Free to Look

Shopping is fun, and I will admit that I almost every trip I take contains some shopping component, but Marrakesh took the shopping experience to a whole new level. In the souks, or local markets, shopping is an interactive, high-inducing, emotional roller-coster. Really, I have never done anything like it. First, you have to be able to picture the scene: narrow back alleys that refuse to go in a straight line. Lines of small shops filled to the brim with bright colors and air wafting the exotic scent of incense while people, motorcycles, and donkey-draw carts fight for space in the narrow streets. The people around speak Arabic, French, Spanish, English, German, and surely more. As you walk by the shop owners call out greetings in all languages in the hopes of catching your eye and ushering you into their shop. This madness goes on indefinitely and a foreigner could wander the twisting streets for hours without ever emerging. It is truly other world.

Friday afternoon I got my first taste of the souks and Saturday afternoon two friends and I plunged into an unknown alley to begin our shopping earnest. There are several different types of shops. There are the shoes shops that sell the Aladdin-like pointy-toed slippers as well as some many other leather slippers and sandals. Then there are the wooden-goods stores with jewelry boxes, small figurines, and beautiful bowls. Jewelry was also very popular. Some was delicate silver earrings and bracelets while other shops featured heavier, stone necklaces that the shop keepers said were from the Berber tribes of Africa. My favorite were the textile shops - endless amounts of pashmina scarves, bedspread, kaftan shirts, and more. The colors were incredible.

Souk shopping is exciting because you have to bargain for what you want. To not bargain is an insult. Now, I have never bargained before and I was more than a little nervous about it, but I had read a lot on the Lonely Planet message boards and was armed with some useful tips. In case you're headed to Morocco anytime soon, here they are: 1. Since you're a foreigner, seller inflate prices ridiculously. Begin bargaining with 1/3 of the asking price. 2. Don't get angry and be rude. Bargaining is part of the buying process and shop keepers take kindly to those who seem to be having fun. 3. Never offer a price if you're not willing to buy at that price. It's incredibly bad etiquette to name a price and then decide you don't really want it. 4. The sellers will never go below a price they are willing to pay, so if they're not budging just walk away.

It took me a little while to warm up, but pretty soon I was bargaining all over the place. I am SURE I got cheated, but everything was still pretty cheap and I honestly cannot remember an afternoon that was more fun. As my friends and I walked past the different shops, the men tried all sorts of tactics to make us try and stop. My personal favorite was the one who yelled "ugly girl, ugly girl - look over here!" Needless to say, I didn't look. Another good one was "free to look." The shop owners would come up to us in the middle of the street and remind us that it was free to look, wouldn't we just take a peek to make them happy? When I was interested I would wander into a shop, answer the owner's greeting, and insist I didn't want help (smiling the whole time). The men were not so easily persuaded, however, and if they saw me eyeing a shirt they would pull it off the hanger and try to put it on me. The first time this happened, I vehemently said no and skedaddled, but after a few stores I realized this was just the way it worked and did try on a few things. I always tried to ask how much something cost before trying it on, but the men would just say that it was a "democratic price" and ignore me. After I tried it on and decided I liked it, they would finally, finally list a price. Of course, it was ridiculously high. I would laugh and give a ridiculously low price. (At least, I thought it was ridiculously low - I never was quite sure of the value of anything). I'd go up a little and then just keep saying that price. They'd come down a little, I'd go up a little more (I always ended up giving in before they did) and then if they still didn't like it I'd begin to walk away. That's when they would call after me, I'd return and we'd settle on something we were both happy with. The whole thing really was a rush, although, like I said, I'm sure they still cheated me.

There were some negative experiences (one guy got really, really angry and wouldn't let me friend go when she decided she didn't want something) but there were also some really positive ones. We went around a corner and these three guys thought it would be really funny to wrap scarves around us in the Berber style. At first we were terrified, but I think they meant well and it was all in good fun (nothing got stolen and they didn't make us buy anything). There was also a guy who wrote our names in Arabic and another who professed his love for us. By the end of the day I was exhausted and my wallet was a lot lighter, but it was an awesome afternoon.

Marrakesh, Morocco!

Today's story is that of last weekend's journey to Marrakesh, Morocco! I realize that this blog is supposed to be about Madrid and I have, in fact, rarely talked about the beautiful city I live in, but I promise to do better after this post. It's just that my travels are so exciting that I can't help but talk about them. It will be easier to do better in the future because I don't have any more trips planned until I head to Greece (woo-hoo!) at the end of December...

Ok, first of all, Morocco was exciting because it was AFRICA. Of course, it's not at all like sub-Saharan Africa, but it still counts. That means I have now been on three different continents! My flight left ridiculously early in the morning (6:25). In order to save myself the (financial) pain of taking a taxi by myself to the airport, my friend AJ stayed the night in my house and we split the cab at 4:30 AM. Oh the joys of budget travel. The flight was uneventful, but when we landed in Marrakesh it was clear we were no longer in Europe. It was HOT. Every day the temperature was well about 80 and it was a bit of a shock to my system after the mildness (we're still hovering around 50 and 60) of Madrid. It turned out to be more of a process than expected to get through customs. Since we were Americans (oh yeah, the "we" mentioned periodically is me and the 15 other people I traveled with. Everyone was scared to go to Africa without a big group, but it turns out we needn't have worried) we had to get some weird extra stamp - I think it stated that we were healthy and fever free. They knew this because we had to walk by a heat-detecting machine! Cool, huh? Then we had to go through customs itself. There was another form and another stamp and then we were through! I was pretty excited about the new stamp in my passport! The next step was to exchange our money. Morocco uses the dirham (which some of my friends insisted on calling "dinghys" all weekend). 10 dirham is roughly equal to 1 Euro (and 1 Euro is equal to 1.5 dollars). My mind spent the whole weekend translating dirham to Euros to dollars so that I could actually figure out what I was paying for something and I kept getting so confused. It's really startling when someone asks you for 200 dirham because first you think that's outrageous and then you think "oh, that's not bad, it's only 20 bucks" and then you have to correct yourself and say "oh, no, it's $30". By then end, I was happy to return to just making one conversion in my head.

After the money nonsense we headed by bus to the hostel. The hostel is not really accessible by car (!) so we got off the bus on the edge of the medina, or main square. At 8 in morning it wasn't very busy but tons of dried fruit stands and orange juice stands were already in business. The snake charmers and men with performing monkeys were also getting going! I actually couldn't believe the directions to our hostel. They said things like: at the big open space, take a left. Follow the alley until the blue door and then turn right...Surprisingly enough, we made it without a problem although there was a very persistent Moroccan man who wanted to take us there (and then get tipped) and we had to actually yell at him and he still followed us to hostel. The hostel was beautiful, though. In Morocco if you don't stay in a really nice hotel you'll probably stay in a converted Moroccan home. Ours had a pretty tiled courtyard and rooms with pointed arches and pillows on the floor. Plus, the free breakfast on the rooftop terrace was delicious!

After dropping our stuff, we hit the ground running and got back on the bus to go for camel rides. It was really, really cool even though it was completely touristy. The bus dropped us off on the side of the highway and there were men waiting with camels. We bargained the price down to 60 dirham (it started somewhere in the 300s) and the men had the camels kneel down and then helped us climb aboard. It was two people to a camel and we were on a boxey saddle that had a big metal loop in front that we could hold for balance. Although some people were hesitant at first (camels really are very large), in the end everyone decided to give it a try. My favorite part was when the camel stood up because there was this tremendous lurch and then you were several feet off the ground! The men running the organization were really nice and kept asking for our cameras. At first we were hesitant, but they just really, really loved to take pictures and I have some nice documentation of my time on a camel thanks to them. I also have to mention the baby camel who was possibly the cutest animal I have ever seen. Its feet were hobbled so it couldn't run away, but as we began our trek around the "park" (aka wasteland) it hobbled after the group in the most adorable manner imaginable. It clearly did not want mama to get too far away. We rode for about 20 minutes and then had the exciting lurch back to the ground. It was agreed all around that camels had been an excellent idea (and I have to admit I had been more than a little hesitant at first).

After that was lunch and then our first journey in the souks. I'm getting tired so I will write more fully about the souks in the next post (whoops, so much for the whole no-more-out-of-Madrid promise). What matters here is the dinner we had Friday night. We went to this really touristy and pretty expensive (the source of some tension, but we did get through it) restaurant. If you've ever eaten in "Morocco" in Disney's Epcot, you've basically been to this restaurant. All the walls were tiled, there were candles and rose petals on the table, and half of the chairs were couches. As we dined our way through an incredible five course meal we were treated to traditional Moroccan music, singing, and dancing. The dinner lasted well over 2 hours and it was an experience. We had this "salad" that was really a bunch of different cooked vegetables (no eating raw veggies because the water there can make you sick), fresh sweet bread, couscous, a chicken tangine (a stew-like dish), mint tea (a Moroccan specialty made with endless amounts of sugar), and dessert. I'm really glad we went, but it was sort of poor timing on our part because we had gotten up at 4AM to get to Morocco and the dinner didn't end until almost 11 so most of us were fading at the end. I believe a few people actually fell asleep on the couches, but, hey, what can you do? And all this was only the first day!

A weekend of culture!

I am so behind! I always mean to post about everything, but then somehow two weeks disappear and I have no idea where the time went. Ah well. The story today is that of Barcelona! I went with the program (which was wonderful because everything was already paid for) over Halloween weekend. We get every Friday off here so we left Friday morning and our directors randomly let us take Monday off so we returned Monday night. It was a fantastic trip and I loved Barcelona. Madrid feels more down to earth and I'm happy to be living here, but Barcelona is a fantastic place to visit.

Part of the reason I enjoyed Barcelona so much was because it made me feel cultured and sophisticated. Through my romps across Spain with Americans from all corners of the country, I have learned that I'm a little lacking on the culture front. My knowledge of art is almost non-existent, I have little to say about music, and when it comes to ordering at a classy restaurant, I usually guess and hope for the best. Though I'd love to believe this is part of my charm, I'm also excited to say that my knowledge on all fronts is improving. Barcelona was particularly helpful in the arts department!

So one of the first things I learned in Spain is that there is this really famous Catalan (from Cataluna, the autonomous community encompassing and surrounding Barcelona) architect named Gaudi and people all over love him for his whimsical and captivating buildings that helped revolutionize architecture. I was particularly fond of his use of the parabola-shaped arch. Anyway, Guadi has a ton of buildings in Barcelona and I think I saw almost all of them. First was Casa Batllo. This house was comissioned by some rich family and Gaudi took his inspiration from the sea. There were tons of blues and greens and all sorts of details that made me think of waves and bubbles and other underwater touches. Next, I saw La Sagrada Familia (aka the Sacred Family). It's Gaudi's cathedral and, although it was started over 100 years ago, it's yet to be finished. Apparently Gaudi went a little crazy towards the end of his life and lived in the construction site that was the church until he died. He'd become such a recluse at the time of his death that no one even realized he was no longer alive until days later. The cathedral was really neat and my friend and I took an elevator way up to the higher levels and got to look out at the city. Then we had to climb this dark, narrow spiral staircase all the way back down. The walk down stressed me out, but the view from the top was worth it. After that (remember this was spread over four days) I went with some friends to La Pedrera, an apartment building Gaudi designed. The coolest thing here was the terrace (fancy rooftop) because there were crazy turrets and designed and, again, the view was incredible. Finally, I went to Park Guell which, as you might guess, is a park designed by Gaudi. My favorite part was the really over-the-top fountain with mosaic chameleon that gaurds the entrance. All in all, I can safely say I left Barcelona Gaudi fan.

Barcelona is not only great for building art, but museum art as well. I visited the Picasso museum (I guess there are a lot, but this has a ton of his stuff). The museum focuses on showing Picasso's development as an artist so it doesn't have so many of his super famous paintings, but a lot of stuff from his early years and all the things he worked on before he got to cubism. I particularly liked his blue and pink periods! See, that just makes me sound cool to be able to say things like that. Weird side note: in the Picasso museum we ran into two girls from Hamilton who aren't in the program, but who just happened to be studying abroad in Europe and in Barcelona for the weekend. So random! I also visted the Salvador Dali museum in Figueras (about 2 hours away from Barcelona). Before visiting the museum I didn't think I was a big fan of Dali, but it turns out he is super cool. The only painting I'd know of his were all the melting clocks, but Dali has some really beautiful paintings of his wife, Gala, that I loved. They're still surrealist, but not quite so random. The museum was probably the neatest museum I've ever been to because it was a converted theater and was filled not only with Dali's painting, but with all his many types of art. If I understood out guide correctly, surrealists take everyday objects and turn them into art. This means that the museum was filled with things like cars that rained and a portrait of Mae Wes made out of furniture. It was unlike anything I've ever seen before, but if you're headed to Barcelona, it's worth making the trip to see this museum!

My weekend of culture finished up with a Spanish Guitar concert in the Palau de Musica. An incredible building (unfortunately not designed by Gaudi), it was filled with mosaic-tiled pillars and lots of color. The guitarrist was increidble and I'm so glad my friends and I waited in line for the 1/2 it took to get tickets.

I can't really think of any kind of clever closing (not that I ever do), but I'll just reiterate that my weekend in Barcelona made me so happy to be in Europe and not in the cold countryside of Hamilton!