February 13, 2010

Africa is absolutely amazing! The culture here is so crazy and different, but I love it! Being here makes me much more grateful for what I have, because there are some really poor people here. They live in shacks, and all are trying so hard to sell things. We had breakfast at 8:30 at the hotel. We got sweet rolls with juice and hot drinks. Once we left we saw African flags everywhere because the King is staying there right now. It rained this morning, but it stopped for the most part after that. Also, there are animals all over, up and down the road, like cows, horses, lambs, etc. Every time we were driving we would see the mountains! They were beautiful! All through the mountains are houses and shops. I think they mostly travel by donkey and burro. The main color in the cities there is white. All the buildings and things were only white. As we were walking through the markets, you see food that has flies all over it, and meat hanging everywhere. Also, there were chicken coops, and they were waiting there to be slaughtered. The overhangs over the shops were just pieces of metal. At one place we stopped, they showed us how the Arab women dress there, and we got a demonstration of how to put the clothing on. After, we went to an herb shop and got a demonstration of their man made medicines, and how to use them. We could buy some herbs if we wanted. I ended up buying some things at the local market instead. For lunch we went to an authentic African restaurant, and had soup and cous cous. For dessert we had these delicious chocolate filled pastries. They did African dances, and a small show for us. It was so fun! After, Arielle got a henna tattoo. It was nothing like I thought it would be. When we finished, we walked some more through the markets. This one guy followed us for like 20 minutes trying to sell things to us. It was so annoying! Later we went to Grotte and into the caves that are between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterannean Sea. It was really wet down there. We went down lots of stairs to get there. Just like "A walk to remember" I got to stand in two places at once! Later, we made a stop where Arielle and I rode camels! It was so crazy, and I loved it! After, we went to a photo stop where the ocean and sea meet, but we didn't get out of the bus there. We headed to Tanger after that, and went to a Bazaar. Then we went to our next hotel, Tanjah Flandria. It is much nicer than our first hotel. We relaxed for a bit. The Winter Olympics started today, and we had a flat screen TV in our room. The Olympics were in English on one channel. We watched that, and I took a short nap. We went down for dinner at 8 pm, and had potato soup, fish, fries, and fruit. We went back up, and just took showers after that. It was Arielle's birthday at midnight. We didn't go out since it's not very safe there to be alone, but we'll celebrate soon! Since there is a time change from Spain to Africa we could celebrate at 11 pm. We didn't do much then, just went to bed, but it was a great day!