5 day weekend

These last few days have been pretty eventful!
I've traveled a lot over the past weekend. Thankfully Mama Rita packed Emily and I a bocadilla bag and a bunch of fruit because we were on the bus for a long time. We got on the bus at 9 am Friday morning and drove for a few hours and made our first stop in Gibraltar, which is at the south of Spain, but is really British.  It was weird hearing other people speaking English for once!! They even used pounds, so now I have English currency! While we were in Gibraltar we got to see the Mediterranean Sea and took lots of pictures there, the water was so beautiful but it was so windy!! Later, we stopped at a cave to explore and then got to hang out with some monkeys! It was really fun because they came up really close and even jumped on people! 

Then, we left Gibraltar and took a ferry over to Africa, which took about an hour.  Right when we got off the ferry, even though we were technically in Africa, it was still Spanish territory so we didn't have to go through customs yet and it still pretty much looked like Spain. A little farther on we arrived in Morocco around 8sh that evening and they took us to our hotel.  It was so much different than Spain, you could tell right when we got there that it was a totally different lifestyle.

We got to the hotel in Morocco at 9ish, and I stayed with Emily and Becca in a 3 person room.  At 10:30 pm they served us dinner, which was vegetable soup and then fish with potatoes and rice. Pretty tasty! We couldn't drink normal water there so we had to order mineral water. They even had a musician playing a keyboard and singing (very loudly) during dinner.  Afterwards, we were all so tired we went straight to bed because we had to be up at 8 the next morning.

The next morning we were supposed to get a wake up call at 7:45, but that never came; luckily Emily woke up at 8:30 and we rushed to get ready and went down to breakfast.  Then we left to go to some of the markets in another city.  We had to haggle anything that we wanted to buy! It was crazy to see how different their world is, the walls were all painted blue and had small doors because you were supposed to bow as you entered someone's home.  We were taken down through the streets and got to see the food markets too.  People go daily to buy their food, so all the food gets sold each day. Then we went to an oils and spice store, and Emily and I got Moroccan oil for our hair. We walked by the palace where the king lives when he stays there also, and they were currently preparing for his arrival in a few weeks. All of the streets were filled with people selling different types of things-scarves, blankets, jewelry, postcards, bags, etc. Most of the people there knew 3 languages - English, Spanish, and Arabic because many of their customers are tourists, so they have to know how to sell to them.  

After the markets, we had lunch at a nice restaurant and had soup, and then kebabs of beef and another little thing..don't know what it was, but it was really good! They had a little entertainment for us- a guy was dancing around with candles on his head, and when we entered the restaurant, they were playing drums for us as we walked in. The only thing was they didn't have toilet paper in the bathrooms!! So weird. Moroccans drink hot mint tea a lot, so they served us a glass after our meal, and it was really good!

We went to go tour the markets again, and then left to go to our second hotel. That evening, we had out "fantasy dinner." We had a lot more good food, and then lots of entertainment--belly dancing, acrobats, a couple other dancers, etc. and they would pull people from audience to go dance with them! It was a great dinner! Afterward, we all went to a discoteca that was right next to the hotel.

The next morning we got to have a camel ride!! We went to the point where the Mediterranean and Atlantic meet, visited another cave, Cueta, and then finally got on the ferry to head home to Sevilla. By this point, we were ally ready to go back- I think we were all homesick for Sevilla because we hadn't really had a home that weekend. We all missed our host parents too!! Emily and I got back to our house at 7:30 pm, then went straight over to the church by our house at 8.  We got home, had dinner with the family, and went to bed and slept a good amount of the next day too.  We didn't have class Monday or Tuesday for an Andalucian holiday, so on Monday we went to Plaza Espana to do homework (aka people watch).

Tuesday morning, we woke up early to take a day trip to Jerez with some of our friends.  We were going to take the 9:05 train, but we missed it so we left at 9:45.  Once in Jerez, we went to go see a horse show, and then went off to a bodega-Sandeman's, where they made Sherry. We had a wine tasting, and then spent the rest of the day going to get tapas and exploring little cafes.  This was probably one of my best days in Spain so far, we had so much fun! It was pretty different from Sevilla though, there people are always outside, tons of people walking around all the time, but in Jerez there wasn't really anybody else out besides us.  We were ready to leave at 6:45, but all the trains were full until 9:45 so we waited around until then, and then got back to Sevilla about an hour later.  When we got home, our family was watching a movie so we joined them for a little bit, and all had dinner around 11:30 pm.

I just now got out of my last class so its the weekend again here!! This is the first time that Emily and I doing separate things!! She is off to Bilbao for the weekend and I am staying in Sevilla for now :)