Morocco

So Javi and I decided to leave Spain for a bit. We went to Morocco, without a plan, guide and very little knowledge of the culture. We were both lost and a little confused, but had a great time. We mostly got around with Spanish. The rest was pointing and hand gestures. We learned a couple words, well Javi did. The only word I remember is ¨Chockadan¨ (or something like that) which means Thank-you.Okay, so at ANY hour of any day, this is what it looked like outside all the cafes. Notice. All the men lined up facing the street. Only men. At first I felt kinda wierd even walking by them, but after a day you get used to things just being plain different. I guess the men there just dont work?????This is the market in the Medina. Medina is the name they use in Arabic for the center of the city. or the city. or something like that.Prayer time.... And yes, they do call out three times a day for prayer (Like in the Movie Sex in the City 2) Oh but the thing is that not everyone is like this. I did see someone prayer in the middle of a store, but a lot of the people dont wear special clothes or get down and pray in the middle of anywhere.This is possibly the most touristic thing i have EVER done, but hey it was fun. This was my camel ride in the dessert..... basically what the kids do at the zoo, but cooler because it was in Morocco and I had to barter the price to ride it.Us and Liela the camelThis is how the dude gets up and down. pretty rough ride.Okay one of the most confusing things about the culture was that when you talk about the price the people always want to barter and are super mean to you, but then they are also SUPER nice. This guy was funny.I love the little kids that come around trying to sell you gum and kleenex. This little guy was so cute, but didnt want his picture taken so started making all sorts of crazy faces. We laughed with him for a while and gave him some candy. Apparently gummy worms are a universal delight.I suppose that this sign says ¨stop¨ in sanskrit.Okay if you look really closely you can see that the woman is wearing sunglasses. The all out uniformed women have to wear their glasses and sunglasses on the outside of the outfit. You cant see any part of them or thier face. nothing.Family...A lot of the old men dress like this with the hood up and everything....This is the tower where the man is supposed to shout for prayer three times a day. However, thannks to technology there is just a giant speaker up there and you dont actually get to see dude climb up there and shout.So these are typical pastries there. What you can´t see is that this window is filled with bees crawling all over them. mmmmmmm.Not really sure what to do with this menu. At least i can read the prices of everything.TypicalWe finally got a picture together in the airport as we were leaving.

On this trip I actually finished a book. Eat Love Pray. I like it, but it definately intensified my desire to go to India or Nepal or somewhere like that....... the world is too big.

and onto the next trip.

mission accomplished. rome was wonderful. I am super excited that I got to see our new pope. This is quick cuz I need to sleep. Tomorrow I am gonna step foot in Africa, well Morocco, which is technical Africa........

(Above... trevi fountain, i threw lots of coins for lots of luck)

(Ryan handling the Forno...)

(I hope you KNOW what this is)

(I got a live reactment of the proposal, one of the many perks if you go to visit the Reedys during their next three years in Rome) By the by, St. Peter´s is possibly my favorite place on earth.

(And, course. Old Bridge Gelato :)

Thats a really brief synopsis of more or less what i did during my little three day trip in Rome. I stayed with Ryan and Ellen who are now the Assistant Director and RA on the UD Rome campus.

Ill be gone in Morocco until Monday.

ROME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Okay I havent finished sharing my trip to Asturias (and the next part gets into climbing), buuuuuut I am headed off to Rome. I´ll be back in a few days.

I am going to visit ELLEN and REEDY, and less importantly my old campus. I have not been there in almost 8 years?????? saying that makes me feel aged. I just got a facebook message from Ellen saying that tomorrow we are gonna have lunch in Castel Gandolfo. Hehehe, I remember it all like yesterday. I think the other two things about Rome that I am most looking forward to are seeing St. Peter´s again and anyone who knows me knows what the second one is.... gelato.

:)

The next destination

We spent two days relaxing in Ribadesella, a beautiful little town in the mountains and on the water, as seems to be every town out here...... Ribadesella is famous for some huge festival where everyone goes down the river in canoes, or something like that.

We stayed in a reformed silo that had fig trees and lemon trees and random animals in the yard.

The weather in Ribadesella was a little bit rainy, but it wasnt too cold so we decided to take advantage of the scenery and go for a nice long 4 hour afternoon walk.

Day 4?

My next trip starts tomorrow, so the end of the story of the Asturias trip is gonna be told by pictures.........

Day 3ish.

We left Llanes and went to find a nice place to camp and cook dinner. We found a nice field right next to the ocean and under a rainbow. The night was stormy and we made a friend.

The night was reallllly stormy and we woke up (in the van) to the sound of a little critter who wanted to be our friend and nuzzle up next to the van. After trying to shoo him away for about an hour, we decided to just let him take refuge next to us (turns out it had a broken leg). The next morning I woke up to Javi dragging the goat away by the horns as two more of his friends came up to say goodmorning.

After breakfast we headed into the mountains to Covadonga to see it´s Monastery and a little chapel nestled in a cave above a waterfall.

Then we decided to follow the map to check out what the heck ¨Lagos¨ was. And it was beautiful. Two lakes up in the mountains. One of which is next to a site that used to be a mine....

This is a modern day cowboy (the dude in the white van).....

As tourism and traveling always goes, we hiked around for a while.....