Our port of call for Morocco is Casablanca, a rather large industrial city. I would have to say the first and most immediate experience when walking onto Moroccan soil for the first time is the smell. The scent is a turbulent mixture of trash, rotting food, sewage, and exhaust. That being said it is a wonderful place. I haven’t spent very much time in Casablanca yet, but I did see one of the most impressive religious structures I have ever visited. To say the mosque is massive would be an understatement. Yet the size, while impressive, fails to be its most striking feature. The beautiful tile and woodwork is simply stunning. Alas, I don’t have a picture to post at the moment, but I will find one.
Anyway, onto Marrakech my principle place of residence since arriving here. Marrakech is the opposite of Casablanca. To begin, it is inland. It is also very clean. It is not industrial. You get the idea. Marrakech is gorgeous, located essentially in the desert it was about a four hours drive from Casablanca. I understand that it was built as a stay over for caravans crossing the desert, which would explain its location. A brief note on the color tones – everything is red, orange, brown. The environment of the city is very different from my experiences at home, in Europe, and the various other places I’ve visited.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Morocco: The Cab Ride
To give you an introduction to Morocco, I’m going to describe my first experience with a cab driver. I had walked to the Mosque earlier in the day with some friends and had to be back on the boat at 1:00 to go on my trip. It was a long walk, and I didn’t want to risk getting lost, so I decided to take a cab. I flagged down what is known as a petit taxi, or the smaller, cheaper taxis in Morocco. After struggling with the language briefly, we established where I wanted to go and started haggling over the price. He started with $10.00 US, steep no? I told him 40 Dirham (a little over $5.00 US); he immediately dropped to 60 Dirham, etc etc. We ended up at 45 Dirham. I had cut his original price by not quite half, and was happy with it.
So I get into the cab and notice in the corner of the window, barely large enough to read is a fare rates sticker. 1.70 Dirham to hire the taxi, and an additional 0.20 Dirham for each minute there after. So yea, I overpaid by a lot. The story continues though, he proceeds to drive about 100 meters and pull over. “No, no,” I say, and he keeps driving. He then offers to take me on a tour of the city. He wanted to show me all these nice places apparently, but I needed to get back on the boat and knew it was a scam.
The cab drive is nice enough, and he is extremely friendly throughout the trip. We arrive at the port, and I pull out 100 Dirham to pay him. He takes out a 5 Dirham coin, and tries to tell me its 50 Dirham. We argue about this for a while, and he finally pulls out an additional 50 Dirham bill to give me the correct change. Welcome to Morocco!
p.s. The cab fare should have been somewhere around 10-20 Dirham.
So I get into the cab and notice in the corner of the window, barely large enough to read is a fare rates sticker. 1.70 Dirham to hire the taxi, and an additional 0.20 Dirham for each minute there after. So yea, I overpaid by a lot. The story continues though, he proceeds to drive about 100 meters and pull over. “No, no,” I say, and he keeps driving. He then offers to take me on a tour of the city. He wanted to show me all these nice places apparently, but I needed to get back on the boat and knew it was a scam.
The cab drive is nice enough, and he is extremely friendly throughout the trip. We arrive at the port, and I pull out 100 Dirham to pay him. He takes out a 5 Dirham coin, and tries to tell me its 50 Dirham. We argue about this for a while, and he finally pulls out an additional 50 Dirham bill to give me the correct change. Welcome to Morocco!
p.s. The cab fare should have been somewhere around 10-20 Dirham.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Seville, Marbella, and Cadiz
Spain:
Hello from Spain, or should I say Hola! Where do I start, the picture is Cadiz the morning we arrived, lovely no? I must say Cadiz is a lovely city. Granted I haven´t spent much time there. I arrived and almost immediatly left for Seville, another beautiful city. The train ride was quite enjoyable. Once in, I/we (I travelled in a group with 7 other people) hunted down a hostel and wandered around the town. The women were all beautiful, and the streets are wonderful, tiny little streets lined with ancient buildings. It was absolutly georgous. We came back to our hostel (hostel Pino) and took a nap before going out for the night. For those of you that are unaware, Spain parties until 6 in the morning, so it was going to be a long night.
First we found dinner, I had a selection of tapas, which was delicious, while most of our group split chicken payella. The Payella probably wasn´t worth the ~20 euro they paid for it, but my tapas were delicious. There was a bar right by the resteraunt, so we ventured over. Much to our chagrin we discovered it closed down at 12:00 along with nearly all the other bars in the area we were at. Our night looked like it was going down hill quickly. Fortunatly for us we ran into a group of guys who showed us a good time. First they took us to a beautiful out doors bar and bought us drinks. The night was picking up. Afterwards they took us to a club called Aqua, where it just so happened one of the guys father´s was in charge of. We jumped a line of probably 200 people. The club was incredible, it had a big tank where girls were swimming, hundreds of people, and fyi the Spanish love American music. Anyway, it was amazing, the guys we met introduced us to people, continued to buy us drinks, and were generally awesome the entire night.
The next day we played tourist for a while. Apparently Seville has one of the largest Cathedrals in the world, which you find pictured. It was absolutly massive, though I must admit it was no Notre Dame, or some of the other cathedrals I´ve been to... The Vatican for example.
Later in the day we ventured to Marbella which is a beautiful beach town. We spent the day wandering around and enjoying the beach. We chilled on the beach that night, it was very relaxing. We spent the next day relaxing on the beach, and eventually hopped on a bus back to Cadiz.
Cadiz is a small little port town. I´ve still managed to get lost and wander around for roughly an hour and a half looking for an internet cafe, but wandering the streets may be one of the best ways to get to know a place. I´ll be leaving for Morocco in a few hours, but my time here in Spain has been wonderful.I think thats all for now, have a lovely time folks.
Halifax and the MV Explorer
Ok, first real update of my trip, mostly dealing with Halifax and the ship. I got into Halifax on Wednesday night around 10ish. I split a cab with a few kids I’d met on the plane, and got to the lovely Westin hotel. Quite lovely accommodations for all of us Semester at Sea kids, and quite a few of us were filling its myriad of rooms. Anyway, onto Halifax:
Halifax is a lovely little quaint town. It reminds me of what I would imagine a cute little New England town should be like. It’s on the coast with great (if expensive) bars, stoic old houses, and a small downtown. I understand from the cab driver that its population is somewhere around ~350,000. I enjoyed Halifax. Perhaps it isn’t the most exciting place, but it appears to be the perfect spot to come and rest for a week or a week and a half. The atmosphere for those who know me better, is quite like Michigan. The people were, of course, very friendly and helpful. At any rate, it was a lovely little introduction to my trip. In addition, I met a quiet sum of the students I will be spending the next few months with. Granted, I haven’t seen some of them since the streets of Halifax, but that doesn’t change anything.
As for the boat, it is essentially a luxury cruise ship converted into a floating campus. We have 9 classrooms (including a large audience hall), small little two (or more) person cabins, two dining rooms, and a pool deck. Given the fact that I’ve been on the boat for nearly a week without sight of land, I’d say it’s alright. Hell, I could even get used to this. The food is a mediocre brand of decent. Lots of pasta, not much else, it has been increasingly more difficult to stomach as the days have progressed, but tapas and wine are in my near future, so I can’t complain too much.
As for the program itself, with the exception of a few minor complaints, it seems pretty good. The staff is more or less well prepared and informed, granted I’ve had few if any questions. The first day was interesting as they failed to inform anyone in the student body about any sort of program, schedule of events, or anything. This left us to wandering around the boat, going about and meeting the ~500 other confused students of our trip.
As for the kids, I must say I like most of them, nearly all of them in fact. Aside from the fact we are (nearly) all white, it’s a fairly diverse group, hailing from many different countries and every state. Still, Colorado and California make up a sizable percentage of us.
Classes are going well, and to be honest I don’t really have much to say. The work load is significantly reduced from what I’m used to, but you’ll have no complaints here. Most of my teachers are interesting and helpful. Global studies regularly proves itself frustrating as it is becoming increasingly difficult to understand what the professor actually wants us to understand and know through his plethora of anecdotes and statistical rhetoric. C’est la vie.
Anyway, I’m off to explore Spain, if you’re lucky I’ll update again before I leave, but if not be sure something is coming in Morocco which is only two days after Spain.
Cheers
Ps you´ll get pictures in the next update, which will be in about 20 or 30 minutes.
Halifax is a lovely little quaint town. It reminds me of what I would imagine a cute little New England town should be like. It’s on the coast with great (if expensive) bars, stoic old houses, and a small downtown. I understand from the cab driver that its population is somewhere around ~350,000. I enjoyed Halifax. Perhaps it isn’t the most exciting place, but it appears to be the perfect spot to come and rest for a week or a week and a half. The atmosphere for those who know me better, is quite like Michigan. The people were, of course, very friendly and helpful. At any rate, it was a lovely little introduction to my trip. In addition, I met a quiet sum of the students I will be spending the next few months with. Granted, I haven’t seen some of them since the streets of Halifax, but that doesn’t change anything.
As for the boat, it is essentially a luxury cruise ship converted into a floating campus. We have 9 classrooms (including a large audience hall), small little two (or more) person cabins, two dining rooms, and a pool deck. Given the fact that I’ve been on the boat for nearly a week without sight of land, I’d say it’s alright. Hell, I could even get used to this. The food is a mediocre brand of decent. Lots of pasta, not much else, it has been increasingly more difficult to stomach as the days have progressed, but tapas and wine are in my near future, so I can’t complain too much.
As for the program itself, with the exception of a few minor complaints, it seems pretty good. The staff is more or less well prepared and informed, granted I’ve had few if any questions. The first day was interesting as they failed to inform anyone in the student body about any sort of program, schedule of events, or anything. This left us to wandering around the boat, going about and meeting the ~500 other confused students of our trip.
As for the kids, I must say I like most of them, nearly all of them in fact. Aside from the fact we are (nearly) all white, it’s a fairly diverse group, hailing from many different countries and every state. Still, Colorado and California make up a sizable percentage of us.
Classes are going well, and to be honest I don’t really have much to say. The work load is significantly reduced from what I’m used to, but you’ll have no complaints here. Most of my teachers are interesting and helpful. Global studies regularly proves itself frustrating as it is becoming increasingly difficult to understand what the professor actually wants us to understand and know through his plethora of anecdotes and statistical rhetoric. C’est la vie.
Anyway, I’m off to explore Spain, if you’re lucky I’ll update again before I leave, but if not be sure something is coming in Morocco which is only two days after Spain.
Cheers
Ps you´ll get pictures in the next update, which will be in about 20 or 30 minutes.
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