Paris

Thursday, April 9- Monday April 13 I was in Paris!! I met up with my cousin, Katie, at hour hostel. She is studying in Italy right now. The entire weekend we were like “we met up in Paris for the weekend!! Crazy!” On Friday, we did a free tour in the morning. Then in the afternoon we went in the Notre Dame. Friday night we went to the Louvre. Apparently we missed getting in for free by one week. They just changed it so that 18-26 year olds from Europe only got in free. How dumb. Oh well, I saw the Mona Lisa and some other famous stuff. It’s the biggest museum in the world. Saturday, we came back the Notre Dame to go up. We saw the gargoyles and the bell tower. Then we went to the Eifel Tower. The lines are forever long, but we made it. We went up the tower. There are so many people in that thing!! It was my favorite part of the trip!! I took so many pictures of it!! Haha. Sunday, we tried to go the catacombs but it was closed for Easter. Makes sense, but everything was closed for Easter!! We spent the day in the park: watching runners go by while we ate our lunch, watching kids sail their boats on the pond, and watching tennis matches. Later that night we walked around the Montmartre district, famous for the Moulin Rouge, artistic district, and the Sacre Coure (a white cathedral on the highest part of the city). At the Sacre Coure there was a band playing music (American of course). We watched that for awhile. He was pretty good. On Monday, Katie left right away. I had time to kill, so I went to see the Eifel tower again, and found the mini-Statue of Liberty. I totally recommend Paris!! Amazing city. (BTW I had a nearly lost voice during the entire trip)

Semana Santa

Tuesday, April 7 and Wednesday, April 8 I was in Granada. Well it was Semana Santa (Holy Week). In Spain, it is a BIG deal. There are processions all week starting on Palm Sunday to Easter. Brotherhoods from churches around the city each had their own procession. It consisted of people wearing Ku Klux Klan outfits, women wearing all black, people carrying crosses, a band, little kids keeping the candles lit, and other people that I have no idea what they did. Then there was the big part of the procession: THE FLOATS!! Some had two floats, others one. Each float represented something. Usually according to the day, a float matched what happened to Jesus. Like on Palm Sunday there was one with Jesus riding a donkey. But of course this originated as a Catholic festival so the Virgin Mary is the big thing. Her floats were always grand with tons of candles. People would yell “Viva la Virgin” (long live the virgin) and “guapa” (hey good-looking). People would carry the floats on their backs from like 4pm-1am approximately. And they would move to the beat of the band. There was a person that led the floats with a knocker. To tell them when there were stairs, or when to turn, etc. The streets of Granada were packed though. It was crazy!! So many people. It definitely beat Tulip Festival.

Morocco!!!

Hey Everyone!! Sorry it has been so long. It has been a crazy Spring Break!! I loved it. I have 3 new blogs about the different sections of my Spring Break. Hope that Easter treated everyone well!!
Well on Thursday, April 2 we left for Algeciras. It is a coastal town of Spain. This is where we met our tour guides for Morocco.
On Friday we took a ferry to Africa. Yeah we are that close to Africa!! We came into the port of Tanger. The first thing we did was go to the open-air market. We picked up some snacks for the trip. Then we went to a center that helps single women. There we met up with some students studying English. We were able to ask them questions about their lives and Morocco. A couple interesting things are: to come as a missionary to Morocco is illegal and punishable; it is illegal for Moroccans to talk bad about God, the king, and the country; for a Moroccan to leave the country it is nearly impossible, it might cost them 400 euro (about $600) to just get a VISA to leave their own country not including a VISA to get into another country and travel expenses; they have 2 national languages Arabic and French, however, the Arabic that they speak and write are different. I learned some Moroccan Arabic. Shukran=thank you, b’slammah=good-bye, salum uualikum=hello. Then we got to ride CAMELS!!! They are awesome. The best part of the trip, for sure!! We then went to Rabat and met our host families. They were so nice. How they eat: there is a bowl with meatballs, potatoes, etc in the center and you take pieces of your bread and grab it out of the bowl.
Saturday, we did some touring of ruins in the morning. We ate with our host families for lunch. In the afternoon we met up with some kids how are studying English and they showed us around the town of Rabat. What they do for fun and stuff. We went to a pool bar and played pool. Later that afternoon, a girl from Full-Bright Scholar doing a study on abortion in Morocco and a Peace Corp guy from Morocco told us about what they do there. Then we went to a Hammam. It is a public bath that they go to at least once a week. It’s interesting that is for sure.
Sunday, we went to a small village and talked (through a translator of course) to the people there. It was way up in the mountains and had a beautiful view. Then that night we went to Chefchaouen. It is a town in the middle of the mountains. Pretty touristy. I ate SNAILS!! They are actually pretty good, but you can see their little eyes and mouths, a little creepy when you are going to eat them.
Monday, we left to go to Ceuta, a Spanish city in Africa. We had to walk across the border. We literally had to push-and-shove our way to the front of the line to cross. It took almost 2hrs!! It was awful, but because we were Americans we actually made it through fast!! I can’t imagine waiting that long and then being denied to cross and then coming back the next day to do it again.