Justine and I woke up earlier than we would have liked - around 6 am. We were downstairs for breakfast at 6:40 AM Moroccan Time (or so we thought. We were actually on GMT, not Moroccan Time. Morocco, the country, is on GMT, but the people have a completely different idea of relativity.We later learned that for every 10 minutes Moroccan Time, we should add 1 hour regular time. For example, when someone says, "I will be there in 20 minutes.", they mean in 2 hours.)

For breakfast, we had a delicious buffet filled with Moroccan pastries, croissants, danishes, and cornbread. There was butter, jam, cheese, syrups, just about everything you could think of. After breakfast, we went back to our rooms to gather our things and brush our teeth with bottled water. (We were told that we had to buy water because the water there was unhealthy for us to drink because our bodies were not used to it.)

Our original plan was to head to head to our next destination, and return to Fes at the end of our trip. However, Muhammad decided that since it was a nice day, we should see the city before heading on. We saw the king's castle and took pictures with the guards. Then, we walked to the Medina (the center of the city) through narrow streets. There were also little tunnels to walk through. I had to duck, just to fit. We went to three shops. First, we went to a rug merchant, where we saw beautiful hand-dyed rugs made by the divorced women of the community for income. Justine actually bought a rug for 380 euros, roughly $600. This was after she and Godelievre bargained it down from roughly $750. It is a gorgeous blue color and measures about 5' x 8'. 

After that, we headed to a tannery. It was up a steep, narrow staircase. Also, it smelled horrible! However, the owners handed us mint leaves to sniff the whole time. It was cool to see all of the dyes and the different leather goods, but I did not want to buy anything because I do not agree with killing animals. (Okay, I am not a vegan, but I am not going out of my way to support this type of thing.)

Then we went to a silk shop where I bought a few scarves. I only paid like $15, and it was nice because they accepted American money. Most places reject it because it has so little value over here, but in Morocco, it was welcomed!

Then, we headed back to the bus, because we we were a little behind schedule. On the way there were many merchants that kept trying to sell us things. I bought a stuffed camel for Rebecca and a pack of postcards for my book. I settled down on the bus with my I-pod, ready for a long bus ride. I fell asleep within minutes and woke up about a half hour later. All of a sudden, I saw smoke coming from the bus. Then, it just stopped moving and refused to start up again. There was nothing we could do. So we got off the bus and wandered around a little field. Esther called the bus company to ask for a replacement bus, so that we could continue our trip. Because we were about 45 minutes from Fes, the company assured us that we would have a bus in 50 minutes. (At this time, I would like to remind you about Moroccan Time versus normal time...)

In the field the girls practiced Sevillana, the flamenco dances we are learning in class. I took pictures. Justine wanted to take a picture of me with this giant aloe vera plant. (It was taller than me, and since we are the same height, she used me as a reference point.) I took a step to the side to get closer to it, and I felt a sharp pain in my head. I smiled for the picture, but then I reached up to touch my head because it hurt. I pulled my hand away and was surprised to see blood. A LOT of blood. I felt a little dizzy, so I sat down on a rock while Justine went to get her first aid kit and Esther. Esther lead me back to the bus where she doctored me up with ointment and a gauze bandage. I sat on the bus while most of my friends learned Spanish drinking games from Tru's boyfriend Dario. Since there was no alcohol, they had to substitute other "punishments". Esther ended up singing, "Hit Me Baby One More Time". It was hilarious with her Spanish accent. In between, Esther kept trying to call the bus company, and they kept reassuring her they were on their way. Then, they told her that the replacement bus broke down, but we did not believe that. We figured they were just telling us what we wanted to hear to keep us happy.

Five hours later, a replacement bus showed up. The catch was that it could only fit 7 people, and there were 50+ of us on the trip. Eventually, a 48 person bus showed up to take us to a restaurant for lunch. At this point it was past 5 PM. (Remember, we ate breakfast at 6:30 AM...) We loaded up the bus with all of our belongings and went to eat. The restaurant was not expecting us, so each table got a different meal. I ate carrots and a salad with a lot of vegetables. For dessert, I had an apple.

After dinner, Michael, Esther, and Muhammad were debating about returning to Fez or continuing on to the desert because our bus was not licensed to take us out of the city. In the mean time, Michael gave us free alcohol and Moroccan tea (The tea was minty and delicious!) because I think he wanted to keep us quiet. Godelievre also ordered us a plate of Moroccan pastries. Then Michael came in to announce that we had 3 mini-buses to take us to Erfoud, so that we would not be behind schedule. At this point it was 8PM, and it was a 7 hour drive to our destination.

I ended up sitting in front of one of the buses between the driver and Michael. Then we found out that one of the drivers did not have his license, so we had to wait for another driver to come. This whole process took another hour. In the mean time, Michael bought our bus chocolate to keep us quiet. I think he figured if he kept our mouths full, we would not complain. It pretty much worked. Finally we were able to leave at 9 PM.

Our driver was crazy speeding up the mountains. I could not sleep very well because my head still hurt. We eventually reached our destination at 4:30 AM, where we ate "dinner". We also took a vote and decided to leave at 9 AM in the morning instead of 8, as originally planned. The rooms were beautiful, and the beds were the most comfortable thing I have ever slept in. I took a shower because I needed to wash the ointment out. Then I fell asleep

I got up at 4:00 am this morning with Laura (who was leaving for Morocco too, but with a different program). I called Justine and finished packing. At 5:15, Justine and I walked to Avenida del Cid to meet the bus. We ran into Alex, a girl in my Cultural Realities class and talked with her while we waited for the bus. Pretty much everyone fell asleep during the 2+ hour drive south.

We arrived at the ferry around 8:30AM, but it took a half hour to get tickets and pass through security. When we got to the boat,  I was surprised. I expected an open-air ferry like you see on TV. Instead, we were enclosed in an area that resembled a wide airplane. I sat by the window, so I could take pictures. I also talked with Godelievre and went with her to find a phone. There was a sign that said there were phones on board, but it turned out to be a lie. I slept for about a half hour during the trip. 

We headed through the terminal onto the bus where we met our Spanish bus driver, Juan, who grew up on the in Spain, but the African part. (I did not know that Spain had a tiny bit of land in Africa right before you get to Morocco.) At this point, we were also introduced to our Moroccan tour guide Muhammad. We drove to the Moroccan border, but I could not get any pictures because of security reasons. We had to wait from them to process all of our passports, which should have taken half an hour (given the fact that there were 48 students from CC-CS, a Spanish boy who is the boyfriend of a girl in the program, an American friend of a girl in the program, a Spanish chaperon, a Scottish/English chaperon, a Moroccan tour guide, and a Spanish bus driver...), but  since Godelievre is Congolese, she needed a visa. It took an extra 2 hours for them to sort this all out. In the end, Godelievre had to buy a visa for 200 durham (Moroccan currency), everyone gasped. It was then translated into euro, so that we had some concept of what was going on. She paid 20 euro (roughly 35 American dollars), but was able to enter the country.

While we were waiting for Godelievre and her visa, we had a sing-along which included many pop songs from the 90s and Disney. Once we realized that the girl holding the microphone could not sing, we asked Michael (our Scottish-English chaperon) to tell us a joke. He told two really bad ones, the first about two men meeting a lion, and the second about Frank Sinatra. The punch lines weren't really good, but we could not stop laughing when half-way through the lion joke when Michael went, "Oh shit, A lion!" in his British accent. Then, we had to translate the second joke into Spanish for Juan. He did not get it (actually, neither did we, but it was something about Frank Sinatra). Juan retold the joke probably  five or six times (in Spanish, trying to get it right). He even assigned us parts in the joke to try to figure it out. He kept going, "Yo, Frank, Tu, novio, y tu novia". (Translation: Me, Frank. You, boyfriend. And you girlfriend.)

After we finally got through customs, we drove for three hours to get to lunch. I slept most of that time, but I did get a few pictures.

We arrived at Chefchaouen for lunch, where we wandered through the older part of the city taking pictures. Everything in the city (buildings, walls, doors, etc.) was blue! They explained that it was the best color for keeping things cool during the hot temperatures. Then, we arrived at a restaurant which (according to Mohammad) served, "The most awesome traditional Moroccan food". I ate bread, a salad plate with different types of vegetables and fruits - carrots, onions, tomatoes, lima beans, rice, and sprouts. Then, I  (along with the 3 other vegetarians and all the Catholics who cannot eat meat on Fridays during Lent) was served a stew of potatoes, zucchini, artichokes and saffron. It was pretty delicious! For dessert, there was a mix of strawberries, bananas, and apples, which was also pretty amazing!

We then toured the city of Chefchaouen where we walked through the Medina (the central part) and watched women wash clothes in the river. They put on The Bourne Supremacy in Spanish, but I slept through most of it. When the movie was over, we stopped at a rest stop for half in hour where Godelievre got her first marriage proposal. (Not really surprising, she's a beautiful, tall African who speaks 4 languages...). Back on the bus, I slept some more.

We arrived in the city of Fez around 10 pm and went directly to our hotel. Dinner was lamb stew, chicken pastry and lamb with vegetables. Since I am a vegetarian, I had an omelet and bread, bottled water, the amazing Moroccan mint tea, and a Moroccan pastry. For dessert, there was fruit with orange juice, so I had to decline. Justine and I went back to our room, showered, and talked for a while before we fell asleep.

Thursday was an eventful day. I took a bocadillo to school with me, so that I did not have to run home for lunch. However, during my first class I realized I left my corrected composition at home, so I had to take the bus and train to get home. Then, the bus missed my stop because no one (namely, me) forgot to press the button. So, then I had to walk. I made it everywhere I had to go in under an hour, which was impressive. My bonobus got charged twice, so I am going to have to call the company because since all of my transfers were under one hour, it should not cost me extra. 

In my history class, we went to see the Hospital de Caridad (basically Hospital of Love). It was created during the late 1500s as a non-profit hospital. Now, it is a church and a nursing home.

I spent the time that I would have used to go home for lunch talking with my friend Leigh. Then she pointed me towards the Museo de Bellas Artes, a fine arts museum in Seville, where I needed to journal about two paintings. I tried to follow her direction, but once I hit the expressway and could not see street signs, I figured it would be better to go another day with Justine. I wandered back to the Center to read some more before class. 

My Cultural realities class centered around the lack of morals Spanish children have nowadays. I thought it was interesting that the reasoning was that mothers were now working outside the home. According to the article, women were meant to raise children, so that they don't turn out like delinquents. Personally, I think that both parents should be active in their children's lives, but that's just me.

In dance class, we practiced all four dances.

After class, Justine and I wandered around the city for a little bit. Then, we went to tapas with some of the professors. I had two delicious spinach crepes with sweet sauce. Then, the group of us that went for tapas headed back to the school for a party. The parties here are crazy! They have a Spanish DJ, and they serve alcohol. Since I do not drink beer, I had a few tintas de verano, basically 75% lemon Fanta and 25% red wine. I listened to Justine and Kent debate religious philosophies for an hour. Then we went home because neither of us had packed for Morocco the next day!

I had trouble falling asleep the night before we went to Malaga. I have no idea. However, I did manage to oversleep by an hour! I was still able to make the bus, but I was a little late meeting Justine and Janette, who were both waiting for me outside. We hopped on the public transportation to get to the other bus station. When we got there, the other ten people were there. So, we boarded the bus before 7 am, and everyone fell asleep. Justine and I shared a seat until we decided that there was enough space for us to have our own two seats. However, later the bus filled up, and Justine and I decided it would be easier to sit together than sit with strange people.

We arrived in Malaga around 10:30 am, which is when we realized that we were (1) a group of thirteen, and (2) under the guidance of Tour Guide Lery. (His real name is Eric, he is a student in the program from Naperville, but he goes to Ithaca in NY. He is the proud owner of The Lonely Planet: Andalucia and has a knack for planning things. We called him Lery after the fun, flamboyant tour guide from the Center.) So, Lery lead us to the train station, which was right across from the bus station. It was closer to a mall than the train station in Sevilla. You could buy everything there, and they had a bunch of American type stores, like Claire's.

Then, we headed across the city. We weren't more than a block away from the bus station, when Lery found a pandaria (bread shop) to stop at and ask for directions. The bread smelled so good, and a few people had either eaten their bocadillos (sandwiches) or just forgotten to ask for them, so we waited a while so they could get more. While we were waiting, Rachel and Kent, two of the people on the trip, started doing the "We're All in This Together" dance from High School Musical, and I brought out a large bag of my Choco Krispies. Lery discovered 1.5L bottles of water for just 0.6 euros at the pandaria (which is about one American dollar), which isn't a bad price in Spain. He advised all of us to buy them, and only Justine, Don, and I didn't take his advice. Don and I had brought along our own .5 L bottles, and I was staying out of the pandaria because if I went in, I was going to have to buy bread because it smelled delicious!

We then headed across el rio seco (the dry river) which had water in it. We passed a modern art museum, and rather than going inside, we just imitated the statue out front. Then, Lery lead us into the commercial center by a round-about route. Justine and I didn't pay much attention (which was unfortunate, as we discovered later), because we were having too much fun as a big group. We posed in front of a funny looking statue, and passed through what could be referred to as a street of wedding shops. To top off the whole marriage fantasy, there was a wedding going on in one of the churches, and we watched the bride go in on her father's arm. We were slightly disappointed, because it was an old gothic church, and look gorgeous. Even Lery was unsure if the wedding would impede our Cathedral visit. (Luckily, it did not, since the Cathedral was not the church where the wedding was).

When we arrived in front of the actual Cathedral, Lery decided it was lunch time, although it was only about 12:30 pm. So, we all sat down around a fountain with our bocadillos. I had carne de membrillo, which is actually candied quince (which is apparently grown in the US, but I have never seen it). Then, Rachel started calling into the fountain we were sitting around. She claimed it echoed. A little girl looked in at her, rolled her eyes, and told her, "No hay peces. No hay nadie." (There aren't fish, there isn't anyone). But then Jess (another girl on the trip) showed her how it could echo in the fountain. As we packed up from lunch, the little girl was excitedly showing her friend how her voice echoed down the fountain. 

After lunch, we hit up the art museum in the Episcopal Palace. It was free, since we're students, but they wouldn't let us carry backpacks on our backs, or have water bottles. There was all this weird art of Jesus, with the Latin, Greek, and Spanish biblical translations accompanying it. It was like the stations of the cross with Jesus in different colors, like one would be Jesus in blue, the next picture the same thing, but with a green Jesus. I could not take pictures, but I think you get the idea. 

We went to the Cathedral next, which had a 3,5 euro entrance fee. It was pretty, old and gothic. I lit a candle. We got to see the museum of relics too. The cathedral wasn't as large as the one at Sevilla. We hung out in the gardens outside the cathedral for a while, and Justine took some of her famous flower pictures. At this time we realized that Justine and I booked the wrong bus tickets, and we had to return to Sevilla at 6, which everyone else was staying until 7:30. (I just followed Justine's lead when it came to booking the tickets.)

Next was the house where Pablo Picasso grew up, and some of his art work. Did you know that Picasso illustrated children's books for a while?

Lery's next scheduled adventure was to visit the Alcazaba and the Castillo. We took a little foot path up, not really realizing we were going the wrong way until we hit an 8 ft. concrete wall. Rather than letting something little like that stop us, we just clambered right over it, and headed down the next wall. We arrived in a back field filled with beer bottles, and the remnants of picnics and drunken nights. Not actually the castle, but still pretty cool. There were 13 of us to begin with, and we headed up to a lookout point, to see if we could get through the castle gates onto the right side, we were down to 8. Then Melanie left to be with Lery, her boyfriend, and Maddy, Justine, Janette, Godelievre, Kent, Don, and I kept going.

We kept climbing up the castle walls (there were a series of steps), until it seemed like we could go no further. Then, a couple of times, we would encounter a low wall we could climb over. We had an amazing view of the Mediterranean Sea and the city of Malaga from that height, and of course, we took even more pictures. Finally, we reached a walkway (which put us up where the people who actually paid for the tour should end up), but there was an iron gate across it, so we couldn't get out that way. At the top, Kent found a cowboy hat that looked like it was fried by alien laser beams (or so we decided). He put it on, and we kept going because Don promised us a gelato shop at the top.

The trip down was difficult, although less time consuming than the trip up. We had to climb over boulders the whole way down, and jump down the gaps in the walls. We'd come about halfway down when we saw this security guard inside the castle. We were waiting him to yell at us, but he just asked us, in Spanish, how we got up there. We told him how we climbed up around the hill, and he just told us to climb back down, so we did.

The scariest part was climbing back down the 8' wall. Kent went first, then Maddy, and then it was Justine's turn, but she chickened out. I decided to be the brave one, so I went down facing out, and I fell. I rolled down the hill, and my hand landed on a broken beer bottle, and got cut open. It hurt! We headed back down, and the 7 of us got a picture of us against the castle wall. It was taken by a Scottish man in Malaga who was there to learn the language. By this point, it was 4:30, and Justine and I decided it was time to head back to the bus station.

It took us almost the full hour and a half we needed to get back to the bus station, but we did stop at a pharmacy. The pharmacist cleaned and bandaged up my hand. We went to a SuperSol, and each of us bought about 2L of liquid to take on the bus. I was feeling a bit dehydrated, but I was okay. Our bus was a little late getting into Malaga, and our bus stopped for dinner at a little diner on the way home. I slept the rest of the way to Sevilla.

When we arrived, Justine and I piled off the bus with our bags. We were trying to figure out where we had to go to leave the bus station, when we were almost run over by a bus! Justine and I ran back to the curb, but then we saw the people on the bus... it was the rest of our group! Their bus had been a direct route, and we arrived about the same time.

We went out for tapas afterward at 100 Montajitos, this cute little tapas bar. Kent was complaining about how he never hears them say his name when they call out his order, so he wrote down "Tito" in the name section. Godelievre had the same problem, so she decided she was going to be "Bob Patel". Justine, who is usually Justina there, decided to be Catalina, and so on. My name is pretty Spanish sounding (without the 'h', with the 'h', it's Greek), but I wanted to use a different one anyway, so I was Isabella, like the queen. I had a veggie tapa and a chocolate with red fruit tapa. Both were delicious! We then wandered around and got ice cream.

Then, Justine, Janette, and I walked home. I talked to Brennan, who was a little worried about my fall, and went to sleep. (The next morning, I realized I was covered in bruises on my legs, and my hand hurt a lot!)

Usually we do not have classes on Friday, because part of the program is experiencing Spain, not just sitting at a desk memorizing facts about Spanish history or conjugating verbs. However, because we had a four-day weekend the previous week, we had to make up a day. So, our Friday classes were the same as our Thursday classes. This meant that I to rush home for lunch, then rush back for Cultural Realities and dance.

In Cultural Realities class, we talked about cultural shock. There are four stages: Honeymoon, Crisis, Recuperation, Adaptation. The Honeymoon stage was basically falling in love with Spain and everything about it. I was in that stage for the first few weeks. I was not really homesick, just really excited to see and do everything here. The Crisis stage could come in one or two major problems, or many little issues. I had my share of little issues. I started to miss home, my family, my friends, Brennan, the snow, etc. It was weird to hear that everything was working fine without me there. Also, it was just hard not to be there. Then there was the issue of my senora. On the whole, she is okay, but she likes to control things. Like she refused to do more laundry than could fit in her machine, which is like half the size of an American washing machine. That took a little getting used to because Oma just does like five loads of my laundry when I come up, or I do like 3 a week at school. I like doing a load of whites/lights, colors, and towels/jeans. Or she insists on eating lunch every day at exactly two, which we must be home for. The only exception is if we are in class. Recuperation is the counter-part to Crisis. You just cycle through the two until you get to adaptation. By now, I am pretty much figured out what my senora wants. I am in the Adaptation phase at the moment. I am accustomed to siesta, to eating healthy and on a set schedule, to taking eight minute showers, to only getting a little laundry done every Tuesday, etc. 

During dance class, we practiced in front of a mirror to help us remember to smile. It's so hard to smile and concentrate on moving my arms and feet to the beat while listening to the music.

After class, I met up with Justine, and we went on a hunt for a sympathy card. Her dad's cousin, who lives in northen Spain (and whom Justine went to visit a few weeks earlier) just lost her husband. Apparently in Spain, when someone dies, you do not send a card. You just call them, express sympathy and that's it. Justine wanted to do more, especially since she actually knew him, and it was so sudden. He was married with six children ranging in age from 13 to 23. We ended up going to this cute little Papeleria, basically a stationary store. She bought some nice card stock. Then we headed to a little candy store to try to find these gummy berries that I really like.

I came home, ate dinner, and packed for our adventure the next day.

On Thursday, I went to school. I came home for lunch, and talked to my dad for less than 15 minutes. Then I had to go back to school for my Cultural Realities class. There we talked about family structure in Spain. 

During the era of Franco (1930s-1975), Catholicism was heavily enforced. This was the time when my senora was growing up. Franco wanted to create the idea of Spanish nationalism, so he encouraged families to have large families. My senora is one of fourteen. She and her husband had seven kids as well. During that time it was believed that a woman's place was in the home, so she did not have a job. Nowadays, there is a trend towards both parents working. Also, many families have one or two children. 

Here it is not uncommon for children to live at home until they are in their thirties. My senora still has one son at home. His name is Antonio and in his thirties. He does not talk much, and spends the weekends in "pueblo", which means town. It is where his siblings and grandmother live. 

I had dance class, then walked home with Justine.

I woke up around 10, ate breakfast, and went to the park. I sat in the park for three hours writing post cards. (I still am not done!) I went to the Estanco, a little place to buy stamps, candy, lottery tickets, etc. I bought stamps, obviously.

I came home to eat lunch, stamp my post cards, and take a nap. After my nap, I cleaned my room, read, and talked to Brennan. 

I showered, ate dinner, and went to sleep.

Tuesday, I woke up, ate breakfast, and went to school. It was basically the same as Monday. I did not have Art History, but instead dance class. After class, I waited for Justine to finish her class, then we walked home together. I ate dinner, did some reading, and went to sleep fairly early.

Monday was the start of classes in the continuation period. I had the same teacher for my vocab class, as I did for my grammar class. Actually, out of the 7 people in the class, 6 of us had her during the intensive.

After class, I had an hour and a half break. When Justine was finished with her class, the two of us went to a little Panderia (bakery) to get bread. Hot, fresh rolls are only 40 Euro-cents, basically $.60 in American money. Then we went to buy our books for class.

I went back to school for my history class, which looks like it is going to be interesting. The teacher talked a lot and very quickly. He also did not write much on the board. However, when he did, it was illegible.

After this class, I went home to eat lunch. After lunch, I took a nap during siesta. Then at 4, I headed back to school for my Art History class.

I love my Art History class, because the teacher talks slow and explains things. Also, the book is written for people who do not have Spanish as their first language. 

After class, Justine, Janette, Alicia, and I went to buy the rest of the books we needed. We also wandered in and out of stores in El Centro.

I came home, did some reading, and went to sleep.