On my way to the airport

Ana was the sweetest and offered to give me a ride to the airport. She will be here in about 10 minutes

I DONT BELIEVE THIS. Im leaving. Im leaving.

Goodbye Madrid. See you soon America.

I hate packing

I put off packing all day yesterday, and since the 65 degree weather ruined our pool day, I might as well start now. My fingers are crossed that it warms up tomorrow (its supposed to be 85) and we can spend our last full day here lounging in the sun by the pool. --This is not what it looks like... its my carefully strategized technique to avoid reverse culture shock and ease the transition to my weekend at the beach in Fenwick: ideally I close my eyes by the pool and when I open them, Im laying by the beach in Delaware.

I really don't know how I packed coming here. I only had one big suitcase, a duffle as my handbag and my backpack as my purse. I invested in a new big suitcase because I knew I had a few more souvineers, and a new shirt or two. But this is RIDICULOUS. I packed the new one with most of my clothes and it feels like it will be overweight, but every other bag is going to be jam packed. AND i just remembered, i still have 2 loads of laundry waiting to be done. Wednesday will be even hotter, getting up to 90, so I dont know how my backup plan of wearing as many layers of clothes as possible might not fly.

Yesterday was my goodbye lunch, and I invited my intercambio, Esmeralda, over to eat with Elivira and I. She made "arroz negro" which is a type of paella (maybe?) made with normal rice, shrimp, and calamari and it gets its black name from the squid's ink thats added. I dont think it adds any extra flavor, just looks cool. Then for dessert, she made me an apple tart :)

Today, Im going to do some more goodbyes with friends (HATE THAT). Then, the world-wide Solar Decathlon is held here in Madrid about 15 minutes away from my house. Its challenge to design sustainable houses, and they are all lined up along the river and are open to the public. After, we're going to watch Spain play Honduras-- Im repping Spain in my new Espana jersey.

Im not freaking out yet, but in less than 48 hours... more than likely.

Morocco Part Deux

A grand success and may have even topped our first trip!

Tuesday

Day 1 really begins Monday night, becase I planned to take the metro to the airport since our flight was at 6am, and my only option at that hour is a 30euro taxi ride. I get to my last transfer point a little late and the last train was pulling in for the night- aka my only option was once again to take a taxi. So, I paid 20 euros to sleep on the cold airport floor. wonderful start! Funny thing is Alex who was meeting me at the airport missed her transfer too and had to take a cab. Luckily there was hardly anyone on our flight (duh it was 6am) so we got a whole row each to sleep. We arrived at the bus station in Marrakesh late, once again, and missed the bus to Azilal, a town 3 hours away where we would meet up with our friend, Blake. I guess we looked dumbfounded standing in the middle of the station, and a man aproached us about a taxi, we asked how much it would be to Azilal, and the 25euros each that he quoted us was definitely the tourist scam price. After failed attempts to bargain, we tried to lose the guy and ask around to other drivers, but he kept intervening and apparently telling the drivers in Berber that we were going with him. We called Blake to see if his unmarked "cab" was legit even though he had a little paper that said tourist license on it "proving" himself. (Still not sure if he was legit, but I wouldnt put it past Morocco). We got in, and were off for Azilal. About 1 hour into the ride and started seeing signs for Azilal I felt a little better- all I could think was that he was gonna drop us off in the middle of nowhere and refuse to return us until we paid 500 euros or something. The driver was actually sweet and only spoke French, so Alex whipped out some incredible French detection and decoded his words. (She doesnt speak French btw). We got to Azilal in 2 hours, instead of 3, and met up with Blake and his friend Isabel at the bus station. We headed for lunch first thing and got my favorite, tagine. (So much better than the "Moroccan food" they had in Granada). Right after we headed to the market to pick up ingredients for dinner because Blake would be cooking at his house tonight. Im a sucker for any type of market- theyre always so cool. It was insane too, all the ingredients (minus what he had in his house cost less than 1$). We took a cab to Blake's site, about 30 min outside of the town. It was beautiful!!! There's a huge lake with bright blue/green water surrounded by mountains. His house is really cute too with its pink walls, a apricot tree out front and quite rustic decor. We all hung out, ate some delicious watermelon, played bananagrams, and then set out for the lake to watch the sun set. The hike = scaling down a nearly vertical dry, pebbly mountain. I slipped, and have a nice battle wound souvineer on my elbow! After drooling over the gorgeous lake, we hiked back up to Blake's house for some mac and cheese and fench-fries, moroccan/mounatin-style, and then slept with the family of lizards that live in the roof.

Wednesday

We packed up all of our stuff and headed down to the road where Blake's landlord/fisherman/taxi driver would be taking us to Ozoud for the day. We stpped in Azilal and I got my first avocado shake of the trip. MY FAV= avocado, milk, sugar, blend to perfection. Once in Ozoud, we only have to walk for 5 minutes before we are at the very top of the falls, so our first view is looking straight down, inches from the edge of the cliff. It was breathtaking. The plan was to hike down one side, cross the river and hike back up to the top again. On the way down, we stopped to hang out with a posse of wild monkeys. It was sooo cool (evethough they tried to attack Alex and me).

Then, we stopped at a cafe at overlooked the falls for our picnic lunch with the best moroccan bread Ive ever had, fresh dates, and laughing cow cheese (haha its EVERYWHERE). We reached the water below, and crawled out to a rock in the center and chilled with with our feet in the water for over an hour. We hiked back up the mountain, and stopped for another posse of monkeys. These guys were a little tamer, so we hand-fed them peanuts. One stuffed his cheeks so fat, he couldnt fit anymore and started piling up his fits. Those monkeys loved us. We left Ozoud and headed back to Azilal, where Alex and I had to say goodbye to Blake and Isabel and take a 3 hour bus to Marrakech. That turned out to be a 5 hour, terribly miserable bus ride. We arrived in Marrakech at 11:30 pm and make the sketchy walk to the town center instead of getting into sketchy cabs. Dont worry, I had my pepper spray in hand the whole time. We were starving, so it was 1000 times better when we say the smoke and lights from Jemma-Fna! We went to the same stand to eat that we went on our first night in Morocco the last time with Blake, Joe and Brian (fyi there are over hundreds to choose from!). I found my way back to the hostel we stayed at last time, good old Sindi Sud, and luckily the doors were still open at 12:30. We paid 2.5euro and got to sleep on the rooftop terrace with little mats and blankets. The guy asked us if we were in the Peace Corps, cause I guess theyre the only ones what do it/know about it- so we calimed we're "friends of the peace corps" haha. It was a surreal ending to a wonderful day. It was a good night's sleep until the call of prayer from the mosque woke us up at dawn.

Thursday

If it wasn't cool enough to fall asleep on the terrace, waking up realizing I was on the rooftops in Marrakech was pretty cool. We started our day shopping in the market for a few souvineers I had left to get and lost ourselves for 2 hours in there. Its a freaking black hole- the precursor to the casino, for sure. I restrained myself and only bought myself some sweet cereal bowls. We had a run-in in the tea shop where the man stuffed a bag of black seeds up my nose because he said it cures athsma and hangovers. Luckily, Im still alive. When you walk down the markets, they shout at you in 15 different languages to attract you to their shop. Too many of them know English, so we decided to try talking to each other in Spanish to see what would happen. Sure enough, they all switched to shouting "hola" and instead of the stereotypical things they shout in
English that they hear from movies, we heard, "Juan?", "Maria?" haha. After we finally escaped the clutches of the market, it was time to be responsable and start studying for my exam the next morning. We went to a rooftop cafe and had avocado smoothie number 2 (yum, even better than the last one)! ...I think we spent over half of our time in Marrakech on the tops of buildings because then we ate lunch up there too. We made some last minute purchases before heading to the airport which included the always difficult task of choosing one OJ stand out of the 25 that line the square and sell the exact same thing for the exact same price. We decided on one guy hard at work, meticulously slicing his oranges. Turned out to be key and he let us take a picture up in his stand and refilled our glasses! Then we got to the airport and were so upset to leave until we realized it would be our last few days in Madrid, and made the blow a little less hard.

Success

Waking up and almost getting on the metro an hour early to go to the huge outdoor market in Madrid, el Rastro, this morning, was a bad start, but the day quickly got better. First, it wasnt raining like it had been for the past 4 days, so that was even enough for me. Alex and I got there right when Rastro opened for prime shopping, but we forgot Spain never opens on time, especially in the mornings... although there were SOME stands waiting for us at 9am. We got almost everything we came for in about 2.5 hours-- except the prints I saw last time (they were really cool sketches of Madrid landmarks from the early 1900s that I was planning to paint for some wall art). I planned to get home around noon so that I could get home to start cooking the big lunch I planned for Elvira, but Alex was meeting up with our friend, Santa, and I decided to join (Im not trying to be cute, thats her name guys). Her grandpa owns a bar nearby and invited us over for a drink and to meet her family. We walked in and everyone behind the counter was either and aunt, uncle, cousin, or brother, and they hooked us up with a ton of tasty tapas. That wasn't even the best part- Santa's grandpa walks in and for the next hour was chatting it up with us- telling us love is the most important thing in the world (he's got 7 children), how beautiful life is, and that the essence of life is communication. He was the most energetic, passionate, and entertaining 81 year old Ive ever met. So much so, we lost track of time, and I got home way later than I planned to start cooking... at least everything starts late here, right?

I somehow became efficient at cooking today and finished everything right on time. The burgers literally came out of the oven right as Elvira's daughter, and her boyfriend were walking in the door from their walk! Everything came out really well, and they all enjoyed it. Elvira loved the sweet potato fries, Ruben had 2 burgers, and everyone thought the name s'more was funny when I explained what it meant-- they kept saying s'more throughout the meal haha.

And of course I make sure an obscene amount of pictures were taken:

Tying the Loose Ends

In the same day, around noonish, I saw a woman in a bright orange jumpsuit (jail-style) running to catch the metro...sketchy, and then in Callao Plaza, a dwarf was riding a razor scooter. Im going to miss this crazy place!

Today was a day of premature wrapping-up. sad... but notable things were accomplished

A. Made a last trip to La Mallorquina- the best pastries in the entire country. The Chocolate Nepolitanos are soo good. I took my mom when she visited and she can back me up on that one. It wasnt so busy today, being a Thursday morning and all, and we got a seat upstairs by the window overlooking Puerta de Sol. It was perfect.

B. If you remember my wifi rant...I decided to brave El Corte Ingles in Callao to see if the blogs ive read are true- that theres a great cafe on the top floor with great views of the city. So True!!! Although, this is a fancy-ish restaurant- like wine glasses are already on the tables, cloth napkins, and waiters in suits-- so fancier than your average cafe study spot. We felt bad tricking them into serving us and then whipping out the study materials, so we asked and they even gave us the big round table with a stellar view of the entire city. The rain dropplets on the glass window made taking a picture really difficult, so youll just have to check it out for yoursevles :)

C. Tomorrow we're going to El Escorial, about 45 outside of the city- the palace built by King Felipe II. Its gonna be cool after studying him in my history class here. He was so mysterious and brilliant- in church, his seat was behind a curtain, that had a full-time curtain operator to periodically reveal the king, so people would never know if the king was present or not. He designed the throne room using an optical illusion to make himself seem imposing and huge, and was famous for sending congratulations and get well cards, so it seemed as if he knew everything. Nerd alert, I know.

Barcelona

Saturday

I got on the metro when it opened at 6am as people were coming home from partying the night before. Renee and I were worried about finding each other at the airport since we were already crushed for time, but we ended up running into each other on the way on the metro! Our flight was RyainAir, so we had to fly into Girona, a little over an hour outside of Barcelona, so it was a metro, flight, and then bus ride to a city just a few hours away by car. We arrived around noon and found our hostel which was perfectly located and really nice- spiral marble staircase?! We decided the first thing to do was explore and found 2 of Gaudi's buildings plus his La Sagrada Familia. We only saw them from the outside, and they were incredible. Also went to my first Subway in Spain... the bread/Subway smell reminded me of home haha. We decided the day was too perfect not to be at the beach, so we went to the closest beach, Barceloneta, and squeezed in between piles of people. The beach was dirty with slabs of rock (not nice smooth rocks, like jagged pieces of ancient ruins) and trash :( There were people selling you either beer, slices of coconut, or massages and yelling as they passed by every second. It was really annoying, except for the guy who was balancing a HUGE tray of donuts on his head dancing around the beach blankets. The sun went in, and so we walked up La Rambla- the main street with vendors (including pigeon sellers. ew) and stopped into the huge outdoor market, La Boqueria. I knew Id love it. We got a smootie and a wrap, the perfect ending to a beach-day. After going back to the hostel, we met up with out friends from Gtown and Comillas (Amy, Victor, Tony, and Erica) to go out for the night. We went to the famous Chupitos bar famous for their creative shots, and I got the PopRocks, which not surprisingly involved a chaser of PopRocks. yum. We went to the clubs on the beach, but since it was so late, a lot were closing and we ended up hanging out on the beach.

Sunday

Renee and I were dead set on a full beach day so at 9am, we dragged ourselved out of bed and got ready. We were halfway through breakfast when we looked outside and noticed the rain!!! It was only 9:30, so we hoped it would clear up-- it didnt :( We said goodbye to Amy and went to see the inside of the Gaudi building, Casa Batllo. I was skeptical with the 14 euro entrance fee, but it was incredible. Here are come pictures. My friend described it as a mixture of Alice in Wonderland and Dr. Seuss. We headed to a Japanese restaurant for lunch- my failed sushi attempt number 2 and Ive decided they make the rice sweet, which is what makes it taste weird... cant wait for Asia Express! We bought an umbrella from the hostel and walked in the rain to Guell Park, a park designed by Gaudi, originally only for the upper class turned public park by the city. It was so cool too. Really good views of the city and the closest Ive felt to wandering candyland (minus the candy). We met up with Erica, Tony, and Victor in the "grotto" part of the park and hung out until they had to catch their flight home. After they left, Renee and I picked up some McDonalds (weirdest McD's trip: a coffee AND donut is 20 cents less than just a coffee, and Id been waiting all semester for them to start serving gazpacho, so I finally asked when theyd start serving and they said theyve always had it (its NOT on the menu), so I tried it and its a popular Spain brand, not a McD original...probably for the best) We took our picnic and rented a blanket from the hostel to Mountjuic to see the "magic fountain show". Every night the big fountain on the top of the mountain has a show with water formations timed to music and light effects. It was neat. That night, we were determined to go out even though it was a Sunday night. We wandered for 2 hours before finding out the other location of Chupitos was closed for a national holiday that was on Thursday! (of Spain and your ridiculous number of holidays)

Monday

We checked out of the hostel, ready to finally head to the beach for the day. We stopped by La Boqueria to get some fruit to snack on on the beach. Remembering how bad the beach from Saturday was, we decided to take the risk to go to a random metro stop by the sea in hopes it would be better. We decided the "lacuna" stop sounded like laguna and thus would be a great beach. Preppared for disappointment, the beach turned out to be wonderful.- it was big, clean, with only about 15 locals on the whole beachfront, and no roaming vendors. The sun even stayed out the whole time. perfection. We walked to the Born neighborhood for lunch and took out friends' suggestion for a pizzeria for lunch. It was deliciousssss. Our plan was to go back to the beach for an hour before we had to head to the airport, but there was no time, so we went to the hostel, got our stuff, and made it to the bus station just in time. Once at the Girona airport, there was a great sunny terrace outside, and we prepared for our flight home and planned the few days we have left in Madrid.

Verdict: Barcelona is such a beach city with people from all over, it doesn't really feel like Spain. But some things its got, that Madrid is lacking: beach and Gaudi's touch.

Aftermath: Today Renee and I were still craving sun, so we spent all day in Retiro Park with friends.

3 weeks = 3 minutes

Time is going by tooo fast. In between finals, traveling, and enjoying the warm weather, Im not sure where the time is going. This past week I had my 2nd and 3rd (of 5) finals. I wouldnt say I aced them, but Im thinking and really hoping I passed.

Tomorrow I leave at 6am to catch our plane to Barcelona. Its a little ridiculous that we are flying, since its millimeters away on the map, but they revamped the train system in Spain, so you can get there by train 2 hours slower than flying and pay 4x as much....so Im flying. It will be my first experience with Europe's notoriously cheap, strict (with baggage requirements), and problematic airline- RyanAir. My fingers are crossed that everything goes smoooothly. We will meet some friends there and come back Monday night.

Next week is my last "free week" to say goodbye to friends leaving, hopefully visit El Escorial- Felipe II's palace outside of Madrid, and go to the pool!!! Next weekend, Ive got my cooking expo with the Spanish friends' picnic and my host mom's thank you/goodbye dinner. Then, the following week is an exam, Morocco, exam- sandwich.

Then 4 precious days...

I wont be here Sunday, but happy bicentennial, mother :) Enjoy the crabs and the beach.