shirness

[shirness]

ROME: Part 3

Roberta has arrived!

Aarin’s mom has joined us for the last two weeks of our trip, and oh yes we’ve upped our game a level or two.

On her first night here, after about 21 hours of travel and an 8pm arrival, she barely needed any recuperation time before we hit the town, and stayed out until 3am! First we went to a birreria around the corner from our apartment, where we ordered a liter of wine—that came in a tall clear tube with a spigot (Pic 1)—and I introduced her to supplì. Then we hopped to another nearby restaurant, which has hereby been dubbed as our favorite and renamed “Daniele’s Restaurant,” after the server we like there. And what first night in Italy would be complete without gelato?? Valentino’s was too far from our apartment and it was late, so we just hit up the only local spot that was still open....and proceeded to drip it allll over ourselves (see Pic 2). As we slurped our drippy gelato, we wandered toward our nearby bridge, and Roberta got her first glimpse of St. Peter’s Basilica/ the Vatican (Pic 3). There was lots of talking and enjoyment and laughter, and it was a pretty epic first night.

A few days later we took an overnight trip to Positano, which has been on my To Do list since my manager at Kids Gap described it to me in 2004. 😅 In order to get to Positano, you have to take a train to a neighboring city and then a ferry. Well this lovely leathery man in a low rise jean bikini—who was helping the passengers on/off the ferry—was the first beautiful view we experienced in our Positano adventure. 😬 And after that it only went uphill. Figuratively and literally. Positano is a quaint city built into a mountainside, as are many cities on the Amalfi Coast, meaning the views are sweeping and the walkways are steep!!! The residents of the city for sure all have calves of steel..

We started our evening by stumbling upon this amazing restaurant—not only did it have a gorgeous view, and not only was it the actual closest restaurant to our hotel, but the meal was something we have not stopped talking about since that night. Every time we think “what was the place where we had the best (fill in the blank)??,” 9 times out of 10 we realize, “ohhh it was the restaurant in Positano!” 😝

After dinner I dragged Aarin and Roberta to a nightclub called Music on the Rocks, which I’d heard about and is built inside a cave. Though I’d wanted to go there for years, it was a little underwhelming, so we drank our limoncello and I checked the mental box that I’d been there, and we trekked back to the hotel for the night.

Fast forward to the next morning: If we thought Rome was hot.....well, we had something else in store for us!! But still, we had a lovely (albeit sweaty) day just wandering around the streets of Positano, looking in stores, checking out the church, admiring the views, and savoring the snacks that the city is known for. It was a wonderful little sample of a city I’d love to return to for a bit longer.....when it’s not the middle of August. 😓

[shirness]

ROME: Part 2

As I mentioned, our first two weeks here were pretty chill- well, except in the temperature sense. We have mostly stayed in during the days and gone out at night, but there is still plenty to do and admire after dark.

I think Aarin’s favorite so far has been the Pantheon. The first time we encountered it was at night, by accident, and he was awed by the sheer magnitude of it. (Pics 1-2)

A few of my favorites include: The summer festivals that occur along the river, which run from June through August (Pics 3-4); picturesque views of ancient and sacred monuments like the Vatican, which sometimes just pop into your view as you turn a corner, and take your breath away (Pics 5-6); and all the statues and sculptures, with their intricate detail, which stand so proudly throughout the city....even when seagulls are perched on their heads 😝 (Pics 7-8).

And of course there’s Valentino’s Gelateria. BEST gelato place in the city! I discovered this spot when I was studying in Rome for the summer in 2005, just a few blocks from the Trevi Fountain. And I tried a LOT of gelato, so my opinion was pretty well informed. Not only does Signore Valentino have *the best* amarena (dark cherry), but he has remembered me every single time I’ve come back to Rome(!!) 💕 from 2005 (when we met), to 2007 (not pictured), to 2015 (yes, even after an eight year gap), to 2019! Aarin’s mom arrives to visit us soon, and this will definitely be on our To Do list again... 😊

[shirness]

I’m in love!!! 😍😍😍😍😍

Oh, sorry, let me start over...

ROME: Part 1

Ok, so to be honest, I have been uninspired to write for the past two weeks. We are in Rome, which is my favorite city in the world(!!!)—side note: I realized that this is my fourth time here(!)—but for some reason I haven’t really felt the urge to write much until today.

It’s HOT as [INSERT SOME SWEAR WORD] here, so Aarin and I have been taking it easy most days and then wandering around at night. We’ve been to many of my favorite places already, including Castel Sant’Angelo (pictured above) and the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in Piazza Navona (not pictured here because I’ve taken so many pictures of it in the past it seemed silly to take one again), but something was missing until today. And it was this pizza.

Aarin was at the gym so I decided to take a walk and grab some supplì or arancini, which are both Roman snack foods that are variations on a breaded and fried ball of rice with cheese and other yummy things inside (one of the best things about Rome!). I searched the Internet for a recommendation and found one of the top places in the city (according to a travel website I frequent) was just a seven-minute walk away! Well, when I got there, of course it was closed for the August holiday (as are many of the less touristy places in the city), so I started to wander toward home, hoping I’d stumble upon another place. As I passed through Piazza Santa di Maria in Trastevere, I remembered I saw a street food place nearby, so I popped my head in. As per my usual, I was indecisive and asked the vendor-girl what she would suggest. She decisively pointed to two pizzas and not suppli or arancini, so I acquiesced and agreed to the non-spicy of the two. But then when she tried to sell me a “slice” that was 1/3 of the pizza, I started to say “it’s ok, thank you” with the intention of redirecting back to Plan A. (Un)Fortunately, she had already started cutting the pizza and gave me a kind of puppy dog look, so I said it’s fine and rolled with it. And am I GLAD I did!!!

I always thought of Roman pizza as really weird. A lot of times they put super odd ingredients like potatoes and tuna and corn and anchovies...but this was basil and tomato and pesto and fresh mozzarella. Pretty basic ingredients, honestly, but in a magical delicious combination of flavors. And this is how my love affair was reignited!

When I had asked the girl in the shop “what do you recommend for my first time here,” it was more just a phrasing choice for my question. But now I know, that will definitely only be my first of many happy visits. 🥰

[shirness]

TANGIER (and the rest of), MOROCCO: The Final Days

The rest of Morocco in a nutshell:

Ashley and Ismael were so kind to give us a ride from Chefchaouen to our final destination, Tangier, which is a beach city in the north, super close to Spain. It was probably an hour out of their way on their four-hour drive home. But as I’ve said numerous times—super amazing hosts!!!

On the way there, I finally got a picture of one of the onion stands that had been generously dotting the roadsides over the past few days. A holiday called Eid is coming up, in which each family slaughters a sheep, and there is a whole ritual surrounding how you do it and what you do with it. But I guess you use a lot of onions when you cook it, and these stands were everywhere. The one I got a picture of was only a moderately sized one. Also, see sheep in picture next to onions.

Well, I guess it was about time....because shortly after we arrived in Tangier, I promptly came down with a super fun stomach bug. The good news is we had AC, a beautiful view from our room, and a supermarket next door where we stocked up on bananas and rice cakes and chicken soup. And we had four days there, so even though I was out for three, we still got to see the city a bit on our last day.

Walked to the Medina for some last-day shopping, collected more evidence of the practice of “friends don’t let friends carry the bag alone,” checked out a recommended za3za3 place, sat on a hillside with a bunch of families and their children enjoying the afternoon, walked down the pier (pictured) and the boardwalk (not pictured), and discovered an extremely popular summer concert happening on the beach.

And the next morning, with our traditional Moroccan hats and all, we set off for the airport to Rome.....

[shirness]

MOROCCO: And now a post on cats...

Let’s take a brief break from stories to just talk about cats. SO many cats in Morocco. Cats like:

- cute cat

- guard cat

- blacklight cat

- tiny cat

- tinier cat

- ballsy cat

- thirsty cat

- sickly cat

- and two-different-color-eyes cat

The end.

[shirness]

CHEFCHAOUEN, MOROCCO: Things We Saw

(aka Sights From Around Town)

It was difficult to pick only ten representative photos to encompass the rest of Chaouen (even with my loopholes of being able to add a bonus video and make collages 😝), but here are some sights I found worth sharing, including:

- [video] as promised: the different groups of campers we saw all over, always organized, always singing camp songs

- [pic 1/collage] tagines, tagines everywhere!

- [pic 4] communal drinking cups- yes anyone could (and did) just come up to that fountain, fill a cup, and drink from it

- [pic 5] makeshift beverage cooler at a cafe (resourceful, no?!)

So many more pictures and so many more stories!!! But here (sadly), we depart from Chaouen...

[shirness]

CHEFCHAOUEN, MOROCCO: Things We Did

On our chill days in Chaouen, we mostly did a lot of exploring. Of course, there were frequent za3za3 breaks scheduled in..

In the morning, as we were walking around, Ismael stopped us to show us a community oven. He had mentioned these in previous days/conversations: if you don’t have an oven (or a big enough oven) in your home, you can take your prepped food to one of these and they will cook it for you. As he stopped to point out the oven to us, the baker beckoned us over, and he and Ismael started chatting. He then invited us inside and very confidently pulled each of us over to him, placed our hands on the handle of the peel, and posed for pictures. All his orchestration. 😄

During much of the day, we stopped and admired (and took pictures of) various blue buildings and staircases we found particularly pretty. On some of the more popular staircases, there were groups of people waiting to take pictures, and when I offered to take a photo of this one family that had gotten there before us, they not only accepted but handed all of their belongings to Ashley to hold, purse and everything. Another facet of Moroccan culture: they are very trusting (and also, AshMael told us, very easily offended when you don’t trust them).

In the evening, we shopped, and as we were looking for hats for our hike the next day, this woman pulled Ashley and me aside and started dressing us in traditional Moroccan clothing. Her “sales pitch” worked though; we both bought something. 😝

But most memorable was the sunset. We hiked up to the old mosque (the one you could see from our apartment) and found a spot to watch the sun go down over Chaouen, while also listening to the Call to Prayer that you can hear all over the city.

[shirness]

CHEFCHAOUEN, MOROCCO: First Night

Let’s backtrack a little. So Chefchaouen is a small mountain town known for its predominant blue-ness. There are many theories as to why the town is so blue, including that the color blue keeps away the mosquitos, or it is a remnant of the days when Chaouen was a heavily Jewish town, or just because some people started painting buildings blue and then they started to realize it was a good tourist attraction to sell it as “the blue city.” Regardless, it is a charming town, and full of energy. It’s touristy, sure, but that’s part of what is cool about it—it still maintains its character while being diverse and housing an impressive number of multilingual residents, who have the skills to sell their goods to people from all over the world, whether they need to speak Arabic, French, English, Spanish, Chinese......

Of course, Mayor Ismael had “a guy” (as he does for everything 😝) who rented us an apartment. What Aarin and I didn’t know—but AshMael did—was that renting an apartment in Chaouen means you get certain amenities included (e.g. beds, running water..), but others are not (e.g. soap, towels, toilet paper, trash bags, a working water heater, a shower with doors..). So we were a little surprised when we arrived, but also thankful for AshMael’s preparedness skills! And the location of our place and the view from our 3rd floor terrace (the valley to one side, the mosque on the hillside to the other) more than compensated! Also, given the heat, the cold showers weren’t really all that bad. 😅

On our first night, we arrived just before sunset, and started out by enjoying our terrace view. As we all stood outside, we started to hear music that was slowly getting louder...and soon there was a wedding party in full procession below us. So that was pretty cool.

After the wedding party took off, we headed into town to grab dinner and then roam through the twisty streets of the Medina, trying our first za3za3, and falling in love with this extremely talented balloon artist! I mean this guy was making Spidermans, and Hello Kitties, and Rapunzels complete with shoes and bows in her hair. We gawked for probably ten minutes, and then confused the heck out of him when we paid him and walked away (maybe because we didn’t want a balloon? or maybe because we were four adults with no children? 😝). But he deserved all the dirhams!! And it was a lovely evening.

[shirness]

CHEFCHAOUEN (AKCHOUR), MOROCCO: Post-Hiking

After hiking back down, we grabbed a spot at a pop-up restaurant by the river. These restaurants are temporary because the water rises during different parts of the year, so every summer season they have to start from scratch! Luckily, people can cook tagine just about anywhere 😝 which is what we ate, of course.

After lunch, three brave souls got in the water. The fourth soul (myself) was not so brave and opted out 😬 (Do you see those faces?!? Those are cold faces!!) But we had a nice afternoon by the stream before heading back to the car.

At the bottom of the mountain/ the beginning of the stream, there’s quite a lot going on, and I took a moment to grab some photos, including:

- boy cooking tagine

- pop up cafes

- boy planking??

- teens illegally jumping off building into the water by the dam, which is illegal because its super unsafe when the pressure in the dam changes and can suck you down (and which I have a GREAT Live Photo of that didn’t animate when uploaded 😒)

- Ashley posing in front of group of women and children having a picnic in the shade.... Back story: There were so many times I wanted to take “slice of life” photos of people, but I read on the internets how much people in Morocco don’t love that, so Ashley offered to pose in front of them lol. I still didn’t have the guts to take the pic the way I envisioned it, but I appreciated the moment.. ☺️

- one of many women on the side of the road on our way back, sitting next to an oven and selling bread (we later stopped and bought some from a girl who was probably 16)

Then, back to the famous blue city!

[shirness]

CHEFCHAOUEN (AKCHOUR), MOROCCO: Hiking

So on Saturday, we hit the road to Chefchaouen, the blue city I mentioned earlier. But before we get into all the blueness, one of the reasons we drove to “Chaouen” was to hike. So let’s start there.

From Chaouen, about 45 minutes away is a town called Akchour, where there is a stream and a dam and some resulting little pools that people can dip in...and a trail that leads to the “Bridge of God.” It is a naturally-occurring “bridge” between two mountains, that was said to bring two towns together. It has since been safe-ified with a railing, but the path is still the original rock and the drop below it is still massive. 😳

It was a HOT day, but we made it up to the bridge in about an hour and a half, where we relaxed in a stone hut that is sometimes used as a shop. Today it was empty, and we instead used it as our shady resting spot, where we sat and chatted before hiking back down.

Notes: In picture #7, Ismael is giving us a “tour” of the hut. 😝 In pictures #3 and 8, if you look close, you can see the walkway of the bridge and the tunnel underneath it. 😬 In picture #2, if you look REALLY close, you can see Aarin! 😄

P.S. How much do you love our authentic north-Moroccan hats?? 😎

[shirness]

RABAT, MOROCCO: Part 6

The last few Rabat snapshots

Some other sights from around Rabat:

1. I don’t remember if I mentioned it or not, but on our first night at AshMael’s, they were telling us all about the Gnawa music. This is the music of the slave people, which they still make with traditional instruments only- the ones they had/could make when they were salves. So the percussion is made from handcuffs and rhe string instruments were made from goat skin and intestine. This is a painting in AshMael’s apartment of the Gnawa musicians.

2. Juice stand in the Ville Nouvelle. I’m tellin ya, juice is everywhere.

3. Aarin showing up the muscle man painting on some door. (Who’s got big muscles now, Mr. Two Dimensions?!)

4. Traditional ceramic mugs. Ismael bought one.

5. Morocco’s version of the 99-Cents-Only Store...but they one-upped is. This is the 5-dirham (50¢) store!

6. Girls in a fountain?

7. This is the first time I ever saw (or even heard of) the language Berber. It’s another traditional language in the area, and the country of Morocco recently recognized it as a national language and has started teaching it in schools and incorporating it in signs (along with Arabic and French and English, among others sometimes! Moroccans are super multilingual badasses!)

8. A Dr. Seuss tree.

9. A very poor translation of a menu by Google Translate.

10. The same mosque from the Hassan Tower, but I just liked this very linear perspective of it. ☺️

[shirness]

RABAT, MOROCCO: Part 5

Our last day in Rabat

Sorry guys I’ve been slacking!! I was sick for a couple days...hence also the typos I just caught in a few of my earlier posts 😓 But I’m back now, so let’s wrap up Rabat.

One day before we left, AshMael decided to take us to the archaeological museum. They had never been, so we thought we could all experience it together. We arrived, and who should be at the front desk but a high school friend of Ismael’s. This was just one of MANY examples of why I decided to dub Ismael the mayor of Rabat. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t see like 3 people he knew. Needless to say we got in free 😅

Then we drove to the marina and took a boat across the river to the sister town of Sale. It costs 2.5 dirham, which is the equivalent of about 25¢...and you climb in and these guys are using the skinniest oars I’ve ever seen, so they had to do a lot of work for not a lot of outcome to get us across. Didn’t seem like the most effective method, for them. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyway, we walked around the marina in Sale, where they had just installed these solar powered street lamps whose lights faced upward to reflect off a flat surface to make the pool cast wider.. This marked the beginning of my obsession with Morocco’s street lamp artistry. I started to notice how unique and intricate they were, from one street to another.

Before we leave Rabat, I want to share a handful more photos/stories from the day at Ismael’s mom’s house.

- Many Moroccan homes don’t have official bedrooms. They have rooms like this with couches that people sleep on but that can also be used as entertaining rooms for when you have guests. So these are all the rooms in Ismael’s mom’s house. Plus the kitchen, which I thought was so colorful I had to ask her if I could take a picture! (PS The cutie in the GIF is Ismael’s niece, here very wisely not falling for Ashley’s “look over there” tickle tactics.) 😝

- No associated picture for this, but a funny story I forgot to mention while we were at his mom’s house... remember I told you we hung out all afternoon like family? We even got assigned a task while we were there, like family. Aarin got to help her re-hang her curtain rod 😅

- That second to last picture is with Ismael’s mom around the couscous-table... and the last picture is just for some light amusement. You’re welcome. 🤓

[shirness]

MOROCCO: Part 4

Food!

The next few days were a little less jam-packed, so let me take this opportunity to talk about the FOOD in Morocco.. a crucial topic when one is traveling, or anytime really. 😬 And AshMael did a fantastic job of making sure we tried all the things!

First off, in Morocco, tea is key. They drink a light black tea with mint and sugar, and they drink it often. There’s even a special way to pour it, which our waiter at Dar Naji very effectively demonstrated! [Video and pic 1]

Other foods we got to try, pictured in order above:

[2] Bsiharra- a fava bean soup with olive oil, argan oil, and cumin (cumin is in everything!)

[3] So we didn’t try the snails, but the carts were everywhere, so thought I’d share that it’s a thing.

[4] Makouda- fried potato patties

[5] Chebakiya- fried dough soaked in honey, with sesame seeds on top, shaped like a rose

[6] Dragon fruit- a fruit :p

[7] Traditional Moroccan breakfast!! Ok, so this is Everything. ❤️ You start with eggs, and mild cheese, and olives (which are ubiquitous like Moroccan tea and cumin). This particular restaurant also included shredded turkey that was dried and meant to taste a little like pork/ham (since Muslims don’t eat pig, you don’t find much of it in Morocco). The platter in the middle of the table is all the sauces to go with all your breads. Sauces: olive oil, honey, jelly, and amlou (a peanut-butter like sauce made with argan oil and honey...the best!). Breads: Rghayf/ Msmen (thin, crepe-like bread) and [not pictured] hrcha (a thicker, cornbread-like, and made with semolina). You can also see there’s tea on the table (of course) and fresh squeezed orange juice (which is also a big thing, and which I’ve now officially become addicted to).

[8] Morocco’s version of “tacos”- they call them “French tacos,” but regardless of who invented them, the only resemblance to a real taco is that it’s wrapped in a tortilla. They sort of panini-press them around the ingredients, which typically include some kind of meat, some kind of mayo-based sauce, and French fries. Not that they’re not good! But they’re not tacos.. 😬

[9] Za3za3- A smoothie of sorts with a variety of blended fruits (orange, strawberry, sometimes dragon fruit), including avocado; also pieces of flan, nuts and raisins, and sometimes other goodies on top. This one had whipped cream, a pirouline cookie, and an Oreo, among other slices of fruit. And yes there’s a 3 in the word. It represents an Arabic sound we don’t make and don’t have a letter for in our alphabet. Ask me how to pronounce it when I see you next, and I’ll tell you the story of how I found out I can’t. 😅

[10] I’ve already introduced you to tagine, which is a major staple in Moroccan cuisine...but so is couscous, which you see in this picture. Like tagine, when you make a couscous, you make it family-style (one for the middle of the table, no plates) and you (traditionally) eat it with your hands, though more often people are using utensils now. Couscous is an experience too, though, both for the cook and for the guests. To properly make it, you need to steam it (not boil it!) and do so four to five times. It’s a whole day event. And when Ismael’s mother very generously invited us over to share a couscous, we stayed at her house for about five hours. It was a wonderful shared family time with lounging in her guest room, chatting, other family members popping in, pastries, and (you guessed it) tea.

We tried lots of other foods that are not pictured here. They are:

Hndiya- Cactus fruit

Rfissa- torn apart crepe w/ chicken and lentils

Nougat- cashew candy, can also be made with other nuts

Harira- tomato based soup

Pastilla- a flaky meat pie that’s savory but often covered in powdered sugar, I tried one with chicken

Seffa- noodles with chicken and sugar and cinnamon

Leben- milk yogurt drink, that we had with the couscous meal

Zmeta- Moroccan “protein powder” made of ground seeds and nuts and spices mixed with honey and olive oil

Medfouna- tortilla-like bread wrapped around meat, tomatoes, onions, with almonds on top

Shemiah- cinnamon and coconut pastry made of semolina, looks kind of like flan

And so many other pastries and cookies like the ones from two posts ago....

Conclusion: Moroccan food is where it’s at.

[shirness]

RABAT, MOROCCO: Part 3

Day 3

On our second full day, we saw:

- Chellah (once a Muslim necropolis then taken over by a colony of Romans, now more recently taken over by a colony of storks—aside: have you ever heard storks chatter before??! Well, you can now..), where we paid an old lady to throw rotten eggs in a pond so the eels would come out of hiding, and where we climbed up a wall and looked over to find a family in what Ismael called “illegal housing” playing in their puddle swimming pool and making tagine on the ground

- and the Hassan tower (a minaret of a mosque that was once intended to be the tallest in the world, as was the mosque itself to be the largest, but they stopped construction when the Caliph died in 1199), possibly Rabat’s most famous monument, which is surrounded by short columns that were intended to be part of the mosque, and where we had our first encounter with large groups of summer camp kids overtaking the place with singing and chanting! (I have a video on that in an upcoming post.) Although it is not the original mosque the Caliph had intended, there is still a mosque on the grounds, and a beautiful mausoleum for three of the former rulers of Morocco. The gold and green, and the towers with the three bulbs on top, are very characteristic of Moroccan mosques.

[shirness]

RABAT, MOROCCO: Part 2

Day 2

AshMael were the bests hosts and tour guides! Every day they had a plan for us, which not only involved seeing all the sights in Rabat, but also tasting all the foods. 😋

On our first full day, we saw:

- the Medina: which basically means the old, walled city; every Moroccan city has one, and they are typically packed shopping areas with wall-to-wall stalls selling anything and everything, including [pictured] beauty products, spices, soaps, sheep heads, and a press where you put in any nut or seed and walk away with oil

- the Kasbah: the fortress/citadel, which had a beautiful garden inside that we walked through to get to a cafe overlooking the river Bou Regreg and the sister town of Sale, where we were introduced to yummy Moroccan pastries and sweet mint tea, and where we watched kids illegally swimming in the river and sliding down a sand pile on a construction site, and from which we continued on to the “mini blue city” which is a smaller and more peaceful yet equally beautiful version of Chefchaouen, which I will get to later...

- and the “Old New City” or the Ville Nouvelle [not pictured here, just because other pictures too precedence], which is a slightly newer (but not the newest) part of town near the Medina.

[shirness]

MOROCCO: Part 1

Day 1

We are in Morocco!!!

It’s barely 7am as we arrive, and we very quickly learn that Morocco is a country of hospitality. As we are about to deplane, the guy sitting next to us strikes up a conversation. “Is it your first time in Morocco?” (I think the tip off was when he heard me rehearsing some poorly executed French and Arabic phrases..) “Umm, yes?” (Cautious Americans.) He starts to ask us where we are going and what we have planned; he stays by our side, making conversation and offering advice until we get to customs, where he tells us about the forms we will have to fill out and asks if we have a ride to the train station (since we arrived in Tangier but needed to get to Rabat). We tell him we don’t, and he says “My dad is picking me up, we will take you.” When we pass through declarations and his dad is waiting, he goes to his dad and comes right back to us; he says “My dad offered to drive you even before I asked.” Aarin and I are both pretty savvy and aware individuals, but we both had a good feeling and took him up on his offer. While we drove, he and Aarin exchanged phone numbers, and he offered again, if we needed any advice or anything, to let him know. They dropped us off at the train station and were on their way. That was our first hour in Morocco!

When we arrived in Rabat, my friend Ashley—who I know from my restaurant days in LA and who I hadn’t seen in seven years—and her boyfriend Ismael picked us up. They took us back to their apartment, where we hung out and caught up for hours, then took a nap (we were up at 3:30am to catch our flight) until the evening’s events began.

In the evening, Ashley and Ismael (who I am going to dub AshMael for ease, moving forward) took us on our very first cultural excursion: to the Souk. In Arabic-speaking countries, the Souk is the open air market where you go for your fruits and veggies, and sometimes other odds and ends. We loaded up on the former, basically filling our grocery bag for the equivalent of $6.

Aarin had exposure to another cultural lesson on that outing (which kind of ties into the hospitality theme)—friends don’t let friends carry the grocery bag alone! So though Aarin offered to help out, Ismael wouldn’t let him do it solo, and Aarin had Step One of his induction into Moroccan know-how.

When we got home, AshMael made us home-cooked tagine, which is a very traditional Moroccan dish of veggies, potatoes, and sometimes meat, cooked in a ceramic dish that is also called a tagine. We ate Moroccan-style, which means the tagine goes in the middle of the table for everyone to share, and you use pieces of bread to take bites with your hands.

It was delicious, and we went to bed happy and full. A wonderful welcome to Morocco.

[shirness]

VALENCIA: Final Chapter, since I promised I’d make this one shorter!

Some other scenes from around Valencia.

In an effort to be concise:

1. The night we stumbled upon a fireworks show at the City of Arts and Sciences

2. The white broken tiles they used to decorate many random parts of the city, including this underground metro station

3. Gulliver Park, a playground in the Turia that’s designed like an abstract Gulliver from Gulliver’s travels, so that when kids climb on it, it looks like they are the Lilliputians.

4. My friends Ana and Maite that I met through ConversationExchange.com, a website where you can find people who want to practice your native language and vice versa (I learned a lot from these ladies!)

5. My favorite sculpture, with the book lovers on both sides

6. An ice cream shop with weeeeird flavors

7. Some street art I liked

8. The view from the salsa club by the beach that Jasmine recommended to us, where we got entry + 3 lessons (bachata and salsa) + a drink + social dancing for 6€

9. Kids playing on the playground at midnight (totally normal in Valencia)

10. A colorful street I discovered that caught my eye

11./ The video- Sometimes amidst the hubbub of the city, we would stumble into a place of tranquility, like we did in this park we found...

Thank you for sticking with me through Valencia! On to Morocco....where I still am now!!