10/23 Gibraltrar, Tarifa y MOROCCO

THURSDAY:
got to leave class a little early (had my friend tell me what I had gotten on my exam cause she was gonna tell us at the end of class.. i got a 68 outta 70! woo!) and met up with michael at atoche renfe train station. got lucky and made it just in time. Spent about... 6 hours? reading, sleeping, and watching some random american movie dubbed over in spanish. We got to the hotel in algeciras which was close to the train station.. Our Rick Steves travel guide book says that Algeciras is only worth leaving and i guess it was kinda right-- there wasnt much to do there, but we were just using it to crash before gibraltrar and tarifa y tangier so it worked out... We accidentally booked a double room.. (twin, double... no one teaches you the difference between these things!) but having a nice shower and not being in a hostel was kinda nice! It was only about... 35 or 40 dollars for each of us for the nice, and it included a nice breakfast.
We bar hopped that night which was pretty fun and had some good quotes come outta it (Michael, octpuses are SOO smart!) and we tried to find pulpo to eat (octopus) but couldnt!! :( Tapas arent free there too like in Madrid so that was a lil bit of a bummer. But overall it was super fun and we slept very well!

Got up early, had some of the free breakfast and checked out. Took a half hour bus to Gibraltar which is owned by Great Britain so that was kinda crazy! Everyone spoke with British accents, the money was in pounds... kinda weird actually. Walked around, cool shops, took too many pics.. and then took a tour taxi ride up the mountain (25ish euros) to see the sights. It was super informative and definitely recommended... saw the caves and alll those crazy monkeys and the weather was PERFECT! IT was supposed to rain all weekend but we got majorly lucky and it didnt rain at all in Gibraltar. Had Fish and chips for lunch... all just went super well.

Left Gibraltar (we left our stuff in a locker at the bus station) and headed to Tarifa, majorly south of spain. it was about an hour bus ride? SOO awesome, remineded me of home cause its a surf place... just so chill.. We went to the beach and took pics at sunset, walked around.. had a great hostel to stay in (we were even in the Yellow Room, meant to be...about 70 euros for the both of us for 2 nights) with super nice people. Walked around a bit that night with another kid in the hostel.. hmm what did we do... just hung out around the hostel talking to people and hearing their stories.. a lot of ppl travel alone i Just realized.. hm

anywho, woke up around 8 the next morning for breakfast and headed to TANGIER MOROCCO! took a ferry which included a tour (65 euros, but worth it. ferry alone was 55). The boat ride was about an hour (although they advertise everywhere as being 35 minutes ha) and it was drizzling a bit when we got there! but only just then so that was suepr lucky. THe tour guide thing (as rick steves warned) but pretty touristy but I think in the end it was definitely better than going through it alone and we saw a LOT. We rode some camels.. took a bus around.. walks to the various stores... the shop keepers there sure knwo how to sell something to you!

Went to a herbal therapy store which claimed to cure every kind of disease... that was interesting... markets with dead animals plucked but still having their eyes... the tour guide dude was super nice and spoke soo many languages. Michael and I could understand his spanish better than his english cause his accent was pretty rough. Ppl get paid about 10 dollars a day there, so they love when tourists come cause a euro is hugee deal to them... seeing everything was super cool even if it was kinda touristy and we were surrounded by obvious tourists. Felt safer that way at least. I tried to cover up as much as I could but I still got some glares..

5 hours or so later, the group went back to the port and mcihael and i decided to stick around and explore on our own for a few hours! Super fun, but glad we got to do a bit of both. We walked around... got harassed a lil to buy stuff but thats expected... and made friends with this one dude who led us back to his familys store. They were super friendly, and led us to the roof so we could see a huge view of morocco and take pictures. We said we were from Spain (everything was in spanish) and he made a comment about "ooh yeah spain is our friend, our neighbor! everyone else is just a silly tourist..."

Went inside, he showed us all his pretty rugs.... morocco is famous for their hand made rugs.. and gave us very yummy hot tea (figured hot water cant get us sick?). He made us try on the morocco clothes their place sells so we got a few fun pictures outta that! but then it came around to bargaining... and I was super super glad I was with someone like michael who can just be like NO. We bargained it down from 250 euros to 80 euros (this bargaining thing is ridiculous... the clothes were probably worth 5 euros) and it was just sooo awkward to say no.. but we finally (somehow) got outta there. He wasnt soo nice after that ha

walked around some more, I got a cute lil ring for a buck (they use dirhams there, which we switched over earlier) and we both got awesome shirts! Mines black and white, and I could wear it out so thats good. it was about 5 bucks too so yay! made our way back to the ferries by sunset... felt a lil seasick on the ferry on the way back (most ppl feel supppperrr sick after going to morocco so I was just hoping it wasnt the beginning of that! but it wasnt), discovered my finger was all inflamed from some crazy bug bite.. and went back to the hostel. Got some drinks, spent the night talking with people at the table outside and just relaxed.

The next day we just got up, walked around the beach... hmm what else.. a whole lot was closed on sunday... took a bus back to algeciras and walked around some more, trying to find octopus but almost everything was closed, had some good talks and did our homework like good students! trained it back, napped and read... pretty relaxing. and that was our beautiful trip to morocco! 12 hours there was definitely enough... seeing the ocean was a very very nice break (portugal and tarifa have the best oceans ever... seeing it just makes everything amazzzzing) and yeah! good times and very very glad I went!

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