Marrakesh!

So no guesses on how I gained an hour last night? Okay guess im keeping the answer a secret then =)

It was a good thing I got that extra hour though because today was a very very very early morning 6AM! Yuck! I got to lunch at 640 which meant I was going to have 5 minutes to eat before I had to get to the bus early to try to buy a ticket for the trip I wanted on!  But at lunch carol, one of the field office people, was walking around the dining room asking if anyone was wanting to sign on because there were a lot of openings so she could just do it then.  So I went to Marrakesh today with Kristi and Jackie. 

It was a three hour bus ride there which wasn’t too fun.. Marrakesh is one of the big, major cities in Morocco that everyone has suggested we go to.  Lacey’s aunt and uncle had been there before and told her she had to had to had to go there. My tour guide yesterday said we should go to Marrakesh and the woman we talked with at the reception said we should too, so I went! 

Once we got there our first stop was a botanical garden. It was really pretty and just full of vegetation.  What gets me the most in all these countries has been the fact that cactus and palm tree grow hand in hand here which just seems so strange to me.. and lots of pretty flowers everywhere too, but mostly stuff we have back home too.  After the garden we went to a palace and that was really cool and big!  In morocco up till 1994 a man could have up to 4 wives!! But in 1994 there was a new law put into place that gives woman a lot more rights that they never used to have like equal divorce rights, and after they marry if their husband wanted to get another wife he would need the first’s permission.  I learned that yesterday but im saying it now because I forgot to yesterday and this palace the man who lived there had had four wives.  After the palace we went to museum and walked around that.. not a very good one though I must saw.. it was kinda random actually.. I learned something though that I think should totally come into use in the united states.  Men are the ones in morocco who traditionally carried the purse that held everything not a woman.. idk I think that would be nice =)  don’t you agree sean?!  But what made it even better is the bags they had in the display were like bags I would like now! Haha

After the museum it was finally time for lunch! By this point my stomach was growling! We had an interesting appetizer but I surprisingly liked it. it was cucumbers, and some type of cooked and seasoned sweet potato or carrot  and then some other thing that people were saying was eggplant but I really have no idea

Then we got cous cous  with vegetables on it and meat.. I didn’t want to try to the meat because I couldn’t identify it and im still a little uncertain about eating meat here after what I saw yesterday.. well im really really glad I didn’t eat the meat… we were given one big plate of it all to feed our table so we just had to keep spooning portions on our plates.. well towards the end Kristi went to go get more meat and she thought it was a little hard.. she flips it over on her plate and kinda freaks out a little.. she thought it was an eye!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then of course the 2 guys at our table really wanted to check it out.. it was really round.. they don’t think it was an eye because it was too hard so the final thought was a joint but it was really really gross and freaked me out a lot!!!!!  Kristi and I left from lunch early, we skipped desert so that we would have more free time.. after lunch was all free time for like an hour and a half to two hours to go shop around the market that we were at. Well that was a lot of fun got some really good things! We were shopping for these fun leather shoes that we each got and Kristi had started bargaining a price and was asking about 2 pairs.. well I thought she was saying she was getting 2 pairs so then I started jumping in saying id get a pair, but somehow Kristi missed the fact that he was starting to come up with a price for 3 pairs.. well basically long story short she had been talking about the pair I was going to get not 2 for her.. so when she told him she was getting one he got REAL pissed at her  and started pretty much yelling at her… and I was trying to take my money back and just leave because he was being rude but he wouldn’t let me and was like no I get you your change and you take them and eventually he did and took kristis money for one pair but was just mean and last comment he said to Kristi was “that’s just really bad business, that’s bad business”  really nasty like.. but oh well we got our shoes and they are cool =) then I had to go to the atm.. we passed snake charmers!!!! Crazy! And some woman was trying to get me to get henna we kept walking, she followed, she kept talking, we ignored her and kept walking, she grabbed my hand and tried to start going at it and I had to yank my hand away and walk off and I had some dots of henna on my fingers I had to try to get off so that it wouldn’t set in… it was just really annoying… I bought some really cute jewelry for really good prices!!! And some other gifts… less than 50 dollars for sure! 

At four we had to meet back up and go back to the buses for the trip home. While walking to the bus these two young young boys came up to all of us with fans and were fanning us off and trying to sell them to us.. well Kristi caved and gave the youngest one that was next to her a dollar a us dollar.. and she wasn’t given a fan but we kept walking and they kept walking and following us and the kid kept saying something to her… but finally he got mad and stopped and said FUCK YOU and turned and went the other direction.. Basically Kristi gave a four year old a dollar didn’t get a fan and then was told fuck you… real nice huh…

We got back to the ship at 745 which was 45 minutes past the scheduled time.. they held dinner for us so that was good it was PESTO! Yum!  Then I talked to sean for an hour! I decided I would use my precious minutes of ship internet time (2 hours total for the entire summer) to talk to sean tonight, only 28 minutes of internet left till I get back home…

Which isn’t too too bad because we will be back in less than 2 weeks now!!! How weird is that?!?! The countdown is on.. only 12 more full days of life on a ship! Its happy and very very sad at the same time. Last night Kristi and I were out in the hall checking our emails. Our hall is the dead zone on the ship and we have to go to the hall for internet to work instead of in our rooms like everyone else.. so we call it our little internet café.. well anyways kristi and I were sitting out there and jackie rounds the corner gets to the room and goes “what am I going to do when I don’t see you two sitting in the hall everyday.. can you come to Georgetown and just sit outside of my door for me”  =)  it’s so true though the things we’ve gotten so used to doing and seeing is soon going to be gone for pretty much ever and its really really sad! Im so used to seeing these people so many times a day and ill be lucky when we are somehow able to visit with them in a year or something like that.. which is just really sad.. but im really excited to get home and see my family and my dogs, and my boyfriend, and move into my apartment and see my roomies and have my doggie with me.. but its just so weird at the same time… and this probably made like no sense but that’s exactly what my thoughts on all this are like… confused.

With that im going to go take a shower and sleep till whenever I decide to wake up tomorrow! Just shopping outside of the port for the day tomorrow.. and either doing dinner with a Moroccan family tomorrow night or going to Rick’s Café… probably the second…