Going Deutsch: MOROCCO AND BARCELONA

Even though thinking about this trip causes a strange reaction of pains in my stomach, I am valiantly pushing through to bring you this (late) blog post! I am back stateside and spending time with my family at the beach, which oddly doesn’t feel unusual at all. I can’t believe it’s been a whole week since I left Germany.

To start where I should, on Saturday, July 2nd I met my mom in the Düsseldorf Airport, where we had close to five hours to kill before boarding a flight to Morocco. It was great to catch up with her and speak a lot of English, and before we knew it we were standing in the longest line in the world to get our boarding passes for Agadir. After hurrying through the security checks, worrying about being late for our flight, and a screw falling off of my mom’s suitcase (I shoved a rolled up sticker in the hole and it stayed the whole trip! Ginny the Engineer!), we were on the plane to the coast of Morocco. The trip turned out to be 3 1/2 hours and not 2 1/2 because of those sneaky time changes, but we got served a meal on board, which turned out to be gross. Full of surprises, this trip! There were male twins around eight wearing matching leather jackets and reflective sunglasses the entire plane ride, and that helped. Once landing we exchanged US Dollars to Durhams, making us feel rich until our taxi ride to the hotel on the beach cost 170 of them. Our hotel’s theme of “Moroccan Eloquence meets French Style” was easy to see with the roses floating in water and huge, dark lamps illuminating the entrance way, but the whole place seemed a little Disneyland to me after the beauty of naturally aged and eloquent cities I’ve visited in Europe. They had comfortable beds and a TV with great movies like Taken, the perfect film to watch with your mother when you’ve dragged her to Africa.

Mint tea when we arrived.

The way other side of the Atlantic.

Our hotel the first night.

The next day we took very nice air conditioned bus, leaving from a very dilapidated bus station, to Marrakesh. This provided a great opportunity for research into what to do once we got to Marrakesh, and is where I learned about “baraka”, a state of grace provided by the things you do. Apparently, they believe that the more you are in sync with your surroundings, others with pick up on your good vibes and life seems sweeter, a philosophy that I could really get behind. In our first moments in Marrakesh, we must have met a man whose “baraka” was down in the dumps, since he helpfully brought us a round about way to the door of our hostel and then demanded a larger tip. Our hostel was friendly, though, and sat us down with mint tea, informing us of things to do in the city and how to avoid scams. Plus, I found an air conditioning system in our room! We explored the first night and ended up eating at one of the numbered food stalls that appear around dusk in the main square, an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The grills were smoking everywhere, but the hamburger, kebabs, salsa, and bread were tasty. The eagerness for tips and forceful salesmanship was overwhelming for the first couple of days, with orange guys salesmen catcalling and stares in any direction we walked. My mom asked if I wanted a ring to wear on my wedding finger, but I doubt that would have helped anything. Women in burqas were everywhere, and while we were dresses conservatively, most of the women had cloth over their mouths, which seemed like the way to go after all of the male dominated behavior we were experiencing. Immediately upon arriving back at our hostel, we got online to look up the definition of the “third world.” We now know that Morocco is not a third world country.

Grills in the main square.

Inside our hostel in Marrakesh.

No one pays attention when they're written in
Arabic either.

At breakfast the second day, the women working in our hostel offered to teach me how to make Moroccan crepes, which were very greasy but the hospitality was so swee that I jumped on the opportunity immediately. The rest of the day was filled with museums and site seeing, and I particularly like the Ali Ben Youssef Medersa, a school which taught the Quran to boys for hundreds of years. The mosaic tile work in these buildings was remarkable and inspiring. The food was also inspiring, and I loved the mix of roasted meats and fruit. Probably related, around this time was when my stomach started feeling funny. Other things we did in Morocco while I was starting to get really sick: seeing a dead kitten in a pile of ruins, searching for natural henna that lasted only one day, haggling a lantern in the maze of souqs, and breaking the handle off of our room’s door when someone locked us in from the outside. We also went for a hammam, a massage and a long steam followed by a woman who scrubs you with eucalyptus soap and a sandpaper glove. This is when I really started feeling bad and almost passed out from the heat in the spa. From then on, it was downhill and I ended up being sick for the entire night before we left for barcelona, with a fever, chills, aches, and stomach problems. Remember those unique food stalls where we ate the first night? Well right before sitting down, a snake charmer aggressively followed us around, asking me to meet him and shake his hand. He wouldn’t back down, I touched his hand, we went to eat, and two days later, I found myself in that sickly predicament.

Spices in the Souqs.

Medersa.

Mom at a Thai/Moroccan restaurant.

With the care of my mom, we made it in a taxi, plane, bus, and subway to our hostel in Barcelona. It was so beautiful there, but Barcelona did not get enough attention from me nor will it have enough blog time. I was so weak and our time was short, so the city feels like a blur to me. We ate delicious food, visited all of the important Gaudí architecture sites including La Sagrada Familia with some of the most beautiful stained glass I’ve ever seen, and I saw some of my favorite works of art in the Picasso Museum. I loved the buildings that held the museum and the emphasis on Picasso’s early work and blue period pieces, much better than this later work in my opinion.

Barcelona at dusk.

Drinking juice and trying not to die.

La Sagrada Familia

Gaudí's Park Güell

Gaudí architecture.

Water.

By the time we got back to Germany, it was Mathis’ first birthday! Of course it was wonderful to see all of the family and friends that meant so much to me throughout Mathis’ first year, and the English! Everyone spoke such great English with my Mom, which once again, was the first time I’d heard most of the guests speak any English. Unfair. My very last day in Germany was taken up by a trip to the hospital. I still couldn’t get over my stomach sickness, and by Sunday I was so exhausted that I started crying at breakfast. That was enough to terrify everyone in the house and it was decided I needed to see a doctor. The wonderful thing about Germany is that we were in to see the doctor and out within minutes, and I had four medicines to get rid of whatever bacteria was living in my stomach within the hour. I still can’t believe I “forgot” the papers we needed to give the doctor and how we found them later in the car that we took the hospital, but I’m blaming it on the disease. We ate pizza with everyone for dinner, and I went to sleep before Mathis on my last night in Germany.