Funk in Vietnam

I was in a funk. A huge funk! Ok well not huge but I was definitely not my normally always happy, bubbly, fun Madi. The stress of housing and classes for next semester paired with exhaustion of travel and work of school I was not feeling it, and it kind of showed in Vietnam. I did try to make the best of my time there and it turns out I had a lot of fun, but I stuck a lot to myself, and didn’t go on any huge cross-country trips. I stayed in Saigon and bummed around the city.

The first day may have added to my funk when I went out with the boys to help with the custom suit choices. After way more then three strikes and we were still at home with bat in hand the ump (me) was starting to get a little pissy. They expected too much for no money, finally we got a compromise and got their suits, but lunch there was a minor tift between Paul and me, and when things go sour with us it appears that the whole group is brought down. However, I swallowed my pride apologized and all was well. That night we all went out, and we met a group of surf and snowboard bums from Australia and ended up talk with them about travel and adventures and snow for a lot of the night. Man I miss snow!!!

Day two I attempted to crash a service trip put on by semester at sea to go take deaf children to the zoo, but there was not enough room so I went into town and met up with some girls from USD. We wondered around and went to get dresses made. I ended up having a lot of fun and am happy I made a few more friends. Wouldn’t say we will be doing each others nails and combing hair anytime soon, but still friends none the less. I am writing this long after the country so I may have lost a lot of details, but I believe the second night I stayed in and caught up on some sleep! Or I went out they all mix together. Whatever the case I was not wasted cause I know that’s what you are all thinking because I can’t remember. Oh and the dress looks great, thanks for asking!

Day three. I begun the day with a service trip to a school for the disabled. A lot of the kids were either deaf or had a metal disability. I had fun playing with the little kids in their classroom (the teacher loved me he even wanted pictures), and I also had like a 45minute chalkboard convo with 16 year old deaf students. Their English was great and it seemed as if there was no language barrier at all. One of the girls even was a fan of crime shows so it was an instant friendship.  After I got back Rachel John and I went to the market were the purse god was smiling down on me, I cannot tell you how many I bought, but lets just say my collection grew a ton. On our way out we saw Dean David and when we realized that our plans were the same for the night we combined groups. After shopping we met our dean and his wife for a beer, went to the water puppet show (which was super cool!!! Lots of videos to share when we get back), and then met another teacher and his wife for dinner. The food was great the company may have been greater, and it was a awesome night. Every once in a while you need a big kid night and that was mine.

 The next day I found that Rachel’s infected toe disabled her from going on her SAS trip so she and I went into the market and shopped till we dropped. It was a lot like way to much after two days of spending money my bank account was feeling it. Afterwards we went to the war museum and concluded that our school systems need a total revamp. We also had many discussions about the relationship between the Vietnam war and the current war and if the soldiers will be treated the same upon their return. Kind of hard to describe the emotions and feelings and topics of convo generated by the museum, but it opened our eyes for sure. That night Rachel the girls and I went out to this beer bar, and then kind of bar/club jumped around which had us ending at the same place as the first night. Although the place was swarming with cute Europeans I was tired and ducked out early (like 1) and went to sleepipoo. I slept a lot in Vietnam; It was most likely due to the funk.

The next day was Paul’s Birthday!!!! We met up to shop and Lars and I got lost in the market and so we had to go back early, not with out a great new assortment of TV shows and movies. That night we all went out to dinner to celebrate. Unfortunately, the ship had experienced a huge tragedy, one of the students was found dead in his cabin. It has not been released as to how he exactly died, so I do not want to start rumors, but needless it was a horrible tragedy and the entire ship was affected. It was hard on our group because John was the one who came across the initial commotion and checked his pulse to find he was no longer breathing. He was very spooked and rightly so as were the rest of us and extremely depressed. The entire night we tried to make Paul’s birthday a happy one, but the days activities were affecting us all and at one point we each had a break down while out. Even with the black cloud we had a good time celebrating Paul and Andres lives.

The final day (which as I said before I am writing this long after and believe I have added a day, but everything is true, just the time is a little off) we did our final run of the city got massages mani and pedis and got some last minute CDS.

As a follow up to Vietnam the ship held a service for Andre our first day back at sea. It was very nice and truly showed who he was and how he touched all of us. RIP Andre

Love you al so very much!! Stay safe and live your life to its fullest. 

This whole place is its own amusement park!

Yesterday we left Singapore and it was soo much fun. (I was reading through some of my old posts and realize I need new adjectives I continually use the same ones) I was not super excited for Singapore, but I was proven wrong.  The city is full of tons to do, and it is clean and very much like home. I would say its like New York and LA mixed, but with nicer people, and way way way cleaner. There was a ton of development and skyscrapers. Everyone seemed very happy and content. Did you know that Singapore’s GDP per capita is higher than the states. You could tell there were no homeless or beggars. We were only there for one night so this should be short, but I figured a nice little background would be helpful.

The first day we went to an island right off the cost called Sentosa. We took a lot of pictures went and saw the merlion (Singapore’s “mascot”) and wandered around. We took a glass gondala that sparkles at night to get there. Pretty cool ehhh. Then we checked into our hotel that was super nice and had an infinity pool on the roof, sooooo awesome!!!! That night we were all going to go out to a club, but first Mike and I being the only 2 21 year olds in our group decided to go down to the casino. We lost 40 or our own money, and then we went to leave and the two Singapore men next to me bought us a beer and gave me 25 dollars to bet with. I only bet when they told me and won at first but in the end I lost 200 of these men’s money. Good thing they didn’t seem to care, and they were winning (they thought that my hair was lucky). By the time we left the casino everyone else had already left so we just went to this place called Clarke quay were all of the bars were and sat down and had some drinks and listened to a live band. All in all fun night.

The next day we went off and explored Singapore a little bit. We went to this park that had a bunch of sculptures and statures that were characters and stories of the Chinese and Singapore cultures. It was really cool and kind of corny, but oh well. Afterwards we went to China Town and loved it. I wish we could have stayed longer, but the ship was leaving.

So that was Singapore. I want to go back and have more time, but I will say it went pretty well for a first time visit. Next is Vietnam!!! 

You think you get use to the smell and then it hits you again☹

India!!!! This country was the most amazing, crazy, sad, fantastic, poor, wealthy, place ever. It is definitely a country of contradictions. Everything is magnified by like 4xs. I will try to give you the best description of it that I can, but it is so hard to do it justice… y’all will just have to go.

The first day we got there was a free day before we went off on our 4 day long SAS trip up north.  We all went out and tried to go to a outdoor market, unfortunately our rickshaw drivers had a different plan for us.  We got stuck in the loop of expensive stores that the drivers got commission if we bought something. We were not the only ones and saw several other SAS groups being dragged along the same route. After about three of us trying to tell them that we didn’t want to go to these places we chose to leave and went to pay. Before getting into the rickshaws we agreed on a price of 100 Rupees per rickshaw (about $2.30) however when we went to pay the drivers all plotted against us and told us that we owed them 300 rupees apiece. After a heated conversation we compromised and paid 100 a person, but it was a fiasco, we never ended up where we wanted to go and we paid double what we wanted.  We made the best of it and walked around finding a very cool Hindu temple and then an air-conditioned (very important) restaurant where half of us ordered a typical launch special.  It was crazy, the soup was very good and then they brought us out these trays with tons of sauces and bread/nan and rice. They laughed at us as we tried to eat it and then they began to help us mix it. You put a pile of rice on your banana leaf and then put on 2 or 3 different sauces mix it all together and eat it with your hands. It was crazy, and surprisingly nobody got sick!! Some was good and some wasn’t so good, but I had fun. That night we went out trying to see a Bollywood movie, and we went to the nice mall. It was so westernized with pizza hut KFC and Baskin Robbins. We never saw the movie because it was sold out, but we made it to a all you could eat Indian buffet where they took pictures of us and videos of us eating, and afterwards they took us back to the kitchen were everybody wanted pictures. One thing I have come to realize everybody wants a picture with me because I am a white blond hair blue eyed girl, this has happened in every single country I have been to except Spain.

The next day we left to get on a plane to fly north to Delhi. On our way there I watched as a man got off of his motorcycle pulled open the door of the van behind him and started wailing on the driver. He then proceeded to pull him out of the van punch him to the ground and start kicking him. I was completely amazing and scared. I do not know what happened because the bus drove away, but it was something I have never seen ever in my life, and couldn’t figure out what the man did to deserve that punishment. In Delhi we drove around and saw some monuments. We stopped at a Mongol temple, and my favorite part of the day was that we then stopped at the site of Gandhi’s cremation. It was very simple and beautiful, and gave off a feeling of calm and peacefulness that was rare in the city of 16 million and the country of 3 billion. There we were asked again to take a picture with a man’s wife and young son.

Normally I would not talk about hotels, because they are kind of boring, but the hotel we stayed in Delhi was so pretty it was a five star hotel and amazing. The weird thing was that randomly the power would go out throughout the hotel for like 5 seconds at a time, and the staff would think nothing of it because it happens so frequently.

The next day we woke up at 4 to head to the train station to travel to Agra. Driving through the city was shocking as people were asleep on the sidewalks, train station, and even a few in the street because the sidewalk was full. It made you feel bad because we were in a super nice hotel and there were so many people who didn’t even have a roof.  Poverty was the most prevalent in India and made you think if you deserve everything that you have. In Agra we saw more Mongol forts and temples before going to the Taj Mahal. The building was amazing, it took your breath away and we stunningly build and cared for, but it never really gave me the OMG moment that the rest of the country gave me. I do feel extremely grateful that I was able to see it though and was amazed with the architecture. We stayed until the sun set and then after dinner returned to Delhi on a late train.

Another shocking part of India happened at the train stations, in Agra especially.  I had heard about the mutation of people so they could receive more money while begging, but I hadn’t seen much of it until we went to the train stations. There were man without legs and many had missing fingers and toes. One man even had elephantiasis to the feet and it was unbelievable watching him walk around. It makes you feel so fortunate, but also makes you wonder hoe the country allows for this to happen. Also on the first night when Rachel, Paul and I were coming home to the ship we were the only ones around and being followed by a child asking for money. We know that we weren’t suppose to give them money, but he was the only one around and we were close to the gate and security so Rachel gave him a 2 rupee coin. When we walked through the gate Rach and I turned around only to see the child giving the money to a man. After that we only gave extra food. Even when we did that there was no glimpse of hope or appreciation in the eyes of the kids, more like fear that they were going to lose it all again. It was soo sad to watch, and you couldn’t even imagine living with that fear your whole life.

The fourth day we flew to Varanasi. Which is one of the most amazing places I have ever been. I know I keep on saying that, but it is so hard to describe the feelings of the city and how important and religious it is to the people of the Hindu religion. We took a rickshaw (bike) ride down to the Ganges to watch an evening religious ceremony. While riding down the street Ariel and I got spit on by a man walking past. He has spit a mouthful of the leeche fruit with seeds all over us. We were shocked, overwhelmed, scared, pissed, and confused. It was the first bit of hatred that either one of us had received since being there and didn’t understand why he spit on us. Our tour guide told us we were not dressed appropriately, but both of us had on long loose fitting pants, our shoulders were covered and there was no cleavage at all. Also looking around to how some of the other girls were dressed we were conservative. The nice part was that our driver was very nice about it and when he turned around and saw what happened he took off his scarf and offered it to us to wipe off the spit. Who knows if that was clean, but we accepted it with gratitude and then afterwards he kept on pointing out things on the ride and was extremely kind to us.

The ceremony was crazy! It was unbelievable how many people there were and how important it was for them. The sight was breath taking, not to include the colors, sounds, and smells.

I haven’t spoken much about the smell of India, and I feel like I should because it is very distinctive.  It is hard to describe, but it was like a mixture of BO, Poop, incense, spices, food and flowers (used a lot in many of the ceremonies and culturally). There were many times when you would think that you got use to the smell, and then something horrible would hit you. It even got so bad that you would grimace when you smelled it and you would want to breath through your mouth, but at the same time didn’t because you felt like the air was not clean. However, there were many other times when you would catch the smell of some food and would continually take deep breaths in because it smelled so good. As I said it was a country of contradictions.

The next day was another early morning when we woke up at 4 to go to the river, get on a boat and watch the activities that surround the Ganges and are the center of life in Varanasi. We saw several people bathing in the water, others washing their clothes, many praying, and we even went to the site of cremations, and saw two bodies being burned. Our guide described the process and explained that the eldest member of the family would come and throw the ashes into the river. It was all a part of the Hindu belief in reincarnation. We even saw ashes being thrown into the river.  The sight was again indescribable. It was hard to grasp the importance of the river in the lives of so many people. The legend goes that when the Ganges asked Vishnu if they could come to earth he replies yes and they landed on his head (the top of a mountain which I forgot the name) and then flowed down his head. Varanasi is the place where Vishnu then decided to settle down making it the most holy city in the Hindu religion. I think I got the story right.

After the river the guide was going to take us to the place where Buddha gave his first sermon, or something of importance with the Buddhist culture, and although it would have been interesting we felt that we had not yet been given the chance to really get out and experience India, and we opted out of the tour. Instead we went back down to the river and walked around taking in all of the sights, and did some shopping. The hustle and bustle was crazy. There are just soo many people that you cannot believe it. There were also a lot of cows and dogs. We were told that most of the dogs are strays, but few are kept as pets. It was fun to look around outside of a huge group and see India outside of a bus window.

We flew home that night and dint return until about 1:00 in the morning. The final day in India was a low-key day we went back to the market, and did some last minute shopping. So that’s that. All in all it was an eye open, fun, amazing, sad, contradicting experience.

As I said before each country gets better and better. Now time for school again. Two tests in 3 days whoohoo L (I actually did pretty well on my Global studies, but have yet to get back Finance)

Miss you all, again sorry it is such a long blog. I will try to get some pictures up soon.

PS I hope this makes sense I just drank a lot of coffee and am a little shaky J

Blame it on the time zones!! :-)

I am sorry I have been such a ghost lately. Mom I promise you I am alive and well!! Whoohoo!! Alrighty were to begin? Chronological makes sense. I got an A on my global studies test!!!  Then there was school and cabaret (which has now been pegged as cabargay by Paul because it is all I ever do) and then South Africa!!!

Very possibly the coolest place ever! There was soo much to do and learn and the culture and social differences and everything about it was just amazing. Ghana just got kicked to the curb for favorite place we have been to. Its great because it just gets better and better. So here is a quick summary. The first day we arrive we woke up extra early and watched as we came into port, docked, and then watched the sunrise over the city. Sooo pretty. After having a diplomatic debriefing and being scared shitless by the man who spoke to us about the dangers in Cape Town, we mustered up the courage to leave the boat and climb Table Mountain. I say climb because that is exactly what it was, no leisurely hike for us. We somehow took the hardest path and it was basically stair master on steroids. The hike up was amazing and as we went through the gorge the clouds began to cascade down the sides of the mountain. The call it a tablecloth and that is exactly what it looks like. They are every petitioning to make it one of the natural wonders of the world. Once on top it was like “a ski resort” (you can tell Rachel is from CO), there was a cute little food court and shop and a gondola so you could ride down. The second day we went shark cage diving. Again soooo awesome!!!! The ride out on the boat was a little rough, but we all were able to make a joke out of it, I don’t think the guy who got sea sick thought we were very funny though. Within like 5 minutes we had a shark. For the entire day we saw 5 different great white sharks and they ranged from 9-12 feet. A couple times they jumped a little out of the water to get the bait, which was awesome, and once a tail hit the cage right by Rachel. They were so close and it was unreal in the cage because you felt oddly protected by the few bars in between you and this giant carnivore, but when they jumped you realized how close you were and how crazy that whole thing was. After shark cage diving we met up with Colleen, Erin’s aunt, and went out to dinner were we met her friends son Paul, who is our age, and his friend Sean. After dinner the two boys took us out to the cool college hang out for a Monday night. They were very funny ad would try to do impressions of our accents. Apparently all Americans are Valley girls and draw out their words and say like every other word. Day three we met up with Colleen again and she was our amazing tour guide. We went to Boulder beach were we aw the penguins, went to cape point and was at the 2^nd southern most point of Africa, there was one who had us beat by like 2 miles max. Also we were driving along the road and there were signs about danger Baboons and we couldn’t figure out why until about 2 minutes later when we came across about 15 baboons chilling in and on the side of the road. It was amazing the alpha male even came up to the car and stood on his hind legs and put his hands on the window and looked in at Amanda. We also went to an ostrich farm were Amanda and Larissa fed the ostriches, I was too scared by their weird creepy aggressiveness. The 4^th day we went san boarding, which is snowboarding on san dunes. It was very fun minus the fact that you had to hike back up the hill, and I fell really hard on my butt. :-( While we were there was a field trip of students probably like 12 years old, and they were chatting with us and loved the fact that we were American. It was funny because the boys were trying all of the huge hills with us and would make us go first and cheer us on and what not. Afterwards we met back up with Colleen where we Skyped our parents (I like to think that people other than my mom and Larissa’s mom reads this so for them it is another recap) and then surprised Erin!!! Once Colleen’s husband Craig got home we sat talked drank wine and ate pizza for the night. It was amazing to hear about the Apartheid from his point of view and just talk about worldly things. We were even so exhausted that we didn’t even go out when we got home. The fifth day we went to a township and rode around it on bikes. We stopped by a school were everybody sang and danced for us and then we played a fun game of soccer against the newly established girls team. The best part was the dancing because it is this crazy type of dance that the miners use to do and they were the boots and slap then and stomp and stuff. We learned a little, but it was probably a joke to watch us try. The final day in Cape town we did school work… we went on a wine tasting for class!! We know our lives are sooo hard. One of the vineyards was so beautiful that it inspired a new item on my bucket list. Own a vineyard!

After South Africa school took over our lives. I had 2 tests and a couple of papers due. It was a lot of stress, but it also made the time in between ports easier and seem shorter.  

After a rough week at seas (haha that’s so funny because nothing about this journey is worth complaining about) we got to Mauritius!!! It is what we as well as all of the crew and faculty call our spring break. Known for the dodo bird (like in the movie Up!) and their amazing beaches the European Hawaii was not a let down. We stayed at a beautiful resort were a bunch of our friends were staying and relaxed by the beach by day and partied at the bar at night. It was a perfect break before the long stretch to India.

Now that all of the details and logistics are over I am going to share some feelings (Amanda keeps saying that I am impersonal). So I have started a bucket list that is up to like 20 now. It includes a lot of travel items as well as things I hope o accomplish on this trip. I feel like righting it down will solidify it and make it more likely to happen. Also I have decided that for my 21^st year… which is in like 2 days!!... I am going to do 365 pictures, one for each day. I wish I would have started this for my trip, but better late than never. Somehow I am exhausted all of the time when I am on the ship. It may be from the rocking or it may be because I don’t sleep in port, but my excitement and adrenaline keeps me up, what ever the case it can sometimes be a battle. Especially the past couple of days, I have been Debby downer and not at full Madi level. I will be better soon, an I just think that its because my birthday is coming up and I don’t get to celebrate with my family and a majority of friends. We will make the best of it though, and I will be back in tip top share ASAP.

Sorry this blog was soooo long, I just had a lot of catch up to do. Hopefully you wont hurt me Susan I know you complain about Amanda’s being too long. We miss you all and love you all. Have great days!!!!

I kissed a fish and I liked it!!!

Ok so first I will give you a quick review of the second half of Ghana. The day I wrote my last blog it was raining and we were sitting under a canopy of a very nice hotel using their free wifi and eating a really good western meal of pizza!!! After the whole pigeon incident in Morocco we have been a little skeptical on eating new foods. For the rest of the day we went out to the markets with our new friend Mika, a Ghanan taxi driver. He took us around to different stores and walked with us through the local food market. He also gave us some information on the economy and what the culture is like. We were able to go to this cool little shop that had everything we were looking for and for reasonable prices. We made friends with the shop owner Lisa and he sister Linda and we learned our African names, depending on what day we were born. They were both very nice and took a picture with us at the end, we called it a family photo!! Later that night we were going out to meet our friends at this local bar that everyone talks about and while we were driving our taxi gets pulled over by the Police and the diver was asked to get out. Then the cops came up to the window and were super friendly with us and were like asking us how we liked Ghana and whatnot. We got pulled over for having too many people in the taxi so when we offered to get another cap the police were like no its ok and then we were on our way. Apparently the Cops see whites in a cap and know the driver is making bank off of us and so the cops expect a piece of it and our driver paid them off. Sketch .

The following day we made the trek to Kakum, the national park that was a huge rain forest, and walked along the canopies. The taxi ride there was horrible. We wee all getting sick of the swerving and speed change and many times I was pumping the breaks in the passenger seat. I guess I now know how my mother felt when she was teaching me to drive, and maybe even sometimes now. Trust me mom, I am and angel driver compared to this guy. The roads were also not helping as there were potholes everywhere and we were swerving to avoid them every minute.  Basically it was horrible and Larissa almost had to make us stop because she was getting soo sick in the back seat. Once we got there though it was well worth it. The forest was huge and the canopies were awesome!!! We unfortunately did not see any monkeys, but it was fun to look at the landscape and see how remarkable the trees were.  Apparently we were around 130 feet above the forest floor and on one of the highest canopies in the world. We grabbed lunch at the restaurant in the park and when we tried to order the only thing they basically had was fried plantains, which I had not problem with because they were super good.  Then came the car ride home. This time we put Larissa in the front seat, but we were all praying at some point. You know the game chicken, were you run at someone for as long as possible until one person bails? Well that was our drive. We later found out that half of the taxi drivers weren’t really taxi drivers and only come out to make money when we are there. That’s the end of Ghana, it was our favorite port soo far, and we had a lot of fun in the culture and environment.

The day after leaving port we crossed the Equator and Prime Meridian at the exact same time, so for a brief second we were actually in the center of the world. See mom and daddy I am the most important thing!!! J Then yesterday we had Neptune day!! It is the festival for crossing the equator and we don’t have class. The crew wakes everyone up at 7:30 by banging drums down the halls and we get breakfast then go up to the pool deck. There are 2 parts the first part is shaving your head. Most of the guys did it and a lot did it in crazy shapes, but the unreal part was there were so many girls who did it. I would try to make a joke that I shaved my head, but I know nobody would believe me seeing that I have to have a pep talk when I go to get my ends trimmed. These girls were crazy, A lot donated their hair and a lot look really shitty, actually most do. I would say like 2% can pull it off. The second stage I did partake in was to have fish guts poured over your head, jump into the freezing cold pool, kiss a fish and then bow down to the two main deans. It was actually really fun!! The festivities ended with a kick ass dinner consisting of BBQ. We all know how sad it is that what we eat for dinner makes our days, but it was awesome to have ribs, burgers, baked potatoes, and Mac and Cheese!!!!

Unfortunately we also had our first global studies test that night, but I am pretty sure that with how much we all studied we passed with flying colors!!!!

I am off to the gym, and then to a cabaret meeting, I am one of the dancers in the show and we have practice tonight. Miss you all, love you!!

Cheers to Ghana!!!!

I LOVE Ghana!!! Everyone here is extremely nice and welcoming. They all want to be our friends and right when we get outside of the port we are bombarded with hands to shake and names to learn.
The first day we were here we went on our first SAS trip and saw the Castles and Slave dungeons. The whole tour was unreal. The castles were beautiful, but the stories were very sad and depressing. We also had lunch at this crazy beach hotel, and it was sooo good. There was also a show with drummers and dancing it was very cool to watch and gave you a boost of energy. The men were so ripped, it was crazy. They were doing flips and standing on each others heads. That night we went out and had a lot of fun at this local bar hanging out with a mixture of SAS kids and locals.
Yesterday we did Habitat for humanity!!! We drove 3 hours away and then walked like 15 minutes in to the jungle to the work site. It was crazy I actually laid bricks and mortared them together. We got pretty far, but there was a lot more to do. A bunch of children from the village came to watch us work, and we took a break to give them my silly bands and played games with them. I started duck duck goose and everyone loved it. By the end we had the circle then a larger circle around us watching consisting of mothers and other people from the ship.
Today we are sitting at a beach hotel, and it is raining so there isn't too much we can do. We want to go to the market and look at all the kente clothes and drums so we will see if that happens. Tomorrow the plan is to go on a canopy tour of the rainforest so I am pretty excited for that!!! Everyone who had already been says it is super cool.
I may kill my finance class. I didnt bring a financial calculator with me and have been trying to put on on my itouch because our professor said it was alright. But it has turned out to be a huge deal and I have to do all these updates and what not which is hard when you have limited internet access. Basically Headache!!!
Loving all of our new friends. It feels like we have known each other for ever, but miss everyone at home too. The thing I miss the most though is SD food. We have multiple conversations with everyone from San Diego about what we need to eat. California burrito, Urbane, In-n-out, Sara's, JVs...... the list is very long. Sooo friends I expect a feast as soon as I step off of the ship!!

Love love

Shakira Shakira

I overheard someone describe Morocco in the perfect way, and decided to steal the quote, “Morocco is the coolest place I never want to go back to.”

That is sooo true. We arrived half a day early so as a group, Amanda, Larissa, Myself, and a group of guys all from the east coast (they aren’t all stuffy and boring… who would have thought) went to explore Casablanca. The first thing we did was probably the worst we could have as we walked straight into the Medina or the large market place. The movies do a great job showing what it is like. Small streets lined with people selling everything you can imagine. The clothes and spices are super colorful as are the dresses many of the women were wearing.  It was loud and full of energy. Some places it smelled good and others it smelled awful, as Paul would say,” great another poop street”. It was a little much on the first day and we all were overwhelmed. It was definitely a culture shock. We were afraid to take out our cameras because in this culture as well as other places we will be visiting it can be seen as stealing a would if you take a picture of someone, and we were not about to be disrespectful (Amanda was already having trouble finding non California conservative clothes).  We tried to stay together, but in the hustle and bustle we lost two of the guys in the group (they ended up being ok and just got stuck buying a crazy hat.  It was definitely very new, cool, scary, and whatever descriptive word you can think about.  We even saw neon colored chicks being strolled down the street in a cart while the guy tried to keep them all in the cart.

We were about to leave when we stopped to look at clothes and this guy came up to us speaking good English and told us he would take us to his store and give us great prices. Maybe not the best idea looking back, but we felt that we would be alright in the group. He took us to the girls store and I bought a cool shirt, then to the guys store were Amanda Larissa and I bought Allan a baby/going away gift because it was his last port as a waiter. After everyone was all done the guy demanded money from us and told us that we had promised, which no one did. We started walking and left the Medina while the guy followed us out yelling at us. One of our friends John gave him 50 dirham and told him to get lost them we quickened our pace and sped out of the area. It was kind of scary, but then again also kind of exhilarating and safe in the group. It also made us very aware and skeptical of accepting and help for the rest of the trip, which was probably a good thing.

We also visited the mosque which is the 2^nd biggest (next to the one in Mecca) and vey pretty.  Oh and we took pictures outside of Rick’s Café which I am sorry everyone, but is not real and only created by and American after tourists all came to see it. Sooo basically we had an eventful first day that didn’t leave the best taste in our mouths.

Marrakesh was a way different experience. We loved it!!! Amanda, Larissa, Paul, and I traveled by train (which was an hour late) and got to our Riad (like a hostel) which was very sketch from the outside, but beautiful and classic Moroccan on the inside. Apparently it is against the religion to show wealth on the outside of homes. We went sight seeing and came back to Brian, our Riad owner, making us mint tea. We asked if we could watch him make it and soon became very good friends. He had been celebrating the end of Ramadan and was drink wine (and a lot of it we later found out) and offered us some. It was fun and he told us about his family and different places in Morocco and Marrakesh. We met an Australian couple also was staying at the Riad, and they joined us for dinner. The main market was full of energy because they all wee celebrating and we ate at this outside restaurant.

One of the waiters wanted to marry Larissa and called her finger licking good Paul got offered 100 camels for her and the Sahara desert for Amanda. The people at the restaurant were very funny and kind of joked about how Americans are protective and reserved towards them due to the fear of being mugged.  Which by the way a kid on the trip got mugged and ran up to us at dinner scared out of his mind. NEVER walk alone in a foreign country, for some common sense, but just a nice reminder. The food was great by the way!!!!

After dinner we went back to the Riad only to met Brian in the street and he waved us on to come to his friend Nebeal’s Riad down the street were we each got poured a glass of whiskey. They were very hospitable once we became friends and it was fun to sit and talk to the two.

Day two in Marrakesh we set out to ride camels and with the help of Brian we found these guys that gave us a 30 minute ride with unlimited pictures (they charge you if you take a picture of anything there) for like 60 dirham a person!!! That is like 7 dollars a person!!!! Afterwards we tried to medina a second time and this time had a better experience. It was fun to look around and we felt a lot more comfortable we even were pretty good at bartering. We stayed far away from the snake charmers and monkeys because they would just throw the animal around your neck and make you pay to get it off, which you all know my HUGE fear of snakes so no bueno. We grabbed the dinner in the same market and ventured back to the Riad were we again hung out and drank wine with Brian. There was also a couple fron Holland and two couples from England that were very fun to talk with. Before going to bed both Brian and Nebeal told us we were family, gave us the standard kiss on the cheek and said we could come back whenever we wanted and stay for free. They definitely made our time in Morocco as Great as it was.

The after math was not so great though. After getting back to Casablanca Larissa and Amanda got really sick which w later found out very possibly was from the pigeon pie they ate that we were told was chicken. I got a weird bug bite rash thingy, that is lucky going away and its contagious or anything bad (according to the doctor, ya I went without being forced aren’t you proud), and today Paul felt like he got hit by a train. So minus the sickness it was great.

Paul and I also ventured to Rabbat (while Amanda and Larissa were lying on their death beds). We saw the Roman ruins and tried to get into the Royal Palace, but couldn’t because we needed our passports (which we had already turned back into the ship). We think the King was at the place because security was crazy tight. So ya that is Morocco for ya very fun, but I am over it for sure and glad to be sailing again.

If you can’t tell by the stories we have found a really cool group of friends on the boat. John, Paul, Keegan, and Alan are all from the east cost and all go to school at either Bentley or Babson. So there you go mom now you know who I am hanging out with because I know how you like to know who my friends are so I beat you to it.

Love you all I will try to update before Ghana, but sleep is becoming more important by the day.

Oh and if you don't get my title that is what Brian called all three of us and also what the venders would yell as we would walk past.... Some Moroccan obsession.