Antwerpen

Well, we've had quite a lack of updates recently, but now that I'm back from my vacation and basically done with finals, I have a lot more time to update everyone on my life in the past month or so.

On the 13/14 of March, I went to Antwerp to visit my former Global Village roommate, Florence. Yay! I was so psyched to see her!! Apparently, I was so excited that I forgot to bring my camera...which means no pictures. When I got of the train at Antwerpen Centraal, I walked through an enormous station out to an incredible entrance, which you can see in this youtube video. I waited a little bit for Florence to get there, but finally found her taking a picture for some tourists in true Florence fashion. I was so happy to see her! Florence knows a TON about Antwerp, so we immediately set out on our tour. We walked near the shopping district, where Florence explained about the gold statues on top of the buildings, which were symbols of the former guilds that were housed there. Our first stop was an iconic Antwerp landmark--Rubenshuis--the former house of the painter, Rubens. The house was amazingly luxurious for a painter. I guess Rubens was not exactly the starving artist type. There was a lot of Italian influence in some sculptures he had and Asian influence in his curio cabinets and china. I was really amazed by his walls, which were gilded leather. Pretty plush, huh? After wandering our way through Rubens' house, we met our other Global Village friend Dennis and headed towards the Grand Place. First thing we noticed: some odd contest going on with cows. Kind of made me feel at home in a weird way. I think they had to try to guess the weight of the cow and then they could keep it? Not really sure...it was a little bizarre. Still a little bizarre, but entertaining was the story that Florence and Dennis told me about how Antwerp got its name. The story goes that there was a giant who lived under a bridge and made everyone who passed him pay a toll. One guy was upset about this and refused to pay the toll. They got into a spat and the guy cut off the giant's hand and threw it at him--hence the name Antwerpen, or "Throwing Hand". Kinda crazy, right? We walked over towards the river and the old fortress, which was really cool. The fortress was small, but really pretty--I just wish you could go inside! After that, we decided to make our way over towards the University of Antwerp where Flo and Dennis go to school for a short tour. On our way, we stopped in a gorgeous little courtyard with an amazing Jesuit Church. This was one of the prettier churches I have ever seen, and Florence's sister just got married there last weekend (April 24th?)!  It's always nice to have a personal connection with all of these old European buildings. We walked all around the University campus (which is pretty small), which was an interesting mix of old and modern. I even got to see a classroom--a little more high tech than ours in Lille. And by a little, I mean a lot. It's a beautiful school! We stopped for a coffee in the student union and then visited Dennis' apartment. I'm sure anyone from GV would be seriously curious about Dennis' natural habitat. Let me just say, it's much tidier then you would expect, but there is no food besides Coke. 5 liters to be exact, because that's how much Coke Dennis drinks every week. After this pit stop, we parted with Dennis and walked around the shopping district for a bit. I must say that Antwerp seems extremely chic to me. I'm not sure, but I would guess that's due to the diamond trading history in Antwerp and the money associated with it. By this time, it was starting to get dark and we were starting to get tired, so we headed towards Flo's house, which is just a little bit outside of Antwerp. Her house is so amazing! Very modern in a super Flemish neighborhood. Let me tell you a secret: we may have different traditions, languages, foods, etc., but when it comes down to it, a family is still a family no matter where you are, and a home is a still a home. I feel like everyone is always so excited to meet a foreign family, but we're all a lot more similar than you think. Her family was so kind and welcoming to me--I was so appreciative! More on that in later entries. Florence and I had been planning to go back downtown for dinner, but the smells coming from her kitchen persuaded us otherwise. We ate with her parents, younger sister, and two brothers. Flo has another older sister and older brother, too. Huge family! It was really cute because most of them speak some English and were all trying very hard to include me in the conversation. It made me smile. We had a wonderful dinner of steak, potatoes, salad (with olive oil from their home in Tuscany), and finished with dessert rice with raspberry coulis. I'd never had dessert rice before, but it was so amazing! Of course, Flo also had to end with a couple pieces of chocolate. I think her family is just as amazed at her chocolate obsession as we were last semester! Delicious and enjoyable meal. After dinner, Florence and I went downtown for a drink. We passed the new courthouse, which Florence told me was built with cones on top as a tribute to the french fry culture there--pretty cool. We went to a really cute little restaurant and had a glass of wine, then decided to head back home for a restful night of sleep.

The next morning, we woke up to bakery and fresh squeezed orange juice that Florence's mom had got for us. So delicious! After breakfast, I said goodbye to her family, and we left to meet Sadie at the train station. We took Sadie through a quick tour around Antwerp of a lot of the same things I had seen the day before. Then we went to the Plantin-Moretus Museum, the house and workshop of the owners of one of the first printing companies. This museum was SO cool! It was amazing to see some of the first books ever and the place where they were printed. The museum also houses the two oldest working presses in the world. One of my favorite things was a score I saw--one of the first ever printed. It was amazing to see something so monumental to the world of music. After the museum, we were starving, so we got some lunch. It was also--surprise, surprise--delicious. Sadie and I both got stoofkarbonaden (yes, I had to look that up), which is a kind of beef stew made with beer, and fries--very Flemish, indeed. Another GV friend, Christophe, met up with us for a bit as we finished our lunch. We walked around a bit and they took us through the tunnel under the river. You go down two sets of these incredibly long wooden escalators, then walk 500 meters to the escalators up, and eventually pop out on the other side of the river, in a park with perfect views of Antwerp. So pretty, and the journey over is definitely worth a story. To round off my trip to Antwerp, we stopped at Désiré de Lille for waffles. Yummm. :-)

Here is one of Sadie's pictures of the two of us by the river:

Comment-on s'amuse à Lille?

March has been a long month of lots of work and lots of play. First, let's talk about play. I've been able to discover a lot of new things in this city since returning from my trip, and I've come to appreciate Lille more than ever. I really do love this city!

Mandi and I have been spending many afternoons discovering cafés around Lille. We really like Café de Paris, which is a pretty standard French café, but the people who work there are very nice to us, it's not outrageously expensive, and the coffee is good. We also had some really good coffee at a place over by Wazemmes one Sunday morning. Look at this adorable sugar cubes they gave us! It says "veux tu m'épouser? oui ou non," which means "do you want to marry me? yes or no." Love them! All of the sugars have different phrases. I think I kept this one. I've really been enjoying our coffee dates and frequent walks through Vieux Lille, which is most definitely the best part of Lille. The Jardins Vauban (Vauban Gardens) are pretty, too. We ate lunch there one day before our Flaubert mid-term and there were all sorts of children running around doing a scavenger hunt. Too cute!

We've also been exploring some new bars. The Vieux Lille bar scene is twenty times different from the bars on Rue Solférino which the students frequent. We've been to Drugstore (funny name, I know) a couple times, which is a lot more relaxed and good for having a couple drinks and good conversation. Just a more pleasant atmosphere overall, however I do appreciate the fact that O'Scotland has like...23 beers on tap for me to sample.

I also had my first legitimate discothéque experience. Very French. We went to celebrate Monika's birthday, so it was fun being out with a lot of people from my residence, but I'm not jumping to go back en boîte anytime soon. I just am not capable of going out like the French. They usually go to the bars until around 1 or 2 AM and THEN head out to the discothéque. By then, it is most definitely my bedtime no matter what continent I'm on. They stay out until 4 or 5 in the morning...a little much for me, but it was fun for one night.

After that very French night, we decided that we needed to throw a North American party in our residence. Angela, Sadie, and I worked hard on music playlists, Emily made burgers (hand packed!) and fries, and we feasted. That burger tasted so delicious, I can't even describe it. After we cleaned up, we headed downstairs to the basement to listen to North American music and hang out. Mandi and Emily taught the French kids how to play Flip Cup, which was hilarious. I'll admit, I did my part and played for Team 'Merica one round. I was a good contributer, too, because I flipped my cup on the second try. Guess who won? Team 'Merica, of course. It turned into a hilarious battle of France vs. USA. In the eternal words of Tom Petty "she was an American girl."

Un jour mon prince viendra...

On the weekend of March 6, I went to the place where all dreams come true. That's right--Disneyland Paris! Our friend Mikael, who used to live in Global Village, graciously took Mandi, Angela, and I to Disneyland for the day, got us discounted tickets and food, and procured something like 50 fast passes for us!

The night before we left, the three of us went with Mikael to his friend Charlotte's house for dinner so we could all meet each other and make some plans for the next day. Mandi and I were jumping-out-of-our-skin excited, and it was Angela's first time going to Disneyland, so I think she was part excited, part terrified of our Disney obsess-fest. We had a good time trying to figure out what the French Disney songs translated to in English. Difficult ones include "A la file indienne," "Ce rêve bleu," and "Tu t'envoles." (Lit: "To The Indian Line" "This Blue Dream" and "You Make Yourself Fly"...Real Translation: "Following the Leader" "A Whole New World" and "You Can Fly.") There were a couple other difficult ones that I can't remember the translations for. Guess them for extra credit: "J'en ai rêvé" and "Partir là-bas." We went to bed pretty early though because it was going to be an early morning.

We left Lille at 6:30 AM. Yes, you read that right. We're serious about our Disney! We got to Walt Disney Studios as it opened and jumped in line for Crush's Coaster. The line gets REALLY long if you're not there early, and there are no fast passes. I have trouble explaining this ride, but it was awesome. It's a roller coaster, but it starts off as kind of a story thing, then you get to the top of a hill, and the car starts spinning freely as you "ride the East Australian Current." Watch the video if you want a better idea. It was cute because Crush, the turtle, had a southern French accent instead of a Californian accent. We also went to Stitch, Live! which was interesting because we saw it in French. In this show, Stitch interacts with the audience, so the three American girls were praying we wouldn't get called on! We were able to understand everything that was going on, but I really didn't feel like butchering the French language in a room full of French people. We met up with Mikael's friend Aurélien, and all rode the Tower of Terror and the Rockin' Roller Coaster. Fun!

After that, we headed over to Disneyland to secure Fast Passes. We also met up with Mikael's friend Caroline. Caroline, Aurélien, and Mikael all work at Disney, so they know how to cheat the system and we were able to get Fast Passes for everyone for all the rides at one time. Score! After we rounded everyone up, we got some lunch. Those chicken nuggets tasted like America, but I still paid tribute to France by putting mayonnaise on my fries. We had a great afternoon of rides like Indiana Jones, Pirates, Space Mountain, Les Voyages de Pinocchio, Peter Pan's Flight, Buzz Lightyear's Lazer Blast (my first time on it...so fun!), It's a Small World (it really is), Big Thunder Mountain, Phantom Manor, and Star Tours (made me really motion sick...ugh).

We also got to see the Once Upon a Dream Parade, and saw the fireworks before park closing. I ended the night with my first BigMac ever, and made it home to Lille at 2:30 AM. Long day, but what can I say? There's nothing like Disney to bring out the child in anyone.

Josh Ritter and the Swell Season!

(EDIT: Morocco post here! Pictures on mobileme.)

Shortly after my return to France, I went with Angela to see Josh Ritter and the Swell Season (from the film Once) in concert in Paris. Random Thursday night trip! In fact, I had told Angela I would go a long time ago and forgotten about it until she reminded me on Wednesday night. Whoo! Surprise Paris adventure! Thankfully TGV tickets were not TOO expensive, so we skipped our French class and headed over to Paris. We left kind of early to save a bit on our train, so we grabbed some dinner in a café near the venue. We're sitting there chatting, eating our pizza, when in walks Glen Hansard from the Swell Season with some of his crew. Umm...what?!? That was my brush with fame for the day. After dinner, we headed over to the Bataclan for the concert. The venue was actually really nice and we managed to get pretty good seats. Josh Ritter opened, although I have to admit I wish he had been the headliner. He is such an amazing performer! Highlights included him playing Girl in the War completely unplugged (lights out even!) and To The Dogs or Whoever a whole minute faster than normal...fantastic.

Josh got cut a couple minutes short because some rando girl came up on stage to play a really bad song...bummer. But after her, The Swell Season came on, and although I'm not super familiar with their music, it is right up my alley and I really enjoyed the show. Glen Hansard is intense and Markéta Irglová is adorable. Plus, they played the only song that I know (When Your Mind's Made Up), which was exciting. We left right before the encore, so that was a little sad, but it was fine. We were actually lucky because the women who was at the merchandise stand told us normally Josh joins them for the encore but that night he happened to be out with his wife instead, so we didn't miss it! I would have cried if I had missed a single moment of Josh Ritter because he is seriously that good.

L'affaire d'OFII

So, I realize I've been slacking more than a bit on the blog, so I've decided to back date everything and skip over some of the vacation stuff for a bit because it takes FOREVER to write! Don't worry--I'll get to it soon enough now that my midterms are over, but I want to provide you with a few tidbits from the last month in the meantime. I'll provide a link when I post anything about my February vacation.

(EDIT: Lisbon and Madrid post now available here!)

Upon my arrival back in Lille, I was greeted by an envelope in my room from the French government. This can only mean good things. It was a letter informing me about my mandatory medical exam for OFII (don't ask me what that stands for...) to insure that I hadn't infected the entire population of France with tuberculosis and provide me with certification of my legality in France. Thankfully, a few of the other international kids had their appointments at the same time as me so I didn't have to trek it out to the office alone.

Fun situation number 1: When we got to the office for our 12:30 appointments (which I had to miss an exam for, by the way), we found out just how French this office is--it doesn't even open until 1!! Surprise! So, we waited outside until they finally opened and went in with a bunch of other people. They ladies at the desk took our names and we waited until we were called.

Fun situation number 2: After a bit, they called Sadie and I back for our chest x-rays. They took us each to little changing-esque rooms and told us to take our shirts off. Sadie went into the x-ray room before me and I could hear the woman talking to her and telling her to go back a few times. After a few minutes of awkwardly standing in a two doored room in my jeans and my bra, the woman came to get me and not so politely told me that I also needed to take my bra off...HELLO! Bienvenue à la France, I guess... That was more than a little strange for me. After that...experience...there was a lot of waiting around until the doctor strutted in a few hours later to ask me if I was healthy, smoke, or take any medications. After that, they took my 55 euro stamp (which I'm still not sure the purpose of) and pasted something in my passport claiming my legality in France.

Fun situation number 3: You thought this would end after the visit, right? Wrong. We finally all finished and headed out back towards the tram to go back to Lille for class. I needed a ticket, so I put my money in the machine...it thought for a while...then told me there was a problem with the payment and ended the transaction! I sat there for about a minute sputtering about what I should do and a nice guy came up and asked me what had happened. I explained to him how the machine ate my money and he told me that I could go to the office down the road to get a ticket, but they wouldn't give me my money back. A tram showed up on the other side and he said he would be right back and jumped over to talk to the conductor. It was at this point that I realized he was from Transpole, the transportation company in Lille. When he got back he told me that there would be someone coming to help me out. The next tram showed up and I thanked him for his help and a bunch of other Transpole guys got off. They came up to me and started asking me what was going on and I explained everything...kind of intimidating when about five French men are all talking over each other and asking you questions at the same time, but eventually one of them wrote me my own personal ticket (I still have it!). They were actually super nice and pretty funny. One of the guys asked us where we were from and we told them we were Americans studying at La Catho and they wanted to know where in America we were from. When I told one of them I was from Wisconsin, he got all excited about Little House on the Prairie. Pretty funny...apparently that's a popular show here? I didn't even know it WAS a show. Then there was the one who asked Sadie if she was planning on marrying a French guy or an American guy when we were on the tram. Okay?? I finally made it back just in time for Version class, but definitely not without some excitement.

Maroc (Tanger, Meknes, Casablanca, et Marrakech)

Finally...the last installment of my February travels! On Valentine's Day, we left Madrid for our six day Moroccan adventure. We flew in to Tangier, where it was really comforting to hear some French again after a few days of not knowing which end was up. We arrived in Tangier, and I have to admit it was one of the oddest sensations I've ever had. I have never been anywhere where I was very clearly a minority and I felt really vulnerable. After going through passport check, we changed our money to Moroccan Dihrams (1 Dihram is about 11 Euros), and grabbed a taxi to our hotel. Our taxi driver was really nice and basically talked our ears off. I got the impression that Moroccans are extremely friendly. As we got into the city, I realized that the driving situation in Morocco is CRAZY. There are no lanes, and few stop signs. Driving is more like a game of chicken than an organized set of rules and traffic laws. And I thought European drivers were crazy! There also aren't seat belts in cabs, which was weird for me. I feel naked in a car without a seat belt, so I grabbed for it every time I crawled into a petit-taxi, with no seat belt to be found. Somewhere between our first taxi ride and hotel check-in, we realized that the currency was going to be a problem. What was good was that everything in Morocco is really cheap, but the bills are really big, so we were in a constant cycle of Mandi-owes-Lauren-who-owes-Sadie-who-owes-Mandi. It was slightly terrifying going from the airport to the hotel with 2,000 Moroccan Dihrams in my wallet. Yikes! By the time we checked in, we realized we were really hungry, so we went across the street to a small restaurant that the Lonely Planet book had recommended called Number 1. We were the only customers in the restaurant, so we had excellent service. They took our orders and gave us some olives to munch on while we waited for our food. I'm not a huge olive person, but I really tried to like them while we were in Morocco. I warmed up to them a little...but I can't say that I really enjoy them very much. Our food came after a bit, and it was possibly the most heavenly thing I have ever eaten. I ordered Tagine d'Agneau with plum sauce. The lamb was perfectly cooked in its own juices and plums...delicious. We all had excellent lunches there. We went exploring for a bit after lunch. We walked down to the coast, where we could see Gibraltar across the straits. Very cool! The only downside of the coast was that we were constantly harassed by guys who were shouting at us in Spanish, English, French, Arabic, and various other languages. Little did we know this would be a theme throughout our trip. I kind of knew this would be a problem because we were three girls traveling alone, but it was still annoying. We caught a petit-taxi to the Medina (city center), where we literally got lost. We ended up past the shops near the Kasbah wandering around through narrow walkways to peoples' houses. Being lost in the Tangier Medina was slightly invigorating, but also kind of terrifying. I had some weird emotions going on because I've never been put in a culture that is so different from my own before. I really was experiencing quite a bit of shock and, as I said, vulnerability. I really can't describe how I felt besides uncomfortable. I kept saying that I felt like I was intruding on someone else's life--that I was in a private place, where I really wasn't supposed to be. It began to rain as we made it back towards the shops, so we caught a taxi home. We we really excited to find the Olympics in English on the TV in our hotel, so we watched them for a while. It's really not that safe/acceptable for women to be out alone after dark, so we got dinner in the hotel restaurant and watched some more Olympics before going to bed.

In the morning, we were supposed to take a train from Tangier to Meknes, but apparently the trains were not running from Tangier. I have yet to figure out why. So, we ended up taking a bus to Kenitra and then getting on a train from Kenitra to Meknes. A really nice grand-taxi guy took us from the train station in Meknes to our hostel. This was my first experience in a Hosteling International hostel...it was a little bootleg, but we made light of the situation. More on that later. We were starving by the time we got there, so we went out to El-Hdim Square to find some food. When we walked into the square, I was floored. Not only was it beautiful, but it was filled with people watching musicians, listening to storytellers, and vendors trying to sell magical cures. This is the Morocco that I was talking about. We sat down to eat a restaurant overlooking the square and were thrilled to see food. I ordered my first mint tea of the trip, and it was everything I could have hoped for it to be! Unfortunately, there were stray cats lurking. I have never seen such aggressive cats in my life. They could clearly smell our food and were just about jumping up onto the table to get at it. I love cats, but we were shooing these ones away every 30 seconds to keep them from jumping up onto our legs and begging for food. We moved inside the restaurant, hoping it would get better, but no luck there either. The cats followed us. Then, the heavens opened up and it started hurricaning. Okay, perhaps hurricaning is an exaggeration, but it was pouring rain and the winds were knocking umbrellas over like crazy. About this time, we decided to get out of there. We went back to our hostel and stayed in for the rest of the night. Speaking of our hostel...it was interesting. Kind of like glorified camping. Our door opened up to the outside, there was one window in the room and one light. Our beds were configured in a tight U-shape, and we were freezing. They charged for the showers, and the bathrooms were a short walk away. This would have been fine...if they had provided toilet paper (which we had to buy at the market), and if the water hadn't been completely shut off after 11 PM. Woot. But, we made the best of it by spending our evening trading stories and playing cards. Just so you know how big of French nerds we are, we played BS in French...making it MT (merde de taurau), which amused us for hours. We had a good time just being goofy, and eventually went to bed.

The next morning, we went to Volubilis, just outside of Meknes, which is a UNESCO site of well preserved Ancient Roman ruins. We called our taxi driver from the day before and asked him if he could take us out there. He said he could, but he ended up switching with another driver who shares his car because it was his day to work. To switch, we ended up going right into the slums of Meknes. That was really eye opening. That was the first moment when I realized that I really was in Africa. Morocco is very well developed, but the slums look just like any other African country. That was one of the first moments in my life that I felt truly grateful for everything I have and the opportunities I've been given. We drove out of the slums and into the countryside. It was so beautiful green and lush. After about 40 minutes, we finally made it to Volubilis. Despite the mud and rain, this was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It's literally like a Roman city in the middle of North Africa. Amazing. We hired a guide to show us around the grounds, and he kindly took our pictures throughout the site while he explained the history of the ruins. The mosaics were incredible, and the hammams (baths) were recognizable. The giant arch near the forum was probably my favorite part. I stood in the middle of the forum and smiled as I thought about how thousands of years ago, ancient romans stood on that same spot discussing politics and who knows what else. One of the more amazing moments in my life. After our tour, we went back to the train station and were on our way to Casablanca. After we got there, we had "linner" at a nice place called La Taverne du Dauphin, where I had a delicious piece of St. Pierre fish. The staff was extremely nice and complimented us on our French. That was a common theme throughout Morocco which was really nice. Definitely doesn't happen in France! After our meal, we wanted to walk around a little bit, but it started to rain again, so we went back to the hostel to hanging out. Sadie read to Mandi and me about the history of Morocco. Easier to follow when you're reading it yourself, but still interesting.

On our one full day in Casablanca, the first thing we did was tour the Mosque Hassan II. This mosque was so incredibly beautiful! I've never seen anything like it. The prayer room was absolutely stunning! Almost everything in the mosque came from Morocco except for some marble and glass from Italy. The mosque can fit 25,000 people indoors, plus a bunch on the grounds outside. Our guide was really nice and took a liking to us because we spoke French (even though we were on an English tour). We also saw the hammam downstairs (it's not operating yet, but it is expected to be in a couple years), and another room where people can wash their hands before they pray. The entire grounds were incredible, and I think it was one of the best sights we saw in Morocco. After the mosque, we went on an adventure to retrace Sadie's grandmother's footsteps. We had some problems getting a petit-taxi because they wanted to rip us off because we are tourists, but we knew better. We eventually got one and headed over to the old stade (stadium) where Sadie's grandmother used to go running. After that we headed over to find her old house. It was pretty cool seeing someone reconnect with their family's past like that. By this point, we were getting pretty hungry, so we stopped at the nearby Café Rif for lunch. Of course, I had tagine and mint tea--it wouldn't be Morocco without either of them. After lunch, we did a walking tour of Casablanca, as laid out by Lonely Planet. It was really cool to walk around and learn a little bit about the history of Casablanca with Sadie as our guide. At one point, we were in a square full of pigeons--literally--and all of the little kids were running around chasing them, laughing their brains out. It's moments like those that make you realize that people aren't always as different as they seem, and the same things make all of us tick. Those children were so adorable to watch! After our walk, we went back to our hostel to rest for a little bit, then headed out to dinner at Squala--a restaurant in a old castle near our hostel. Our food was really delicious and the highlight may have been dessert when Sadie ordered chocolate fondue and they brought her trough full of fruit and chocolate. We returned to our hostel with full bellies and had a very restful night of sleep.

The next morning we caught our Harry Potter style train to Marrakech--compartments and everything! Unfortunately no Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, though. The scenery from the train was incredible--from the slums, to the greenery, to the desert. I'd never seen anything like it. When we arrived in Marrakech it was pouring...surprise, surprise. Our hostel was in the middle of the Medina, so finding it was quite a challenge. The directions we had were something to the effect of "walk straight into the souqs, turn left at the jewelry stand, go under and arch, turn right, go under another arch, walk past a goat, walk down three stairs, duck under a beam, walk straight, and you'll see our door!" Right. Not at all simple. After a long time, we finally made it there. We settled in, but went out right away to go find some lunch. We went back out towards the Djemaa El Fna Square, where we basically just sat down at the first random place that looked cheap and appetizing enough. It was hilarious though, because the longer we sat there, the more we got to hear of the guy working the front: "Hello tourist! Shish-kabob! Hola tourist! Couscous! Thank you tourist!" Too funny. We were feeling pretty ambitious after we were fed, so we set out to see some sights. Trying to go through the Medina to get to said sights was apparently not the greatest idea, because we got super lost in the pouring rain. Eventually we made it back towards the hostel and just chilled until the rain calmed down a bit and got some dinner before going to bed.

The next day--our last in Morocco--we finally got to do some sight-seeing, and the weather was beautiful! We went to the Marrakech museum, which was beautiful. It was an old palace and housed collections of Moroccan artisanal products. Then we went over to the Madrasa Ben Yussef, which used to be an Islamic college. If only Marquette looked like that college...wow! I have to admit that our dormitories are significantly larger, though. The tile work all over Morocco is really impressive, and this college made no exception. We also got admission to some old hammams, which were fun to walk around. After touring, we went back to the souqs to do some shopping. We wandered around haggling with shopkeepers for the wares, and stopped to get lunch at a really delicious café for pita sandwiches. We walked around a bit more after lunch, then headed back to the hostel to get our bags and go to the airport. And so ended my exhausting and wonderful February vacation! Actually, when we got back to Paris, we saw on the news that a mosque in Meknes had collapsed, killing and injuring countless people, because of the unseasonable rains just three days after we had been there. It's amazing how much more connected you feel with the world when you're traveling. If I had been in the United States, I would never have known of the event even occurring or where in the world Meknes is located. I feel a lot more connected to parts of the world I wouldn't have thought twice about before, and I think that's the reason why seeing the world is so important. As cheesy as it may sound, we are all in this thing together, so we need to learn to look outside ourselves and see what life is like for someone else. Compassion makes the world go around.

A lot more pictures on mobile me. Check them out!

Lisboa y Madrid

How cool is it that "y" means "and" in both Portuguese and Spanish?? Well, I think so at least.

We last left off at my journey to the airport for my flight to Lisbon. I had no problems and actually had the most pleasant flight of any on Air Lingus. I guess it pays to fly a legit airline? The nice Irish woman next to me offered me candy after we got on the plane, too...further proof that the Irish are some of the nicest people around. I was also really grateful for my Aussie friend, James that I met while getting off the plane. Neither of us spoke any Portuguese and we both needed to get to the city from the airport, so we tackled the bus together and chatted a bit. Always nice to have someone else with you. James got off a couple stops off before me, so then I was on my own until I could find Sadie. I made it to the general vicinity of the hostel, but then got very confused due to my poor navigation skills and couldn't figure out where the hostel was. I was texting Sadie to see if she was in the city yet and where she was so I could find her....and all of a sudden there I was...lost in Lisbon...in the rain...with a dead phone. Great. Fortunately, I walked back towards where I thought the hostel might be and found Sadie waiting outside the hostel! We walked inside and I was floored! The hostel (Living Lounge Hostel) was probably nicer than most of the hostels I have ever stayed in. The staff was incredibly nice/helpful and the location (in Chiado) was perfect. There's my ten second ad for them--they were great! By the way, our room was music themed and therefore had a working disco ball...cool, right? Sadie and I were both starving by the time we got there, so we ventured out to find a quick bite to eat. We ended up in a café a couple doors down where we had our first-time-in-this-country-don't-speak-the-language experience that was OH so familiar to me from Italy. One of the waiters spoke English, though, so we made it through. After lunch, we took the historic Tram 28 up through the windy hills and narrow streets of Lisbon towards the town.  After we got off, we spent the entire rest of the day wandering back down towards our area of town taking pictures and stopping at various view points along the way. Lisbon is a beautiful city--one of the most beautiful I have ever seen--and I was awed by it. I was completely taken with the tiles that cover the facades of the majority of the buildings and couldn't stop commenting about how pretty they were. We stopped at the Sé, which is a cathedral from the middle ages. The cathedral itself was beautiful, but what was even more beautiful was the old cloister. After the Lisbon Earthquake in 1755, they were excavating to rebuild the cathedral and found a huge pit of roman ruins, so they rebuilt the cathedral right in front of the old cloister and you can go back to see the remains of it and the roman ruins. Sadie and I were not at all expecting to see roman ruins in this random cathedral, so we were really pleasantly surprised! Interesting note: while we were at the Sé, we saw both James and the German couple Sadie was sitting with on her train...random?? When we finally made it back to our hostel, we were both exhausted and hungry. Luckily, our hostel provided meals each night from their chef for 8 euros: soup, salad, main course, dessert, and wine! Doesn't get much cheaper. We made a reservation and then relaxed a bit. In Portugal, dinner is pretty late, so the hostel served it around 8 PM...not exactly the dinner time we were used to. When we finally got to dinner, we were starving and in a stupor from a) exhaustion and b) the amazing smells wafting up to our room from the kitchen. Our dinner was excellent and the company was even better. We ate with one of the hostel owners and this guy from Goa who works as a massage therapist at the hostel. We had a good chat about traveling, but by the end I was literally falling asleep at the table. Sadie and I had both been up since about 4 AM that morning and it was going on 11 or 12 PM...long day. We went back upstairs and I slept like a baby until the next morning.

The next day, Sadie and I took a day trip to Sintra, which is a small town near Lisbon. We started our morning with breakfast at the hostel, then we were off to the train station. I was pretty excited because I handled our entire ticket transaction in Portuguese. Small battles mean a lot when it comes to languages. When we got to Sintra, we took a bus up the mountain to the area where the Castelo dos Mouros and the Palácio de Pena are. The bus ride reminded me a bit of Kentucky with the hills, winding roads, and vegetation. Once we got there, Sadie and I spent forever just wandering around exploring the castle. There were incredible views of Sintra and surrounding cities, and the castle itself was built around the 10th century, so there was plenty of exploring to do at the castle itself. It was rebuilt a little in the 19th century by King Ferdinand II because he enjoyed painting there. It was obvious why! Ferdinand II actually spent his time in more luxury digs at the nearby Palácio de Pena. Completely gorgeous! I can't even describe how beautiful this palace was. Not only was the outside with all of the colors and arches amazing, but the inside was full of period furniture and so incredibly opulent. Pretty amazing. It was really interesting because Sadie and I encountered a lot of French tourists in Portugal...popular vacation destination I guess?? When we were through exploring the Palácio de Pena, we headed back down towards town to visit the Palácio Nacional de Sintra. We accidentally went to the gardens first, which weren't much of anything, but then we wandered over towards the correct entrance. Thankfully our European Student ID Cards get us in to a lot of monuments all over Europe for free or nearly so. It's a seriously valuable little card! After we wandered through the palace, we headed back home and had a bit of a rest. We were pretty exhausted from walking around all day. We had a late dinner at a sushi restaurant called Nood that was really good. It was around this point in my trip that I discovered the beauty of Lonely Planet guidebooks. They give great recommendations all around--from places to stay, places to eat, and things to see. They rarely led us astray! Sadie and I ended up sitting in the restaurant chatting for a good three hours. We wanted to go find a little wine bar somewhere to hang out for a bit before heading back to the hostel, but the one we tried was closed. Darn! We were fairly exhausted though, so it wasn't a big deal.

Our last day was even more packed with sightseeing. We made a quick tour of the Convento do Carmo, which is the home of two extremely well-intact Peruvian mummies. Sadie really want to see them after her Anthropology of Latin America last semester, and I have to admit they were really interesting, even kind of creepy. It would be weird if it weren't a little eerie, because Sadie was explaining to me about how the Peruvian Incas were tortured. After our quick stop there, we headed out towards Belém, which is on the far west side of Lisbon. The first thing we wanted to see was the Mosterio dos Jerónimos. The monastery was amazingly beautiful with huge gothic arches along the ceiling. There was quite a bit of gold plating, too, which is always pretty. It was very ornate. As Sadie and I were walking around, we spotted a couple tombs on either side of the church. We walked over towards one that a lot of people were huddled around. We looked at the sign next to it and read that it was Vasco de Gama's tomb. Woah. How often do you just walk up to Vasco de Gama's tomb?? Never! That was really cool. After the monastery, we stopped at a modern art museum that we thought had some Warhols. We spent a good hour there and no Warhols, but a lot of really interesting and downright weird exhibitions. There was a really prominent use of electronic media in most of them...sometimes cool...sometimes bizarre. After leaving, we walked down the Tejo River towards the Torre de Belém. Not only is it really sweet looking, but apparently it used to be a political prison for the Portuguese when Portugal was under the control of Spain. Historical value bonus! I loved walking around inside it because of the beautiful views of the Tejo and the Ponte de 25 Avril--a bridge that looks just like the Golden Gate. In fact, Lisbon is basically San Francisco. They are both hilly, colorful, have Golden Gate bridges, etc. I was constantly amazed by their similarities. After we finished our explore, we walked back along the river towards town to get lunch and Pastis de Belém. I'm not even sure how to begin describing the amazingness that is a Pastis de Belém. They are little pastry puff shells filled with a kind of warm ricey custard with powdered sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top. Heaven! We caught out tram back towards Lisbon so we could get to the Castelo São Jorge. Well, getting to the castle was much less simple than it seemed. When our bus dropped us off in Rossio Square, I thought, "no problem...I can see the castle from here, so we just go up to the hill to get to it!" Wrong. We wandered up and down winding streets, marching up never-ending staircases and getting trapped by dead-ends. After pulling out Sadie's iPhone for GPS (those things really are handy!), we finally made it. The castle was really cool to wander around. We went up almost every single turret just to check everything out. How many times do you get to hang out in the place where Vasco de Gama was welcomed back to Portugal after his explorations?? The gods must have heard us when we said we were going to leave, because the skies opened up and it started pouring. Just our luck. Not only were we not really appropriately attired for the rain, but we were exhausted and semi-lost...long walk home. We decided to eat dinner again at the hostel to avoid the rain. We ended up sitting with some girls who happened to be American--and teaching in France...more specifically Lille! What a small world. We had an interesting conversation about Portuguese where I learned that to say "thank you" you say "obrigado"(m) or "obrigada"(f) depending upon your OWN gender...not the gender of whomever you are saying it to. That was one of the weirder language rules I have encountered. After dinner, Sadie and I were going to rest for a bit before going out for a drink, but we never actually made it out. We spent the evening going through our phrase books (Spanish and Portuguese) quizzing each other on the most random phrases we could come up with. Really entertaining game for language nerds like us. We crashed with visions of verbs conjugations dancing in our heads.

In the morning we got ready to go to Madrid. We made a quick stop at the famous café O Brasillio for an espresso, then we were off to the airport and on our way to Spain. Once we arrived, we checked in to our hostel (a major downgrade from Lisbon, although actually pretty nice) and met up with Mandi and Nikki. We got a quick lunch and then headed towards Retiro Park. Really beautiful! I would have liked to spend a little more time walking around, but we didn't have a whole lot of time. On our way back towards the area where our hostel was, we walked down into what we thought was a metro station, but it was actually a shanty town full of box houses and homeless people. That was pretty eye-opening. Seeing stuff like that really opens my eyes to how lucky I am to have such a high standard of living as well as the kind of opportunities I have right now to study in another country and travel. We came back out and got on the metro at an actual stop. We got churros and chocolate at a popular place for them...delicious. On our way back towards the hostel, we ran into the Carnival parade...what luck! We stuck around for a bit and took some pictures. The floats were absolutely incredible! Sadie and I were lucky that when we got back to our hostel, we realized we could see it all from our balcony and a bunch of the parade was about to go by again. If I got to see one thing in Madrid, I'm glad I saw that parade...how cool! We went to Puerto del Sol (the center of Spain) to meet up again with Mandi and Nikki to go for wine and tapas. Being me, in the middle of Spain, I face planted and rolled as I was walking through the Plaza. That's not at all embarrassing... It especially wasn't embarrassing when a nice Spanish man came rushing to help me up and asked me if I was okay and I couldn't come up with a coherent sentence to let him know I was fine. Love my life. I got over it...but the bruises lasted for a couple weeks. We headed towards Plaza Mayor where we saw a really interesting street performer play piano in the air while parallel to the ground. Funny thing: he jumared up to the piano, which everyone thought was really amazing...except for me...because he was using climbing gear. After the performance we wandered to a few places for wine and tapas. I was definitely the most adventurous eater. When faced with a plate of deep fried anchovies for the table, I ate up. I'll try almost anything once. I also had my first taste of sangria, which is delicious! Made with love. Eventually we also stopped by some bar where Sadie's friend from home was hanging out. It was called Del Diego, and is apparently one of the top 100 bars in the world. Cool?? By this time, I was thoroughly exhausted and ready to catch some z's before my plane to Tangier in the morning!

Don't forget to check out the rest of my pictures on my mobileme!