Morocco

An island off the coast of Spain
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So last weekend I went on a weekend trip to Morocco with a program different from API. Although like 10 or so people ended up going from API as well as a huge group from UMASS. It was a lot of fun, but the actual traveling to Morocco was long. They picked us up from Granada, then we drove four hours to Algeciras where we took a one hour bus ride to Ceuta, and then after going through the border (there was a crazy amount of traffic) and driving to the hotel that was another hour. They fed us dinner at the hotel, which was good. We had some type of corn soup, and then chicken cutlets with really good rice and tomatoes and for desert we had flan which I'm not a fan of. The good thing about the program was that we don't have to worry about getting sick from the food, because the program has so many Americans that I guess they customize their food to us.

Me on the ferry
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On Saturday we visited Tetouan and Tanger. The cool part about it is that the tour guide took us to parts that weren't touristy and were more "authentic." In both cities we walked around and got tours. We walked through the Medinas, which are the fresh food markets through the town. Saying that its fresh is an understatement. We saw they chopping up a shark and there were lots of fish on ice. They had pens where they kept chickens and then we also got to see some dead chickens with their throats slit which was a bit traumatic. They also sold bread, candy, nuts, spices, kitchen supplies, etc. except for touristy stuff. We also got to see where the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea meet, which was very cool because you could actually sea the line where they meet since the oceans are different shades of blue. At night we were given some free time to walk around a different Medina where they sold touristy stuff. I bought a hookah for Beth and a pair of converse sneakers (they were really cheap).

Dinner the first night
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On Sunday we went to Chef-Chouen, which is a small mountain town. It was really cool, because all the buildings were painted really pretty shades of blue. They painted it blue, because heaven (sky) and the ocean are blue as well. There was a small market on the bottom of the hill, where I ended up buying a bunch of earrings for 1 euro each and then some bracelets.

I never thought that I would have the desire to go traveling in Africa, but after going to Morocco, I really want to visit other places there, especially Cairo, Capetown, the Sahara, and lots more other places.