Fuheb in Marrakesh

This past weekend I visited Marrakesh, Morocco.  It was a relatively short trip but quite exhausting.  I traveled with one of my friends, Lauren, and we saw basically everything Marrakesh had to offer.  We arrived Thursday night and took a cab from the airport to the hotel.  Our first taste of Moroccan culture was when the taxi driver asked me how much I Lauren cost.  Still not sure if he was serious but Lauren was angry because I said I would sell her to him for $500 haha.  Our hotel was a 2 minute walk from the main plaza(Plaza Jemaa El Fna) and across the street from one of the largest mosques in Marrakesh(La Koutoubia).  Our room was small but it had air conditioning that saved us each night.

We definitely got a full dose of Moroccan culture our first day.  After our breakfast, which was served on the hotel's terrace, which looked over at the mosque across the street, we headed out into the “souks”.  These are the stereotypical Moroccan vendors that are in a maze of alleys.  We spent 4 hours lost in this area getting harassed by every vendor we walked past.  This got fairly annoying after a while and by the end of those 4 hours I just wanted some peace and quiet.  We took a quick break at the hotel and then proceeded to see every possible sight in Marrakesh.  We saw tons of palaces and mosques, each quite distinct.  There are a bunch of pictures of each place that I’ve put at the end of the post.  This tour of Marrakesh took another couple hours but we were able to see the Royal Palace, Palace Badi, Palaca Bahia, Madersa Ben Yousseff, and the Museum of Marrakesh.  By the end of that I was tired, dusty, and in need of a good shower.

         So after a shower and some time chilling out in our room with the AC on max we headed back out to the main plaza for dinner.  By day the main plaza is packed with women doing henna, snake charmers, fruit stands, and all sorts of crazy people trying to earn some money, but by night the whole plaza transformers into street vendors selling typical Moroccan cuisine.  We were able to enjoy chicken tajine, (real) kebap, and Moroccan salad(just cut up tomatoes but still delicious) all for really cheap.

         Our next morning was another early morning but with camels on our mind we were up and out really quick.  The hotel was nice enough to hold our bags while we took our camel tour.  The tour took place 30 minutes outside of Marrakesh in an area called the Palmary, which is basically dry, sandy ground with palm trees all over the place.  I received the Moroccan name "Fuheb" from our guide, thus becoming a true Moroccan and able to ride camels.  Not quite the desert and dunes we were expecting but still a really cool place to see.  Following the tour we had a couple hours to kill before getting on the plane so we hung out at a park and grabbed some lunch on the plaza.

         So after about 42 hours in Marrakesh I was ready to go home to the peacefulness of Valencia, my home away from home.

P.S.  I will be on my eurotrip of Dusseldorf, Amsterdam, London, and Dublin for the next 11 days. So expect a large post in the beginning of May.

Marrakech Airport

Breakfast on the terrace with La Koutoubia behind me

Main plaza (Plaza Jemaa El Fna)

Souks

Got to have a picture with a snake

more souks

Souk store filled with more things than you can possibly imagine

Hotel lobby

La Koutoubia

Royal Palace in the background

"Wash Me" in arabic

Inside the Royal Palace

View of Marrakech

Palace Bahia

Student quarters in Madersa Ben Youssef

Museum of Marrakesh

Carpets were everywhere

Teatime on the terrace

Our great cook

My purchased Moroccan prince outfit

Camels!

Did you ever think we were going to be here?

   That was the question I hwas asking myself during the last week.  My long time friend from Barrington, Zach Youman, and I spent about a week together visiting each other in our host countries.  First he visited me in Valencia and we had a great time around the city and at the beach.  Other than the usual sights that Valencia offers we were able to experience a great wine testing festival.  It was so good we had to go two nights in a row.  Not only was the wine delicious, but there were a number of stalls where we could use our purchased tickets in exchange for tapas.  We were able to sample different types of ham, cheeses, and pate.  Definitely a great way for Zach to experience Spanish culture.  As a added bonus we got free shots of a liquor called "anis".  This is a very strong liquor with a black licorice taste.  In my opinion one of the worst liquors I have ever drank, but since we were able to get free shots we frequented that stand a couple times.  Overall we had great weather in Valencia and we went to the beach everyday, despite Zach being a bit burnt and walking around like a total tourist.

Wine and tapas at the wine festival

Wine festival

Zach in the tourist costume

London
    So after only about a day and a half break from each other I traveled to London.  This was my first travel experience out of Spain while studying abroad but, more importantly, my first experience with Ryanair.  Let's just say it could have been worst.  If anyone has ever seen Soul Plane, Ryanair is exactly like the economy class on the plane, complete craziness.  Lucky both flights I was really tired so I was able to sleep through most of the flight.  Once arriving in Stansted airport, which is one hour by bus to downtown London, I patiently waited for my bus.  I was the first one on and I choose a single seat right in the front.  This ride was interesting because the bus driver looked like a short, fat Wolverine and he could not stay in his line even if his life depended on it.  All the while this was happening when driving on the "wrong" side of the road so needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed.  Got off the bus, hailed a cab (cabs in London are HUGE), and quickly realized that every 6 seconds the meter went up 20 pence. I counted a couple times because I was totally dumbfounded that this was seriously happening.  So a 15 minute taxi ride through the richest part of London cost me 18.60 pounds (over $30).  I realized that my bank account was going to suffer during this trip.  I arrived at Zach's residence hall and spent the night on a bed in the middle of Zach's mini dorm room.
    The next was we visited the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Green Park, Buckingham Palace, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Tower of London, and London Bridge.  Quite a list for 5 hours, definitely deserved that fine English ale after that day.  Zach lived in Chelsea, the richest part in London, and all the pictures of me with the cars are only a few of the awesome cars I saw.  So my list is as follows:  5 Aston Martins, 3 Maserati, 2 Bentleys, 2 Rolls Royce.  This doesn't include all the Audis, BMWs, and Mercedes I saw.
    The next day we visited Oxford Circus and Primark.  This was another interesting day because I have not seen that many people on a sidewalk since Fallas, and London is packed like that every weekend.  We literally had a standstill on the sidewalk for about 15 minutes.  Primark is the craziest store I have ever seen.  It's two stories maybe twice the size of Rock and Roll McDonalds, but there had to be at least 300 people in there.  Primark is so popular because it sells cheap clothes for cheap.  Some of my purchases included a Baywatch shirt, "Ice ice baby"shirt, and a cool pair of euro shoes.  Following Primark we headed to an ATM to help replenish my cash but with no success.  5 ATMs later I gave up and had to use some of the emergency money I brought with me (Thanks mom and dad for that suggestion).
    That night was Zach's last night in Europe so we decided to go all out and luckily a world renowned club was having a concert of a really popular european DJ, Laidback Luke.  It was probably one of the best clubs I have ever been to, I am definitely going to have to go there again some time.  With no sleep I headed back to the airport, got jerked around by security, had to deal with Ryaniar, and got home to my mini bed which at the time was incredibly comfortable.
  The theme of the week still stands because when Zach and I met back in 4th grade we never thought we would be going to a wine festival in Spain or having fish and chips at an English pub.  It's too bad it ended that early for you Zach, but don't worry I will still enjoy Europe while I can haha.

Porsche 911 SC Targa

Bentley

No biggie just another Maserati

The Charlie Chaplin mime was giving me some attitude

Parliament and Big Ben

Sagunto

   A couple weekends ago I went with the Erasmus group to a small city 30 minutes north of Valencia to check out the sights.  Sagunto is an old city, older than Valencia, known for its Roman heritage.  It wasn't visible at first but during our walk through the city we saw a lot of Roman influence.  Our first stop was at a museum that held many artifacts of the Roman culture such as statues and sculptures.  We then went to a big Roman theater.  It was probably the biggest theater I have ever seen.  Most of the theater had been reconstructed, probably to allow plays to be shown during the year, but there were still places where we could see the natural rock seats.  Behind the theater and up a small hill was a large Roman fort.  We didn't get to see much of the fort because only 5% has been uncovered.  I don't really believe our guides on that one, maybe some sort of translation error.  Regardless, a couple friends and I split from the group to explore more of the fort and we found a whole other section of the fort.  We were able to get some great pictures of the fort from there.

   The rest of the day was mainly spent at the beach, which turned out to be really cold but it was still nice to relax.  Right before heading home we got some gelato, which was a great way to end the trip.

Main plaza of Sagunto with fort in the background

Roman theater

Sagunto's Roman fort

City of Sagunto