Marhaba

“Marhaba” means “welcome” in Arabic, so you can probably guess that this post is about my first experiences in Morocco.

Jennifer guarding our stuff in the terminal :)

After 5 days in Granada, it was time to head to Morocco!  We loaded the bus and started the drive to Algeciras, the southern Spanish port where we would get on a ferry to Tangier, Morocco.  In case this was the last time I would see them, I bought a thing of Paprika (red pepper) flavored Pringles at the stop we made.  I now know that they have these in Morocco too.  If you ever see them, try them.  They are quite yummy.  Moving on, we arrived at Algeciras, unloaded all of our things, and proceeded to the terminal.  Some form-filling, passport-stamping, and luggage-dragging later (both on the way to and on the boat), we found ourselves seated on the ferry and on our way.  You should have seen us when we realized that the land we could see in front of us was Africa, was Morocco.

Africa

Travel tip about crossing the Strait of Gibraltar: Since the water seemed calm, I decided to try it out without taking anything for seasickness and lucked out.  I got a little dizzy inside, but if I stayed outside on the deck, I was fine.  However, I have heard that conditions can be bad to the point of turning the smooth one hour ride into a miserable four hours, so if you get seasick, you might want to have something ready in case the conditions are not in your favor.

Anyway, when we got to the other side, we passed through more customs, noticing the picture of the king in the port and the women working there with hijaabs (veil/head covering) that matched their uniforms, while trying to semi-contain our excitement at finally being in Morocco.  We loaded our new bus as the call to prayer rang out, and found ourselves in a bus with green shag carpet and psychedelic patterns on the ceiling.  Turns out that is the ISA Morocco bus and we use it whenever we travel.  Possible names we discussed: the Love Bus, the Magic Carpet, the Magic School Bus.  About half an hour later we arrived in the actual city of Tangier, which is not in the same place as the port.  We dropped our stuff off in the hotel, stopped at ATMs and currency exchange stores, walked around a little, and then had less than an hour to get dinner before our academic orientation back at the hotel.

We wandered around looking for Melwi, something that Daniel’s girlfriend, Cristina, recommended and that I have been eating most days for breakfast now, but could not find them at a place that would be fast enough.  I was with Don and Nita, two other students from my program, and we saw some others eating in a pizza and shawarma place that was so small it barely had standing room.  The other girls finished eating so we swapped in to where they had been standing and ordered food using a mixture of various languages and pointing at the menu, but still had hardly any room to eat.  The man behind the counter directed us to go upstairs.  We saw a tiny, winding, spiral staircase in the back that was practically a ladder and climbed up it to find ourselves in another small, full, low-ceilinged room.  Since all the tables were taken and we had more room to stand up there, we started eating standing up.  It was then that a woman holding a baby pulled the extra chair next to her out from behind the table and gave it to us before gesturing to others to do the same.  Less than a minute later, we found ourselves with chairs, sitting in a small circle in the middle of the room.  A family next to us then moved their stuff from the two tables it was on to one and gave us the other table.  When the worker came up to bring someone their pizza, we expected him to be upset or at least annoyed, but he didn’t even react.  All we could do was grin uncontrollably as we ate, and say “shukran” (thank you in Arabic) repeatedly to everyone in the room.  I could not have asked for or even imagined a nicer welcome to Morocco :)

Banana-Nutella crepe and Moroccan mint tea

But the welcome was not over since that was just our first night in Morocco and we weren’t even in our soon-to-be hometown of Meknes.  That night I went to a café with a group of people and got a banana and Nutella crepe and mint tea, the Moroccan specialty!  There was a slight peanut allergy glitch, but it was an otherwise good night.  Before leaving Tangier the next day, we had a walking tour of the city.  We learned that every traditional Arab neighborhood has 5 things: a mosque, a school, a well, a public bakery, and a hammam, a traditional public bathing place.  Religion, education, water, food, and hygiene.  What more do you need?  We wandered through the medina, or old city, and then came to the meat and fish market.  I had prepared myself for the sight of dead animals still mostly whole, but I had not prepared for the smell.  Let’s just say I was grateful for all the practice I got not breathing through my nose during scuba certification.  After some more shawarma for lunch, we loaded back onto the bus to head to Meknes!

ISA Meknes group in Tangier

I don’t know about you, but when I thought about going to Africa and Morocco, I did not imagine rolling green hillsides.  Well that’s what we drove through on our way from Tangier to Meknes.  It was beautiful, especially when the sun set right before we got there.  And then we were in Meknes, the bus pulling up next to one of the apartment buildings and Michelina and I pressing our noses up against the window of the bus to see our host mom and little brother waiting outside.  We got out, all smiles, and met our host mom, Majda, and Mamoun, our host brother who is ten years old but will be turning eleven the day before I turn twenty-two.  Before we knew it, they took us to the car to load up our stuff and drive what turned out to only be a couple blocks to our new home for the next three and a half months.

Sunset in Morocco

Time to start catching up...in Spain

So I have now been in Morocco for three and a half weeks.  Due to some unexpected complications, I am just now going to start getting settled into some semblance of normal life, but I’ll get into that later.  The last time I updated my blog I was on the train from Madrid to Granada to meet my ISA Morocco group.  As you can probably imagine, a lot has happened since then.  This update has been haunting me for a month so hopefully the Spain update will be the start of a long game of catching up to the present.  Since I am just trying to spit out stories, they might be a little messy and for that I am sorry.  Now, on to this update I keep talking about...

My journey to Granada was pretty uneventful actually.  I got to the train station, caught a taxi, and got dropped off a block from the hotel because of the construction being done on our hotel’s street.  Checked in no problem and was directed to my room where I would be rooming with my future roommate, Michelina.  However, she was not there yet.  Some people had arrived already so the front desk gave me a list of the rooms we were in, but I wanted to shower so I just headed for my room to relax a little.  However, as I was about to get ready to shower, there was a knock on my door.  The man there didn’t seem to understand that I knew Spanish so he kept trying to tell me in his very broken English something about having to change rooms, but then he randomly left.  I went down to the front desk and asked what was going on (in Spanish) and was told that I had to switch to a bigger room because they were adding a person.  After moving, I waited a little to see if anyone was getting there soon to try to avoid anyone arriving while I was in the shower.  I watched BBC a bit to find out what was going on in Egypt, but eventually decided to go ahead and shower.  Of course, while I was in the shower the other girl, Meredith, arrived.

After I got dressed, we decided to use the list the front desk had given me to try to find some other students in our program.  We ended up finding people in a few more rooms and ended up hanging out talking with maybe half of the group in one of the rooms before going downstairs to stop in our room on the way to our first ISA meeting.  Already, the group seemed to get along really well, and so far that feeling has held up (knock on wood).  When Meredith and I stopped in our room, we found Michelina there!  Unfortunately, the airline had lost her luggage somewhere on the way from Ghana where she had been traveling with a group from her school for a few weeks.  It took a few days for her suitcase to be delivered to our hotel, but it got there.  Too bad that wasn’t the end of her bad luck with Ghana, but more on that later.

We had ISA meetings almost every day about Granada, as well as about Morocco and the culture and just some general information about our lives for the next few months.  We met Daniel, our Resident Director, Laura, the ISA Assistant Director of European Operations who is based in Granada and stayed in Meknes with us for the first three weeks, her husband, Manolo, and Mohammed, the Resident Director of the new ISA program in Jordan.  Let me just start out by saying that they (and everyone I have met so far) are all awesome and amazing people.  Daniel studied abroad with ISA in Granada while he was in school while Laura was Resident Director there and then started working with ISA in Granada.  He worked there for 7 years, I believe, before helping start up the program in Meknes, which is now in its third year.  At the rate I am going with studying abroad with ISA, I will probably ask him more about all this at some point since working with ISA seems a probable part of my future.  Plus I now know Laura, who told me if I ever need a job, to send in my resume :) Laura is traveling around right now, visiting ISA programs to basically do some quality control, and she said that this program is definitely doing well since the students seem more enthusiastic than at many other sites.  It was also fun to learn that she helped set up the program in Buenos Aires that I did almost two years ago, and knows most of the people who work there.  Then there is Mohammed, a Jordanian-Palestinian who got his Ph.D. in Arizona and teaches at refugee camps.  Given that, it may not come as a surprise that I, along with a lot of other students in the group, had a lot of good conversations with him about life and teaching and politics and culture.  He also told me that he is trying to get the ISA volunteer branch, ELAP, set up in Jordan which means I might be able to do some stuff there sometime, even after I am done with school.  However, I did ask Laura and she said that I do not have to be a current student to participate in ISA study abroad programs so Morocco may not be the end of them for me just yet :)

As usual with study abroad programs, there are a lot of students here who are majoring in some form of international studies/relations and we are from all over the US.  One of the things you don’t think about when studying abroad is how many people you’ll meet from all over your home country.  Anyway, we all have been getting along very well and so we had a lot of fun in Granada.  We spent most nights out getting drinks and tapas, and had tours 2 of the days.  Now let me explain tapas: Granada has this thing going where you can go to a bar and order a drink, and it comes with free tapas, or some sort of small plate of food/snack.  I believe just about all of Spain does the tapas thing, but I have heard that Granada is the only place that gives them to you for free with your drink, and the drink can be anything ranging from bottled water (because free food with free tap water would be too cool) to soda to alcoholic beverages.  On a different note related to food, Michelina and Meredith discovered this place with these small donuts that reminded me of Trish’s Mini-Donuts at Pier 39 in San Francisco, but these ones were covered in chocolate syrup :)

"La Media Luna"

During the days, we had a couple tours and went adventuring.  On our first day, we toured Granada and the neighborhood Albaicin, which is the traditional Moorish neighborhood.  One of the most amusing parts of this tour to me was this one door that was very Moorish in deisgn and had what appeared to be Arabic script over it, but as I looked closer I noticed it actually just said “La Media Luna” (“the half moon” in Spanish) but written so that it looked like Arabic.  Oh and to backtrack slightly, my alarm clock on my phone plays the introduction to “Circle of Life” so Michelina had started calling me Rafiki because it means “friend” in Swahili and in Arabic.  Back to the tour: we were walking and she points up to this balcony where I see a stuffed Rafiki sitting.  That is when we decided the nickname was permanent.  Anyway, we got our first little taste of Moorish architecture and the Arabic language, and made it up to this church square that had an amazing view of the Alhambra.

Alhambra from the church square

The next day’s activity was a tour of the Alhambra, an old Moorish palace and probably the largest example of Islamic architecture in Spain.  You know, Christians built great churches and cathedrals, but I think the Moors win as my favorite castle architects.  When the Moorish reign ended and Spain was ruled by Christians, they built more in the Alhambra and it just does not compare to the original Islamic architecture.  Mosaics, woodcarvings, and bright colors definitely win over big, gray stones :)

By the way, my pictures on Facebook probably say a lot more about the Alhambra than I can write here since my memory for history that I hear is horrible.

Anyway, the next day, Kyle, Meredith, Mike, and I decided to go explore the hills where the cave-people live.  Now let me explain: there are these cave-homes in the hills of Granada and people can just go find an empty one and move in.  As you might be able to guess, they are known as being the hippies of Granada and they have their own little community up in the hills, but come down to the city to get food and other supplies to bring back up in backpacks.  I thought they sounded cool, so I asked about going to see them and had some friends who wanted to go, too, so we traipsed up the hill to explore.  We were told to be careful about the stuff we had with us because it was not the biggest tourist area, and the people there may not be too fond of us being there so we had to be respectful (not that we were planning on being rude, but ok).

Hillside where the caves are

Stairs down to Granada

We wandered up through the Albaicin, tentatively following a map to keep track of where we were and where we wanted to be while trying not to stand out too much as tourists, before we got to the place where we had been told to go up the stairs.  The only place we could see stairs went up along/behind a house, so we decided to try them since there was no “do not pass” sign or anything, figuring if anyone yelled at us, we would know that they were the wrong stairs.  Turns out they were the right stairs and took us up to a church on the top of the hill.  We saw some cool graffiti on the way, and then proceeded around the back of the church as instructed to find the caves.  We ended up spending most of our time just wandering around the hills, enjoying the amazing view into the mountains and over the city, but did find a few caves.  The first one we found was one we were on top of.  They remind me of hobbit holes from the way the doors are just sitting in the hillsides, and chimneys sit poking out of the ground.  We saw this one front yard that was elaborately decorated with recycled materials and had a sign about hours, so I went to ask the man working on the roof what the place was.  From what he said to me before he just ignored me, I think it was both his home and a church.  I don’t know if it is because we were clearly not from there (even though I was speaking Spanish) or if he was just busy fixing something and didn’t feel like talking, but he did not seem to want to talk to me so I left.  More willing to talk were two girls sitting on a bench overlooking the hills and the city of Granada.  They did not live in the caves, but one of them lives in Granada for 6 months out of the year.  They were very nice, told me I had to go to Chefchaouan while in Morocco, and gave me some good Spanish practice.  I told them that it was really easy for me to understand them, and they told me that since they were from Catalunia, they learned Spanish as a second language after Catalan.  Since we had made plans to meet up with Michelina for lunch, we started our descent and got yelled at by someone for going the wrong way, but quickly corrected our path and made it down safely.  We even managed not to get too lost on the way.

Enjoying the view

Hobbit hole :)

Fun Facts:

-The “Al” in “Alhambra” means “the” in Arabic, so calling it “the Alhambra” is actually redundant, just like the Rio Grande River

Granada

 -Granada means “pomegranate” in Spanish and there are pomegranates hidden (and not so hidden) all over Granada

Moving

 -Furniture, such as bookshelves, are moved into these tall, narrow houses via ropes and pulleys on the outside of the building, while tourists stand in the street and watch

Things I Miss

One more Costa Rica entry from my train ride and then I promise I’ll get new stuff to write about!  Though now that I think about it, this looming adventure is probably what is prompting me to finally get these entries out.  I know that I will have so many new adventures and things to share that if these are ever going to make it out, now is the time!  On that note, I think it is appropriate that my last Costa Rica post (for now, anyways) be about the things I miss:

- Pura Vida: I am still working on explaining this philosophy properly but the internet does turn up some good information.  On a similar note, I apologize to anyone that gets irritated with me due to the cultural aspects I picked up which are probably the same ones that irritated me when I first got there.

- Gallo pinto: Rice and bean dish, but it has to be made from leftover rice, not fresh.  Some day I will make this for myself, but for now I think I will have to settle on couscous being my new gallo pinto.

- Casados: Meat, rice, beans, cabbage salad, maybe some potato side dish, fried plantains (platanos)

- Platanos: I miss them so much they get a separate listing.  I also miss platano chips.

-Fresh fruit and fruit juice everyday: Hoping to get some of this in Morocco :)

- The people from my life there: My classes and friends and the kids from my job and tica family, of course.

- Going ziplining/canyoning/hiking/swimming/scuba diving on the weekends.

- Warm weather, even though it did rain almost everyday.

- Speaking Spanish: I forgot what it’s like to travel to places where I don’t speak the language and how bad I feel having to ask if they speak English.  My last two big trips before the one I’m on now were to Costa Rica and Argentina so I didn’t have to do this.  Now I feel like that American who didn’t bother learning the language because everyone else speaks mine.  Better get used to it since it will probably be a little while before I can communicate in Arabic…

El Ejército de Salvación

I am definitely using this train ride to play catch-up with my blogging!  At home I was too busy relaxing and getting ready, and the other train rides were spent napping a lot.  Now, I feel decently rested and keep thinking of those posts I never wrote so I will write them!  Unfortunately, I do not have wifi on this train so I will have to remember to post them after I get to the hotel in Granada.

In addition to the study abroad program I did with ISA, I did their ELAP volunteer program.  This consisted of some extra application pieces, such as my resume in Spanish and a Spanish phone interview, as well as an extra fee.  To participate in this program, you must already speak decent Spanish (I forget what level) because you work with Spanish speakers.  I chose to work at the Ejército de Salvación, or Salvation Army, in the daycare center.  I should mention, in case it isn’t clear, that this daycare center was for underprivileged families and was lacking in resources.  They do very well with what they have, but they clearly could use more.  Since I was only taking one 4-week Spanish class, I started working the week after the class was over.  As it turned out, my friend Jaclyn who had been in my Spanish class was also volunteering there at the same time.  Jaclyn, if I miss any highlights or kids please feel free to comment!

I want this posted because I want some record of the kids and people there, as well as some highlights from my time there.  I don’t think we ever had all of the kids there on the same day, so I do not know the exact number of them and therefore might forget some now and have to come back to add them later.  If any of them ever see this (doubt it since I was working with the 2-3 year olds), please don’t be offended, I love you all!

Mary: The main teacher in the classroom that Jaclyn and I chose to work in.  We liked her and so we got very worried the second week when she wasn’t there, but then she came back :)

That other teacher with the curly hair: Jaclyn, if you remember names, please let me know!  She was around sometimes and was also very nice.

Nina: A girl form Germany who was also in Costa Rica studying and volunteering.

Rifka and Janina: Two other girls from Germany who were only there for a week or two.

Isabelle: A girl from Switzerland who was there for a week, and then I ran into her on the bus back from Panama.

The fix it/cleaning guy: He was always there and helped out with the kids sometimes, but mostly he was around fixing and cleaning stuff.  However, when he did come by the classroom, the kids all loved him.  And he was Joseph in the Christmas show.

That boy with the glasses who wasn’t in our class: He may have been my favorite in the Christmas show, two left feet and all.  Jaclyn, you know who I’m talking about :)

Zayra: I think she was technically our boss, but I didn’t interact much with her.

And now for the kids from our class!  Well, and the older Jeaustin since he was in time-outs in our class maybe half the time we were there.  Actually, that’s enough for me to remember him by so I just have all the others.  Oh boy, let’s see if I can remember the Jeaustins/Jhostin right…

Aaron: Definitely the best behaved of the group.  However, the teacher had a knack of looking at him in the few moments when he was not behaving and so he would get in trouble as much as the rest of them.  He was also the only one who could color inside the lines and had some sort of fear of the play place we went to one day.  It had a structure like the ones at McDonalds, but he refused to go inside and got really quiet when he even had to take his shoes off.  Once I told him he could put his shoes back on and play outside of the structure, he was fine.

Jeaustin: He may have been one of the cutest kids there, but he was definitely a crybaby and a troublemaker.  If he was crying, it was most likely that he took a toy from someone and then they took it back, which is when he would start crying.  There was a day when he was telling me something and when one of the other kids came up to me, he put his arms around me and yelled, “ Es mio, es mio!” (she’s mine, she’s mine, though not quite correct since I am a girl and it should be mia).

Jhostin: Another cute crybaby who most likely started the trouble that led to his tears.  He was also a wildchild, both in looks and actions.  He had long hair and resembled a young Tarzan, and seemed to have trouble understanding how to share.

Jeaustin and Brittany: Siblings, and the sister helps me remember which Jeaustin I mean here.  So I don’t know why, but all the Jeaustins and Jhostin were the most difficult of the kids.  They all grabbed toys and cried when they didn’t get their way more than most of the other kids, but of course, that is only a little surprising since all little boys can be expected to do that.  However, this Jeaustin always had this smile on his face that showed he knew when he was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.  Brittany did it too.  I remember a day when Brittany and some of the other girls all wanted to play with my hair.  They were actually pretty gentle so it turned out to be an easy way to entertain them while I could still play with other kids.

Aisha: Aisha must have been in the middle of potty training because she was one of the few kids in my class not in diapers but she was wet a lot.  One day we had to roll up the carpet because she peed on it, but no one really knew what to do with it so we just left it in a corner to dry.  I don’t know if we would have done something different if this had been a daycare center that actually had the money and resources it needed, but hey it was the best we could do.  Aisha was one of those kids who is fine with whatever she is doing, but then when someone else starts doing something new, she wants to do it too.  Oh, and she always had the cutest gloves.

Kiani: At first I thought Kiani must be one of the youngest ones because of how little she talked, but then I realized she actually knew what was going on a lot of the time, even if she decided to act in a way that went against it.  Yes, Kiani was a sneaky one, but she was adorable when it was dancing time!  She was sitting in one of the eating tables once (with straps so they were for time outs too) and was sit-dancing and singing so cutely I wish I’d had my camera that day!  Yet for some reason she didn’t do too well at the Christmas show.  I think once she saw her mom, that was it.  She went up for one dance and just stood there crying, head turned up and all.  At least she’s cute, though that might not be saying much since they all were :)

Isabella: Now she had to have been the youngest one we had.  She barely talked at all and always had a sock-blankie with her, usually in her mouth.

Steven: Oh Steven had this laugh that I could not get over yet could not get a video of!  It was this like almost evil sounding chuckle, but it sounded more like just some old fat guy laughing.  Gah I can’t describe it!  I hope I always remember that laugh because it is funny enough that I almost started laughing on the train when I thought of it.

Dennis: He makes me wonder where the stereotype of Asians putting up peace signs in pictures came from because here was a little Asian boy from Costa Rica who threw up a peace sign in one of my pictures.  He was a sweet kid, but very set on having things a certain way and not changing them.  When he got mad he would hit the floor or table right in front of the person he was mad at and made this mean face at them.  There was also this one time when he was crying and the teacher was telling him to stop and he was definitely trying, but the cries kept getting out and I was nervous he was going to choke on the effort to hold them in!  And now I don’t want to end this on the angry/sad note so just reminding myself how cute he was when he was happy :)

Saray: She was one of the quieter, well-behaved ones and was only there about half the time so I actually can’t think of any stories about her, but she was also a cutie.  Oh, I do remember her when we went to the play place after the piñata and she had a red lollipop that turned her mouth all red.  Which reminds me of Aisha and her yellow lollipop and mouth.  That was a fun day…

Dixian and Ethan: They were also not particularly badly behaved and only there about half the time so I don’t have many stories about them.  Ethan didn’t seem to like getting his picture taken at the Christmas show so I have a picture of him with his gloved hands over his face.

Victoria: A very pretty girl who often liked to play with the cars with the boys, but still was a part of the hair-playing day.

Kensley: I can’t forget Kensley!  He was my little buddy.  On the first day, the teacher told us that he was slightly autistic, but I think he might be a little more than just slightly autistic.  Anyway, he took a liking to me and clung to me most of the day.  I learned that he was fine when things were constant, but once they changed he would freak out until he got used to the new situation.  Some days he loved puzzles, others he didn’t want to touch them but would guide my hands to the pieces and where they went.  I just hope that the center and his family have the resources to support him in school over the years because he needs a little more help than the other kids.

Through the Looking Glass

Sorry, but things are going to get a little out of chronological order for a bit!  This is one of those blog entries I kept meaning to write while I was in Costa Rica or after I got home, but didn’t find myself writing until now.  Where am I now?  Sitting on the train to Granada, looking out the window…

This entry is about those cool and/or memorable things I saw through the windows of the buses I took in Costa Rica.  On buses, as on trains, it is hard to take pictures of the things outside due to the reflective nature of the glass and how quickly things go by.  However, I did my best to take some mental images and now I will try to remember them all to record here.  Keep in mind I may very well add to it in the future if/when I think of other things.

- On the bus ride back to San Jose from the beach town of Jacó, I saw the most amazing sunset-double-rainbow I have ever seen.  This was on the weekend that I ended up spending by myself, going to Jacó after the tours I wanted to do in Arenal didn’t work out (but don’t worry, one of those was Rio Celeste which I went back for later).  Of course, this was one of few bus rides I had to spend not in the window seat and the girl next to me didn’t open the window and kept getting in the way of my attempted pictures.  This was during a part of the ride that is already breathtaking, as the bus winds through the mountains with the clouds sitting in the valleys.  Add to this already amazing view a gorgeous sunset, and then to that, a perfectly complete double rainbow.  The bus wound through it for maybe 20 minutes before the sun actually set and it faded away.

- On that same weekend on the shuttle from Arenal to Jacó, I saw an armadillo.  I mention this here because it is the only armadillo I have ever seen and it was through a window.

- I think this next one was early on in my trip because I am pretty sure I saw it from the ISA bus and we only had excursions the first 3 weekends.  You know how sometimes you see someone riding their bike with their dog on a leash, running next to them?  Take that image and replace the dog with a horse.

- Families sitting in their living rooms, watching TV with the front door open.

- Numerous houses that look as though they are falling apart right next to very nice restaurants and hotels and stores where the people who live in these broken down houses probably work.

- The smiles from children and women sitting on the porch or playing/working in the front yard that I received after smiling and/or waving at them.

- The eruption of Volcan Arenal, though is was just smoke.

- A LOT OF BANANAS

- The flooded roads to Tortuguero

- Many small fires that I think were from people burning trash, but I kept forgetting to ask someone to find out for sure.

And of course I am writing this as I stare at the rolling hills and fields of the Spanish countryside :)

Time-sensitive Shots, Tall Buildings and Train Rides

Over one month later, and here I am again!  I meant to write some updates while I was home about Costa Rica reflections and Morocco preparations, but I failed.  A quick summary of my life since my last post before I go into details: about a month at home including a trip to San Diego and Disneyland, flying to Frankfurt, visiting friends in Brussels and Groningen, and taking a lot of trains to Madrid before I go to Granada tomorrow to meet my program group.  Now for the details:

Home

After being gone for 3 months, being home felt surreal, almost as if I had just gone back in time to before I left, except that it was winter instead of summer.  Surprisingly, the reverse culture shock did not hit me as hard this time as after my month in Argentina, probably because I was mentally preparing myself for it for weeks.  What was so strange about it the first time was not so much that being home felt weird, but how wrong it felt for home to be so weird.  You expect to feel like a stranger in a new place, but you don’t expect to feel so out of place at home.  I think being ready for it actually made it a lot easier because it took away that extra layer of shock, if that makes sense.  I also think I may have culture shocked my family a bit since I brought some of the pura vida lifestyle back with me…

The other big change for me was my nephew!  When I left in September, he was only 2 months old.  When I came back in December, he was just about 5 months old!  Even though I had seen a lot of pictures and a video, I could not believe how much bigger he was and how much more he was doing!  He went from smiling by accident and making a few cooing noises to smiling all the time and babbling; from not even rolling over to rolling and scooting and almost sitting and standing!  He even has 2 teeth!  However, I have to do another long gap again.  He was 6 months old when I left and will be 10 months when I come back, so I will have a whole new set of things to miss and catch up on.  But I did make good use of my time at home and went with my mom every Tuesday (her babysitting day) to spend all day with them, except for the day I went later in the day because of my rabies shot.

My stupid rabies shot.  This is the only vaccination I have ever heard of with such specific time rules.  You have to get 3 of the same shot on days 0 (so whenever you decide to start it), 7, and 21 or 28.  I forgot about needing this shot until I only had about 21 days left so I had to get them on a Tuesday schedule which meant going to Kaiser with my mom and my nephew.  And if I get bitten by something and think they might have rabies, I still have to get more shots!  But it does reduce the number of shots I need and I don’t need the one that can be hard to get so I guess it was worth it.  However, between that shot and having to pay full price for extra orders of my prescription, I am ready to be done with hospitals for a while.  Hear that body?

Other than all this, my time at home was spent relaxing and hanging out with friends and family.  Oh, and trying to make my wardrobe more modest by non-southern-Californian standards meaning higher necks and longer sleeves rather than the tank tops I can usually get away with.  Also made a trip down to San Diego to visit some friends and went to Disneyland with the Hawaii Club Disney Crew :)

Come January 19 and it was time to head to the airport.  I had packed my big backpack, my small suitcase, a laptop messenger bag, and my purse.  I would have shipped some stuff so I could travel lighter for the first 2 weeks but shipping to Europe is expensive and shipping to Morocco is about double that.  Since I planned on using trains, I thought multiple smaller, lighter bags were better than one massive, heavy bag and I think I was right.  I had a 5 days in 2 months Eurail Pass and plans to visit a couple friends before meeting my program in Granada for our Spain orientation (before going to Morocco).

The Benefits of Traveling During the Low Season

Not only was SFO practically empty, but my plane was only 40% full.  Oh yes.  11 hours from San Francisco to Frankfurt and I managed to sleep for about half of them, sprawled across 3 seats.  I arrived in Frankfurt at 9:45 am local time on Thursday and due to my bags already being on the claim when I got there and no stopping for customs, I made it on the train to Brussels at 10:32 am.  Paid for some wifi on the train and looked at the snow outside before napping.  For the sake of my train count, I will mention that something was wrong with this train and we had to switch somewhere so that’s 2 trains to Brussels.

Train total: 2

Brussels

Remember those Belgian guys I met on the journey back to San Jose from Panama?  Chris was in Brussels for a few weeks before going on more adventures so I visited him there for 2 days.  Jet lag left me tired, but the party schedule of those 2 days worked well with it so I consider it a fast adjustment.  I climbed a lot of stairs since I was staying on the 4th floor of his house (well American 4th, European 3rd), listened to a lot of French, drank a lot of wine, went to my first wine and cheese party, and had a great time!  I learned how to say in French that I don’t speak French, but I must say it too well because both times I have used it now I have gotten very strange looks…  We wandered around the center of Brussels and I saw some stuff I remembered from when I was there with my dad, and I now have a membership at Carré, a big club outside the city that I definitely did not go to with my dad.  I would offer to take you next time, but I don’t think you would like it…

To get to Groningen on Saturday to visit Maren where she goes to Uni in the Netherlands, I had to take 3 trains: first to Amsterdam, then to Hilversum, and then to Groningen.  I will say that some of these train rides were short, but those were usually the ones that did not have luggage racks so I had to sit/stand awkwardly with my stuff by the doors and therefore count them separately in the train count.

Train total: 5

Groningen

There may have been a lot of stairs in Brussels, but there were very steep and narrow stairs in Groningen.  Even though my first night there was a Saturday, we decided to stay in and watch a movie because jetlag and Brussels nightlife had worn me out and Maren was getting over being sick.  We actually did a lot of sleeping during my visit and it was glorious!  Next day, we wanted to go to the town center and the best way to get around is on bikes (as it is just about everywhere in the Netherlands).  Since I didn’t have a bike, I borrowed her roommate’s, which was too tall.  I learned that first night that it was better if I used Maren’s and she used her roommate’s, and that the bike paths move in a certain way that I did not quite understand, but not without falling first.  Yes, I did bump my head and I’m sorry mom, but no I was not wearing a helmet (no one there does) but I was very aware of how I felt for the next few hours and days and my head only hit the ground after a few other points of contact so it didn’t hit very hard.  I can tell you this because I am no longer there, riding a bike without a helmet, and it has been long enough that any damage would have made itself known by now.  Luckily, the only things that actually broke were the rear bike light, my gloves, my sunglasses (in my purse), and some skin.  All replaceable.  Turns out I had just bought another pair of my sunglasses at Disneyland to leave at home in case anything happened to my old pair, and my H&M gloves were sitting in a bin at the H&M in Groningen.  Took us a few days to remember to buy a new bike light and I am still working on re-growing the skin, but compared to the last bike accident I saw where one guy lost a tooth, this was nothing.

Other than falling off a bike, I had a great time seeing Maren.  For those who don’t know, she is from Germany and was an exchange student at my high school my senior year and we got pretty close.  We chilled, cooked, hung out with her friends, and I rode on the back of a bike for the first time when her roommate wasn’t around to let us use hers.  On Wednesday, due to bad train schedules, I had to start my journey to Granada.  I left Groningen at 3:46 pm for Gouda, then Rotterdam, then Paris (3 trains).  Then I took the metro to another train station in Paris (1 train…yes, I am counting metro) to catch a night train to the Spanish border town of Irun where I could get a train to Madrid (2 trains).

Train total: 11

Madrid

Well, this was supposed to be my catch-up-on-sleep night, but this blog is taking forever to write and I am actually not that tired.  Guess all that napping on the trains really did count as sleep!  I got here in the afternoon and reserved my train to Granada for the morning, then headed to Hostal San Martin.  I booked it on hostelbookers.com where it had good reviews and was one of the cheapest single rooms I could find in a building with an elevator.  It seems nice enough, and the room has a TV and a small shower and sink with the room, as well as free wifi and a lot of storage space.  For the price and location in the city center, it is very nice, but it is definitely more of a guesthouse than a hostel as far as the atmosphere is concerned.  But since I was not planning on going out tonight, that is perfect for me!  I got food at Maoz, my favorite chain from my European adventures 3 and a half years ago, and even found my favorite gelato place.  Unfortunately, it has a sign up saying it is only open Friday-Sunday, my guess being those are winter hours since even I was considering skipping it even though it is my favorite and I am not in Madrid very often to get it!  I wandered for a few hours and found my hostel from last time, as well as the area that my guidebook said it was (the one time Let’s Go has ever let me down was when they mismarked my hostel on the map in the book) and even the restaurant I stopped at to see if they knew where my hostel was where one of the waiters got a phone to call and find out so that he could direct me!  I love going to new places, but I also love going back to places I have been to before and wandering into places I recognize :)

Tomorrow I go to Granada and meet up with my ISA group for a few days of orientation there before we go to Morocco on Tuesday, and Meknes on Wednesday!  I’ll try to find time to write again soon!

Montezuma’s... what’s the opposite of revenge?

Started writing this December 12, finished it December 18 in the Houston airport.

I can say with certainty, now that I have returned from my last weekend trip before I go home, that my weekend in Montezuma was my favorite weekend in Costa Rica.  From the weird adventures and the people I was with to the amazing weather and beautiful beaches, everything about this weekend was extraordinary.  I guess the only place to begin is at the very beginning...

But first, sunset at Playa Grande in Montezuma

For my Ecotourism class, we had two planned field trips this trimester: Tortuguero and Montezuma.  I already wrote about how amazing my trip to Tortuguero was, and now I will be writing about how amazing Montezuma was.  Can’t you tell I just hate that class? ;)

Now, this story really starts the week before in Panama.  I had planned to go a week earlier with some girls from my dance class, but I got sick so I waited a week and tagged along with some girls from my program.  Two went on Thanksgiving, and then I went on Friday with another girl.  As for the return, two girls had to return on Sunday, but I planned on staying until Monday and the fourth girl was planning on staying until Monday with me.  However, and I didn’t find this out until Sunday morning because we ended up staying at different places due to personal preferences, that other girl ran out of money and had to go back to San Jose on Sunday, too.  Since I had already booked and paid for two dives that day, I decided to stay in Bocas del Toro by myself for that last day, figuring I would make some new friends...

When I arrived at the dive center for my first dives as a certified Open Water Diver, I saw that the guy I had gotten certified with the day before was there as well.  Unfortunately, I forget his name and haven’t been in touch with him, but we’ll call him Dive Guy.  (We have since connected on Facebook and I remembered that his name is Devin, but I am too lazy to change all the Dive Guys to Devins.)  Anyway, we take off in the boat for the first dive and I am talking with Dive Guy when I think I hear one of the girls with the group, Julia, say California.  It was really loud on the boat, so I decided not to ask her about it until I heard her say San Francisco.  Turns out she is from Sacramento and goes to Chico, but was studying abroad in Puntarenas for the semester.  After the dives, since diving seems to leave you starving, a group of us went to hunt down a place to get some lunch.  After lunch, I went with Julia and her friend from her program, Corbi, as well as another guy from our dive group to go to Dolphin Bay.  We had a great time, even though we were probably in the slowest boat in all of Bocas, and I found out that Julia and Corbi were taking the bus back to San Jose on Monday morning, too, as the first leg of their journey back to Puntarenas.

Devin and Julia are the people right in front of me

Come Monday morning, I get to the boat to find Dive Guy and his friend there, but no Julia and Corbi yet.  Let me explain the journey back to San Jose from Bocas: boat to Almirante, van/taxi to Changuinola, then a bus to the border where you have you get off to go through customs and then get back on to go to San Jose.  Anyway, I figure they caught an earlier boat or will catch the next one, so off we go to Almirante.  When we get there, most of the vans fill up and leave for the bus stop, but ours is not quite full and wants to wait for the next boat.  So there I am, sitting next to Dive Guy with what looks like room for maybe two more people, with the driver telling us he knows we have to catch the bus and that it will all be fine.  Half an hour later, the next boat arrives and the driver crams maybe 5-7 more people in the van, including Julia and Corbi in the front seat and a couple guys who are sitting about two feet away facing me and Dive Guy.  Well, Dive Guy ends up sleeping and I decide that if the backwards-facing, French-speaking guys and I don’t talk to each other, this 45-minute ride is going to be very awkward due to how close we were all sitting.  Best.  Decision.  Ever.  Chris and Francois from Belgium ended up being some of the coolest people I met in Costa Rica, who I hope to stay in touch with.  Long story short, we ended up passing the 9-10 hour journey from Almirante to San Jose talking pretty much the entire time with each other, Julia, Corbi, and some other travelers.  This was facilitated by the fact that when we finally got to the bus, it was full and our driver had to talk to the bus driver to get him to let us get on the bus even though it meant we had to stand in the aisle for most of it.  We also spent 2-3 hours at the border, chilling and eating ice cream while we waited for everyone on the bus to get through the border crossing.  Was I irritated with the driver for making us wait back in Almirante?  A little, but Pura Vida.  Do I wish I could go back now and hug him because if we hadn’t waited I probably would not have become friends with Chris and Francois?  Definitely :)

Crossing the border back to Costa Rica

How does this relate to Montezuma?  Chris had just finished his program in San Jose and was talking about his plans for his last week in Costa Rica when he mentioned going to Montezuma that next weekend, a.k.a. the weekend my class was going to Montezuma!  Francois ended up deciding to go, too, and together they convinced me to take the bus with them on Friday, the day before my class went.  This journey consists of taking a bus to Puntarenas, a ferry to Paquera, and then a bus to Montezuma.  Unfortunately, my cell phone does not have the clearest reception so I didn’t hear when Francois told me to go to the Coca Cola bus station instead of the Puntarenas station to catch the bus straight through to Montezuma at 2 pm.  This was further complicated by Chris being later than he expected and going straight to the Coca Cola station, but getting there a few minutes after Francois had left to come to the Puntarenas station since I was at the wrong one.  After much confusion, we were all at the Puntarenas station to take a bus around 2:40 pm to Puntarenas and make the journey piece by piece.  At 5:30 pm, we arrived at the bus station in Puntarenas only to hear that there was no point in taking the ferry that night because the only bus from Paquera to Montezuma is the bus that goes from San Jose, which caught the ferry at 5 pm.  After about 20 minutes trying to come up with a way to get from Puntarenas to Montezuma that night, we decided it could not be done within our means.  Since we knew that Julia and Corbi lived near the ferry, we decided to take a taxi there and then hunt down an internet café to try to contact them via Facebook about staying with them for the night so we could catch the ferry in the morning with the morning bus from San Jose.

When we got out of the taxi by the ferry, a man asked me if we were taking the ferry that night and I said no.  He then said something about a bus and I stopped and looked at him.  “What bus?”  “That bus over there.”  “Where is it going?”  “Montezuma, Mal Pais...”  “Wait, wait, wait.  There is a bus going to Montezuma tonight?”  At this point a man walks by and tells me that the bus missed the ferry at 5 pm and had to wait for the next ferry at 9 pm.  We can’t believe our luck, so we go over to the bus and talk to the driver and sure enough, we can get on the bus after taking the ferry to get to Montezuma.  At first we were worried that the bus missed the ferry because Chris had made it wait a few minutes back in San Jose, but it turns out they had a flat tire on the way and got to the dock just as the ferry was leaving.  While not really important, we were glad to know we were not about to get on a bus full of people who had missed the ferry because of us.  Instead, it was just bad luck for them, great luck for us!  We found internet, messaged Julia and Corbi that we had 3 hours to kill in Puntarenas, left them our phone numbers, and went across the street for some dinner.

When we walk in the restaurant, who do I see but a group of people from Veritas, including my friend, Kelsey, from my Spanish class back in October.  She starts hanging out with Francois, Chris, and me as I eat gallo pinto and scrambled eggs for dinner, with an Imperial, before we decide to walk the few blocks to the beach.  We get there and chill for a bit and then Julia calls, so we go and find her back by the ferry.  While we walk around with her, we meet these people who drove to Costa Rica from the US in a giant bus-van, and then happen upon Corbi.  We hang out some more, and then it is time to go back to the ferry to cross to the peninsula.  On the boat, they have music and lights and the sky is clearer than I’ve seen in a long time, so we dance and stargaze our way to Paquera.  Stoked off of our luck, we get on the bus and head for Montezuma.  However, one more bump along the way, we have to switch buses in Cobano and our new bus is belching black smoke so we have to go back and get on another new bus before making the last trek to Montezuma.

When we get to Luz en el Cielo, the hostel Chris’ friend recommended and that I now recommend wholeheartedly, it is 12:30 am so we ditch our stuff and head to the local bar, Chico’s.  After some dancing, we go out to the beach and watch the stars.  Chris mentions that he has never seen a shooting star and I tell him that if it is clear enough, you just have to look for a while and you will probably see one.  Well I think there must have been a meteor shower last weekend because we ended up seeing more shooting stars than I could count!  Since we were on the beach, I decided to take off my Rainbows (flip-flops), and left them next to Francois’ shoes by a rock.  After a while spent stargazing, he left, and then about half an hour later I left with Chris and his friend Sina.  However, I could not find my shoes.  The three of us combed the beach looking for them with no luck so I walked back barefoot, and I even went back around 8 the next morning but they still were not there.  I decided I would buy some new ones later that day.

At the bar the night before, Kelsey had asked Chris, Francois, and me if we wanted to go to the waterfalls with her, so that’s what we did.  This hike was probably the most untamed hike I have done.  There was barely a trail visible, so we jumped and climbed our way to the first of the three waterfalls.  As Kelsey said in her blog, it was like tree-root hopscotch!  The first waterfall ended up being so beautiful that we didn’t make it to the other two.  There was a rock that we could climb up and jump off of, and the weather was beautiful.  We took turns taking pictures with my camera, and Chris added to the rock towers off on the side.  After the waterfalls, we hiked back to town so I could meet my class for lunch.

Tree-root hopscotch

Jumping off the rock

Rock towers

At lunch, I learned that one of the girls in my class, Jackie, knew the girl who owns Luz en el Cielo (the hostel I stayed at) and so she came up with me after lunch to go hang out for a bit.  While there, I was talking about how I lost my shoes at the beach and had to buy overpriced flip-flops from one of the little touristy shops.  I went to dinner with my class, since all meals were included, then showered and met the guys back at the hostel.  Again, we went to Chico’s, and it was there that Jackie told me she thought she had found my shoes.  After I had been talking about them at Luz, she walked back to the hotel where our class was and found a pair of Rainbows sitting on a rock on the side of the road.  I still have no idea how they got from the beach to a rock a couple blocks away, but I got my shoes back.  This second stroke of amazing luck led Francois to decide that weird things happen around me.

Sunday morning, before my class left, I decided to stay for one more night at Luz with Chris and Francois and take the bus back to San Jose the next morning since I didn’t have class until 4.  The rest of my time in Montezuma consisted of meals with my class, hanging out at the beach and pool with them before they left, chilling at the hostel, and making the half hour trek to Playa Grande with a group of people staying at Luz.  Monday morning, I had to catch the bus at 6 am, so I got up a little early so I could watch the sunrise.  Well, waking up at 4:30 ended up being very easy since a pack of howler monkeys went by at 4:25 and made so much noise I am sure they woke up the entire hostel.  I said my goodbyes to Chris and Francois, and headed down to town in the dark to park myself on the beach with my camera and wait.  I am not a morning person, but this was definitely worth it.

Sunrise in Montezuma