Trip to Athens (Why I Love Aegean Airlines)

My first gluten-free airplane food!
 

Also memorable: for some reason, everyone on the plane started clapping when we landed. Is that a cultural thing?

Madrid

Alicia left yesterday, which I'm still a little bummed about. I honestly could not have asked for a better travel partner. (Alicia, if you're reading this - I walked past many gelato places yesterday afternoon but could not bring myself to have any without you.)

Anyway, though it's a far cry from Sevilla, Madrid is beautiful - and the nightlife is incredible. One thing I love about the culture here is how centered it is around having fun - work seems to be a mere afterthought for many of the people I've met in this country.

Among the highlights:
- The photo exhibit at Caixa Forum
- The Reina Sofia Museum (which is free from 6-8 every night!)
- Seeing Carmen, a flamenco ballet show
- Eating real Spanish paella, which contains many unrecognizable species of sea creatures and is seriously difficult to eat considering how many things you have to de-shell (but is delicious nonetheless!)
- Finding pig legs and 2-foot octopuses at the Spanish supermercado El Corte Ingles

Tidbits about Madrid:
- The name Madrid is derived from an Arabic word meaning stream
- Toledo was actually the country's capitol until the reign of Philip II, who moved his court to Madrid. Soon after, he implemented a law forcing citizens with extra rooms to take in uprooted nobility and officials or pay an 85% tax; however, because the government couldn't enter people's homes to confirm the number of rooms they had (instead relying on the number of floors and windows), people averted this tax by building "casas de maliciosas" (hyperlink)

Lisbon

We're leaving... again. Alicia and I decided to spend the day in Lisbon en route to Madrid, which I'm really happy we did. Lisbon is very reminiscent of San Francisco with huge hills (great for the glutes!) and trams and trolley cars throughout. Considering I've been getting such little sleep these past few days, though, I have no desire to get back on a night bus (especially one that gets in at 4:30am!). We also don't have a hostel for the night, as everything was booked when we checked online this morning. I suppose this is a lesson learned, though, as I really don't know what I should have expected booking so late. I'm just hoping I'll be able to find SOMETHING; otherwise, I'm going to have to rethink my plans pretty quickly.

Anyway, my favorite moments from Lisbon:
- Our hostel (look "Inside")
- Meeting another photo buff, Asher
- Seeing a Fado performance
- Drinking mojitos and caipirinhas
- Climbing to the top of the city to visit Castelo de Sao Jorge
- Eating codfish, which is a typical Portugese dish though it is actually brought in from Norway

Lisbon Pictures

Pictures are updated!

Lagos
Lisbon
Sevilla

Lagos

This trip keeps getting better and better. We've been in Lagos for the past three days, Couchsurfing with the most incredible couple Eloisa and Tiago. The highlights (in no particular order):

- Rock climbing
- Having drinks with our rock climbing instructor Peter, who has had the most incredibly exciting life
- Watching the season finale of Gray's Anatomy with Eloisa (the first TV I've watched since starting this trip and SUCH a treat)
- An amazing home-cooked meal upon our arrival
- Building sandcastles at the beach with Tiago and Megan
- Doing our laundry in an actual washing machine & having reliable internet (little luxuries, I know, but it's amazing having them again after three full weeks)
- Hanging out with the animals (Sheeka looks almost identical to Pinto, and is the first cat I've ever seen with polydactyly)

Overall a great couple days. And on to Lisbon tomorrow!

Sevilla Part 3

I've only been traveling for two weeks thus far, and I'm astounded by how many people I've already met. (Interestingly, very few of them have been American.). Something that never occurred to me about a trip like this was how sad it would be leaving the people you meet, as it's very unlikely that I'll see many of them ever again (though maybe this will give me incentive to keep traveling to visit them all :)).

Anyway, we're currently heading to Lagos after having spent the last three days in Sevilla. Overall, I was largely impressed with Sevilla - it's amazingly clean, and much smaller than I expected. I actually think this city would be a great place to live if it weren't for sweltering temps and afternoon siestas (I really don't think I could stand being idle for that long). The city itself is beautiful, though, and I LOVE tapas & sangria.

Tidbits about Sevilla:
- "Tapas" means "lids" or "covers" in Spanish, which refers to their probable origin as snacks served in small plates used to cover drinks (interestingly, the McDonald's here serves tapas on their menu)
- Sherry is produced in a city just south of here called Perez
- Everyone here smokes

Travel Advice:
- Stay at Samay Hostel - the rooftop terrace is amazing!
- Do not purchase the Let's Go guidebook - it's terrible. Ironically, we met someone staying at our hostel who was helping rewrite the entire thing.
- Levi's has amazing tapas, and Carboneria has free flamenco!

Sevilla Part 2

It's 6 in the morning (and nearly midnight back home!), and I'm just now going to bed. What a crazy night. We got back from a walking tour at around 6, then met a bunch of people on the rooftop terrace for paella and sangria at 8:30. I followed that with about five glasses of tinto de verano, which, although I probably won't be saying this tomorrow morning, led to one of the greatest nights out I think I've ever had. And now (finalmente!) sleep!

Morocco Pictures...

...are posted! http://www.flickr.com/photos/emilydarnbrook/sets/72157623979393337/

Sevilla Part 1

Well, we finally made it to Sevilla (and I apologize for these entries not being in real time). Anyway, we started the trip off with a tapas-and-sangria crawl (for only 14 Euro!) after which we checked email and called it a night.

So yes, largely uneventful. I'm blogging mainly because I finally have internet access again, but also because I met someone here from Albion College! Small world, huh?

Trip to Sevilla

I gave this its own entry because it's somewhat epic. To recap:
○ We traveled by taxi from Taghazout to Agadir
○ We traveled by bus from Agadir to Marrakesh
○ We traveled by sleeper train (which is something I always wanted to do!) from Marrakesh to Tangier
○ We traveled by taxi from Tangier to the ferry terminal, then by ferry from Tangier to Tarifas
○ We traveled by bus from Tarifas to Algeciras
○ And finally, we traveled by bus from Algeciras to Sevilla

Total travel time = 28 hours. Yep. We're hardcore.

Taghazout

Taghazout is the most amazing little town. We are staying at a resort right on the beach for roughly $6/night and eating amazingly for around $10/day. And the people here are so much different than the people in Marrakesh! We took a local bus to a nearby city to get some cash, and the whole back of the bus broke out in song - it was incredible. Other highlights of our day:
○ Surfing
○ Beach volleyball
○ Being buried in the sand
○ Learning my name in Arabic
○ Akmed professing his love for me (it's a good story, but better told in person)
○ The chicken traveling with all our luggage (very reminiscent of Borat)

Random tidbits about Morocco:
○ People here speak Arabic, French, English, and Berber
○ There are four sounds that cannot be translated from Arabic to French, and thus, numbers are substituted when these are used
○ Typical foods here include tagine, couscous, omelettes, pizza, orange juice, almonds, amlou, mint tea, and pistachio ice cream. Bread is eaten with every meal.
○ A one-humped camel is called a dromedary
○ There are mosques everywhere here which call Islamic people to prayer five times daily

For anyone considering visiting Morocco:
○ As a general rule, you should aim to pay about half of whatever vendors initially offer (and shop around so you know what's reasonable!)
○ Although it's pretty easy to get by knowing little to no French or Arabic, you should at least know "non merci" or "la shakran" ("no thank you" in French and Arabic), as that seems to be the only way to get people to leave you alone
○ Plan on no more than three days in Marrakesh, three days to see Merzouga, and at least two days to visit Taghazout.  Skip Essaouira unless you really want to shop (better prices and less aggressive vendors than Marrakesh).  And from what I've heard, Fez is better skipped, as well.
○ Stay at Equity Point in Marrakesh - it's relatively expensive by Moroccan standards but amazingly cheap considering how nice it is

Essaouira

What a great morning. Alicia and I are traveling to Essaouira with some friends we met on our Sahara tour, and after sleeping on the ground, going two days without showers or internet, and spending 12 consecutive hours in a cramped van, I couldn't be happier to be on an air-conditioned bus with reclining seats.

I still can't believe this is only the sixth day of our trip, and we've already visited the desert, the mountains, and today, the coast. Morocco has an incredibly diverse landscape. I only wish we didn't have to haggle for everything - it's amazingly tiring trying not to get ripped off here. Though Spain will undoubtedly be more expensive, I'm really looking forward to fixed prices again.

Still, I can't really complain about anything - we've had gorgeous weather, and we're currently on our way to the beach! It doesn't get much better than this.

The Sahara

We toured the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert these past few days. Among the highlights of our car ride:

* Our tour guide Mohammad, who spoke "Mohammad" (a mix of French, Arabic, Spanish, and English, and understandable to no one)
* Exchanging email addresses with the Berber man I met in the desert
* Alicia giving three local girls one American dollar to share, which we're pretty sure was the end of their friendship
* Discovering how animal sounds are interpreted in French, Polish, and Dutch

And of the Sahara:

* Our camel ride
* Watching the sun set over the dunes
* Eating tagine with our hands
* Sleeping under the stars

All in all an incredible experience.

Marrekech: Part 2 (The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day)

Why this day was so forgettable:
○ I went a second night with fewer than three hours of sleep
○ Alicia's $160 hair straightener melted
○ I woke up feeling ill, then visited the tanneries, which are notoriously bad-smelling. As you may have guessed, I ended up getting sick and thus had the opportunity to visit an authentic Turkish-styled toilet (hyperlink). Exciting to say the least.
○ I gouged my toe running up a flight of stairs, which I would show you, but it's too gross. Thank God for Neosporin.

Not all went wrong, however. We met new Couchsurfing friend Jonathan and Belgian friend Bjorn, and had dinner at an upscale restaurant downtown (which still didn't blow the budget, even with wine!). It was nice to get out of the medina for the night, too - it was fun the first couple days, but being constantly hassled to buy things gets tiring pretty quickly.

We're heading to the Atlas Mountains tomorrow - hoping for an incident-free trip!

Marrakech

Alicia and I arrived in Marrakech this morning!  The plane ride here was... interesting to say the least.  Rather than sitting next to Alicia like the booking agent had promised, I was put next to a 400-lb., angry Moroccan woman who spoke no English and spent half the plane ride yelling over me to her friend in the middle aisle.

That was all forgotten, however, when the captain announced that we would be bypassing Casablanca (where we were supposed to have a two-and-a-half-hour layover) for Marrakesh (thank God for the volcanic ash!).

Anyway, Marrakech is by far the most spectacular place I've ever been.  Some highlights from our trip thus far:

• Shopping at the souks
• Bahia Palace
• Veggie tanjine
• Meeting two Robins (both of whom spelled their names with an "i")
• Meeting someone who looked identical to Rebecca

We are also staying in an incredible hostel for the night - complete with a pool (see photo at left).  I'll post more photos to Flickr as soon as I have a chance!

 

New York City (So Far So Good!)

This will be short since it's 3 in the morning. Allyson, Andres, and I just got back from a jazz club downtown, and although I'm exhausted, I'm dying to write my first post.

The picture to the left, by the way, was taken from the rooftop of Allyson's apartment - stunning, huh?






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