Part 1 of Christmas break: Girona, Spain and Morocco

---

The first day of our trip consisted of waking up at 3 am. I dont want to ever wake up that early again.
We made it safely to Girona and had only been out of the bus station maybe 2 minutes when we needed to cross the street. I was the last one of the four of walking when BAM!!! All of a sudden I am on all fours in the middle of the cross walk and cant get up because my pack was starting to fall over my head. Talk about starting the trip off on the right foot, I couldnt even stay on my feet. Then as soon as I get up this woman rushes over and speaks rapidly in Catalon and I cant understand a word she is saying so I muster the only Spa nish I could think of during this moment of frustration and all I manage is holding up my hands and muttering "Muy Bien" I think she thought I was crazy because that is sure the look I got from her. All I can say is that I bet I gave those drivers at the light a good laugh. As soon as we found our hotel we were off to begin our adventure. It was strange to think that I was in Spain while some of my friends back home still had finals ( dont worry my time is coming in January). While wondeing around Girona we found an amazing gelato store which I must admit is almost better than Whiteys, and yes I did just write that. Oh and I also ordered a hot chocolate at a cafe that was more like drinking hot chocolate pudding it was so think. I also have to write that this is the day that we began our cheap meals of bread and soda, I mean how can you pass up a two litre of coke for only 29 cents.


Fes, Morocco


Here are some interesting facts from our first day in Fes.
* The taxi driver asked Andrea if Kia was Chinese. He even made the Chinese eyes at her. However, Kia looks nothing like a Chinese woman

* I dont think I saw another white person apart from my group the entire day

Recap of Fes

On the 15th of December we took a guided tour of the local medina. All I have to say is that with out our tour guide I am not sure if we would have made it out of there due to all the random twisty roads. The medina wasnt as busy as usual since friday is the Muslim holy day but all the people that were there tried to sell us stuff but thanks to our guide most left us alone as soon as the guide talked to them. At the medina we had a chance to tour a tannery which I found to be very interesting. Over 100 families work here to make and color the leather. I even ended up buying a leather bag. I bet this made the salesmen happy since all four of us bought stuff there. From the tannery we saw a textile place where they made scarves and typical Muslim outfits. I found the man who showed us around here very funny. He lived in Texas and New Jersey for a while so he had this really weird mixed accent that made him sound like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. We even got to dress in various outfits and that was a lot of fun to take pictures in.
Later on during the tour our guide explained to us how tatoos are now banned but however in the past women wore tatoos to display thier tribe and family symbols. So he showed us this older woman (probably in her 70's) that had fading tatoos. However, the only way we could get up close and see them is to smell the stuff she was selling. Guess what we ended up smelling... absinth. Yeah it was kind of weird to be smelling that but I guess besides mint absinth is a major part of what they put into their tea.


Casablanca

This was an adventure all in itself. So far during our stay in Morocco I never felt to unsafe. However, on our first night in Casablanca that feeling of safeness totally changed. I believe that our first night in Morocco was one of the scariest experiences of my life. First of all we arrived at our hotel which looks really stingy but turned out all right. Then we headed to the ped. mall to find some food. We ended up at this amazingly cheap restaurant and stayed there for about two hours. So by the time we left it was still only 7:30pm so not too late and the area was full of men. We were getting the usual cat calls when all of a sudden I feel this hand part way on my arm and partly on my bag. At first I thought it was Katie since she was right behind me. However, when I turned around and this older man was giving me this creepy look and all of a sudden Katie karate chops his hand to get him away from me. I figure this would make him leave me alone but again I was wrong. This creeper kept following us and would grab me and try to block me off from the rest of the group. By this time I figured out he wasnt going for my bag. Then Andrea yells at him in French, because this is one of the main langauages in Morocco, and she yells loud enough for people to hear. However, this still does not deter him and he grabs me again and this time Kia helps out and he ended up giving her bruises on her arm for trying to help me out. We finally got far enough ahead of him to hop into a convience store where the owner could tell something was up because I could not stop shaking. We tried to pretend everything was alright but finally the owner walked us to our hotel to ensure our safety. That night I ended up sleeping with knitting needles under my pillow and from then on we decided not to go out at night anymore while in Morocco.

The next day I tried blocking the past nights events out of my head and worked hard on enjoying the rest of my trip. We toured the Mosque, which I learned could hold 25,000 believers inside and 80, 000 outside. I know that is a ton of worshippers. The Mosque even has a retractable roof which only opens during Ramadaan. Also some of the doors were retractable because they weighed over a ton and one of the main doors weighed 11 tons! I was amazed at all the intricate designs within the building and even more amazed that ir only took 6 years to build.

Learned to live of bread and spreadable cheese. Its both cheap and good but makes me hungry for somethings besides carbs. P.S I learned I also suck at the card game 31. Out of about 20 games played that week I think I maybe won one or two games.

We ended this leg of the trip in an excellent way: we splurged and spent part of the day in a Hamman bath. First we were instructed to change into sandals and wraps. So much for wearing our swimsuits. It was strange at first because the little wrap barely covered my bum. After changing we were led down to the steam room where we had to take off our wraps. Talk about major bonding, the four of us in the steam room in just our underwear. Anyway once we were deemed clean we were led to the next room to get scrubbed down. It went Kia, Andrea and I, and then Katie. Man that was a scrub down. The lady scrubbed me so hard I didnt think I was going to have any skin left. The next room we got sprayed down and instructed to get completely naked. Now I have a hard time wearing my swimsuit in public let alone nothing. Now was the super relaxing part. We got a mud wrap. It was amazing it was hot and I even got the mud stuff on my face. After we were all covered up we were wrapped in plastic stuff. The mud wrap seemed to last forever, however, it helped to have Andrea next to me to pass the time. Jeepers you can get hot in one of those things. When it was time for me to be done she had to pull me up because I was stuck to the wrap. And to top it all off our session ended with a massage. It was wonderful. We even celebrated our last night in Morocco by getting more gelato, which turned out to be a bad idea. The scoops were huge and topped with whipped cream and by the time I was done my stomach was in so much pain but the gelato was oh so good. One of my scoops was even smurf which I have never seen anywhere but Whiteys

Well that was all for this part of the trip. I will try to space out the rest so no one gets overloaded with trip info

---