Semana Diez: Prague: Earth's Hellhole

1 April ~ 7 April 2011

I left off last at yet another failed attempt to use public transportation in Zurich. Our next step was to make it to the bus station to catch our overnight bus to Prague. This was definitely not a bus to miss or a time to get the wrong bus. And I use “bus station” loosely; it was more or less a parking lot designated for buses. We went to the stop/curb and sat down next to our two drivers. It was practically time to leave and the bus and the rest of the passengers had yet to show up. We, reasonably, fantasized about having the bus to ourselves on the 7-hour trip and being able to spread out. If only that were anywhere near what actually went down. The bus pulled up already full from the origination point of the bus, Zurich was just a stop.

We walked on the bus to be greeted not only by the absence of two free seats, but an overwhelming fart aroma. I walked toward the back of the bus and Elissa toward the front. We stood at either end of the bus looking at each other confused as to what to do. These assholes were sitting one row apiece with their bags on the adjacent seat. Did anyone offer to move up next to someone so we could sit together? Nope. Most of them were French so God forbid I ask them to do such a courteous favor. Even more irksome was that most of them were with a friend who was sitting in front of them! I sat down disgruntled and let out an audible "Je deteste le monde" (I hate the world). This fartmobile was going to be a nightmare.

I tried to sleep on the bus and failed to do so. Our first stop was Swiss border patrol. I didn’t know we were going to need our passports as mine was down below in the cargo hold in my backpack. The officer got on, and for some reason, could have cared less if I were an illegal immigrant/terrorist as he took Elissa’s word for it that I was studying abroad with her in Spain. We got into Prague around 5 a.m. and headed straight to the Charles Bridge for sunrise; this was the beginning of all extremely creepy and rather unfortunate events that tarnished our Prague experience so badly that we thought there were two Pragues, and we went to the wrong one.

As we got off the Straometska metro station there was a very shady old begger man that was trying to get our attention as they usually do. We ignored him, again, as you usually do. What is not usual is for the man to follow you all the way to the bridge! In the process of trying to avoid him, Elissa dashed across the street and got honked at by two cars that apparently thought she was stupid and was going to walk out in front of them. Our grand plan to once-and-for-all ditch the creeper was to stand directly behind an artist we saw sitting on the bridge sketching the city skyline. Our plan worked as the hobo walked up to the artist and was cast away. We had been there for maybe 20 minutes and I was ready to get the hell out of there.

The sun took its grand ol’ time rising and it was bitterly cold—not to mention the wind which was at least Category 2 hurricane strength—and I was in the early stages of frostbitten hands. I had never in my life ever thought I would want be wrapped up in an American flag Snuggie with a giant mug of peppermint mocha watching a documentary on Heidi & Spencer or a dramatic Mexican telenovela, but I was so there.

Eventually the clouds cleared and the sun rose and we snapped our National Geographic-worthy photos.

Now it was time to head to one of the few things I had on my Prague list—BakeShop. Any time I travel, the first five things on my list are always places to eat, with the top two normally being bakeries. After having a -2 on the scoreboard, BakeShop took Prague back to a level 0 score; there were so many things to choose from: breads, muffins, croissants, cupcakes, coffees, cakes, brownies, and more! I was in a heart attack paradise and seriously took about ten minutes to order; I took so long that the worker behind the corner got fed up with me, rolled her eyes, and walked into the back. I eventually decided upon a ham and cheese croissantwich, a chocolate espresso muffin, and a mocha with a shot of almond, the latter turning out to be the most amazing coffee drink I had ever had. The mocha was so good that by the end of our three days there I had three, two of which being on the same day.

You know things are a little awry when you’re in one of the timeless European capitals that is extolled by the world and the highlight of your trip thus far has been a cup of coffee. Did I mention by this point we also had nowhere to stay for the night? Yeah, we had sent out a message on the emergency couchsurfing board for Prague and nothing was coming through. We soldiered on after breakfast to the next important attraction in Prague—Starbucks. Finally I get to have my first Starbucks in 4 months! But really, we just used it for their free wifi to plan the rest of our day and possibly find some rather safe parks to sleep in for the night. Maybe that guy from earlier had availability at his place…

After my delicious Chai latte, which is the best I have ever had at a Starbucks, we decided to go to Prague Castle—this should certainly be exciting. Ok, now my patience with Prague was reaching a shaving-my-head-á-la-Britney crisis level. Prague “Castle” is simply a large Gothic church (nothing new in Europe) with a village wrapped around it. Where the hell are the towers, dragons, moat, and drawbridges? Where are Belle and Gaston? This was especially depressing after we climbed a damn mountain to get up there in the first place—we had to take a breather when we got to the top. At least the view from the hill was spectacular, that is, until dumb Asian woman decided to ruin that too. I was standing in between two brick columns looking out over the city when this woman walked up beside me and took a picture. Apparently she was dissatisfied with this photo and decided to move horizontally into/in front of me for a better view/my view. Ok, yeah, awesome, just push me aside. No need for ‘excuse me’ here. Take you and your nasty black dandruffed hair away from me—don’t make me play the Godzilla card! They’ll clear out real fast then.

Unlike my first priority (BakeShop), Elissa’s was a little more normal, Lennon Wall. After our downer of a day thus far, we decided to go see the graffiti wall dedicated to John Lennon on Kampa Island. Again, we’re beginning to think this was to prove another disaster as we searched the entire island and could not even find the wall. In the meantime, we passed some large, black sculptures of babies with smashed faces—what the f*** is wrong with this place? We found the wall which, let me say, is NOT on Kampa Island as it is said to be. I don’t know if we need to lecture the Czechs on what is/is not an island, but it was clearly on the opposite side of the bridge. The wall proved to be one of the few highlights of Prague and we spent a good bit of time there. 

The best part of the day was soon to come: Cantina! The following thing on my list of to-do’s was a restaurant called Cantina which happened to be conveniently located near the Lennon Wall. This place was simply incredible—best Mexican food ever! I never thought I would find such great Mexican cuisine in a hellhole like this, but my, oh my was it ever good. We started off with tortilla chips con queso which were so ridiculously cheesy and yummy. For my entrée I got a chicken steak with a creamy cheese sauce, corn, tortillas, rice, jalapeños, and a cheese quesadilla.

Our lives almost ended after Cantina, which wouldn’t have been too bad considering we would have had a wonderful last supper. We ventured to our a “3-star hotel” that I managed to find on Hotwire while at Gloria Jean’s (yes I'm aware that's 3 coffee joints in less than half a day, but I have a problem) for $15 apiece for the night. When we arrived to the ghetto where our luxurious resort was located it was already completely dark. We walked up the main street trying to find our street but to no avail. I stopped in one of the convenient stores and asked the clerk if she knew where the Hotel Jasmin was, but she did not—of course. Not knowing where to go, we saw a tall hotel in the middle of a random industrial area and decided to go ask the reception area for directions to our hotel. 

We followed their directions and when we arrived to our street we could still not find our hotel. We walked the entire expanse of the street and had no clue as to where the hotel was. There were random groups of guys that kept passing us and we were both a little uneasy. I began to walk in one direction of the street only to dead-end into a parking lot with barbed wire fencing—definitely not it, I hope. Elissa walked in the other direction into what seemed to be a group of small apartment complexes. Turns out this was the hotel and the reception was a small building in the middle of all of the other buildings. I’m not asking for much, but maybe a lit sign on the street with the hotel name would be helpful—just saying.

After having a mild battle with the receptionist who was telling me I needed to pay for the room even though I already did, we made our way to the room to relax and forget all of the day’s missteps. Our wonderful room featured a TV from the 1930’s with about ten channels, three of which were the same, a floating creature in toilet, the absence of a shower curtain, a chair that looked as if a psycho cat attacked it after finding a stash of catnip inside, water that took ten minutes to get hot, a shower that I had to place my head at a 45-degree angle to fit in, and oh, a third bed. We were slightly skeptical as to the presence of the third bed—was a roommate going to be showing up at some point? To prevent this from happening, I took the war-damaged chair and propped it under the door handle. The only good thing about the room was the ever-present Bible that I used to prop up my flipcam while it was charging. Thank you, Jesus. Side note: we also believed the carpet was the same material used for pool table tops—such a nice touch. 

The next day we tried yet another castle, Vysehrad. Yet again it was deja vu: a church in a field with a town around it. At least this castle had a “watch tower” wich, not surprisingly, was maybe fifteen feet high and also functioned as both an art museum and a gift shop. After the castle we did some more mild sightseeing before we made our way to Ariana for dinner (the third thing on my to-do list). Ariana is an Afghan restaurant and our dinner was plentiful and delicious. The last thing on the day's agenda was a show at the Krizik Fountains. The theme for the show was the music of Metallica and The Scorpions by an orchestra and I was quite pumped for it. As I was starting to learn, everything outside of the Historic Quarter was automatically creepy, carnie, ghetto land. Under the bridge, past the barbed wire fences and large abandoned warehouses, through a damn carnival, literally a carnival, we went—and guess what? No show; the sound was malfunctioning. Good night Prague. I hate you.

For our last day in Prague, we decided to take a day trip to Kutna Hora to see the bone chapel. Of course things would not be easy—why would they? We arrived at the train station in Kutna Hora without a hitch, but it was getting to the chapel that was the issue. We were told by a local to take the small, public train to get there since it was too far to walk, so we did. However, she did not tell us where to get off, and I couldn’t find her again. We thought we saw the chapel at the edge of the city due to the presence of a large gothic church and would get there in no time. There was one stop after the train station, but we didn’t get off because the church still looked pretty far up—wrong move. When the train continued on after this stop, it kept going, kept going, right past the church and further out. We were now in the middle of the Czech countryside on a train full of beer-guzzling hillbillies at noon. Completely stunned and confused, we were then confronted from the conductor who wanted to see our tickets. Our tickets apparently weren’t valid for the leg of the train we were on and he kept scolding us in Czech as if we understood. The couple next to us then stepped in and tried to help us out—in Czech—by hand signaling to get off at the next stop and take the train back four stops.

Long story short, we took the train back to where they suggested, we walked ten minutes to the bone chapel which turned out not to be the bone chapel so we walked some more and waited close to two hours for a local bus to take us to the bone chapel. We finally got to the bone chapel and enjoyed it and all of its creepiness—of course there is a chapel filled with the remains of 40,000 humans in the Czech Republic. Getting ready to leave, we did a quick spin around the cemetery that encompassed the chapel to find a couple that appeared to be unearthing a grave? Maybe the large trash bag and the woman raking at a grave gave it a way but we were a little concerned. Should we notify there are some psychos outback digging up graves? We didn’t have the energy to do so and instead booked it to the train station and rewarded ourselves with Cantina again for the hard day we had.

The next morning we were off to Berlin—thank God! I must also note that we joked while in Prague that Saw I-V, Hostel, and any other horror movies were probably filmed in Prague only to find out that Hostel actually was—go figure. 

Un saludo,

Bryce

Semana Nueve: Zurich/Ricola and Yodeler Land

25 March ~ 31 March 2011

Sorry, it has been so long since I last wrote, but it is not without cause. A friend from school, Elissa, and I went vacationing—well tried—across  central Europe for a week and a half. Instead of ending my blog material when I normally do, after just 3 days of traveling, I decided to dedicate one weekly blog to each city we visited (Zurich, Prague, and Berlin).

We began our grand journey on a bus from Granada to Malaga where we were catching our flight to Zurich. I have learned, after multiple tries now, that I cannot sleep on public transportation—not even smooth overnight flights. As I tried to get some rest on the 2-hour bus ride, I could only hear, “…party and party and Hey! Fun, fun, fun…” Damn you Rebecca Black.

Beginning our trip on the wrong foot should have foreshadowed all that was to come, but it was unbeknownst to us; we stood in line at the Air Berlin check-in counter for what seemed to be eternity, even though we had already printed our boarding passes and weren’t checking luggage. I know better than that! Already immersed in our own stupidity, we decided to have a well-balanced breakfast at Pizza Hut.

When it was time, we boarded our Air Berlin flight to be greeted by one of the three German Charlie’s Angels holding out a basket of welcome candies. I truly felt like any one of these flight attendants could have me tied up in the shape of a pretzel and thrust from the aircraft in a matter of seconds. It all started with their appearance: red leather gloves, a very slim and chic navy uniform, red and white ascot tied to perfection, and (the one) a fierce blonde bob. Elissa and I agreed they were most likely not even flight attendants, rather German undercover intelligence agents who had multiple passports, currencies, and identities in their possession. I made a mental note not to cross lines with these gals.

Air Berlin turned out to be such an amazing airline. They earned brownie points by a.) giving me free food which is unheard of these days, especially for a 2-hour flight and b.) playing Carrie Underwood on the plane. The only slight damper on the flight experience was the lady a couple of rows behind us who had her extremely adorable puppy stuffed in her purse. Its cuteness faded real quickly after it kept whimpering and crying the entire duration of the flight. I did feel somewhat for the dog as it most likely had keys digging into its side and a nail filer jammed in its eye, not to mention the lack of light and oxygen in a purse. I had earlier mentioned to Elissa how I wanted to steal the dog, but wouldn’t know what to do with it on our travels other than plugging its butt with a cork to be more travel-efficient. To her this seemed horrible, but it was ok, after her irritation grew in response to the whimpering, to flush it down the airplane toilet.

When we landed in beautiful Zurich, we once again started on the wrong foot. I have never felt more like an idiotic American tourist in my life. We were waiting for the complete wrong mode of transportation, realized this, then sprinted down the street to catch the right one, which turned out not to be the right one. We quickly got up to get off…if we could just figure out how to open the doors. I stood there pushing all the pictures and symbols on the door before a man leaned over and pushed a button on the handrail which opened the doors. We bolted across the tracks in front of an incoming trolley to catch the one we needed, but it left anyway. At some point during this hellish span of about five minutes Elissa said “hola” to a man who said “hello” to her in perfect English (more on that later). This was going to be an awesome trip.

I must also comment on the Swiss public transportation system: not only do they run with the esteemed Swiss-precision, they are extremely fancy, and more bothersome, extremely quiet. After debating whether or not we boarded a first class train on the subway accidentally, we were taken aback by the utter silence we were rudely interrupting—it was so quiet! The glass must have been sound-proof, the subway barely made any sound as it moved, and all of the people were sitting in silence. Of course, we had to giggle at the ridiculousness of it all and I tried to film this on my Sony Bloggie, that is, until one man seemed to disapprove of my actions and stared at me for the longest time after turning the camera in his direction.

After the whole transportation debacle, we managed to arrive at our couchsurfing host for the night, Melany. To our great delight, Melany turned out not to be a 45-year-old meth addict with a penis as we feared, given this was our first couchsurfing experience, and instead was such a sweetheart. We loved her and her cute little apartment, even if it was decorated by a seven-year old schoolgirl with a passion for teddy bears as the toilet seat and toilet paper were covered by hugging bears. We walked into the living room to find two beds made with maps and attraction pamphlets fanned out across the top with a “Willkommen in Zürich” and hazelnut chocolates. After dropping our stuff down, she poured us some water and helped us plan out our day on the map. We wanted to stay and talk longer, but we were pinched for time and had to go.

Our first stop in Zurich was Uetliberg, which is a mountain adjacent to downtown. The views from up top were phenomenal and among the best I’ve ever seen. Not only could you see the city sprawling out along the banks of Lake Zurich, but the Swiss Alps in the distance and the folds of other green mountains all around. It was in the park we realized how fit the Swiss are; everywhere we looked there was someone jogging or gasping for air on the bikes. Did they seriously run/bike all the way up the mountain? I wanted to tell them there was a train that had service to the top, but I was pretty sure they might already know that, and still made the decision to bike it? I don’t understand this country. There were also very bizarre reindeer-like lamps throughout the park and a group playing a random game of charades.

After my dose of nature, we returned to the center of town and walked along the Bahnhofstrasse which is one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world, to the historic center. It was here that the overwhelming charm and beauty of Switzerland in general was hitting us as we were practically drooling and glossy-eyed as we walked along the lake. I stopped to take some pictures of the lake but had to take a break and watch the lady next to be wipe out down the steps—more like go sledding on her stomach. Dinner was the next priority, but proved to be an obstacle considering the crazy prices of Zurich. We knew Zurich was Europe’s second most-expensive city going into this, but seeing price tags in real life were just shocking—8 Swiss Francs (practically the same as US dollars) for a Starbucks! We eventually settled on an Italian restaurant and had very tasty pizzas. We were slightly confused after dinner as we had managed to overlook the whole tipping situation in other countries which varies greatly. In Spain, you don’t have to tip, but we knew this wasn’t the case everywhere, so we left what we hoped would be sufficient and ran out of the restaurant in case he came chasing after us—literally ran.

Before heading home we swung by a souvenir shop so Elissa could check out the shot glasses which she collects in every city. For some reason, there was a large congregation of Japanese tourists hovering around a table with the store’s entire stock of Swiss army knives as one of them was buying the entire lot. Why? It was rather scary. I’ve seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, I know what Asians can do with sharp objects—time to go as their intentions were unclear.

By the time we returned, Melany was already in bed and we decided to go to bed as well. We tried our hardest to be quiet but Jesus Christ walking across the floorboards sounded the symphony! Even if you shifted your weight to the other leg it sounded like fireworks going off. We looked like a bunch of idiots leaping across the living room with giant steps to get to the bathroom while making the least amount of sound. Thankfully the house was really clean and we felt comfortable so we took showers in the morning—well, at least I showered, not quite sure what you could call what Elissa did: she bathed in a squatting position since she could not figure out how to turn the shower head on and then dried off with a t-shirt… which she then wore.

We began our second day with a visit to the Kunsthaus modern art museum. These types of museums always have odd pieces on display but the Swiss took it to a whole new level. Apparently carcasses are seen as art in Zurich, as Elissa and I were frightened by not only what seemed to be a plastered human lying on the ground, but a dead, mutilated horse wrapped in some sort of binding fabric. That is not art, that’s sick and twisted, and that artist is a psychopath. We might as well put BTK’s “work” out on display as it’s just so…artsy?

After leaving the Saw museum, we strolled through the eastern side of the historic quarter. Things were normal and mature until I came face-to-face with my inner eight-year old’s dream store, Baerenland, a store filled with nothing but gummy candies. I didn’t warn Elissa about my erratic and sometimes irrational juvenile behavior when gummies are on the line, but she was quickly introduced to this side, as well as my Achilles’ heel for pastries and coffe/tea products. The man working inside the gummy paradise obviously had not had human interaction for quite some time as he kept bombarding us with samples of all of their products which I didn’t object to, naturally. I left the store with the most amazing of them all, mango and passion fruit gummies, in addition to Red Bull gummies, spicy chili pepper gummies, and a little wet spot of excitement.

We then headed across the lake to the other side to go to a grocery store, but after meeting Barbie herself:

After purchasing my essentials: peach tea, Swiss chocolate, and pretzel bread, we walked to the lake promenade to sit and enjoy our…lunch. The lakeside promenade, like almost anywhere in Europe, was the scene of intense teenage cuddling and P.D.A.s. I’ve never seen the way these people interlock themselves and remain in that position for hours ever. I was soon interrupted by the screams of some child who had fallen off of his scooter for the third or fourth time. I don’t know mom, maybe scooters aren’t a good idea for a four-year old, especially not on a concrete slab next to a large body of water with rather large and aggressive geese.

Before bidding adieu to Zurich, we decided we wanted to rush and see the Lindt & Sprungli factory in the south of Zurich. The Universe had to yet again interfere with our plans—and by that I mean the Universe being the scapegoat for our own stupidity. We only had 45 minutes to get to the factory before it closed so we had to act quickly which was hard considering it took maybe 10 to figure where the factory even was and the fastest route to get there. We eventually got on our train and were off to the factory. There was a very large Swiss woman on board who I assumed took a liking to Elissa as she stared her down for a good percentage of the ride. Elissa said the first time she made eye contact back with Olga (as I’ll call her—sounds large and Swiss) she  looked away, but the second time Elissa looked at her, she continued to stare back—how creepy? All excited and pumped for chocolate we got off the train to realize we went in the complete opposite direction and it was now 4 and the factory was closed.

(To be continued….)

Un saludo,

Bryce

Semana Ocho: Lions, Camels, and Idiots--Oh, my!

18 March ~ 24 March 2011

I began this past week with a weekend jaunt to Africa—sounds wild, eh? Well, Africa wasn’t wild, the people were. When you book group travel, you would expect to be traveling with a group, right? Well, not me. For some reason, I thought Lizzie, Ariel, and I were just going to be in Morocco on our own, doing our own thing. I’m not entirely sure where this assumption came from. It was like the time I assumed—actually, audibly proclaimed—I wouldn’t get sunburned lying out in the pool in the middle of July without sun block. Waking up the next morning with first-degree burns was just a hell of a good time and a reminder of just how much of an idiot I am.

After our three-hour bus ride from Granada to Seville to meet up with the group and board our additional two-and-a-half hour bus to the port city of Tarifa, I was not in the mood for general human interaction, let alone those of the retarded Barbie and Ken group we happened to be traveling with. All I wanted to do was sit in my seat, as you would on a bus, and go to town on my mixed bag of gummy candies. Instead, my poor ears were subject to typical meathead comments like: (on a calculator)”If you multiply this by this, and add this to that, and then divide by this, it says “BOOB.” If the comment wasn’t irritating, the jacked-up, macho, hyena cackle was enough to make me slit my wrists. Seconds later, one of the Barbies wanted verification that the Strait of Gibraltar was “a rock, right?” No stupid, that would be the ROCK of Gibraltar. I didn’t have alcohol, or Nyquil so, I was stuck with these examples of reverse evolution/primeval middle schoolers at least until the port, where they could mysteriously disappear into the Mediterranean. I was just waiting for someone to say, “Pull my finger.”

At one point, after expressing my thoughts on our peers, Ariel chimed-in in support: “I’m glad you guys are jaded on general human behavior (like I am).” At least my companions were on the same page with me so, it was just a matter of surviving this Laguna Beach nightmare. Don’t get me wrong, there eventually proved to be some worthy, normal humans with us on the trip, but they were the minority. After watching a few people ram into my armrest while maneuvering their way through the narrow aisle with their luggage, I decided to put it down. Ten seconds later I put it back up. There would be no sympathy for this crowd, plus it was pretty amusing watching them take a blow to their kidney and literally being stopped in their tracks. One-by-one all of the passengers were being impaled or thrown backward due to my incredible object of amusement and it was delightful.

To add fuel to the fire, the tour guides, which were practically our age, decided to put on Superbad. Why? Yes, it is a very funny movie, but it would be like putting on Never Say Never for a group of teenage girls, or Spice World for me. I could just see the headlines now: “3 students (Ariel, Lizzie, and I) were found dead after hanging themselves with their backpacks in Tangier. Officals said they had been there for approximately four minutes.”

                                                           African coast

After about ten bus rides, three boats, two flights, and bicycling, we finally arrived in M’Diq at our hotel. I was absolutely starving as was everyone else. There was a group of Moroccan performers dressed in traditional Moroccan performing apparel at the entrance of the hotel playing music for us. While I appreciated the welcome, my stomach was on the verge of throwing a huge PMS episode and I did not have the time to wait for people to stop and take pictures, it was time to eat! The pasta with Bolognese sauce was very good, but it was the Moroccan tea and homemade ice cream that stole the show. The banana and vanilla ice cream was the best ice cream I had ever had. There must have been a cat farm in or around our hotel because our dinner was interrupted a few times by the pack/school/group/flock/whatever of cats that were roaming freely through the restaurant.

Fat, full, and happy, we finally got to go check out our room. We were already halfway to the room when one of the bellhops decided to join us and try to take our bags for us, which we didn’t give him as we only had a backpack each…that were ON our backs. He opened our door for us and showed us to the beds as if we weren’t capable of doing so ourselves and then practically broke my arm trying to take my backpack off to set it on the bench behind me. He then expected some kind of tip, but we had only just arrived and only had large Moroccan Dirham bills. Do you honestly think I’m going to tip you for the arduous task of taking my backpack off and setting it directly behind me?

As if this employee wasn’t irritating enough, the electrician/resident hobo certainly was. I shouldn’t say he was irritating, rather mysterious—a magician of sorts. Our bathroom light didn’t work and we had asked if someone could come fix it. A couple of minutes later this guy comes rolling in hair disheveled and sporting a tattered blue jumpsuit and goes to “work.” After fidgeting with the light switch for a bit, he opened our closet and was searching for something on the top shelf. I saw him pull absolutely nothing out of the closet, but afterward we walked back into the bathroom and the light was on. Either this guy was a wizard, or he pulled out a screwdriver and light bulb without me noticing. After he left, we went and tried to turn the bathroom light on, which didn’t work—again. There was something fishy going on, but we decided to leave it be and go to the bar. I was hesitant to leave because I just knew we would return to find the hobo asleep in one of our beds. At some point during the night, Lizzie rudely obliterated a poor snail outside of our room.

                                                                                     R.I.P. Gary

The next morning we were off to the blue-and-white washed hilltop town of Chefchaouen. After getting off the bus we met up with our local tour guide who took us on an extensive hike through the city. There wasn’t one corner of the town that wasn’t photogenic. When the tour was done we headed to the restaurant near the town square for lunch. The restaurant had your typical Moroccan design and furnishings, but more importantly, the pastilla. It was incredible. It was a curried chicken with nuts and other seasonings in a baked pocket of filo dough topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon and over a bed of mint leaves. Although it was delicious, at about the halfway point you begin to be overwhelmed/nauseated by the entire use of their seasoning pantry’s collection. After lunch we had free time to shop. Exiting the restaurant, I got a warm welcome from one of the local children who made a gun with his fingers and gestured shooting me in the face. Nice to meet you too, you little f***er.

                                                                                 Pastilla!

Shopping in Morocco is tiresome and flat-out infuriating. I can’t even handle retail employees in the States coming up to me and asking me if I need help finding anything. Well, I don’t know, I did JUST walk in the damn door. Give me a minute to breathe. In Morocco though, they follow you, and they keep talking, keep talking. They tell you how good everything looks on you, and how it’s a good price and a good size. I just wanted to scream. I was in one store looking at traditional Moroccan poncho sweaters when Lizzie and Ariel decided to ditch me. I left the store and couldn’t find either of them. I began walking through the winding alleyways trying not to wander too far off the main path as I did not want to end up lost in that labyrinth of blue. I really wanted to find them after I was called a “mother fucker” by an older man trying to sell me hash, who was “talking” to me from behind me. How, just how am I supposed to know you are talking to me when I can’t even see you? He was apparently trying to ask me if I wanted hash and took my blissfully ignorant stance as an offence and then walked by me with a dirty glance and said, “mother fucker.” The best part was after walking ahead of me a bit, he turned around and asked me again if I wanted to buy from him—seriously? Well, I was contemplating, but since you decided to call me such an endearing term, the deal is most definitely off. Such savvy business tactics these men have. 

When we got back to the hotel, we decided to hit the beach to check it out. Besides the mounds of trash everywhere, it was a pretty beach. The coolest part of the time on the beach was watching the tour guides play an impromptu game of soccer in the fading light--it looked so full of life and majestic, and I would have liked to have been a part of it, if I were at all coordinated and could kick a ball straight without it managing to go backward and me falling into an awkward shape.

Returning to our room I was stricken with another tragedy—the cleaning lady took my empty, glass Coke bottle—obviously I was keeping it as a souvenir lady! Luckily, it was time for dinner and could preoccupy myself with food, as I often do. Tonight on the menu was chicken couscous served family style! It was simply amazing. We then had a very lengthy conversation about strobe lights. I know it sounds a bit odd for dinner talk, but for some reason it was weird to Ariel and Lizzie that I, on occasion, take a shower in the dark…with the strobe light on. I don’t see any problem with this. The fun-filled spirit of dinner was quickly interrupted with news that the one tour guide received word from his Moroccan policeman father that the countrywide radical protest would be taking stage tomorrow afternoon. At first it seemed rather frightening,  the fact that if we didn’t leave before the riot took place we would be stuck in Morocco at our expense, but then it kind of seemed like a fun challenge—a real episode of Survivor. It would be kind of badass to say that I had to flee a country in revolution and in the process had to scale a few walls, dodge a couple of car bombs, and swim across the Strait of Gibraltar back to safety. I knew none of this would happen, given my track record for grace and adequate fitness.

The plan was to cut Tetouan out of Sunday’s agenda and head straight for the Caves of Hercules and the camel rides which were near the Tangier port. On the way to the caves, poor Daniel’s bladder was on the verge of rupturing. There weren’t any bathrooms on the bus, and the tour guide had told him to wait 20 minutes until we got to the caves. After a couple of more minutes he feared for our safety and his own sake as he for sure did not want to be known as “the kid that peed on the bus,” and had the bus driver pull over. I thought he would have gone to the bathroom the minute he hit the grass, but he instead took off full-speed into the jungle. Soon after, he came riding out of the African bush on a mountain lion and then jumped a barbed wire fence and got back on the bus.

Our tour of the caves was very short as the revolution timer was counting down. It was actually a savior because there wasn’t much to see or do in the caves. The tour guide tried to dupe me into thinking the entrance of the cave to the ocean was in the shape of a map of Africa, but it was a very liberal interpretation. He then tried to have us put our hands in a dark, wet hole to feel God knows what. No thanks. To add to this, the cave drippings were grossing me out and there selling product of choice was marble eggs(?) When we exited the caves I saw two camels in the parking lot and I had to laugh to myself. I thought this was our “camel ride on the beach.”—how ghetto. Thankfully, these weren’t for us and we hopped back on the bus to go ride the camels. There is not much to say about the camel rides, other than I got on, rode for five minutes, and got off. Fortunately, I guess, we made it back to the ferry and departed for Tarifa without any problems.

Thinking I had enough excitement for the week, my geography professor had a trick up his sleeve. In class Wednesday, we were discussing the metropolis of Barcelona. Suddenly, we were watching a music video featuring a Spanish drag queen version of Prince. I don’t even know where it came from. He tried to tell us it was a famous Spanish film director before his directing—and sane—days, but I’m still convinced it was/is him at his night job. The video then morphed into another, but this time it was a duet with a Spanish KISS member. The song was called “Suck It To Me.” Our teacher then began to sing the not-at-all creepy chorus of “Suck it to me. Suck it to me. Suck it to me. Suck it to me.” I thought I had been scarred by many things in my life, but this put an end to anything else previously deemed scarring. I’m still trying to connect the dots between “Suck It To Me” and anything, anything geographically related.

                                                   ¡Por que esto es Africa!

Un saludo,

Bryce

Semana Siete: Irish Pride

11 March ~ 17 March 2011

Not much happened this past weekend because half of my crew decided to be rude and go to England without me. I think I watched “Just Go With It” which was hilarious. I then stared at the white walls and counted the tiles on the floor.

The real excitement came on Tuesday. I started my week out by slipping on dog shit on the sidewalk and sliding into an impressively balanced split. It all happened so fast; one minute I was talking to Ashley, Lauren and Liz about something, and the next I’m trying my best Evan Lysacek impersonation on an improvised skating rink. Did I not already complain about the ubiquitous dog crap earlier? It was only a matter of time—just one lapse of concentration. Evidence of my accident was even there the day after when I was on my way to school:

At least we were en route for our usual Tuesday lunch, which would hopefully shake me of traumatizing experience. Emily decided to take us to one of the cafeterias of the main university. Walking into the cafeteria brought memories of high school flooding back, but in a good way. After waiting in line to buy our 3 euro ticket, we had to hop to the other line to actually queue up for our food. This was some serious bang for your buck: a baguette, small glass of wine, chicken paella, beef stew, and fresh strawberries. Not only was it a lot of food, and cheap, it was amazing! It made me so jealous of the vast majority of students at the CLM who live with madres (moms) that cook all of their meals. This is what they get to eat every day. Grrr.

Wednesday in geography class we were all entertained by some guy who was reliving one of the craziest night of his life which resulted in him waking up the next morning wet, in the shower, and with a black eye. Elissa heard otherwise: “What? He woke up in a shower with a black guy?” No, a black EYE. Now THAT would be a crazy night worth forgetting, potentially.

After class, I joined Elissa’s group again to finish up their tapas project. The first place was pretty decent, but nothing spectacular. The second place was a kabob shop which I did not know did tapas, but apparently this one did. The place seemed kind of sketchy, primarily given the worker’s hesitation when we asked if they had tapas. We took a table in the back all to itself and discussed all of the horrible things that could possibly be served to us. Surprisingly, we had really good kebab roll-ups and French fries. The remaining time at the kebab joint was a blur. There was a bug. I think it was human-sized. It may have even had wings and fangs. Well, it came dashing at Chante, whose bug tolerance is on par with mine, and she bolted out from behind the table. It was time to call it a night.

The next day after class Elissa and I walked/hiked/panted up the Albayzin to a plaza with an incredible, sweeping view of Granada and the Alhambra. 

Apparently circus auditions were coming up soon as many there were sharpening their skills; however, this was no anomaly as the place was full of the hippie/oddball sort. We sat down to eat our lunches and tomar el sol (catch some rays) since it was a beautiful day. My bliss was soon interrupted by a major creeper of a dog. The thing suddenly appeared hovering over my shoulder watching my bocadillo tortilla intently.

 I stood up to see to whom this creature belonged and then understood why the dog was the way it was. Its owner was a woman practicing her unique dance “skills” all alone in her own corner of the plaza. This must be the cool thing to do here as there was another man who was doing his own dance number which culminated in him bending over…and staying in that position for a solid seven to ten minutes. 

Elissa spotted two people she knew chatting with the reject society and was debating whether to get their attention or not. I strongly opposed such actions as that would inevitably mean the carnies would come too and I was not prepared to engage in their activities.

We, and by “we,” I mean Elissa, decided to go to this one tapas bar because they apparently had these amazing fries with a special sauce as well as a ham and cheese on garlic bread sandwich. On the way down passing all of the quaint white-washed houses Elissa pointed out a pretty accurate observation: “I know the metal bars (on the windows) are to prevent you from being murdered in your sleep, but they’re pretty.”

The tapas bar had a very interesting style; it can only be described as the outcome of a duel between King Arthur and Kesha. The place was outfitted in shields and armor everywhere while gold glitter was splashed on all of the walls and countertops. After finishing our quite tasty tapas, I began to drill Elissa with questions about Guinness since she was the so-called Irish expert. We figured the only way to convey the difference between Guinness and any other beer would be to go to Hannigan’s (the Irish pub) and get a pint. This was an oddly successful decision as it so-happened to be St. Patrick’s Day. We then got Irish flags painted on our face to feel more Irish as neither of us remembered to wear green. The even better outcome was my new-found love for Guinness. I thought it was supposed to be “the mother of all beers,” which entailed an acquired taste, but I actually prefer it to anything else I had tried up to that point. It was probably the most authentic St. Patrick’s Day experience I had ever had: an Irish pub with Irishmen, a pint of Guinness, an Irish flag, and an Irish girl.

After the pub I went home because I had to make a last-minute return that I had been putting off for quite some time. I completely forgot I had an Irish flag on my face, but was quickly reminded by two girls waiting in front of me at Zara. Seriously, if you’re going to poke fun at someone, you could at least manage to be less discrete: turning around and looking at me, then turning to your friend and whispering something that causes her to look back, and then you both giggle is so NOT cool. I mean, at least it was an Irish flag given it was St. Patrick’s Day and not a Mexican flag. I didn’t have time to think about this too much as I was leaving for Morocco the next day and had plenty of worries already to deal with:

Will I fall off of the camel?

Will the camel fall?

Will the camel and I both fall into the ocean?

Will I get diarrhea?

Will the camel have diarrhea?

Will the camel and I both have diarrhea?

Will the camel and I both fall into our own diarrhea?

What if Aladdin doesn’t exist?

Un saludo,

Bryce