Tangier, Morocco: The Do's and Don'ts

    For anybody out there who is about to embark on an adventure to Tangier, Morocco, here are my two cents from spending last weekend there. I can't speak for the whole country of course, but these might be helpful.

DO'S

• Do wear a money belt. Super cheesey and touristy, but pickpocketing is bad enough to warrant one.
• Do pack a crapload of sunscreen. The sun, she is very hot there, though the breeze off the Straight of Gilbraltar is wonderfully refreshing.
• Do stay at the Hotel Dar Jameel. Great value, delicious breakfast, and wonderful staff.
• Do try some of the traditional Moroccan cuisine: couscous, tagine, honey cakes, and especially the mint tea!
• Do bring hand sanitizer. Most bathrooms will not have soap.
• Do bring a small packet of tissues, as many bathrooms will not have TP.
• Do go to the souk (market) prepared to barter. We got a gorgeous silk bedspread for €35 instead of €280. Smile a lot and unleash your charm!
• Do ignore the beggars, crap vendors, spontaneous tour guides. It feels very rude, but the best thing to do is avoid eye contact and do not respond to anything they say.
• One guy kept trying to get us to go to his restaurant, and his tactics ended with him screaming at us down the street, "You are shit people!!!"
• Do prepare yourself for a totally different and unique experience. That's what travel is all about, right?
  

DON'TS

• Whatever you do, DON'T drink the water!!!!! Brush your teeth with bottled water, keep your mouth closed when you shower, and do not eat anything that hasn't been introduced to flame (raw meats, salad, raw fruits and vegetables, etc.) 
• Don't point at anything in the souk unless you're ready to get pounced on by the vendor, or interested in making a purchase.
• Don't arrange for your own "tour guide". A lot of men on the street will try to show you around, but in the end will most likely only take you to their friends' shops then charge you an exorbitant price. Stick to arranging something at your hotel, who should be able to recommend someone legit.
• Don't be out much after the sun goes down. While there are many more dangerous countries out there, it is still third world and in times of economic difficulty. Be safe.
• Don't bring your shorts or tank tops. That goes for menfolk and womenfolk (so boys, make sure you leave your tank tops at home...) Obviously you are not going to blend it, but you can be less obvious.
• TIP: My uniform the whole time I was there was a long skirt, an oversized men's dress shirt, sunglasses, and a sun hat (hid my short and partially pink hair and protected my face from the sun.)
• Don't get henna done from the women on the beach. They are old prostitues who moonlight as pickpockets and will probably rip you off.
• TIP: One whole hand (back of hand, fingers, and the palm) should cost about €2. A friend of mine was relieved of €40 for one hand, so be careful!
• TIP: The hotel I stayed at arranged for a professional come in to do henna for me. Better option.  

    Tangier is a fascinating city full of contrasts. It was described to me like a gaudy and fabulous old woman sitting at the end of the bar who you can't help but watch. She has seen a lot of life and is a bit jaded, but still likes to have a good time. It's the perfect description.

Happy adventuring!
*Olivia

 

Las bebidas de España (the drinks of Spain)

    I'm not sure why I have a blog dedicated to travel if I never update it. My new and dear friend Danica has encouraged me to be better about it, so here we go:

    I want to talk a little bit about my favorite beverages in Spain. Why? Because they are delicious. Like, really delicious. Let's start off with the morning tradition that most of the western world knows and loves: coffee. There are several kinds of ways to get coffee here. Café solo, which is just a couple shots of espresso in a wee mug, like you might find in Italy. You can also get café cortado, which is espresso with a little splash of hot milk. But my favorite is café con leche, which, as you might have guessed, is half espresso and half hot milk. It looks like this:
At a lot of places they add the espresso shots to a small glass (that's right, a GLASS), then place it on a saucer with a tiny little spoon and a ginormous packet of sugar. To give you an idea of the size, one sugar packet in España is the equivalent of about three or four packets of sugar in America. Super caffeinated sugar fiends. So then they steam the milk in a metal pitcher, bring it over to you, and fill the glass to the top. Sometimes they'll ask you if you want a bit of cold milk on top to cool it down. But that is for the weak.

The next tasty beverage is chocolate. I will not call it hot chocolate, because that doesn't come close to describing the luxious richness of this drink. I thought the hot chocolate at Burdick's in Harvard Square was the best in the world. In fact, I felt fairly confident of that. My friends, I was dead wrong. Spain's chocolate kicks Burdick's right in the buttocks. This is my favorite thing to order with churros, which are simply long and phallic pieces of fried dough. Unlike the churros you might find at Costco or BJs, these are the real deal. They are fresh, they are not covered with cinnamon and sugar, and there is a strong possibility that they contain traces of heroin, because I am addicted. Some people I know don't like it, saying it is too thick. At them I scoff. Clearly, you dunk your churros into the chocolate and it is delicious. But after the churros are gone, what do you do with the chocolate that remains? Leave it? Absolutely not! You drink that shit down and then look for other people's cups to finish too!

    Side note: there is a strong chance that during the course of my time in Europe I may go into a diabetic coma. If this happens, I would like to state for the record in advance that I have no regrets.

    The last beverage is one for adults only... barely. It is called tinto de verano (red wine of the summer), and is comprised mostly of lemon Fanta (mmmmmm) with a splash of red wine to give it a lovely pink color. It looks like this:
and I wanted to include a large picture because it is by far my favorite. Apparently it takes like sangría in the States, and the sangría in Spain so far has seemed to just taste like evil red wine with ice cubes. Blech. Tinto de verano is clearly the only way to go. Apparently Stephen gets funny looks when he orders one, which has led him to believe that tinto is a chick drink. But it still doesn't stop him from ordering them... :)

    There is still lots more to say, but today is the last day of classes (how quickly five weeks go by!) and I have my last exam coming up. Still to come: more about Granada and some pictures, helpful hints, and general impressions about MOROCCO! Yes! I have added the continent of Africa to my list of places I have been. Anyway, until then stay cool and happy adventuring!

*Olivia

I'm meeeeelting (literally.)

    Oh Granada in the afternoon... The only people on the street are tourists or people who have terrible luck. Why, you might ask?
    Because Granada, my friends, is fucking hot.
    When I talked to people who had been there before I came here, every one of them said something the lines of "The Alhambra is awesome and oh yeah, it's hot" Me, sitting pretty in nice, chilly Boston, thought, "Woo-hoo, I love hot weather!" I'm here to tell you that my love of hot weather has significantly diminished, and often fond thoughts of winter's bitter cold cross my mind and I long for its return. There is no escaping... hence the invention of the siesta. Everyone with a brain in their heads goes inside, shuts the windows, and just hangs out for a bit. Once the less-than-200-miles-from-African sun starts to descend a bit, then the people come out in droves. Especially from Thursday - Sunday, there are people on the streets until the small hours of the morning. Last weekend I had to go back to the house by midnight for a phone date with my beau, and the people I was with were disappointed it was so early.
     I don't know how they do it, these Spaniards! They go on no sleep and they have so much time between meals. Breakfast is usually strong coffee with toasted bread, scrubbed with a tomato, drizzled with incredible olive oil, and sprinkled with salt, possibly accompanied by a cigarette. That's right when they get up. Then they wait until 1, 2, sometimes 3 before they even have lunch! Lunch is usually a few courses: gazpacho or salad, followed by pork, chicken, or fish with some kind of side dish. Dinner is a late and casual affair, between 9 and 10. Tapas are a very popular dinner. Some serrano ham with machego cheese, olives, sausages with little pieces of bread... You get the idea. And it's all really delicious. But I have to confess, I am American through and through when it comes to my meal plans. I'd rather have five tapas throughout the day than go so long sans food. When being hungry combines with the heat and the thirst produced by said heat, it's enough to turn me into a cave troll for most of the afternoon. The only surefire cure is ice cream :) Which, luckily for me, is very popular and extremely delicious.
     With all the carbs and all the amazing sweets, I do not understand how Spanish women stay so slim. Seriously, most of the women here look like they just walked off the pages of a magazine. They don't generally wear too much makeup. Long hair, skinny skinny jeans, heels, long necklaces. Even during the summer the women in Madrid often wore a blazer or a short leather jacket. In Granada fashion is slightly more relaxed. You can't really wear heels, unless you want them to get caught in the cobblestones that make up most of the streets, and you can't wear a jacket because, well, you would probably get heat stroke and die. You can, however, wear super cute and comfy harem pants (which I happen to be wearing at this very moment), interesting leather sandals, and wonderfully breezey dresses. I have not seen a pair of sweatpants or little booty shorts that read "juicy" on the buttcheeks in like a week and a half, and that's pretty wunderbar.
     So... that's Spain, in a very small nutshell; like a sunflower seed shell. There is much more to say but, like my meals, I prefer to keep things short and sweet. There will be more entries on my adventures thus far in Madrid, Toledo, and Granada, but not today. Today's siesta is over and I'm happy to have spent it writing. Everybody stay cool out there.

Happy adventuring!
*Olivia

 "Dale limosna, mujere, que no hay en la vida nada como la pena de ser ciego en Granada."

"Give alms, woman, that there is nothing worse in life than being blind in Granada."

- Francisco de Icaza

¡Olé!

My dear friends,

      Here I sit, contemplating my next adventure in España (among other places)! Crazy enough, I leave in only two days. Monday evening will find me leaving my home, saying goodbye to my love, and vaulting thousands of feet into the troposphere. This time, as with Costa Rica, it is masquerading as an educational venture, though I think you and I both know better. Tough life, right? I have to go to Spain in order to finish collecting the credits I need in order to become a teacher. Not sure what classes I'll be assigned, but my top picks are Islamic Culture in Spain, Spanish Literature, Spanish History, Spanish Civilization and Culture, and History of Spanish Art. The five week program takes place in the southeastern city of Granada, where the Islamic influence is particularly strong. Apparently you can find this influence reflected in the architecture, the abundant markets, the food, even the language. For instance (fun fact you can pull out at parties to impress people), every word in the Spanish language that begins with "al" is from Arabic. Like almohada (pillow), or albahaca (basil.) This is just the general impression I've gathered from the research I've done. I hope to get a much better understanding of the cultural mix very soon!

The Alhambra. So pretty...

      As always, it is particularly difficult to leave that boy I'm so terribly fond of. This time, however, it will be ME who meets him at the airport, instead of the other way around. A month from now, he will be arriving at the Granada airport, to spend a glorious three weeks with me, galavanting through places new and exciting. Before that, I will be in Madrid (with a stop in Toledo) for a four day orientation, Sevilla for a weekend, and Cadiz for a weekend to visit an old friend. Once my love has joined me we will go to Tangier, Morocco! It seems like a   really cool, unusual place - I only wish we had more time there. Once I finish my last week of school we take a night train up to Barcelona. The train has individual cabins with beds and bathrooms and everything! Worth every penny. After six days in that - hopefully - magnificent city, it's on to Heidelberg, where we spend three-ish days wandering around and eating bratwurst. All reports say it is an extremely beautiful place. I gather the old ruined castle has a garden that's open at night, which is supposed to be quite lovely and romantic (puke.) When the three days are up, we take the train through the countryside to Amsterdam! I've always been very drawn to that city, and now I will have my chance to explore it for five days! And then it's home.

      Lots of things to get excited for. And lots of things to pack, and carefully! Women in Spain are apparently ridiculously well dressed, which means I can't fall back on jeans and t shirts. Obviously I will not fit it, but I'd rather not be too overtly gringa. I think all my papers are in order, however, and all my tickets are printed. I was hoping to have this weekend to just hang out, sleep, relax... I scoff at the hope! This weekend is the 48 hour film festival, which means long days and almost no sleep. Since I'm participating only peripherally I have given myself permission to go home and sleep tonight, since beginning a journey of this magnitude already exhausted seems like a bad idea. It seems, then, that Monday is my partial day of relaxation, before I tearily hop aboard the plane that will carry me 3,500 miles away. I never thought I could dread a thing as much as the security checkpoint; the moment when I have to turn around and walk away. Adventures await, certainly, but there's always that part of me that wonders where he is and what he's doing. But the adventures must be had by someone, and I cannot be sad that the adventuring falls to me.

So, until we meet again, happy adventuring!
*Olivia

"There are two sorts of romantics: those who love, and those who love the adventure of loving."

- Lesley Blanch

¡Manuel Antonio!

My dear friends,

I kind of suck at keeping up with this whole blog business. Therefore, I will write a few catch-ups, and hopefully that will count for having documented my time here in Costa Rica.

Before coming to Costa Rica, I had thought about planning all my weekend travel in advance, to ensure that I could do what I was interested in without outside input. Upon consideration, however, I thought it might be smart to wait until I got here, to see what sort of travel secrets I might uncover. Turns out, I was right to do so! Originally I wanted to spend my first weekend in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, a really chill-sounding town on the Caribbean coast. The eastern coast is where the African ex-slaves settled after working on the banana and coffee plantations as free laborers. So I thought the mix of cultures would be fascinating, and I loved the idea of kayaking through the coastal mangrove swamps. This, however, was not in the cards for me (this time, at least.) Puerto Viejo is about six hours away from San José, and with my limited amount of time on the weekends and the danger of third world countries after the sun sets, I decided to search for closer, if not greener, pastures.

For my first weekend my wonderful host family, consisting of my mamita, Flory and my hermanita, Michelle, invited me to go with them to a place called Manuel Antonio, a national park that is well known for its beaches. Then I found out it was a "gay paradise", and I was in! I was flattered that they liked me well enough to want to spend the weekend with me. On Friday afternoon, I left early from class and we took a four hour bus through the mountains, the farmland, along the coast, to the village of Manuel Antonio. The first night we met an awesome Colombian woman named Jovvana (Yoh-ah-nah), who has since become my tía (aunt) Jovvana in my Costa Rican family. She joined us on our adventures!

Interestingly, the entry fee for gringos into the national park is way more expensive than it is for nationals. Flory tried to get me in as her daughter, but alas, my pasty whiteness gave me away... The walk from the entrance of Manuel Antonio led us through the forest, where I saw capucin monkeys for the first time (they´re like the monkey in "Pirates of the Caribbean"), a wee green frog, a snake with a cream-colored belly and an emerald green back, some bats, lots of racoons, and some SLOTHS. Kill me now. Sloths in life are just as horrific as they are on the National Geographic shows. The monkeys are cute though :)

Manuel Antonio has three beaches within the national park, with the third being by far the most spectacular. Don´t get me wrong, the other two are also lovely, but the third one has the animals, the white sand, and more places to explore! The presence of wildlife has its price though - we had to fend off a gang of monkeys, who get rather aggressive when they want your food. One of them stole a small packet of cream-filled cookie sandwiches from another group, then ran up into a tree to eat them in peace. He pulled out each cookie, one by one, then pried the cookies apart, licked off the cream, then dropped the cream-free cookies onto the man sitting beneath the tree. The guy´s face was priceless when he realized with this cookie rain was coming from...

That night, after a day of swimming in water the temperature of bathwater and watching monkeys cavort in the almond trees lining the beach, we went out to the public beach to watch the sun go down. It was quick, because of Costa Rica´s proximity to the equator, but very beautiful. The next day, given the ruby red status of my skin, I opted to stay in the shade during the few hours we spent at the beach. We took the bus back to San José in the afternoon, and that was the end of my first weekend in Costa Rica... or so I thought. I woke up around midnight, feeling like I was going to die, or at least puke up all my internal organs. But one day of yuckiness and the loss of the pinkness in my hair in exchange for a weekend at a national park? I´ll take that trade any day.

Things I learned: 

1. Those birds gracefully wheeling through the sky are not hawks - they are vultures.

2. Salt water is the enemy of unnatural hair colors. My streaky pinkness VANISHED during my day in the sea.

3. Probably not news to anyone, but the sun close to the equator? It´s hot! And carrying a backpack on sunburned skin is nobody´s idea of a good time.

4.  I wouldn´t mind if sloths were an endangered species.

Oh and 5. Costa Rica is awesome.

Happy adventuring!

*Olivia

Travel blurb for Framingham State University..

My dear friends,

I got an email from the Chair of Modern Languages (who was also one of my teachers last semester), asking me if I would write a paragraph about my experience in Costa Rica. I assume it´s because they want to get people excited about languages, travel; all that good stuff. Anyway, this is what I wrote:

Mark Twain once wrote: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn´t do than by the ones you did do. So cast off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” It is because of this very sentiment that I chose to spend the month of January in Costa Rica, studying Latin American literature. I am currently enrolled in the PBTL program through the DGCE program to become a high school Spanish teacher, and I am using this course to help fulfill a requirement. I feel so lucky that I was able to have this wonderful experience - Costa Rica is a beautiful land of contrasts, and a living testament to the incredible majesty of the planet we inhabit. In my short time here I have seen everything from volcanoes to cloud forests, but the best part about this adventure has been getting to know the people in this tiny country. The phrase used here is ¡Pura vida!, which means “pure life”, and it really is. Through my time here, I have grown as a person, and for that I will be forever grateful. The opportunity to study and travel abroad has immeasurable benefits and should not be missed, even if you´re not studying another language. Exposure to other countries and cultures gives you such great perspective and transforms you more than anything else.

Happy adventuring and ¡Pura vida!

*Olivia

Pura Vida!

My dear friends,

2400 miles and a million worlds away from dear old Boston lies the magical land of Costa Rica; a country where fresh papaya in the middle of winter is a matter of course and the only tool you need for yard work is a machete.  The buildings are a little crumbly, the insects are scary, and there aren’t “rules” of the road so much as “suggestions”.  The people are warm and loving with their friends and families (including temporarily adopted members, like myself), the food is fresh and delicious, and the variety of biodiversity is enough to send you reeling.  The Spanish is also beautiful here, though they do have a tendency to abbreviate words, like saying “la u” instead of “la Universidad”.  

My school, Conversa, is situated on top of a hill in a compound that used to be a dairy farm, accessed  by ascending a winding dirt road that is bordered on either side by jungle and a drop of a few feet.  I found myself thinking on the first day that the roads would be impossible in the winter… before remembering that, of course, snow has never made an appearance here.  This is the tropics, after all.  The campus is surrounded by bougainvillea, coffee plants, banana trees, tropical pines, mandarin trees, palms, bamboo, and a vast array of other flora that I couldn’t hope to identify.  Across the valley from Conversa are a few scattered homes, along with some horses and cows.   Totally normal here, as are the street and pet dogs that wander the streets. 

The student body here is varied and appears to be constantly changing.  For example, on my first day there were only five students, including me.  But then things took a turn for the worst when about 20 students (from Massachusetts, ironically) arrived.  To give you an example of their group dynamic, their conversation on the bus ride back to the town center after the first day of classes consisted of their plans for that night.  It was a tough decision: do they go to the local gringo bar, Amigo, or do they go to… Applebee’s?  Applebee’s won out, apparently.  Through their excessive loudness and their near-mockery of the Costa Rican culture and language, they represent all that is bad about America. 

Not to be a total bitch, but I am the opposite, and I am very thankful for that.  On my fifth day here, I am still constantly amazed by my incredible surroundings.  I took a break from writing a few minutes ago and went up to the comedor (dining room) to get some delicious coffee, and on the way back I found this enormous caterpillar!  It was longer than my pinkie and its back was covered with long, thick hairs that looked almost like spines.  I read that there are venomous caterpillars here, so I kept my distance; much like I kept my distance from a Yellow Crab Spider I saw yesterday.  It looked like something out of a nightmare!  And I certainly checked my bed last night before crawling in.  This is a nice evening ritual to complement my morning ritual of checking my shoes for scorpions.

This weekend I am bound for Manuel Antonio National Park with my fabulous host family (my mamita, Flory, and my hermanita, Michele.)  It’s on the Pacific coast and well known for having magnificent beaches, most of which are also populated with white-faced monkeys, like the kind in “Pirates of the Caribbean”.  I plan on trying fresh ceviche, swimming in bath-warm water, and going exploring.  I can’t wait!  

As wonderful as this adventure has been, however, it would be a gagillion times better if my love was here to share it with me.  But I’ve got five days behind me, and lots of things to do in the days that remain.  Happy adventuring!

*Olivia