I am now officially done with finals, after finishing my last one a few hours ago. Its quite a relief, except for the fact that my grade gauge has been broken since I arrived, in better terms, I have zero idea of how I did in any of my spanish classes. The only grade I recieved I passed, but the remaining three I have recieved zero papers back, zero tests, or any indication that I will not have to retake my finals in the spring. It´s not a feeling I would like to grow accustomed to. Speaking of finals though, there is only one class that deserves a post; yet again my political theory class.
This is the class where I had to write the paper I´ve mentioned a few times. I gave it to my professor two days before I had to meet with him so he could read it over. I lied, I got some feedback on this paper. He was quite impressed with my construction. Since he obviously was not refering to my grammar, I concluded that liked the manner in which I constructed my arguement. After we talked about my paper we then proceeded to do my oral exam on the 750 page book I was required to read. Luckily, I read it. He tested me, and though I knew all the answers, expressing that to him was at times a challenge, but he clearly understood I read the book, thank goodness. I thought that I was off the hook, he let me believe that until we got to class. He then asked me to give my presention on my paper, which I knew I was going to have to do. I wrapped that up in about 10 minutes, when he proceeded to then ask me to give these graduate students a lesson on writing an argumenative paper. He then pulled up me paper on the overhead and made me explain to the class that yes, you actually have to devise your own argument and prove it with others theories. Apparently this is a new research method to these students, as plagarism and regurgitation are normal means of filling words on papers. Finally I was taken off the stand only with enough time for me to get to my seat before he realized "musclos, you are leaving before our debate next month. You need to participate in a debate before you leave". I quickly tried getting out of it, to no avail. He declared that it would be me vs the class, as I was the only one going to be graded. I am literally terrified at this point. How about we talk about, arms control in the US. How about NOT.
I knew that he was choosing this topic in light of recent events that have happened back home. However, I quickly figured out that my classmates, thank goodness, were not aware of these incidents, and the most recent trama they could recall was VT shootings. I wasn´t quite comfortable with talking about the arms control policy, but my job was to defend it, as I was being attacked left and right against it. Though I came up with a few valid arguments, I still pretty uneasy with the topic, simply because I haven´t solidifed my own feelings towards them. Being an American makes Europeans assume that I know quite a bit about our death penalty and arms policy--neither subject am I well versed on, but will look into upon arriving back home. Those are two things that America is known for, that and our lack of healthcare. Those are the topcis I am most frequently asked about as an American, nothing about Bush nor Iraq.
Being here however has made me realize things I really don´t know about home. I´ve learned quite a bit about home from being here, because people ask me questions I simlpy don´t know about America, and am frusterated enough to look them up. Its an uncanny feeling, but I like it at times, as not many people back home would press me for my American prespective. I only have three more days to take advantage of being a foreigner, so out into the streets I´ll go for my final few days.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Paris, enchanté
Paris. I am glad that I decided before I left for Spain that I wanted to spend my longest vacation in Paris, because there is not a chance that I could have seen what I did of Paris in a weekend. We arrived in Paris Thursday night and struggled actually getting out of the airport, as their metro system was a bit overwhelming. Regardless, after a train, metro, and bus, we got to our hotel safe and sound, only to find out how much we really hated travelocity. When we received our boarding passes in the Bilbao airport, travelocity for some reason decided that it would be a gran idea to give Lindsey a child ticket. Being that she´s the oldest of everyone that went (4 of us on the plane) that didn´t work out so well, but luckily the lady at the desk was very understanding after I showed her my proof that yes indeed, I paid for four adult tickets. The hotel was a bit different. We booked a room for three double beds, as there were going to be five of us in the room. Travelocity thought that it would be a fun game to only book us in a room with two single beds. Not happy. Apparently travelocity does this frequently, and the hotel was very understanding, again after I showed them our proof, and gave us two rooms with two singles in each, and told us that they simply wouldn´t clean our room for our time there--perfect, I´d rather someone not go through my stuff anyways. If we had not dealt with such wonderful people, this would have been a big problem, speaking of which, I still need to send my remarks to travelocity.
Enough ripping into them. As it was late, and we were in the outskirts of the city, we decided to call it a night, and have an early morning. We woke up and first stop--Notre Dame. We decided that we wanted to see the city from the top of a building, and since Friday morning was the best weather forecast we had (meaning it was only blustering winds and freezing, no rain) we headed up the stairs to play with the gargoyles. They really are rather endearing creatures, I´ve come to quite enjoy them. I found a few that resembled people I know, so you may or may not be receiving pictures from my trip with you as a gargoyle.
After Notre Dame we decided to head over to the Luxembourg gardens, which were really quite nice. The statues that lined the sidewalks had quite animated expressions, I quite liked them. We finally found a grocery store so that we could buy the weekends breakfast. Our hunt for the grocery store was quite nice actually, minus the pouring rain, as we had to venture INTO Paris to find one. Realizing that we were going to have to bring all our food into the Louvre, which at the time we were debating would be allowed, we purchased only the essentials: granola bars and drinks.
Yet we managed to smuggle these treats into the Louvre without a problem. "It´s just like it looks in that movie about Da Vinci". Yes, there were American´s everyone, and yes, by chance, one of them did put the pieces together that this was indeed the glass prism that was in that movie, with those actors, about that code. We entered directly in through the glass doors, and were taken out of the long line, because guess what, Friday nights are free for students. Perfect, save money, and get more time in the museum. First stop, who else? Mona Lisa here we come. It wasn´t hard to find as any directional sign pointed towards her. After actually seeing her, I am now completely confused about art. What on earth makes this painting one of the worlds most famous pieces? And that painting itself is really quite small. Someone one day will probably give some factual reasoning to why she´s so grand, but I won´t believe them, as I left rather unimpressed. Don´t get me wrong, its a cool painting, but honestly, other pieces within that same room I fancied more. Which says a lot, because out of the literally blocks (as in neighborhood blocks) worth of paintings they could have put in that room, they did not put in ones that made the Mona Lisa stand out. My favorite piece in the whole place was Hammurabi's´s Code, though the inscriptions were rather worn, and my ancient language ability is fluent, I think it said something about an eye for an eye.
The Louvre exhausted me, as artwork normally does, paintings especially really baffle me. Oh well. We jumped on a few metro lines and a bus and return back to the hotel safe and sound.
If it hadn´t been absolutely pouring we would have headed to Versailles, but assumed that the grounds would be far more magnificent in better weather, and thus we remained in the city limits. Aux Champs-Elysées, aux Champs-Elysées, Au soleil, sous la pluie, à midi ou à minuit, Il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs-Elysées. Thank you Madame Carr. I think that my friends officially hated me after signing that every five minutes, I had it in my head all weekend. However, our first stop was indeed the Champs-Elysées. We meet up with one of our friends, who showed us around the area, and as she was raving about this one particular pastry shop, we then decided it would be a shame if we didn´t have a delicious, apparently worldly know, pastry. Sadly however, the smell of pastry shops makes me quite queasy. As me how and I couldn´t tell you for the life of me, as I happened to quite enjoy sugar and sweets, but pastries are a bit much, so though everyone got their delactable treats, I opted to watch them enjoy.
As they were eating their treats we parked ourselves right outside L´Arc de Triomphe. I probably should have known this before, but I was unaware that the Arc houses France´s tomb of the unknown solider. The flame on the site is quite powerful, because neither the tree-toppling winds or the piercing rain could smother it. There wasn´t actually too much to see at the Arc, so we headed out to the Moulin Rouge, a place apparently better suited for college girls during the day. We strolled through the theatre district, and got quite lost looking for the Sacre Coeur, as every time we took out our maps it was a fight against the wind and attempting to block the rain from destroying them was near impossible as well, since the bloody weather broke EVERY SINGLE one of our umbrellas. I guess that means I´ll have less to pack on my way home. After I had a few people endearing laugh at my french, I suppose I can´t blame them as it now as a Spanish accent, we found the Sacre Coeur. A few staircases later we were finally inside. Shelter from the storms at last! This is supposed to be one of the best views in the city, but we literally could not even see the road below us through the rain and fog. Sacre Coeur itself is actually a dedication to the many soldiers lives given in wars beginning in the French Revolution and I believe ending with the Franco-Prussian War. Apparently there was quite the contest in designing the Basilica, as over 75 architects submitted designs. The Basilica is dedicated to the soldiers of WWI. A little fact, the organ that is now in there, one of the largest in the world, was taken from Biarritz, a place I hear is great if you want to pop in and have lunch.
Anyways as we quite enjoyed the warmth the church provided, we realized we ourselves were quite hungry and headed down the hill in search of food. It didn´t take long as we found a place within minutes. That's one of the wonderful things about Paris, is that you find great little places everywhere. I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner, but dessert was the best I have had since I have been in Europe. Homemade ice-cream, hot caramel, in a dessert crêpe, fantastic concoction. So good that I order another.
Our next stop on the agenda was seeing Paris lit up for Christmas, which I know you must be thinking cannot be that hard. However, there are some places more tastefully done than others, and thus that´s where the wind, literally blew us. We saw wonderful lights, and numerous Christmas performances in the window shops were mannequins generally stand guard. Between that and hearing Christmas songs, I have not been able to stop thinking about Christmas, very favorite time of the year. Another wonderful day in Paris.
Sunday´s in Bilbao are a joke: nothing is open. Nothing. Paris on the other hand, was full steam ahead. We headed out to the Bastille, and next to the monument we found a wonderful market. I tested a raspberry, was in heaven, and bought a box of them, which I consumed entirely before we even left the market--at least it was something healthy. We played in the market for quite some time, a bit of a different experience than my Moroccan adventure, but wonderful nonetheless.
We then realized we´d been in Paris for a few days, and everyone had a significant amount of Christmas shopping to do, so we spent a few hours wandering through the Christmas markets being tempted in by wonderful homemade crafts, that we discovered were "Made in China", honestly tell me that was a hand blown ornament one more time and I might believe you, only when you divulge that it was handcrafted by a seven year old. On our voyage through the city, we found a road that looks exactly like a road in Lexington, MA where the Balloon Shop (my grandmother´s toy store) once stood. It was a bit of a déjà vu.
We could not help but stop for crêpes again--it was our last day in Paris. Scrumptious little buggers they are. We enjoyed our crepes and headed for the Musée d'Orsay, my preference of the two art museums. This is the home to the French Impressionists, holding Monet, Renoir, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, pretty much this place is an easy way to drop artistic names. I raced upstairs to Van Gogh, unrealistically hoping that Starry Night would be there. Crushed I was faced with others in the series. Quite far from crushed actually, as I enjoy nearly all of this work, at least the selected pieces I´ve seen. Once we covered the impressionists we noticed that Gaudi was on the map as well. He is a Spanish architect who has quite a few famous constructions in Barcelona. We then meandered over to his room to find furniture. One of his mirrors made it into the Musée d'Orsay, how fitting.
Saving the most monumental for last, I´ll mention this hunk of steel that blinds you at night. We visited the most paid monument in the world, The Eiffle Tower. Apparently Barcelona was out of the loop in the 19th century, because the plan was to have it constructed there for the Universal Exposition of 1888. Maybe they didn´t think it went with Gaudi´s architecture, who knows, but they refused it, and so the plans were sent to Paris. The tower was the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution, in 1889 the year of it´s completion. All of this was news to me. Perhaps I didn´t remember as much about French History as I pretended to before our trip. The elevator ride up was a bit terrifying for me, as I don´t do well with heights or my stomach dropping. The ride was probably as smooth as can be, but my nerves still turned it around enough for me to feel its every movement. We made it up the north tower quite quickly and was at the top just in time for the hourly light show. It sparkles every hour for ten minutes at night. Quite pretty from afar, rather blinding when you´re on it. The bright lights and lack of view killed it for me, and I escaped down the elevator sooner than I probably should have. I´ll be back.
Our numerous metro changes and bus stops allowed us to have quite the recap of our Parisian adventure, one we all concurred was a fantastic way to end the semester. But like I said, I´ll be back.
Enough ripping into them. As it was late, and we were in the outskirts of the city, we decided to call it a night, and have an early morning. We woke up and first stop--Notre Dame. We decided that we wanted to see the city from the top of a building, and since Friday morning was the best weather forecast we had (meaning it was only blustering winds and freezing, no rain) we headed up the stairs to play with the gargoyles. They really are rather endearing creatures, I´ve come to quite enjoy them. I found a few that resembled people I know, so you may or may not be receiving pictures from my trip with you as a gargoyle.
After Notre Dame we decided to head over to the Luxembourg gardens, which were really quite nice. The statues that lined the sidewalks had quite animated expressions, I quite liked them. We finally found a grocery store so that we could buy the weekends breakfast. Our hunt for the grocery store was quite nice actually, minus the pouring rain, as we had to venture INTO Paris to find one. Realizing that we were going to have to bring all our food into the Louvre, which at the time we were debating would be allowed, we purchased only the essentials: granola bars and drinks.
Yet we managed to smuggle these treats into the Louvre without a problem. "It´s just like it looks in that movie about Da Vinci". Yes, there were American´s everyone, and yes, by chance, one of them did put the pieces together that this was indeed the glass prism that was in that movie, with those actors, about that code. We entered directly in through the glass doors, and were taken out of the long line, because guess what, Friday nights are free for students. Perfect, save money, and get more time in the museum. First stop, who else? Mona Lisa here we come. It wasn´t hard to find as any directional sign pointed towards her. After actually seeing her, I am now completely confused about art. What on earth makes this painting one of the worlds most famous pieces? And that painting itself is really quite small. Someone one day will probably give some factual reasoning to why she´s so grand, but I won´t believe them, as I left rather unimpressed. Don´t get me wrong, its a cool painting, but honestly, other pieces within that same room I fancied more. Which says a lot, because out of the literally blocks (as in neighborhood blocks) worth of paintings they could have put in that room, they did not put in ones that made the Mona Lisa stand out. My favorite piece in the whole place was Hammurabi's´s Code, though the inscriptions were rather worn, and my ancient language ability is fluent, I think it said something about an eye for an eye.
The Louvre exhausted me, as artwork normally does, paintings especially really baffle me. Oh well. We jumped on a few metro lines and a bus and return back to the hotel safe and sound.
If it hadn´t been absolutely pouring we would have headed to Versailles, but assumed that the grounds would be far more magnificent in better weather, and thus we remained in the city limits. Aux Champs-Elysées, aux Champs-Elysées, Au soleil, sous la pluie, à midi ou à minuit, Il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs-Elysées. Thank you Madame Carr. I think that my friends officially hated me after signing that every five minutes, I had it in my head all weekend. However, our first stop was indeed the Champs-Elysées. We meet up with one of our friends, who showed us around the area, and as she was raving about this one particular pastry shop, we then decided it would be a shame if we didn´t have a delicious, apparently worldly know, pastry. Sadly however, the smell of pastry shops makes me quite queasy. As me how and I couldn´t tell you for the life of me, as I happened to quite enjoy sugar and sweets, but pastries are a bit much, so though everyone got their delactable treats, I opted to watch them enjoy.
As they were eating their treats we parked ourselves right outside L´Arc de Triomphe. I probably should have known this before, but I was unaware that the Arc houses France´s tomb of the unknown solider. The flame on the site is quite powerful, because neither the tree-toppling winds or the piercing rain could smother it. There wasn´t actually too much to see at the Arc, so we headed out to the Moulin Rouge, a place apparently better suited for college girls during the day. We strolled through the theatre district, and got quite lost looking for the Sacre Coeur, as every time we took out our maps it was a fight against the wind and attempting to block the rain from destroying them was near impossible as well, since the bloody weather broke EVERY SINGLE one of our umbrellas. I guess that means I´ll have less to pack on my way home. After I had a few people endearing laugh at my french, I suppose I can´t blame them as it now as a Spanish accent, we found the Sacre Coeur. A few staircases later we were finally inside. Shelter from the storms at last! This is supposed to be one of the best views in the city, but we literally could not even see the road below us through the rain and fog. Sacre Coeur itself is actually a dedication to the many soldiers lives given in wars beginning in the French Revolution and I believe ending with the Franco-Prussian War. Apparently there was quite the contest in designing the Basilica, as over 75 architects submitted designs. The Basilica is dedicated to the soldiers of WWI. A little fact, the organ that is now in there, one of the largest in the world, was taken from Biarritz, a place I hear is great if you want to pop in and have lunch.
Anyways as we quite enjoyed the warmth the church provided, we realized we ourselves were quite hungry and headed down the hill in search of food. It didn´t take long as we found a place within minutes. That's one of the wonderful things about Paris, is that you find great little places everywhere. I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner, but dessert was the best I have had since I have been in Europe. Homemade ice-cream, hot caramel, in a dessert crêpe, fantastic concoction. So good that I order another.
Our next stop on the agenda was seeing Paris lit up for Christmas, which I know you must be thinking cannot be that hard. However, there are some places more tastefully done than others, and thus that´s where the wind, literally blew us. We saw wonderful lights, and numerous Christmas performances in the window shops were mannequins generally stand guard. Between that and hearing Christmas songs, I have not been able to stop thinking about Christmas, very favorite time of the year. Another wonderful day in Paris.
Sunday´s in Bilbao are a joke: nothing is open. Nothing. Paris on the other hand, was full steam ahead. We headed out to the Bastille, and next to the monument we found a wonderful market. I tested a raspberry, was in heaven, and bought a box of them, which I consumed entirely before we even left the market--at least it was something healthy. We played in the market for quite some time, a bit of a different experience than my Moroccan adventure, but wonderful nonetheless.
We then realized we´d been in Paris for a few days, and everyone had a significant amount of Christmas shopping to do, so we spent a few hours wandering through the Christmas markets being tempted in by wonderful homemade crafts, that we discovered were "Made in China", honestly tell me that was a hand blown ornament one more time and I might believe you, only when you divulge that it was handcrafted by a seven year old. On our voyage through the city, we found a road that looks exactly like a road in Lexington, MA where the Balloon Shop (my grandmother´s toy store) once stood. It was a bit of a déjà vu.
We could not help but stop for crêpes again--it was our last day in Paris. Scrumptious little buggers they are. We enjoyed our crepes and headed for the Musée d'Orsay, my preference of the two art museums. This is the home to the French Impressionists, holding Monet, Renoir, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, pretty much this place is an easy way to drop artistic names. I raced upstairs to Van Gogh, unrealistically hoping that Starry Night would be there. Crushed I was faced with others in the series. Quite far from crushed actually, as I enjoy nearly all of this work, at least the selected pieces I´ve seen. Once we covered the impressionists we noticed that Gaudi was on the map as well. He is a Spanish architect who has quite a few famous constructions in Barcelona. We then meandered over to his room to find furniture. One of his mirrors made it into the Musée d'Orsay, how fitting.
Saving the most monumental for last, I´ll mention this hunk of steel that blinds you at night. We visited the most paid monument in the world, The Eiffle Tower. Apparently Barcelona was out of the loop in the 19th century, because the plan was to have it constructed there for the Universal Exposition of 1888. Maybe they didn´t think it went with Gaudi´s architecture, who knows, but they refused it, and so the plans were sent to Paris. The tower was the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution, in 1889 the year of it´s completion. All of this was news to me. Perhaps I didn´t remember as much about French History as I pretended to before our trip. The elevator ride up was a bit terrifying for me, as I don´t do well with heights or my stomach dropping. The ride was probably as smooth as can be, but my nerves still turned it around enough for me to feel its every movement. We made it up the north tower quite quickly and was at the top just in time for the hourly light show. It sparkles every hour for ten minutes at night. Quite pretty from afar, rather blinding when you´re on it. The bright lights and lack of view killed it for me, and I escaped down the elevator sooner than I probably should have. I´ll be back.
Our numerous metro changes and bus stops allowed us to have quite the recap of our Parisian adventure, one we all concurred was a fantastic way to end the semester. But like I said, I´ll be back.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
It finally hit me.
Today was a pretty significant day for me. I had to get a new metro card today, as my old one ran out of uses. The machine was broken, so I had to talk to the securtiy guard. He walks over to the machine with me, and begins talking to me in English. I didn´t even know adults here could speak English, this was the first I had heard anyone over the age of 30 use English. He was explaining to me why it wasn´t working, then when I asked him a question, he looked utterly perplexed. Long story short, he was speaking in Spanish the whole time, I just happen to understand everything perfectly enough that I just presumed it was in English. I laughed at myself, responded in Spanish, and made it to close just in time after my delay. All in all, it was a pretty good day. Paris por la mañana en la mañana. Ciao. Besos.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Dinner table.
Alright, Mom, my request is that we do not have vingar in any meal for at least the first week that I am home, as I may have had enough of it to last me quite some time. That aside, dinner tonight was the best dinner I´ve had. Not food wise, though that wasn´t bad either, but the family was great. Dani, the youngest, found out today that I wasn´t staying for the year, and that I was leaving in three weeks. He then proceeded to eat dinner on my lap. Mind you, Dani doesn´t talk to me. He´s been scared of me since I arrived, but apparently his bashfulness entirely disappeared and wanted to know when I would be coming back to visit. Then the older one wanted us to do a photo shot--I told him he would need to put a shirt on, and I would have to change out of my sweatpants, so we opted to do one later. I hadn´t realized how much they were going to miss me, as I´ve pretty much felt like a tenant here most of the semester, aside from my señora waiting up until I arrive home at night. That makes me feel like home--just kidding mom and dad.
Though I´m off to Paris for a long weekend, I´ll have a decent amount of time to spend with the kids when I come back, as I won´t have too many classes, and some of my finals are as early as, gulp, a week from tomorrow. I´ll keep this on short, in case anyone is pressed for time, you should read my Morocco blog. Miss you all, and will see you in a few weeks.
Though I´m off to Paris for a long weekend, I´ll have a decent amount of time to spend with the kids when I come back, as I won´t have too many classes, and some of my finals are as early as, gulp, a week from tomorrow. I´ll keep this on short, in case anyone is pressed for time, you should read my Morocco blog. Miss you all, and will see you in a few weeks.
white houses--vanessa carelton
So much for ladies first. That concept is completely foreign to the culture of Casablanca, probably as foreign as the Casablanca culture was to me. Amanda, one of my American friends from Boston, and I traveled to Casablanca, Morocco last Friday. When we arrived at the airport, it was quite easy to get our passports stamped, which was good, because once we arrived, I realized I wouldn´t be making a scene if we hadn´t gotten them stamped. A few things we should have learned how to do before we arrived: cover our heads, not smile, not be offended. We learned to do the latter of the two, but never got the hang of properly tying the scarves over our heads, without looking like we were mocking them, so we went sans scarves for our adventure.
We immediately noticed the overwhelming male population as soon as we left our boarding gate. Men were everywhere, and women, if they existed, were with a man. Immediately we felt out of place, without a male escort. We knew that we had to catch a train to the city, which we could not pay for with a credit card, so we had to take out Durhams, the Moroccan currency. A Durham is about equivalent to 13 American cents, and thus when we had to pay 25 Durhams for a sandwich, it wasn´t too bad.
We then got in line to buy our train tickets. I should rephase that, we got into the flooding mass. Lines honestly, do not exist in Morocco, we didn´t see a single one. Instead we saw mobs, pushing themselves to the front of the "line", which was rather terrifying. Men were allowed, for the most part, to go before any woman, which caused us to miss our train because we couldn´t buy our tickets in time. Which was alright, as we needed that extra 30 minutes to recompose ourselves before we jumped on the train.
When I say jumped on the train, I mean just that. I don´t think the trains really ever stopped, and for the entire duration, the doors are open. Great. Also, we boarded the train in pitch black. We were in an unlit tunnel, and the train had no lights. We were second guessing what we had gotten ourselves into for the weekend.
We then met a gentleman on the train, who wanted to practice his English. We didn´t really have a choice as he was sitting right next to us. We took advantage and asked him some things about the city. He was rather informative, but at the same time had a hostel feeling towards the city. When we asked him what areas of the city we should try to avoid, and which ones were the most dangerous, he quickly retorted "all of them". Perfect.
Our train ride gave us an insight into the poverty we were expecting. The houses looked like they hadn´t been rebuilt since they were decimated in WWII--yet people were still living there. This was far different than the city itself. Casablanca is a city. The biggest in Morocco. It is dirty, and apparently dangerous. We had a preview into both of those, quickly.
We finally arrived at our destination, which was written and announced in Arabic, so we had to ask our friend where we should jump off. Luckily he told us the right station. We were rather glad to get off the train, as the man was making us both feel incredibly uncomfortable. We walk through the double doors to find rush of taxi drivers bombard us, throwing out prices in every language possible. We looked at each other and broke through them in a quick jog. We were then being followed, so we started to run. One even decided to follow us in his car, so we decided to sprint, while being heckled by every male on the roads. We found a back road, which was deserted to finally catch our breathe. Quickly realizing that the main roads would be preferable, we headed towards them. We had no map, nor any sense of direction. We knew our hotel was near the mosque and the ocean, but that meant little to us when we couldn´t see either, or read Arabic.
We were warned before we left that we should not address men without first being spoken to, and since cat-calls didn´t count, we opted not to speak with any of them. I decided that I took enough years of french to communicate what we needed to know, and began looking for women to ask. We found one, with her hair uncovered. Perfect. I ran over to her, asked her how to get to our hotel, and she immediately hailed a bus, and took us to our hotel, and pointed out places where we (as women) could get food. She was wonderful. Without her help, we would have had to hail a cab, which at the time, was petrifying. At the same time however, we knew that a cab would be better than the streets, which were virtually void of women, and grounds to be followed and groped.
When we got to our hotel, they gave us a wonderful room, which a perfect view of the city, as it was on the 9th floor. We oriented ourselves, finding the direction of both the ocean, mosque, and markets. When we left for the afternoon we asked if they had a map, which of course they did not. All they said was, be back before night fall. Great advice.
The markets were closest, so that was our first stop. They had everything. Raw fish, full sized cow carcases, shoes galore, jewelry, any type of wooden knick-knack, pretty much anything that you wanted, you could find in this market, which took us over an hour to find an exit, and we didn´t even retrace our steps. The market experience was interesting. All the vendors are men, who know that if they want us to buy something, they have to be relatively polite, so instead of the normal comments, we were not receiving the "upscale" ones such as "I like your sex". Honestly, that just completely wooed me. Really? Does that actually work? These vendors knew more languages than I could identify, which I thought was impressive, considering we were told that nearly no one in the generation above us had more than 5 years of schooling.
After we finally escaped the market we headed toward to ocean, passing numerous soccer matches in the streets, which of course, we were not allowed to play in. Boys only. We found the ocean, which had some of the biggest waves I have ever seen. Quiet impressive. We passed the Royal Moroccan Navy, which was heavily guarded, but housed some rather impressive ships. Though Casablanca is not the capital of Morocco, it is considered at least the economic capital, as it is far larger than any other city in Morocco, and the 6th largest in Africa.
Casablanca is home to this mosque that I keep referring to. The mosque is called Hassan II, named after the King who had it constructed. The construction stated not to long ago, 1986, and was built 24/7 until 1993 when it was completed enough to be inaugurated. It is the tallest mosque in the world, and the third largest. The best part is, we were allowed in, which is rare considering that we are not Muslim. Shoes off, headed in. We actually entered on Sunday morning, so I´m jumping around a bit, but we´re on the mosque topic, so why not.
The architecture definitely had some thought put into it. All of the materials used to build the mosque came from Morocco, with the exception of the chandeliers, and the white marble--both came from Italy. The main prayer room can hold 25,000 prayers, which is genially only filled during the Ramadan. At this time, the sliding roof opens, so that the prayers are more directly connected to Allah. The floor in many parts is glass, and as it is built over the ocean, you get quite a view of the water. Impressive needless to say. It kind of reminded me of Wright´s house built over the river.
The basement is for the washrooms, as they are required to wash three times before prayer. Separate fountains for men and women. The best part of these rooms were the pillars. They looked like white marble. Nope, wrong. They are cement covered in a combination of: sandstone, black sand, and egg yoke. This consistency absorbs humidity, so the washrooms are free of it--very important, as summers in Morocco are excruciatingly hot. The also have a public sauna/ Turkish bath, that is 5 feet deep, and looks knee Lent, very deceptive little pool. Over all, the mosque is impressive. Very impressive.
On Friday, we left the mosque after only taking a few pictures from the outside. This was a rare opportunity, as we were yelled at continuously every time we took out our cameras, thus I do not have as many pictures as I normally would. Sad.
So we left the mosque as the sun was setting, and were again, rather lost, so I began whipping out my french skills again, asking police officers for directions. We arrived at the hotel safe and exhausted. We headed to bed early so that we could catch the morning train to Rabat--Morocco´s political capital.
After having quite a large breakfast at the hotel (free food is always wonderful) we headed to the train station after negotiating with taxi drivers the price to get there. We jumped on our train to Rabat and found that the markets were the best things that they had to offer. Ready for the masses, we headed in. We were quite successful in bargaining, a skill I doubted I would ever obtain. It was easy. Walk away, and they lower the price. Give them your price, and come to an agreement. This was numerous as I couldn´t remember numbers in French. I understood the ones they were saying, but couldn´t formulate ones on my own--at first anyways. Therefore we ended up paying too much for our first purchase, a whole 2 Euros for a necklace. What were we thinking?!
We were rather hungry by mid afternoon and knew we needed to get something. We were a bit turned off by the fly infested market food, so we headed out to the main roads to find, gulp, a restaurant? The first dozen or so we passed were only men, per usual. We finally found one that not only had women, but had unescorted women. Perfect. We were fed, and off the the races we went again.
We now completely figured out our conversion rates, and what we were willing to pay for what, so we ventured back inside the labyrinth. A few 100 Durhams later, we were done. This was after meeting a wonderful man, who we spent about an hour with, talking all about our cultures. It was a great afternoon. We however, wanted to get back to Casablanca before sunset, so headed back to the train station, only after passing a protest.
Supermarket for dinner sounded good to us, as we didn´t want to wander the streets finding a suitable place to eat, so we lugged out grocery bags to the hotel, where we met our final friend. We asked the receptionist what time the mosque opened, and he didn´t know so he told us he would call them, then call our room. 5 minutes later he´s knocking on the door, which we entered, the shut behind him. Personally, I was a bit creeped out, especially after he sat down and started getting comfy. Well over an hour later, he finally left, after we told him that we´d meet him the following morning at 8am so he could show us around the city.
He seemed nice enough, but still, I was rather uneasy. However, the benefit of having a male escort for the day out weight my apprehension, so we met him at our designated location. He brought us to the mosque, where he prays daily. We toured it, while he got some breakfast. He then carted us around the city, paying for all our cab rides, and showing us everything that he loved. We talked about the generational differences between the women, and who and why they covered their heads. It was quite interesting actually. Though he knew some English, he preferred French, and therefore addressed me in French, quite often. Funny how quickly it came back.
As nice as he was, there was still an uneasy feeling, so Amanda and I lied about when our train was to get out of the rest of our tour. It backfired, as he came to the train station with us, and watched us board "our" train. It was going too fast to jump off by the time he stopped looking, so we ended up taking the train an hour early. Oh well. That gave us time to eat the Moroccan cakes we were given, as well as get some lunch. The mob-mentality was most pertinent at the airport, but the treatment of women was at least tolerable there. Therefore, we were safe, and ready to go home, and practice all the french we learned in Paris (where we´re going on Thursday).
Overall, it was quite an experience. Arabic/Islamic culture is now rather high on my list of things to investigate. Though it perplexes me, I´m intrigued. It was a good first experience into this foreign land. Next time though, I´ll opt to take an escort. And, learn how to cover my head.
We immediately noticed the overwhelming male population as soon as we left our boarding gate. Men were everywhere, and women, if they existed, were with a man. Immediately we felt out of place, without a male escort. We knew that we had to catch a train to the city, which we could not pay for with a credit card, so we had to take out Durhams, the Moroccan currency. A Durham is about equivalent to 13 American cents, and thus when we had to pay 25 Durhams for a sandwich, it wasn´t too bad.
We then got in line to buy our train tickets. I should rephase that, we got into the flooding mass. Lines honestly, do not exist in Morocco, we didn´t see a single one. Instead we saw mobs, pushing themselves to the front of the "line", which was rather terrifying. Men were allowed, for the most part, to go before any woman, which caused us to miss our train because we couldn´t buy our tickets in time. Which was alright, as we needed that extra 30 minutes to recompose ourselves before we jumped on the train.
When I say jumped on the train, I mean just that. I don´t think the trains really ever stopped, and for the entire duration, the doors are open. Great. Also, we boarded the train in pitch black. We were in an unlit tunnel, and the train had no lights. We were second guessing what we had gotten ourselves into for the weekend.
We then met a gentleman on the train, who wanted to practice his English. We didn´t really have a choice as he was sitting right next to us. We took advantage and asked him some things about the city. He was rather informative, but at the same time had a hostel feeling towards the city. When we asked him what areas of the city we should try to avoid, and which ones were the most dangerous, he quickly retorted "all of them". Perfect.
Our train ride gave us an insight into the poverty we were expecting. The houses looked like they hadn´t been rebuilt since they were decimated in WWII--yet people were still living there. This was far different than the city itself. Casablanca is a city. The biggest in Morocco. It is dirty, and apparently dangerous. We had a preview into both of those, quickly.
We finally arrived at our destination, which was written and announced in Arabic, so we had to ask our friend where we should jump off. Luckily he told us the right station. We were rather glad to get off the train, as the man was making us both feel incredibly uncomfortable. We walk through the double doors to find rush of taxi drivers bombard us, throwing out prices in every language possible. We looked at each other and broke through them in a quick jog. We were then being followed, so we started to run. One even decided to follow us in his car, so we decided to sprint, while being heckled by every male on the roads. We found a back road, which was deserted to finally catch our breathe. Quickly realizing that the main roads would be preferable, we headed towards them. We had no map, nor any sense of direction. We knew our hotel was near the mosque and the ocean, but that meant little to us when we couldn´t see either, or read Arabic.
We were warned before we left that we should not address men without first being spoken to, and since cat-calls didn´t count, we opted not to speak with any of them. I decided that I took enough years of french to communicate what we needed to know, and began looking for women to ask. We found one, with her hair uncovered. Perfect. I ran over to her, asked her how to get to our hotel, and she immediately hailed a bus, and took us to our hotel, and pointed out places where we (as women) could get food. She was wonderful. Without her help, we would have had to hail a cab, which at the time, was petrifying. At the same time however, we knew that a cab would be better than the streets, which were virtually void of women, and grounds to be followed and groped.
When we got to our hotel, they gave us a wonderful room, which a perfect view of the city, as it was on the 9th floor. We oriented ourselves, finding the direction of both the ocean, mosque, and markets. When we left for the afternoon we asked if they had a map, which of course they did not. All they said was, be back before night fall. Great advice.
The markets were closest, so that was our first stop. They had everything. Raw fish, full sized cow carcases, shoes galore, jewelry, any type of wooden knick-knack, pretty much anything that you wanted, you could find in this market, which took us over an hour to find an exit, and we didn´t even retrace our steps. The market experience was interesting. All the vendors are men, who know that if they want us to buy something, they have to be relatively polite, so instead of the normal comments, we were not receiving the "upscale" ones such as "I like your sex". Honestly, that just completely wooed me. Really? Does that actually work? These vendors knew more languages than I could identify, which I thought was impressive, considering we were told that nearly no one in the generation above us had more than 5 years of schooling.
After we finally escaped the market we headed toward to ocean, passing numerous soccer matches in the streets, which of course, we were not allowed to play in. Boys only. We found the ocean, which had some of the biggest waves I have ever seen. Quiet impressive. We passed the Royal Moroccan Navy, which was heavily guarded, but housed some rather impressive ships. Though Casablanca is not the capital of Morocco, it is considered at least the economic capital, as it is far larger than any other city in Morocco, and the 6th largest in Africa.
Casablanca is home to this mosque that I keep referring to. The mosque is called Hassan II, named after the King who had it constructed. The construction stated not to long ago, 1986, and was built 24/7 until 1993 when it was completed enough to be inaugurated. It is the tallest mosque in the world, and the third largest. The best part is, we were allowed in, which is rare considering that we are not Muslim. Shoes off, headed in. We actually entered on Sunday morning, so I´m jumping around a bit, but we´re on the mosque topic, so why not.
The architecture definitely had some thought put into it. All of the materials used to build the mosque came from Morocco, with the exception of the chandeliers, and the white marble--both came from Italy. The main prayer room can hold 25,000 prayers, which is genially only filled during the Ramadan. At this time, the sliding roof opens, so that the prayers are more directly connected to Allah. The floor in many parts is glass, and as it is built over the ocean, you get quite a view of the water. Impressive needless to say. It kind of reminded me of Wright´s house built over the river.
The basement is for the washrooms, as they are required to wash three times before prayer. Separate fountains for men and women. The best part of these rooms were the pillars. They looked like white marble. Nope, wrong. They are cement covered in a combination of: sandstone, black sand, and egg yoke. This consistency absorbs humidity, so the washrooms are free of it--very important, as summers in Morocco are excruciatingly hot. The also have a public sauna/ Turkish bath, that is 5 feet deep, and looks knee Lent, very deceptive little pool. Over all, the mosque is impressive. Very impressive.
On Friday, we left the mosque after only taking a few pictures from the outside. This was a rare opportunity, as we were yelled at continuously every time we took out our cameras, thus I do not have as many pictures as I normally would. Sad.
So we left the mosque as the sun was setting, and were again, rather lost, so I began whipping out my french skills again, asking police officers for directions. We arrived at the hotel safe and exhausted. We headed to bed early so that we could catch the morning train to Rabat--Morocco´s political capital.
After having quite a large breakfast at the hotel (free food is always wonderful) we headed to the train station after negotiating with taxi drivers the price to get there. We jumped on our train to Rabat and found that the markets were the best things that they had to offer. Ready for the masses, we headed in. We were quite successful in bargaining, a skill I doubted I would ever obtain. It was easy. Walk away, and they lower the price. Give them your price, and come to an agreement. This was numerous as I couldn´t remember numbers in French. I understood the ones they were saying, but couldn´t formulate ones on my own--at first anyways. Therefore we ended up paying too much for our first purchase, a whole 2 Euros for a necklace. What were we thinking?!
We were rather hungry by mid afternoon and knew we needed to get something. We were a bit turned off by the fly infested market food, so we headed out to the main roads to find, gulp, a restaurant? The first dozen or so we passed were only men, per usual. We finally found one that not only had women, but had unescorted women. Perfect. We were fed, and off the the races we went again.
We now completely figured out our conversion rates, and what we were willing to pay for what, so we ventured back inside the labyrinth. A few 100 Durhams later, we were done. This was after meeting a wonderful man, who we spent about an hour with, talking all about our cultures. It was a great afternoon. We however, wanted to get back to Casablanca before sunset, so headed back to the train station, only after passing a protest.
Supermarket for dinner sounded good to us, as we didn´t want to wander the streets finding a suitable place to eat, so we lugged out grocery bags to the hotel, where we met our final friend. We asked the receptionist what time the mosque opened, and he didn´t know so he told us he would call them, then call our room. 5 minutes later he´s knocking on the door, which we entered, the shut behind him. Personally, I was a bit creeped out, especially after he sat down and started getting comfy. Well over an hour later, he finally left, after we told him that we´d meet him the following morning at 8am so he could show us around the city.
He seemed nice enough, but still, I was rather uneasy. However, the benefit of having a male escort for the day out weight my apprehension, so we met him at our designated location. He brought us to the mosque, where he prays daily. We toured it, while he got some breakfast. He then carted us around the city, paying for all our cab rides, and showing us everything that he loved. We talked about the generational differences between the women, and who and why they covered their heads. It was quite interesting actually. Though he knew some English, he preferred French, and therefore addressed me in French, quite often. Funny how quickly it came back.
As nice as he was, there was still an uneasy feeling, so Amanda and I lied about when our train was to get out of the rest of our tour. It backfired, as he came to the train station with us, and watched us board "our" train. It was going too fast to jump off by the time he stopped looking, so we ended up taking the train an hour early. Oh well. That gave us time to eat the Moroccan cakes we were given, as well as get some lunch. The mob-mentality was most pertinent at the airport, but the treatment of women was at least tolerable there. Therefore, we were safe, and ready to go home, and practice all the french we learned in Paris (where we´re going on Thursday).
Overall, it was quite an experience. Arabic/Islamic culture is now rather high on my list of things to investigate. Though it perplexes me, I´m intrigued. It was a good first experience into this foreign land. Next time though, I´ll opt to take an escort. And, learn how to cover my head.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Oh señora.
"I am so proud of you that you are travelling to all these Spanish speaking cities". This is what my señora told me after I told her I was going to Morocco tomorrow, and after we recapped what other countries I have visited. Apparently señora is just impressed with my Spanish improvement, and is attributing it to my travels. Though I have certainly learned to communicate sans English, I have learned far more than that on my journies. At least when I barely squeak by in my classes here I can say that I learned something...Because I´m walking away with a much larger, uh, suitcase, than I arrived with.
Procrastinating
I need a break from writing my paper. I am now no longer aiming for just passing with this paper, I want a darn good grade on it. Though the chances of that happening are nearly non-existant, simply due to my fantastic grammatical ability. At least I will get to compare this to what I would be learning at Richmond, because a few of my friends are taking our Modern Political Theory course, which this is being credited to.
As I have been endlessly working on this paper, I have inevitably been in the cafeteria, as it is really the only spot in school where I can sit and use my laptop. The cafeteria however, is much more like a European café than anything else, which I guess fits the name. Between classes swarms of people flood this confined space spilling thier caffé-lattés as they spill out into the hallways. Luckily for me, they are not allowed to smoke in there, otherwise you wouldn´t be able to see through the fog. My guess is if they don´t have time to take their smoke break, they figure that downing a shot of caffinee will do the trick. I am still baffeled by the amount of coffee and cigarettes that they consume--and you people think that I drink too much caffinee. Apparently you haven´t been to Bilbao. Apparently they are immune to caffinee though, as it takes quite a bit to extract an occassional facial expression. I make it a habit to try and crack a smile out of at least someone on the metro.
Oh and Dad, I was utterly embarrassed the other day in class because of you. When I was asked to read an excerpt aloud, it included the capital of País Vasco, Vitoria. Well guess how I pronounced it. VIT-OR-E-A. Thank you, really. After only hearing that for a few days, it quickly became engraved in my head as the pronunciation, and no one knew that I was refering to VI-TOR-IA. Maybe I´m not good at breaking now pronunciation, but there is a vast difference between those two words. Oh well. Another one bites the dust.
In almost 24 hours I´ll be departing for Morocco, bag´s already packed. Grabbing it and going tomorrow after class. Maybe this time I´ll get my passport stamped. I´m trying to figure out what I can pull this time, since apparently telling the people in Germany that I had weapons was unsuccessful. I still only have a Madrid stamp. This is GOING to change.
As I have been endlessly working on this paper, I have inevitably been in the cafeteria, as it is really the only spot in school where I can sit and use my laptop. The cafeteria however, is much more like a European café than anything else, which I guess fits the name. Between classes swarms of people flood this confined space spilling thier caffé-lattés as they spill out into the hallways. Luckily for me, they are not allowed to smoke in there, otherwise you wouldn´t be able to see through the fog. My guess is if they don´t have time to take their smoke break, they figure that downing a shot of caffinee will do the trick. I am still baffeled by the amount of coffee and cigarettes that they consume--and you people think that I drink too much caffinee. Apparently you haven´t been to Bilbao. Apparently they are immune to caffinee though, as it takes quite a bit to extract an occassional facial expression. I make it a habit to try and crack a smile out of at least someone on the metro.
Oh and Dad, I was utterly embarrassed the other day in class because of you. When I was asked to read an excerpt aloud, it included the capital of País Vasco, Vitoria. Well guess how I pronounced it. VIT-OR-E-A. Thank you, really. After only hearing that for a few days, it quickly became engraved in my head as the pronunciation, and no one knew that I was refering to VI-TOR-IA. Maybe I´m not good at breaking now pronunciation, but there is a vast difference between those two words. Oh well. Another one bites the dust.
In almost 24 hours I´ll be departing for Morocco, bag´s already packed. Grabbing it and going tomorrow after class. Maybe this time I´ll get my passport stamped. I´m trying to figure out what I can pull this time, since apparently telling the people in Germany that I had weapons was unsuccessful. I still only have a Madrid stamp. This is GOING to change.
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