Morocco

Well Friday morning I got all packed and ready to go to head out at 12:45. While on the bus, I ate the lunch mamcita packed me - a bocadillo (sandwich), apple, mandarine, juice, water, and pastry type thing - I love her packed lunches. :)
After a few hours to Malaga to pick up some students, another ride to the ferry, and the ride over we were finally in Africa! We got our passports checked at the border and headed to the hotel in Tetuan. It was kinda late when we arrived and we were all ready for dinner! The food was average/good - the vegetarian option was an omelet instead of fish, rice, and vegetables. The dessert was flan but made with eggs.. which smelled and tasted weird so not many people ate it. After dinner, we went to our rooms, settled down, and slept. I shared a room with Chloe while Nicole, Liz, and Megan were in a room together.
It was weird to be apart from them but I got to know Chloe. We're similar in a few ways - for one, we use the same earplugs and love a dark room for sleeping, two - we're both obviously morning people because we actually get up when the alarm goes off and take about the same amount of time to get ready, and we both love to run when the weather permits it. However, she has been running a lot longer than me and from the sounds of it, can run faster and much longer than I can.

On Saturday we were provided breakfast by the hotel. It wasn't anything fantastic but there was a cornbread type thing that tasted good with jam, some tasty bread, good little pastry things, and a crepe type thing. There was yogurt too which I didn't realize until we were leaving for good which really upset me because I miss yogurt so much!
Anyways we went to exchange money before heading to the historic medina bazaar of Tetuan. Our tour guide was hilarious and speaks.. I don't even know how many languages. So he would often say things in Spanish and English. His english, although good, was harder to understand because of his accent. He took us all around, through a lot of markets, streets, and whatnot. The markets were a little disturbing at times because of the live, dead, or on the way to being dead animals - mostly chickens. It was also really dirty and smelly BUT a huge part of the culture. We learned that their doors to places are shorter than they should be because one should be bowing when entering a place because it's a sacred place. I always wondered why the doors seemed so short.
We went to a rug making place and they showed us many different rugs. Afterwards people could buy if they wanted but they were way too much. I wanted to get one for the house but had NO idea what colors, patterns, size, etc.. and didn't want to spend the money on something that wasn't going to work anyways. It had been raining all day and the downstairs of the store started flooding when we were there. So we left for the place we ate lunch at. It was a little bit of vegetable soup and couscous with carrots, uhh maybe cabbage or something, and chicken for meat-eaters. Dessert was slices of orange with some sugar/spice on top. I thought it was good.
After that we left for Tanger but stopped for camel rides on the way. It was raining out and I only had one pair of jeans with me.. so I didn't do it. And ya know.. I should have anyways but Nicole and Chloe weren't doing it either and really you just get on, walk about 5 steps, and get off. Eh.. oh well. So we got to Tanger and had a tour there plus some free time. It was pretty similar to Tetuan but more.. modern I guess you'd say - a little cleaner too.
We headed back to the hotel for dinner where again.. omelete instead of chicken. Still good though - I liked this meal better than the first. It had some fries, cauliflower with cheese, and some rice. The dessert was fruit which I ate mine and Liz's because she didn't trust it. Haha.

Took a shower and went to bed exhausted from such a long day. On Sunday we had our breakfast and headed out with all our stuff. We went to Chef-chaouen, although this time without our tour guide (who we referred to as Michael Douglass because he made a joke about them looking alike). We got a different guide who took us throughout the city. It's all blue and white.. and some green. The blue represents the love of god, green is peace, and white is the color of Arabics I think.. I don't know but all the houses were painted blue and white. It was a really pretty city surrounded by mountains. We had some free time before lunch at a hotel. The lunch was good however.. another omelet for the vegetarians. And surprisingly, there were quite a few of us. We also had vegetables and potatoes. Dessert was another bowl of fruit which I ate up happily.
After that we headed out. We stopped back at the hotel for a bathroom break before going to the border. Took another ferry ride back and headed to Malaga then Granada. We had to deal with snacks at our rest stop for dinner. The ride was sooo long and many people felt a little sick from it but just the length bothered me. Plus not being able to sleep for any of it sucks.

But all in all it was a good, very interesting trip and I learned a lot about their culture. I got some small souvenirs for people but nothing big like what some of the others got. I like to get little things here and there plus I can never make up my mind quick enough for the bigger purchases. Or it'll be something I want for myself and I feel selfish for spending so much on me.

In other news - I'm starting to feel slightly like a college student again. Even though I still don't have that much to do, it seems like all the things I have to do are happening now. I need to study for midterms which are in 2 weeks, prepare a presentation for March 17th, a group presentation for April something, and continue planning spring break. Although.. thankfully my mom and sister have planned almost everything and booked getting to places. Now we just need to find places to stay and plan what we're going to do while we're there (although that will be the fun part).
I've gotten out to run the last two days which is great, although it's been a little on the chilly side lately. It's so unusual for Spain - there are places with lots of snow that's already ruined plans for semana santa, weather has caused deaths and destruction of buildings, etc. Tomorrow we're going to a bible study at Kelsey's so we'll see how that goes. Thursday I'm skyping with Kory (yay!) and this weekend I don't plan on going anywhere but we'll see.

WELL. Sorry this is so long and I suppose I should be getting to either more searching for the trip or homework.
Adios!