Moroccean Memories

shop in the market
see all photos »

Morocco was much different that I had expected. For starters it was green, really really green! I expected lots of dry and barren land, but for the most part there were many rolling hills and lush landscape. The ocean was beautiful in morocco and the beach was absolutely covered in sea shells and good ones too. You could hardly walk without cracking them. We stayed in Fez for our first extended amount of time. I really liked Fez, I felt very safe and exploring the market was really interesting. One of the nights we went to a show way out in the desert and Che Ali, it was an amazing show, literally something right out of a movie. We had a dinner and there were dancers, and after dinner they had men doing tricks on horses. My friend Kristin and I rode a camel together. It was quite the night, like being at Disneyland. The next day we went into the Souks Market, which was just like being in the Disney movie Aladdin. There were snake charmers and monkeys who would come up and take coins from you. They sold everything you could imagine at these markets.

sittin on santa clauses' lap
see all photos »

From Fez we went to Marrakech, where we spent New Years Eve, they had a pretty party at the hotel, but apparently it wasn’t what the dean had expected and so 2 nights later they threw us a really nice gala dinner, decorated like you were at a wedding reception with table service, a piano player and two belly dancers for entertainment. The funny things was we had just got back from being out all day and no one knew this was going to be a nice dinner, so we were all freshly showered, but in sweats and ratty clothes, we still had a great time enjoying each others’ company. Also in Marrakech we went out for a Moroccan dinner, sat on the floor, and watched a magic show and a belly dancer who ate fire and rubbed fire sticks all over her body – I don’t care what kind of flame retardant you have on you, it would make me very uncomfortable. One of the dishes they served us for dinner that night looked something like chicken, I had almost half mine and it wasn’t bad, tasted like chicken too. The next day we found out it was pigeon, so although I still refuse to eat any red meat I guess I have had pigeon (gross!).

It smelled awful, but it looked like something right out of National Geographic magazine.

Moroccean hillside
see all photos »

Marrakech has another HUGE market, you could honestly be lost in it for days, but it was really neat. One of the coolest and most interesting things I saw was them dying leather. It smelled awful, but it looked like something right out of National Geographic magazine. Men stand above these round hollow limestone well type things that hold the dye and they get in there with their legs and push the animal hyde around to dye the leather, after they dry it on top of the building. In the market if you want to buy meat you don’t need to ask what they sell, you can simply look to the type of animal head hanging from their shop top – one place had a camel head hanging down. From Marrakech we headed back to Malaga, spent one last night in Malaga and finally made our way back to Florence. In Florence we missed 10 inches of snow while were away, apparently something that has not occurred in the last 20 years! too bad, I am going to Sweden the first weekend in February and I think I might get some snow there!

bell tower near market
see all photos »

You still reading? I’m impressed J This turned out longer than I thought, but it was a good two week adventure hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! I’d love to hear from everyone! Much Love!