Una semana super madrileña

This was a great week, largely because I saw several new things in Madrid that I had been wanting to see, got to go back to some of my favorite places, and spent time with some fab people. Here are some photos!

 The cathedral outside of the Palacio Real (Royal palace). On Wednesday, instead of our usual 2-hour class with our director Ramiro, we toured the Palacio Real, which is beautiful! While the current King doesn't actually live there, they do still hold affairs of state in the palace. It was also nice to have a change of pace--that 5-7 pm class off-campus, coming after a dayfull of classes at Carlos III can definitely drag on. However, before class, we usually go to 100 Monteditos, a Spanish chain that has bocadillos (small sandwiches) and drinks, all at 1 euro each on Wednesdays, which is fun.

La Coquette, a tiny jazz/blues bar in Sol that I randomly found when looking for live music online. It ended up being awesome, we definitely want to go back!

On Friday, we had a paseo with our Wash U class. In the morning, we walked around the Atocha area and talked about the Madrid de los Borbones--gardens, etc that were built by the Borbons. We had a break in between that and another visit to the Prado, where we saw more Goya work from that time period, as well as some other pieces. During our break...

First we went and had coffee at the cafe in Circulo de Bellas Artes (from the 19th century), which is very elegant and has an especially gorgeous ceiling. Picasso used to hang out and take classes there back in the day. Classy.

 

Eliana, Ben, and Judy on the stairs in the actual Circulo de Bellas Artes, a building with art exhibits, film series, theater, etc. We climbed all the way to the top floor, but the rooftop which apparently has a beautiful view, was closed.

An piece from an exhibition in Bellas Artes, which was art inspired by pieces of literature.

Then, we got some lunch at a small place with food from the region of Galicia. My friends got some octopus and other seafood, that they said was delicious. Bobby contemplating the adorable menu.

Shared desserts at Maceira: some chocolate-covered cookies with coconut, crepe-like things filled with Nata (cream), and flan. yumyum.

Judy at what we think could be the world's shortest ATM. In the moment it was exremely amusing, and we had fun trying to guess why it is so impractical/booty-drop friendly.

This week was also Wash U's spring break, so there were so many people from our school here in Madrid. It was funny to be out at clubs on Thursday/Friday nights and see dance floors packed with Wash U. It was really nice to see my friend Emily here in Madrid, as the last time I saw her we were overlapping for a few weeks in Chile: I was finishing my summer program, and she was beginning her Fall semester abroad.

My first mini-course, on the History of Terrorism, finished this past week. I turned in a 14 page paper on Al- Qaeda and took the 8 essay question final exam (thank goodness I just need to pass).  While I was now supposed to be starting my language class, the scheduling got messed up and turns out I won't be taking any language class after all. Instead, I am going to take another mini-course called "Europa y Estados Unidos Entre Dos Guerras", which will hopefully be an interesting history class about the time period between World Wars I and II.

Amy's birthday dinner on Friday night. After, we went to Kapital, a ridiculous but fun 7-story club.

 

Sunday morning, we ran into these musicians when went to El Rastro, a weekly giant street market. 

A cable car that runs over the Parque del Oeste, that we rode on Sunday afternoon.

View from the way up. There was a great view of the mountains and so much greenery, right on the west side of the city.

Bobby and me at the top of the Teleférico. 

It was so lovely out on Sunday afternoon. At the top with Caitlin and Alex.

There are some trails at the top, and Alex and I have already talked about going back to hike around.

Sun setting on our way down.

The pond in parque Retiro at night. Sunday evening, after the Teleferico, Eliana and I got off the metro on the other side of the park from our apartment and walked home. It was such a fresh, crisp night and there were lots of people out. We saw a fire juggler (he was bad at it, but also adorable so it's all good), people of all ages running/walking/practicing roller blading tricks (it's kind of a big deal here..haha). We passed a cafeteria full of older people right near our apartment and once again, noticed the old tradition of gathering in a local, neighborhood cafeteria alive and well in Madrid--as well as the abundancy of older people constantly out and about on the train, on the streets, and in restaurants/cafes, etc.

Last night, I met up again with Ana, a girl I met through a program with the university called Intercambios. I was paired up with a Spanish girl from my school, and the point is to speak in both English and Spanish (so we both get to practice), as well as to meet someone new, of course. I have now met up with her 3 times, and we get along really well. She is 24, and is doing a 1-year masters program at my school in Human Rights. The first time I met her I went to her apartment, where her and her roommate were interviewing for a new roommate. In just an hour or so, I was there for about 5 of the prospective new roomies, so they told me I could get a 'vote' in who they should choose. My favorite was a long-haired, gay Argentinian pilates instructor with a nose ring who talked a million miles a minute and was so excited when I knew what "palta" (the Chilean/Argentinian word for avocado) was ("Miravos! Como sabes esta palabra?"..while I'm thinking, how did you start talking about avocados? and can I take your pilates class..fo free?), but while entertaining, he might have been a bit overwhelming as a roommate. I also met a Polish couple and two Italian girls, and they ended up going with one of the Italians.

Last night we went for a drink and Ana told me how she recently spent 2 full years living and working in a village called Bangassou in the Central African Republic, and she has fascinating stories from her time there, such as how there was one road (unpaved) from Bangassou to the capital, Bangui, and even though it was about 500 km away, it would take a few days to get there. She learned how to speak Sangho, the local language besides French, and while she is not religious, worked through a Jesuit program because they are the only ones doing work there. She told me that it because there were very limited ways to contact people from home, it was definitely hard at times, but she is very happy she did it. Last night we spent some time talking about her experiences there, and communal sentiment about politics in our countries, and even about the attack on a Madrid cercanias (the commuter rail that I take to schoole every day) by Al-Qaeda in 2004 (luckily I knew all about that in some detail from the paper I wrote a few days ago).

I am definitely looking forward to the next couple of weeks. My good friend from home, Darcy, who is studying abroad in Barcelona, is coming to visit me in Madrid this weekend! Then, the weekend after that is the beginning of Spring Break, and my family will be here in Madrid eeeee! This will be my first big trip with my family in a long time, and I know it will be fabulous. I will go with the whole fam and a friend of mine, Amy, to Paris to explore and see my mom's friends from when she studied abroad in Caen, and then Amy and I will meet up with a bunch of friends in Berlin for the last couple days of break.

*Also--last weekend I went to Córdoba and Sevilla, two beautiful cities in southern spain (in the region Andalucía, like Granada). I will definitely write about that trip soon!

MOROCCO, je t'aime.

Wow. I spent last weekend (the last in Feb) in Morocco, and I can honestly say it was one of the most beautiful and just all-around awesome weekends of my life. It was filled with warm and interesting and multilingual people, delicious food, beautiful things and weather....BUT let me backtrack and tell you the story :)

Before I left, the father of the girls I teach, who works in the hotel/tourism business, gave me a list of the best things to do in Marrakech, as well as a "Maruecos" (Morocco in Spanish) guidebook he had, then told me should anything happen, he knows people in Marrakesh and would do anything he could--both helpful and so nice of him. We headed to the airport on Thursday afternoon to sit and wait hours for our EasyJet flight, because our plane was coming in from Paris, where the airport strike had just begun.  There were 9 of us total (4 guys and 5 girls), 4 from my program and 5 from Wash U's business school program in Madrid with us. The wait really didn't matter, because we were all together and so excited for the weekend. Our flight was into Casablanca (cheaper flight), although we had planned to spend all 3 nights in Marrakech, about 4 hours away.

Although we only flew for an hour and a half, landing in Casablanca was actually like stepping into another world. This was my first experience being in a place where I really didn't have any grasp on the spoken languages (French and Arabic), and also my first time in an Arab country. We got off the plane and headed to the train ticket booth, where we bought 2 tickets: one from the airport into Casablanca's main train station, and the train that would take us from there to Marrakech. 

The 4 hour train from Casablanca to Marrakech was one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend. The train was divided up into small cars of about 8 people, and it was very crowded, so we split up. I was the first to go into a car, and sat down by the window as I felt 7 pairs of eyes turn to look at me. The ride started with looks and smiles, but little by little, as the ride went on, people began talking and offering their snacks to everyone else in the car.  By the end of the ride the entire car was chatting, eating and telling us about themselves and their country. One of the women, Khadija, even offered to have us over for traditional weekly Friday-night couscous at her home (we ended up not being able to reach her later, but still), and I exchanged emails with Miloud (I have already gotten an email from him saying that he hopes we had a great trip and he will welcome us back to his country anytime). The entire ride was a blend of languages: Spanish, French, English, a Berber dialect, Arabic and even Hebrew. I found out I can understand French pretty well, and I would respond in Spanish or English, with a nice blend of homemade French and/or sign language included. (although we were talking about it on the train, between the group we travelled with, we speak English, Spanish, French--thank goodness, Hebrew, Chinese, and Italian. Not bad for a group of Americans!) I can still picture that train car perfectly--where everyone was sitting, even what they were wearing--I think my new favorite thing is traveling by train in a new place, as it allows you to feel more a part of the physical space by seeing more of the place while meeting people who have all come together for a few hours on this moving machine.

One of the more interesting parts of that train ride was our discussion about where we were all from.  There is diversity within the Moroccans too, as many of them have at least part Berber origins which each also have their own language. When it got to my turn, Miloud looked me right in the eyes and told me, "Sarah is definitely Moroccan". He said that it was something in my character and looks, and he could just tell that I am from there, even if it is from a long time ago. I went next door to say hi to our other friends and met a journalist who told me the same thing. This happened to me about 5 other times that weekend. Then, when I would tell them my name, they would use it as information proving their point ("Of course! Sarah is Moroccan name!"), while I thought to myself that all three main monotheistic religions have the name, but it's all good! I could have recently spent a weekend in my ancient homeland. Who knows?

I think the pictures express it best for this experience. Here's just a few of them, a mixture of mine and my friends'.

Train station in central Casablanca, a much more cosmopolitan city than Marrakech.

    

After a LONG day, we finally made it to Marrakech! The hostel room inside the Medina (old part of the city) and right off the main plaza that Alex, Mikhail, Eliana and I shared. Friday night we all went up to the terrace on top of the building and just lay there talking and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Our first dinner at the HUGE open-air market in the main plaza, Djemma el Fna. During the day, it is filled with people selling things, fresh-squeezed orange juice, tourist traps, people with monkeys and snakes, women trying to get you to let them give you Henna, and more. At night, it becomes rows and rows of these outdoor "restaurants", that all serve mainly the same things: couscous, tajine, harira (vegetable/noodle soup), and many kinds of meat. Azeez, the 18-year-old whose family ran our hostel (and he ended up becoming our guide/hilarious friend) took us to this one, just called "1" cause it's the first in the rows, owned by someone in his family. The food itself was so pretty, not to mention delicious.

 

 I really wanted to know how they make everything and just hear about how it's all done so after we got our food, I went to talk to the guys working that night--Sharaf and Rasheed.  They were so friendly and told me how they make the couscous, and how they have to take down the whole restaurant every night and store everything in a giant garage off the market. I also learned that they have both been working there for over ten years. We talked about all of this in Spanish, which they picked up from Spanish tourists at the market over the years. Walking by the following nights, they always addressed me by name and came up to talk to me, which was so fun and made that huge market seem a little smaller.

Lobby of the hostel where we had check-in, and tea in the mornings.

Koutobia mosque, the biggest in Morocco. From the 12th century.

We spent a good part of Friday afternoon walking around the market and doing a whole lot of bargaining. I actually ended up not buying many things, and more just looking at the colors and smelling spices, looking at hats, turtles, shoes (and really anything you can imagine) that were around the markets--as well as trying to avoid getting hit by the horse-drawn carts, mopeds, bikes, and other vehicles that zoom through the super narrow streets.  

Spices, mmmm! I love the smell of a new place. It amazes me how after just a few hours, your nose accustoms itself to the smell...we are so adaptable in so many ways. I got a tiny bit of the spice used on couscous and tajine, and I'm excited to use it when I get back.

Shoes!

Me, Alex, and our new friend.

Mikhail and Melanie getting some of the amazing fresh-squeezed orange juice..there's about 20 of the EXACT same-looking stands all hollerin to get you to come get some every time you walk by.

Mikhail, Allison and me.

One courtyard of the enormous Badi Palace, built in the 1500s.

Egg/potato pita sandwiches..actually tastes real good (and its veg woooo)!

We walked around the Mellah, which was the old Jewish neighborhood. We met a man working in a store in this old area who told us that Marrakech had a huge Jewish community, and today still has about 250 Jews. This is the old synagogue, and there is one other one that is still used today.

Saadi Tombs.

An hour long ride around and outside the Medina in a horse-drawn cart. Also an example of someone who spoke to me and explained things in French, which I understood but responded to with some highly advanced nods and gestures.

Some tasty harira soup. Will lovingly accept and adore a spoon like that as a future gift.

On Saturday evening, we went to a Hammam (traditional Moroccan baths) which our friend Azeez who worked at the hostel told us about. We split up into guys/girls, and when we went in we ended up being the only non-local women. (That was an amazing/surreal experience in itself, please ask me if you want the full story on that!) When we got back from that and dinner, we spent hours in our room talking and hanging out with Azeez and another guy who worked in our hostel, before getting up at 6 for the trek back to Casablanca and then Madrid.

It's hard to recount every moment, but I think it's clear that a lot happened in a small amount of time! I would love to go back someday to see more of that country, and meet more of its incredible people. Oh, also, a common joke there is for men to ask the men girls are with "how many camels for these beautiful girls?". Alex and Mikhail got offered 4,000 camels for both me and Eliana. They thought about it, but said no. Now we know they're keepers.