| Alright, here is the lengthy update written on the train:
June 18 Arriving in Marrakech
Our last morning in Casa, I went out for the morning while
David had some time to himself. He
wasn’t feeling well, so I picked up some water and orange juice for him before
leaving. He is loving the orange juice
here, as do I. It is real and freshly
squeezed and quite cheap. On my way back
to our place, I got lost (I past our street), and after a lot of wandering I
took a petite taxi to a familiar landmark.
The driver chuckled at me because it was such a short ride. I deposited
the goods with David and took off for the morning. When I returned I packed while he worked out,
then we checked out (ie handed them our keys).
The train to Marrakech was very full, when it started moving
we were still standing in a crowd in the isle, looking for a seat. It was so crowded, but we eventually worked
our way to the end of a car and I took off my pack (which seems to be gaining
weight), laid it sideways next to the outside door (hoping that it was locked)
and sat down. David refused to sit, so I
exercised my excellent grasp of French to invite a Moroccan girl standing next
to me to sit next to me. She responded
back in a level of English far superior to my French. Her name was Hooda, and she was a dental
student studying in Casablanca. Her family lives in Marrakech and she went
home every weekend. After a couple of
stops, the train thinned out a bit until there were a couple of seats
available. Hooda’s mom called for her
(they had seats), so David and I sat on my pack for sometime longer, waiting
until there were some seats available next to each other. Eventually Hooda came and fetched me, they
had 2 seats for us, after someone moved for us, and David and I sat with her
and her mom. Her mom didn’t speak
English, but we had brief conversations in French. We learned a bit of the history of Morocco
from them, we had been curious about the timeline of the French
occupation. She said that the French had
only occupied Morocco
for 10 years. I haven’t looked that up
yet, it seems like a very short amount of time to change the spoken language of
an entire country.
We got off the train and decided to walk some blocks towards
the medina in hopes of catching a cheaper cab and perhaps finding somewhere to
eat. David spotted an appealing
restaurant on the main strip, but I was hesitant as it looked mostly like a tea
shop and there were no women in it. I
was quietly expressing my concern that the facility was for men only when the
waiter came to greet us on the sidewalk, so we felt welcome. I got to eat real Moroccan couscous served in
a tagine dish with veggies and beef, while David had a shrimp pizza cooked in a
woodburning oven. We watched the guy
make the dough right beside us, it was cool.
We both got some more mint tea, which I can never get enough of. You can tell that Marrakech is for tourists,
or just that they treat us like we are tourists, as they gave me cutlery to eat
my couscous with, and no bread. It is
very weird to use a knife and fork to eat out of a tagine dish.
After dinner we walked a couple more blocks then caught a
cab and bartered the price to the medina down to 25 dhm, which is still way too
much, but less than some other offers. This is one thing that I like more about
Casablanca. It isn’t made for tourists, so cab drivers
are willing to use the meters like they’re supposed to. In general, we got ripped off a little less
in Casa.
When we arrived in the medina, the place was so alive with
people everywhere. There were many
circles with drums and dancers, the orange juice dealers were in full business,
and all the stalls in the market were still open. This was around 9:30 or 10pm. We headed over
to our hostel, David remembered the way, which is good since I’m so bad with
directions, and we left our bags in the room and headed back out to watch the
happenings. We tried to look into one of
the dancing circles, but the crowd was tall and we aren’t. David lifted the camera above his head to get
it on tape, but as soon as one of the dancers saw it, she/he (we weren’t sure…)
was right on him demanding money. He
gave her 3 dhm and she wanted more, but we just left.
Our room was on one floor lower than the previous night we
spent there, and this time the bathroom was a squatty toilet. It also stank a lot. Good thing it was only for one night. There was another guy sharing our room, he
was Moroccan but born and raised in Holland. He and David had a nice visit on the roof
together while I washed some of my clothes in the sink and hung them on the
line on the roof.
June 19 Leaving Morocco
We spent
the morning in Marrakech, eating breakfast with our new Moroccan friend from Holland,
then we explored the market some. David
was on the hunt for an Indiana Jones style hat (so that he could feel more like
he was on an adventure, he kept on repeating, “Let’s look for treasure!”), and
I was interested in perusing the belt selection. I found 2 that I liked, both
times they wanted 200 dhm for them, which was ridiculous. I offered them 70, again which is still a lot
to pay and they laughed at me. As usual
they would laugh and ask for a serious
offer, and I would smile and say “I gave you one”. Eventually they would chase me down while I
was helping judge David’s hat selection, agreeing to my price. In the end, I got 2 belts and David opted
against the hats. They were more
Moroccan style, and had a funny slope to the front of them. We couldn’t find him a whip either, although
the charmed snakes were probably safer that way. We rested for a few minutes in our room, looking at some
photos and talking in our usual bantering way, then David went to pretty
himself before the flight. Soon we
realized we were quite short on time, and we had to run through the medina to
catch a taxi. We had several offers,
mostly for around 60 dhm (the distance is about a 20 dhm ride), then David
stuck his head into a cab and asked “25 dhm to the airport”. The guy said ok, so we got in with all our
stuff. Halfway there, the guy said the ride would cost 60 dhm, and I said no,
he had agreed to 25. Turns out, we
assumed that he understood David’s English, when he was only understood the
word “airport”. I told him to stop if he
didn’t agree to 40 dhm. He wrote “50” on
a piece of paper, and we agreed.
Thinking back, it was a good thing, since we probably would have missed
our flight if we had switched taxis.
He let us off at the airport, and we entered the wrong
terminal. Some security guards directed us to the arrivals terminal (there was
construction), and we again went in a wrong door. We asked for directions again, and ran out of
the building and around the corner. We
felt pretty frantic by the time we got into our line, 10 minutes before check
in closed.
The plane ride itself was fairly empty, and good overall. We
arrived in Madrid, which is a
beautiful airport. The bathrooms were
cleaner than anything in Morocco,
and it was a relief to be in such a place. There was an American express booth
that cashed my traveler’s cheques free of charge (much to David’s frustration,
who paid a lot of service fees in Casablanca),
and we took the subway to our hostel. We
arrived at the hostel at 10:30 pm and discovered that the laundry room closed
at 10. We inquired about this, and I
presented to her the problem of our timeline, and our great need of doing
laundry. She graciously let us use it
anyways, so I got our stuff in the washers while David showered. It was right around this time that we
realized that we forgot his towel and facecloths in Marrakech. I had hung them on the roof that morning to
dry. I was trying to help him out, but
instead we are down to 1 towel between the 2 of us. When I got up to the room again, we had a
German roommate (there were 4 beds), and David had seriously flooded the
bathroom floor with the shower. Recall
that this is now the 2nd time, after the great flood of Casablanca.
After that, I showered in our new pool (with a wetter towel)
and we through our stuff in the dryer and headed into Madrid
in search for food. Turns out that not many kitchens are open at midnight. We ate at McDonalds and they gave us free
glasses for buying a meal. We then wandered around a little more and went to
check the laundry. It was wet so we
added more time and headed to explore more.
We found a store that sold cheap beer, but they informed us that they
can’t sell alcohol after like 8pm because of a by-law. So, we settled for
orange juice. When the laundry was done
we packed in the dark while our (two now) roommates slept. I was done and in bed by 3:30am, with the
alarm set to 6:30.
June 20 Leaving Madrid
As usual, we had a late start to our morning and we were
rushing to eat a 3 min breakfast at 7:35.
Our train was at 8:15 am, so we ran through the subway station. We had a flight later that day from Barcelona
to Rome, so it was important to
catch the right train. One stop before
the train station, the subway stopped running for a good 5 min. We were so short on time, and were getting
very frustrated. We contemplated running to the station, although we didn’t
know where it was from there. Luckily it
starting running again. We made it to
the station just in time, through the annoying baggage scanner and all.
The train ride itself was nice and not too eventful. We alternated between sleeping and doing
things on the computer (I uploaded some photos). There weren’t outlets, so we
had to conserve battery. 4 hours later, we were in Barcelona,
and getting off accidentally at the wrong stop.
We thought that our flight was around 4, but it turns out that I can’t
read 24 hour clocks very well. We were
sitting and waiting to reserve the train for the rest of our trip when we
pulled out our schedule and read that the flight was at 2:50. It was around 1:40 at this point. We opted
for a taxi to get us there fasted, so we dashed out the doors. Once we were in the taxi, he asked us which
terminal we were going to. We said we
didn’t know, but it was Ryanair. He informed us (with his minimal English) that
they didn’t fly out of the Barcelona
airport, but out of the Girona airport, about 100km away. He pulled over so we could check our
confirmation information, and, indeed, next to the airport was listed as Barcelona
(Girona). What false advertising! Resigned to the fact that we couldn’t make
the flight, we headed back to the train station to look for a train. Unfortunately, France
was still striking so there was no way to get to Italy
by train. The bus option was going to be
about 100 Eur each and 21 hours, so we bought some internet time to check
flights. The ryanair flights were still
cheapest, so we decided to go to Girona by train to see if we could get a
flight that night.
It took about 1h20 by train to get there, then we took a bus
to the airport for 30 minutes. This is
definitely not Barcelona. At the airport we discovered that our
cheapest option was to take the flight the next morning and stay the night in
Girona. Because of our lack of sleep and
crazy day, we opted against staying in the airport, so I booked a place to stay
through the tourist booth, which was very helpful since she could call and
speak Spanish for us. I used internet at
a nearby hotel to book our flight, then we took the bus back to Girona. The hotel was about a 20 minute walk, and a
little difficult to find in the small winding streets. A man helped us with directions, the only
thing he could say in English was, “My English is not very strong”.
Once we checked in, we freshened up a little and went on our
daily hunt for food. We wandered into
their downtown, which was probably the most expensive. The street alternated between gelato shops and
pizza places. We got some pizza and beer
and headed “home” and went to bed pretty quick.
Recapping our transportation over the last couple days, we
took petite taxis in Casa and Marrakech (I also took a bus in Casa that
morning), a Moroccan train to Marrakech, a flight to Madrid, the subway to our
hostel and the train station, a train to Barcelona, a Spanish taxi around the
block (for 10 Eur), a train to Girona, a bus to and from the airport, and
walked through Girona laden with packs.
June 21 Leaving “Barcelona”
Our alarm got us up at 5:30 am as we had to catch the 7am
bus to the airport. We were only
slightly rushed, which is impressive for us, arriving at the bus station a good
7 minutes before the bus left. David paid too much for our breakfast of orange
juice and bread with salami (they hid the price till he paid), and then he
found a hair in his sandwich. We
successfully checked in to our flight and got on board. There were a lot of
rowdy Spanish people who were seemingly traveling together and had never been
on a plane before. They made noises and
cheered when we took off and landed.
Also, during the safety lesson, they all hushed each other quiet, like
we were in kindergarten again.
We landed in Rome
to discover that we were also not in the main airport, so we paid 8 Eur for a
bus to the main train station. After
much hunting in the hot, crowded, three story terminal we found the baggage
check and left our heavy stuff there in order to explore. We hunted for a free map and couldn’t find
one at the station, so we went to the book store, studied the map, went outside
to check the street names, double checked the map, then headed to the collosium
by foot (after the extra flight and trouble, David refused to pay any more for
transportation). We didn’t get too far
before we encountered a Polish tour group, so we walked along with them, hoping
that they were heading to the collosium.
I can’t say that I understood much, but I’m starting to be able to
recognize the language a bit. A couple
times every day David announces, “Hey, they’re speaking Polish”, and sometimes
he tells me what they said, although it’s rarely something really cool, like
espionage or standup comedy.
After a while we abandoned our Polish friends, but found the
tourism booth and got a free map of the city.
We got turned back on the right direction (the Polish group took a
detour), and after a couple of blocks we passed a convenience store, and
outside was a couple boxes that made me yell, “Apples!!!”. I eat several apples a day at home and hadn’t
had any in so long. We went in and
discovered reasonable prices, so we got a couple of sandwiches (which they make
in front of you at their deli), some fruit, and beer and juice. The sandwiches were like 2 Eur in total, so
cheap.
We ate on some steps and had fun trying to open the
beer. I found the railings work best,
and we headed on our way. The colossium
was big and cool, and, as David kept repeating, “I never knew that men could
build such things”, and we had fun looking around inside. There are so many ruins, I’ve never seen
anything like it before. David used a railing inside the Collosium to open another beer and drank it enjoying the view.
We then walked to the Vatican,
but on the way we were looking for somewhere to recharge the camera, so we
stopped and had a beer in a small shop that had convenient outlets. The Vatican
is also very big and David was very excited to see his heritage. By this time,
we both crashed. Our feet were so tired
and I had a headache from a day in the sun.
We agreed to take the subway back to the train station, which turns out
only cost 1 Eur. Good thing we saved
money on that previously.
We picked up our bags and David left me sitting against a
wall with them while he foraged for food.
He went to our golden grocery store that we discovered previously. Upon success, he returned and sat in our camp
while I tried to reserve our train to Venice
for the following day. After a long wait
in the information line, in which some Arab speaking women kept trying to get
in front of me (I get them a stern look), I found out that travel was
impossible due to a strike. I didn’t
really understand what was going on, other than that we had to wait a day
before traveling. So, we headed to our
hostel, which took 1 hour by transit and arrived just before midnight. We stayed at a campsite in tents for 4.5 Eur
each. They had beds, electricity, and a
fridge in them. My tentmate was a girl
from Argentina and David’s (who was
sleeping when we arrived) was a guy from Slovakia. We settled in, discovering there were no
sheets provided. I pulled out my towel
to use as a replacement just as David arrived at my tent requesting the towel
so he could shower…I whined then gave it to him.
We ate our dinner in the laundry room on a bench at 1 am,
where I also found some blankets belonging to the campground, one of which I
borrowed for the night.
June 22 Extra day in Rome
I had a dream that I was in my office at school, and when I
woke up I was on a beach in Italy…
...what
a switch…
David rustled me out of bed around 8:45, wanting food. We
tried to find the restaurant for breakfast, only to discover that we needed our
campground passes that they had given us the night before. I decided to abandon the idea and David got
to run his own small marathon to his tent and back. I meanwhile found the grocery store on site
and was excited to find more fruit, and fruit juice, and had a grand feast of
such long lost food items. I reserved
another night at the campground, and we opted for the bungalows which even had
a private bathroom. After our move and some chill time (showering and prayer
time for me and workout for David) we headed to the beach on the free shuttle.
The water at the beach was amazing, nice and warm with nice
waves. It was so great to relax after
the couple frantic days that we had. After we headed back to our place we intended
to go into Rome to explore
more. However, we changed our minds when
we realized how tired we were and that we had a couple things we wanted to take
care of still. We had showers, which I
mention because David flooded the floor of the bathroom again. Maybe it was a good thing that the water
spilled into the main room, because it washed some of the beer off the floor
that he had spilled previously while trying to open his bottle. So, our flood count is at 3 cities now. In the evening we invited my old tentmate
Paulina to watch Gladiator with us. It
seemed like an appropriate movie, and I had images of the Collosium in my head
from the previous day while watching the scenes.
After Paulina left, we packed up and got to bed.
June 23 On to Venice
The next morning (today), we spent too long getting up to
catch the intended 10:57 am train. After finishing packing, I went for internet
to check on our Venice
accommodations (only to discover that I could find no record of any being
booked), and David walked to the store for food for us. We booked a hostel and talked to family
members quickly and booked it for the shuttle to the subway.
We got to the train station and reserved a train ticket for
shortly after with no problem (other than the high reservation fee). This is now the 2nd time I’ve used
my train pass. I am hoping I get my
money’s worth of this thing despite the train strikes and last minute flights
that we took. I am typing all this in
Word on my laptop on the train on our way to Venice. We should get there after 5pm and have the
evening to look around before leaving to Vienna then Bratislava
in the morning. We decided to keep our
previous schedule because of the hostels we booked, so we are just cutting
short our originally planned time in Venice. We are staying at the same campsite at Paula,
who left for Venice today by
plane. It would be cool to see her.
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