugged by a group of like 5 prostitutes who like surrounded them and then started just grabbing for wallets. One of the other guys got €40 taken out of his pocket too. I guess I've been lucky that I only had one encounter and I caught him... Ha Ha!! Don't mess with me.

Barcelona the city is absolutely beautiful. It's really a strange place and everything seems out of place individually but it all comes together nicely. There are statues everywhere. Any entrance to a building, small square, statues. And not like normal carved statues, but like really strange things. Like a lobster on top of a bus stop; a huge freaking lobster with this big grin on its face. So random. The architecture of the entire city is also extremely unique. Every building is different and it's very interesting. All of Gaudi's buildings are incredible, of course. I didn't really know how important this guy is, but I'm a HUGE fan now. All of his work is so modern and different. Each building is completely different from the one before.

The Sagrada Familia is the most famous. It's this huge church that he started building somewhere in the 1880 range and it's still not done. He died in the 20's but the building is still being built according to his plans. It is absolutely breathtaking and my pictures are not even going to kind of do this place justice. It has 8 towers built so far, with 4 more coming each for one of the 12 apostles. Then, there is going to be a huge tower in the middle that's Jesus' tower. Only one façade of the church was built before he died and it's darker and a little more traditional. It has the most amazing carvings of the birth of Jesus and all these happy people and it's wonderful. You can't fit the thing in a picture and there's no clear division so it was really hard to frame a picture of this. The other side of the church is much more modern and is more recent. All of the characters on this side are crying or screaming and it's dedicated to Jesus' death. It's horrible and beautiful all at the same time. The inside of the church is mostly empty, but you can see where they're doing a lot of work on the ceiling and the columns. There is also a lot of scaffolding where the middle bell towers are going to be located. The place is amazing.

I spent a decent amount of time there today. I also did another bus tour... I know it's pathetic, but I'm addicted. I started by going up to the Parc de Montjuic which is this amazing park that overlooks the whole city. It's gorgeous. Then we went down by Port Vell and Port Olympico, which is where we were at the clubs last night. Then we went to Plaza Catalunya which is basically just this huge plaza with shops and restaurants all around. There is also the most pigeons I've ever seen in my life in the middle. From here we went up through Gràcia which is an old town that used to be separated from Barcelona (which was an old Roman city with a wall surrounding it and everything). Here we went up to Parc Guell which is where a bunch more of Gaudi's work is. It's some sort of old English neighborhood where he lived for a certain amount of time. At this point, it was getting pretty dark, so we headed quickly to go look at the Futbol stadium which is absolutely HUGE. It holds just under 100,000 people and I was sad that I didn't get to go see a game :(

Today, I had to get up early and move hostels because they screwed up my reservations some how. I didn't do much though as a result of last nights activities. I just went to the church and walked around the Gothic section of town and down to the beach. I also just screwed up my train reservation (when I looked at the schedule I assumed it was a daily train, but in the winter, they don't run on Friday or Saturday for maintenance) so I was somewhat confused as to how I was going to get to Florence. I just found a Ryan Air flight though for €50 so I'm booked. It leaves at 8:20 in the morning. YIKES!! Looks like someone is not going to bed tonight!! Ha!!

Ok well, off for now. I'll be in Italy tomorrow if all goes as planned.

XOXO

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"Are you a REAL American?" - Joe the Pole

Location: Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain

Another day of solid travel...

Today started early because i had to catch the bus to Málaga at 8:20. I hiked to the bus stop and caught the bus (which came about 15 minutes late - an important detail later). We began the 2.5 hour bus ride to Málaga which was actually, amazing. With the sun rising first over Africa and then over the mountains west of town... the views were breathtaking. Even this far south, the sun still rises so slowly... so i feel like you get to watch it for like 2 hours instead of 15 minutes. And in the reflection of the Mediterranean? I was really lucky.

And then... as we pulled into the bus station I realized that it was 10:50 and my train was set to leave at 11 AND it was 2 blocks away AND I didn't have a reservation yet. I ran to the station... begged the conductor to let me on and for the first time on my trip... I missed my train. But, as luck would have it... In Málaga, the train station is attached to a shopping mall, so I spent my 3 hours shopping and eating. First, I got a little chair massage at one of those sleazy mall kiosk things, but it was totally worth the €2 I paid. Then, I went and got 2 cups of coffee and read the newspaper. Or, at least, what I could read. I picked 3 articles which were about American things, so that I at least could guess some of the context. My first article was about Mitt Romney and some business about Michigan and car making. I wasn't too interested so I moved on quickly (It was my warm-up). Second article was much more interesting: Basketball (of course I pick sports). It was about this kid who is playing basketball for UNC-Asheville who is 7'7" and weighs 370 pounds!!! (Yes, I had to do the conversions in my phone... 2.36 meters didn't sound that tall). Apparently, he's actually pretty good for a giant. Last article was my favorite and it was about the comeback of American Gladiator. I remember Andrea telling me something about this show coming back and I was really excited, but apparently it has started (before my return... the nerve) and is entertaining quite a large crowd of viewers. There was a picture of some of the new gladiators. HA!! Some things haven't changed since the early 90's I guess.

This took me about 2 hours to read. So naturally, when I had finished, I got a sandwich and headed for my platform. The next 7.25 hours were spent on a train. First from Málaga to Madrid and then Madrid to Barcelona. The first ride was quite lovely. There were hours upon hours of rolling hills filled with olive trees and grape vines. Millions of trees producing two of my favorite things (oh, yes and olives are now one of my favorite foods after eating my weight in them in San Ambrosio). I watched two movies in Spanish. The first was called Eragon and it was American and about a boy with a dragon and it had subtitles (in Spanish, but still it helped me to read along) and the people were talking in Spanish too. The movie was ok, but I'm sure I missed huge chunks of the story line in translation. The second movie was a Spanish film in Spanish with no subtitles and I had no chance. I think it was an indy film because it was quite weird and I think supposed to be funny but I'm not sure. I gave up watching it about a half an hour into it. I also managed to read about 300 pages in my new epic novel that my Australian friend, Gid gave me in Madrid. It's a very interesting book called The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and it is quite entertaining. It's almost 1000 pages so it looks quite impressive, but it hasn't been bad so far. Don't judge me if it ends poorly though, I'm only about half way through.

Once I arrived in Barcelona, I walked to my hostel quite quickly and here I am!! It's a really nice place and I think I'm pretty centrally located, but I'll let you know tomorrow. Oh, and of the 9 countries I've been to and the 14 hostels I've stayed in, I am officially in my first top-bunk. I was on such a good run. Oh well.

Kind of uneventful, I know, but I had to give you an easy read after all of that drama from the previous week. And the computer room has just been overtaken by about 8 boys with beer so I think I need to go participate.

XOXO

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"You came to Africa... alone?" -Abdul

Location: Tangier, Morocco, North Africa

Ok, well. The plan was to come to Tarifa and possibly meet some people who wanted to go to Morocco with me, BUT... there was no one staying at my hostel. So... I went alone.

EKK!!

I know... but I am safe and not kidnapped or anything sooo you don't have to be worried. And I am back on Spanish turf and feeling much better about things. Ok, so now everyone has gotten angry at Abbey for going to Morocco alone.... and we're all over it.

IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!!

So, I get off the boat at about 2 PM (because it was raining this morning so I didn't want to go in the rain) and I literally almost turned around and got back on the boat. I was SOOOO scared. There were people EVERYWHERE!! "Do you want taxi?", "Private Tour Here!", "I drive you anywhere" (especially my favorite... "I drive you to my house 40 miles away, then charge you €300 to get back to port!"). I look around, and start walking towards a police man when a nice old guy starts talking to me in wonderful English. He asks me if I need help, that he is an official tourist guide, shows me his badge and I start to talk to him. He offers to take me around town and we negotiate a price and then I ask the police officer if this guy is legit and he says he is so I take a big breath and off we go. Just me and Abdul, my new 62 year old BFF Moroccan man.

We drive through the Modern town which is just a normal looking street with shops and McDonald's and normal looking people. Of course, we don't stop there and we continue up to Old Town. We get out of the car and walk around here, looking at the central mosque (which it happened to be one of the 5 daily times of prayer so I got to watch all of the boys doing their thing - Abdul explains to me that the women have to pray separately so that's why we don't see any). From here we walk to the Kasbah which is an old Sultan's palace. It has a beautiful garden and the ceilings and walls are carved out of plaster and Mohogany. Out the back, there is a stunning view of Tarifa and the place where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean - in the middle of the Straight of Gibraltar.

From here, we walked back out to he main square to see the Catholic church and the Protestant church. Abdul tells me that Morocco is the most religiously tolerant country and I somewhat believe him when he tells me that there are 10 catholic churches, 1 protestant church, 7 Jewish synagogues and 27 Muslim mosques in Tangier alone. Here we see what he called the workers shop. It is where men who are looking for work in their specific trade, come and find work. Example (I also took a picture so when I am able to post them, you will see) a painter wants work, so he comes to this square and puts a bucket with paintbrushes on the sidewalk and then just sits back. If anyone is interested in his work, they will go to his bucket and negotiate a deal. Similarly, plumbers, electricians, woodworkers, anything would be set up here. It was very interesting.

After this we headed to the market. Today (Monday) is market day in Tangier so everyone comes in from the burbs and brings in their crops and clothes and such and sells them in these open air markets. Here we see so much. There is the largest assortment of olives I have ever seen in my entire life. Chickens everywhere, hanging from strings on the ceiling in every store. There are huge veggie stands that go sooo far back. Abdul takes me to a spice store where of course I have to buy something. I get some wonderful red spice that smelled fantastic and I'm sure tasted great as well. I got some sweet curry which is just a milder version of its Indian cousin. I also picked up some rock that smelled delicious and is used to make a lot of Moroccan perfume. I decided I could put it in my bag to make it smell nice :)

After this, I was treated to a lovely personal show of Persian rugs. We went to his amazing store which had jewelry, brass, fake Prada, EVERYTHING. It was 3 stories tall and at the very top was this huge warehouse of rugs. The guy sat my on a pillow and made me some hibiscus mint tea and showed me rug after rug after rug. He knew I had no intention to buy and he still taught me everything about the different types of rugs and what they were made out of. It was beautiful!!

To finish my trip, Abdul took me to an authentic Moroccan restaurant where I was treated to a 3 course meal with a chickpea and noodle soup (that had cinnamon in it, it was fantastic). Then I had this fried chicken onion thing. Think Trudy's stuffed avocado but sweeter and with powdered sugar and cinnamon on top and onions. OMG it was sooo good. Then my last course was couscous with chicken on it which, of course, was fantastic. I had a wonderful mint tea to finish my meal and we were off for the port to catch my boat back. On the way, he took me by a shop with wedding dresses and told me about his daughter who was getting married in 3 months. He was so excited about it and was telling me about how women in their culture have a wedding that lasts 7 days long so they have to have a different dress for each day. The dresses were so beautiful and in each shop, you could see the little men sitting their weaving their own silk fabric and sewing these clothes together. It was fantastic.

Finally, it was time to head back. I went to the port, said farewell to my new friend (after all, he did invite me to come to his daughter's wedding if I am in town in March) and set out for my boat. Getting there, was much harder than I thought it would be. There was no order to getting on the boat at all. People were literally plowing each other over to be the first to get on. All the cars that were getting on were lined up and the police were searching them all checking to make sure there weren't any drugs or stowaways. They literally were popping glove compartments open and checking underneath the cars to make sure that no people were underneath. It was crazy. Finally, we got on and headed back to Europe. Once I got here, I felt so much better knowing that everything was safe. I didn't really ever feel threatened in Morocco but I did feel like everyone was staring at me the whole time I was there. It really was a wonderful place though and worth a trip. Plus I got like 5 passport stamps!! They stamp you for walking like 100 feet.

Anyways, off to bed. It's been a long day and I have a long day of travel ahead of me.

XOXO

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