Alas, unfortunately our last morning in Marrakesh had arrived. Had I the opportunity to re-plan this trip I might have stayed in our Riad another night and done a day-trip to the coastal town of Essaouria, but the cheaper flight out of Casablanca was enticing and would allow us to see the infamous city. I had enough Euro on me to pay the hotel, but we would need to take our more cash to pay for the taxi to the train station and whatnot, so after breakfast we took a quick walk back to the square before our taxi arrived at 10:15. We got to the station in no time and had ourselves an espresso at the station while waiting for the train to come. The train itself was nice enough and brought back memories of ... read more

The second day in Morocco started out with a simple but lovely breakfast in the courtyard directly outside our room. There were chocolate croissants, another swirled pastry, traditional Moroccan bread, and thick crepes along with three different jams served in really cute mini-tajine serving bowls. It was clear that these needed to be purchased before we left. In addition we had coffee, which we drank from nice little clay bowls. At first we were stupid and asked for mugs for coffee, but when we were brought back an additional two bowls we got the hint. Day two was just as beautiful as the first, but this time the ground was slightly drier which made for much cleaner pant-bottoms. And so we were on our way through the winding streets of the Medina toward the Kasba or ... read more

The end of Friday's classes marked the beginning of the first of many spring vacation periods for me - Carnival! As luck would have it Boston Public Schools has their February break, so some time ago Chris and I planned his visit to Andorra for a few days followed by somewhere more festive. Give that all my roommates left for their own Carnival excursions Friday night and Saturday morning, it was somewhat painful waiting all day alone until 4:30pm for Chris' bus to get in from Barcelona. Seeing as I had purchased his tickets it was no surprise that his connecting flight from Madrid to Barcelona was delayed 1.5 hours (on the runway of course) and that he subsequently missed his bus to Andorra. Oh well, he eventually made it. That first night was pretty low ... read more

Today, on the Feast of St. Anthony, all of Andorra gathers together in various plazas throughout the country to celebrate what is called L'escudella. Escudella, itself, it the name given to a traditional Catalan stew full of delicious things like Catalan sausages, beans, and various vegetables. Apparently in the early 70s some friends in Andorra got together and prepared plates of escudella for their neighbors and the shopkeepers in the area. They were essentially reviving the centuries-old tradition of distributing food among the poorest in the parish on St. Anthony's day, January 17th. As you might have guessed, this became quite popular and now the entire country participates. Lucky for us, in Andorra la Vella the festivities were taking place just a 5 minute walk from our apartment in the Plaça de Les Arcades. Basically the ... read more

As I had mentioned, we literally happened upon a bus that was leaving for Marseille in 1 minute, so in no time we were on our way. The trip itself was uneventful and in perhaps 45 minutes we were dropped off in the city right at the Arc de Triomph - yes, apparently Marseille needed its own. The oldest city in France, Marseille is second population-wise only to Paris. Its port is also the 2nd largest in Europe, so this was certainly going to be a change from little old Aix. Now we were all a bit apprehensive of spending 2 full days in the city seeing as all the guidebooks described it as, in so many words, a garbage dump. "Nitty", "gritty", "dirty", "real", and "ethnic" were among the adjectives we came across to describe ... read more