Kristins second travelling tip-

Make sure the king is no where nearby if you want to rent a room.. you may end up adding five hours to your bus trip.

but it all works out!

I have ended up in Nador, instead of Al Hoceima. the guide book says it is only a two hours difference, but they didnt account for how often we stopped for tea, or becuase the driver saw a friend.. or who knows what. Once again my sleeping schedule is messed up, arriving at six in the morning, and sleeping through the better half of the day.

Something i ate didnt agree with me, so I have spent the last day or so just snoozing in my room, or reading on terrace. Gives me time to people watch, which is always fun.

From my viewpoint on the roof, i counted six ladies out of fifty not wearing a headscarf. More than I expected. I am guesing there are more, but the women dont really frequent the streets very often, a little bit for markets and shopping, but not for gathering and having a coffee. The women rule the house, and the men the streets, or that is what I am told.

Since I mostly roam the streets, I tend to strike up conversations with the guys. They will not start talking, but if I gabber away they will happily join in. Although when I am with fellow travellers, the men address them before me, or even them for me..

Some ladies have tried to explain this, saying it is out of respect for you that they dont address you. I see it as respect for the man, and not talking to his 'property'. The principle I understand ( vaguely), but I dont think it actually plays out like that.

The men will ignore me, but then go to great lengths to help me. Walking down the streets I get lots of stares, but that is all they are, stares( even if by my standards they are rude). Once I said Shooma ( shame on you) to a guy who was follwoing a little to closly with his kissy noises. He dispappared mighty quick when the enarby people told him ( i am assuming) to get lost.

I guess this is what they call culture shock, I cant make heads or tails of it!

The men are a mystery to me, but the women are easy to label. Generous. They might speak only Arabic, but that doesnt stop them from inviting me in to their home, feeding me, stroking my hair ( a little odd), the list goes on. The children too always want to sit by me ( or on me), ecspecially on the bus. I think the women are just happy to get rid of them for a while :)

Tangier- ChefChouen

First things first, half of my backpack has got to go.
Most of the cities Medinas, generally where my hostels are located are up hill. NOt just a liesurly incline, a huff and puff, I need to stop for a siesta incline. Full of missing cobblstones, and stairs that are definatly not to building code.

Other than the crazy climbs, all of the cities have been beautiful. Tanger was a bit intenese, full of faux guides and people litterally pulling you into their shops. Once I got the hang of just looking ahead with my head up high they tended notto bother me much. I guess I have mastered my ' dont mess with me ' look.
I taxied to the hercules cave the second day, and was a bit dispappointed at home touristy it was. Never the less, the view was gorgeous, and i Spent a good few hours reading in the sun. I shared a cab with three guys ont he way back, two of whom I spent the next few days. They both live in Casablance (totally stealing a couch when i get there) and teach English, but they are originally from The states and Ireland.

We bused to Tetaouan and toured around for a few hours, and then travelled to Chefchouen.

So much better than Tanger. Not too much hassle, lots to look at, and gorgeous. The whoole city is painted different shades of blue,making it dreamlike ( or smurf like) to walk through, unlesss you get lost. We spent to better part of two days walking around, doing a small hike, and drinking mint tea.

Anthony is fly paper for husslers, Anyone near by and they just gravitate to him. Usuaully he just brushes them off and we continue on, but a few times we got hereded into shops, once a carpet shop.
Something you need to do in Morocco I guess, is listen to a Moroccan try to sell you carpets for an hour while drinking the customary tea. This guy spoke pretty good english, but with a few funn things that he would say over and over again.
My favorite saying was that he hass a 'symbolioc and democratic price...' or an 'interesting price.. 'all of which didnt make me want to buy the carpets more.

Other husslers would say funny things too, the best being the mountain 'farmers'.
They want to show us their Marijuana fields int he mountain, which is a pretty funny thing to be offered.

Besides the crazies, there were times I would get invited in by ladies to drink tea with them ( a plus about being a girl) or we would come across a concert, or even a funeral procession. The singing here is pretty hit or miss for me. I dont like it with instruments, but a choir , or random singers sounds pretty good.

The prayer call hasnt bothered me at all, I havnt heard it yet while sleeping. I still dress very conservativly, more so now that I konw that the 'normaally dressed' ladies in the bars were hookers.. can you imagine!

On to Casa, and then the desert, after i chill here for a bit more.
Ma' Alsalam

Dancing band

This was fairly early one morning// After this the giant blowup royalties came; and the crowds!

Made it.

After two trains to Barcelona, three trains a bus and a ferry to Morrocco, I am finally here. I have made it to the land of heat ( there might be a better description later, but with sweat dripping down my face, thats all I got/)

My stay in Barcelona was pretty packed with fun stuff to do, so packed in fact that it replaced sleep.

I met some people on the train there, and ended up following them to their hostel. We went out together the first time, and stayed up until the unimpressive elderly time of three... well- I thought it was ok, but apparently thats not how they do it here!
So the next night we tried , and succeeded by starting the night with some supper at eleveinish, and stumbming out of the club at closing time. Closing time being at seven, middle of rush hour for the normal people with a normal sleep schedule.

Arriving in the fresh morning air, not looking or feeling so fresh wasnt the worst part, or even remotly the end of my night.

I have learned my first major lesson of the trip.

Know where you are staying.

I could add to that.. have a key.. know the name of the street it is on..

Ramone, my roomate, had the key ( and the all importnant hostel name] and we got sperated half way through the night. With so many people, and the mental awareneess of a coconut, finding eachoterh was rather impossible.
La Rambla, the only street name I could think of, turns out to be THE shopping boulevard, a good two KM of similar stores,with no dobvious reference points.
Apprently luck was kinda with me, and i followed the sounds of construction right to my hostel. The same jackhammer sounds managed to keep me awake.. but no complaining§

After one night like that we kept it pretty chill, as chill as you get with dancing drum bands playing out side your window..naked bikeriders going by, or Giant blow up royalties floating through( we tried to figure out the reason behind it, to no avail). Prety much the hostel was right dab in the middle of everything, and we never had to go far to find something entertaining.

Two of the days I spent with Julia, who luckily was passing through the same time as me. The first night we spent ages on the metro, and made it to the magic foutain. Lameo name, but totally worth it. It is a foutain with incrdeble jets spraying water to the sound of music, with different lights being filtered in. The second day we went to a " village" made to represent all the areas of spain, for the eighty two expo ( guessing.. maybe Jullia can be more clear!) It eneded up being halarious, full of lots of silly pictures and a good array of resonably priced souvenirs. I ended up getting a large bottle of delicccous sangria for my mommy, which Julia was goign to cart back home for me..

But we drank it... Its the thought that counts! ( we replaced it with a smaller version, much better for Jluias poor back ..)

I am currently in Tangier, only due to the help of two qdorqble qrqbic women, who fed me their lunch and inisisted I come with them. There was four passport checks, and lots of queus involved to get here, but I did make it!
Walking around loking for my Hostel, I have quickly picked up on what they mean by guys trying to get your attention..
Its a good thing I dont understand Arabic , becquse I am pretty sure they werent calling out telling me how beautiful the day is. Regardless, I am pretty good at ignoring people, and found my hostel without too much trouble.
A little too much new for me today, I am going to have Dominos for supper, maybe try something new tomorrow.
I will try to post pictures too tomorrow, and maybe try harder to not suck so much on the arabic keyboard!

Hide and seek..

It seems all my belongings have legs, and are very good at finding hiding spots.

I have tried to keep all the things in one spot ( namely my bedroom) but somehow they got tossed around with all the other things in the house. I am very lucky the family is laidback, in a comforatble leave your stuff in a tidy mess kind of way. Along with finding all my stuff, comes the realization that it is not, in this world or the next, going to fit in my backpack( or two or three backpacks).. Trying to decide between clothes, when I don`t really know what to expect is difficult. I will have been around for all four seasons, thankfully wih the bulkiest one behind me. I was planning on sending the items that didn`t make the final cut home, but after paying 70 EUROS for the first package, I have decided to cut my losses, and go shopping when I get home instead!
The hardest thing for me to leave behind ( besides the family of coures) is all my french books. I am proud to say I can happily read a novel. Happily being the key word. Before I could read, with the aid of a dictionary, but the movie part in my head was pretty lame, missing key descriptive words, kinda like a stickman story. Now I read for pleasure, and my "movie" is complete with the hollywood special effects and gorgeous men :)
I have accumulated the entire twilight series ( including the new life of Bree one, which is not so great.), The last Harry Potter, a few Orwell books, and some popular french novels books I snagged from Laurence.

This week I went and got the rest of my vaccinations, and met a few very nice french gentlemen; One who volunteered to gas up my car for me, and one who hopped in the car and directed me to the clinic. It almost made going to get four shots worth it!

As you may of heard, I was also little Bo peep this week. Complete with the curvy stick and bonnet (ok...no bonnet..). And, I did lose my sheep, err, one sheep. We spent a good ten minutes running around trying to herd an energetic youngster. The herding would not have been possible without the magic sheep dogs... I am not a city girl, but when I saw Babe, I was sure that dogs didn`t actually herd like that, it was pretty cool to see them in action. Danais ( dan I E) would talk to her dog, full sentences.. and the flipping dog would undertand.
D- you forgot one!
Dog would circle back and get behind the lost sheep, pushing it with his nose.
D-slow them down in front!
Dog would cirlce around and run in front of them, stopping the mass of clueless wool

It looked like a pretty cool job to me, relax, out in the sun, until one of the sheep got tired and we had to drag it the rest of the way.. A few lambs needed a lift too, so they got stuffed in sacs, or slung over our shoulders .

After dragging the now not-so-white sheep to the new pasture, we tended to the bees!
Tierry ( tea Air E), the owner, has over 20 hives around Gresse, one of them being mighty close to his house. One of the hives had lost their queen, so we went through all the frames looking for a new one. Unfortunatly, there is no other Mother bee, so the hive will eventually stop functioning. More male bees will continue to be born, but no female ( aka worker) bees. Soon the hive will be just males, squabbling and getting nothing done..