Morocco/France (Eurotrip_2012)

Once we arrived at the border between Spain and Morocco we were released from our bus into what looked like a shanty town of Spanish people. I don’t know what the hell they were all doing down by the border but none of them were trying to sell us anything and while most of them were hunched over carrying enormous amounts of luggage, very few of them were actually crossing the border or getting into a taxi/bus. So what they were doing I just don’t know.

During the bus ride over to the border I had begun sweating, which was a huge relief since I hadn’t enjoyed warm weather since Cyprus, so I unzipped my jacket and let my yellow t-shirt with the Catalonian flag display itself. I had actually made a thing not to wear the shirt in Madrid or Granada but figured that since I was really in Morocco I would be okay, but I was wrong.

The second that I walked up to the border control the guy looked at my shirt with bulging eyes and started rambling in Spanish and gesturing for me to get away from him. I would latter discover from my Spanish translator, Margot, that he was unleashing a string of profanities on me and calling me un-patriotic, since Catalonia is trying to gain its independence from Spain. After telling me to rip my shirt up and get my disgusting self away from them, Margot finally informed them that we were from the Estados Unidos. The guy’s demeanor suddenly made a complete 180 and he turned to tell his friends that I suddenly looked a lot more beautiful. But now the guy had became my best friend, joking around with me and zipping my jacket up and down to display my Catalonian t-shirt. Eventually he gave me a pat on the back and with a big smile let me across the border.

On the other side we were met by short man in a thin black robe who had an official looking badge dangling from his neck and with semi-perfect English he led us up to the insanely slow moving immigration line. After about five minutes of not moving he came back over and pulled us over to another window which had nobody behind the glass stamping passports. As we looked around bewildered he went and grabbed the worker from his smoke break and ushered him into his little booth to stamp our passports for us, we were no officially in Morocco.

Well the guy really wanted us to stay in Tetuan, which is probably why he was so nice to us in the first place, but we eventually made it clear that we did not want to stay in Tetuan. He thanked us and politely pointed us in the direction of the taxis. From the border we took a shared taxi all the way to Tetuan for twenty-five dirham a piece, about three dollars. The shared taxi though, consisted of seven of us all crammed into this tiny taxi cab, which we were stuck in for the hour in a half drive into the Tetuan bus station which was on the opposite side of the city. During the whole drive Margot was talking to this little old lady in Spanish and in between questions the guy in the front seat was translating Margot’s Spanish into Arabic for the driver. While Margot was taking care of everything I devoted my attention to my new surroundings. Mikael and I noticed that all of the buildings anywhere close to the border where completely empty, no people or windows or anything, just completely abandoned; and on the tops of these buildings where huge nests occupied by almost human size birds. Everything about it didn’t even seem real, it just looked like a creepy rendition of a Dr. Seuss book. The abandoned buildings were obviously a result of Europe’s economic downturn. The construction was completely dependent on European success and when it started to falter everyone cut their losses and abandoned their hotels and housing complexes. No more Europeans came to visit and thus no money was there to be made.

Eventually we arrived at the Tetuan bus station and this guy came up to me and asked where it was I wanted to go. “Chefchaouen,” I muttered and off he went, waving his arms for me to follow him. After this first day in Morocco I had concluded that Morocco was full of people willing to help, but afterwards they will all look up at you with puppy dog eyes and say, “just a little something for me maybe?” So the guy got us our two dollar bus tickets all the way Chefchaouen and then I gave him a little tip. The guy checked in on us every fifteen minutes during our hour in a half wait and even wound my watch to the correct time, the little fella was quite persistent.

Our bus ride into Chefchaouen was minimally more comfortable than the taxi ride that morning, we were stuffed in the backseat with all of our baggage because all of the storage compartments underneath the bus were packed full of bags and chicken feed.  The bus drive took us up into the hills, which for the most part was beautiful, however at one point we passed a landfill with a drainage stream that fed right into the river and a lot of the otherwise majestic Moroccan landscape was simply covered in a lot of trash. And it became overly apparent that we were no longer in a first world country. People were dragging sheep, cows and goats down the roadside and the majority of the houses that we saw were crumbling to pieces and collapsed ceiling were replaced with blankets and tapestries.

We got into Chefchaouen in the mid-afternoon and barely had time to get off the bus before it sped off towards the next town. The second I stepped off the bus this guy immediately wanted to help us, asking us where we were staying and exclaiming that he lived right next door so he could lead us there. Since we knew not a fuck about where we were going, we allowed the fella to lead our march up to the Riad. The short walk turned into a twenty-minute walk up the side of a mountain town and the whole time as I’m huffing and puffing next to him he’s giving me an introduction to the city.

He told me how organic Chefchaouen is, they make everything they own right here, the water is clean and fresh from the mountains, and unlike the junkies in tangier you find people smoking hash and marijuana here. He REALLY wanted to sell me some hash. And then wanted to take me up into the mountains to show me where his wife’s family lives, right next to a marijuana plantation that he could show me for free. I finally instilled in him that I didn’t want to go see the marijuana plantation and wasn’t going to buy anything. But he had taken us right to our hotel so when he asked for some money I was ready to offer a couple Dirham to the fella. But when I brought out a chunkfull of change he laughed and said, “we are friends, we are family, and you try and give me this children’s money, no, no no.” So I brought out a small bill and then he wanted this and all my change. I finally gave the dude what he wanted just to get him out of my hair, which was only eight bucks.

We then met the manager of the riad that we were staying at, Ben, who was incredibly nice and kind. He actually did all of the restoration work on the hotel in 2009 and when he was done the owners offered him a position as the manager of the hotel and he took it. He said that he knew zero English when he took the job, but I can confirm that he speaks it very well now. The owners of the hotel are from Scotland, live in Spain, but invested in this hotel, which is awesome by the way. The three-story courtyard is all fresh air since there is no central roof and the top balcony looks out over the entire town, of which we were at the top off. It was an amazing view! Then I got my room, a huge bed with a huge shower and bathroom. I was in heaven. And to top things off, Ben then told us we were to get a free Moroccan dinner at 8 PM.

After acquiring some general directions from Ben, we ventured out into Chefchaouen and after randomly walking down the alleyways, some kid yelled out, “hey where are you from?” After my mishap with our welcome guide earlier, it was Mikael’s turn to bite on the line and he politely said, “Colorado.” After this we couldn’t get rid of the kid! The kid, named Abraham, was actually a pretty cute kid, but beneath it all was his latent intent for us to buy something from his “fathers” shop. The conversation went similar to many more we would have with the locals who stumbled upon us on the streets, “My brother went to (fill in the blank) and my cousin lives in (fill in the blank) and my dad’s occupation is (fill in the blank). Come check out his store!” He lead us to the store and after two hours of waving our hands to say, “no, no we don’t want to buy anything,” many rounds of tea, endless presentations, and constant demands to begin bartering, all three of us walked out of there with something.

We sauntered back to the riad with our newly acquired goods and had dinner with Ben, another guest from California, and a French couple. The first dish was a mixture of salad and vegetables. Next was some Hareera soup, the main dish was a chicken dish with peas, and for dessert we had something I would describe as butterscotch flan. It was delicious!

On Wednesday, we woke up and Ben served the three of us breakfast. We had a full spread: coffee, orange juice, crepes, bread, butter, jam, and olive oil. After filling up on breakfast we set out on a walk through and around the town. While strolling down a main road that our riad is right off of we stumbled upon Abraham, who had Mikael’s receipt for the rugs he purchased the night before, however he only had one copy and wanted to show us around town and then go make the copy with us later. At which point I assumed he would probably ask for a tip for everything. Instead, Mikael told him that we were going off on a walk and we would come by later to retrieve the copy, which he could go make in the meantime. One bullet dodged, phew.

Another two hundred yards down the street we were halted by another man named Abdul and his friend, who just wanted to bullshit about America and definitely did NOT want to sell us a carpet, or so they said. After talking and having a few good laughs we told them we had to go and they made us promise to come back later and have some tea with them.

Finally, we were off again and made it all the way to the edge of the city without being stopped again. However, this didn’t mean that our walk was absent of attempts to offer us offering hash or the brother of our guide from the previous day coming up and offering to take me up to the family’s marijuana plantation, because that definitely did happen. We were just getting more used to the city and how to successfully deflect these offers. We also saw some Moroccan kids playing a game. And by ‘playing a game,’ I mean one kid had a rope tied around him, while his four friends kicked him in the ass like they would a mule in order to get it to run, which the kid always obliged to do. After witnessing this, some kids proceeded to have an, “Hola” match with Margot, in which they each just continuously repeated Hola back and forth to each other.  

Once we had reached the edge of town we found ourselves at a bridge that crosses over the river, so we crossed it and took the occasionally flooded path that wandered next to it. The walk was pleasant and the creek would have otherwise looked beautiful if it wasn’t full of so much trash. Eventually we stumbled upon a couple intensely making-out on the bank of the river, which I did not expect to see in an Arabic speaking country that still mostly practices Islam. But there they were. When we passed by them the girl smiled up at us and Mikael asked if they wanted him to take their picture. but simultaneously some other guy walking past started yelling in Arabic, at us or them I couldn’t tell, but he was obviously pissed off and disgusted. He stopped in his tracks to yell and point. As we ignored him and resumed our walk, he continued to yell from a parallel pathway for the next hundred yards before finally letting it go. Sheesh!

The view of Chefchaouen from across the river was spectacular. The town had this progression up the side of the hill where you could see the rich blue color turning into white. And we could easily spot the city walls that were used to keep out unwanted visitors till as recently as 1920. It was in 1920 that the Spanish army came and penetrated the walls. Before then, the only Christians to have ever entered the city were a French soldier, a British journalist, and an American journalist. The first two did so by dressing up as Rabbi’s and survived, but the third was discovered and poisoned.

From the river we made our way back up into the heart of the city to the main plaza, where we finally discovered where all the other tourists were hiding. We were immediately hounded by a guy who wanted more than anything to show us around and sell us some hash. No! For god’s sake, why does everyone want to sell us hash?

We had mint tea at the Aladdin where they had a beautiful bathroom that consisted of a hole in the ground and a bucket of water, which may be used to wash your hands and face or to wash your feces off of the outside of the hole. After enjoying our tea break, we walked some more, discovering new pathways and alleyways in this somehow expansive yet tiny town. Eventually, to the delight of the shop owners, we gave in to their pleas and did a little souvenir shopping and bartering.

On the way back to our riad we ran into Abdul again, so we went into his shop for some friendly tea. After repeating the entire process from the night before with another man, Mikael set into the bartering process and eventually walked out with even more rugs. Afterwards, we went home, dropped our stuff off and went out to grab some lunch. We got some tajine lamb and tea by the main plaza, and then I bought something awesome on the way back home to rest and await dinner. Dinner was fantastic and consisted of a salad, pea soup, tajine lamb again coincidentally, and then the famous butterscotch flan.

After breakfast the following morning, Mikael and I went to go send his package of Moroccan carpets down at the post office, which was at the bottom of this huge hill lined on both sides with food merchants. After bypassing the packed street full of locals shopping for food, we got down to the post-office and I sent some postcards I’d been hanging onto. An awesome employee got Mikael set up with the whole package, but at the counter the lady needed his passport before she could send anything. So we had to march all the way back up the hill, grab the passport, and head back down again to send the package.

We then went off in search of the bus station and were spotted by the guide from the very first day, who told us the bus station was just right down the road, so we took off in that direction. Eventually we got to Mohammad Place, where a bird, a peacock, and a police officer were awaiting our arrival. We decided to ask the officer where the autobus station was and he pointed us in the right direction. Thirty minutes and four more inquiries into the location of the bus station later, we finally found it at the very base of the giant mountainside town.

We acquired the tickets and took off all the way back up the hill to our hostel. We also stopped at a pharmacy for some drugs because by this time Mikael, I, and now Margot were going through some sickness. We got back to our place but Ben would only take cash to pay for our riad, so I had to go back down the hill once again to grab some cash. We recharged at the riad for a bit until we finally had to take off to catch our bus. We made the trek back down to the bus station but this time was much quicker so we got there a good 45 minutes before our bus would show up. In the meantime, I got a sandwich of olives, onions, cheese and potatoes while we waited. We ran into our buddy yet again when we went to the bathroom and he helped us figure out that we needed bus tickets for our bags as well, another 5 dirham bites the dust. 

Unsurprisingly, when we finally got on the bus our buddy asked for a little something more for his troubles. Maybe some whiskey..? I held up the bottle of Johnny Walker red that I’d been lugging around since Greece and he snatched it with a grin.

We got into Fez at 8 PM that night and as we walked through the bus station a man immediately came up to me and asked where I needed to go. Suddenly he was my manager, after I agreed on a taxi price with him he went around hassling the taxi drivers until he found one who was willing to transport us for the agreed on price. However, after hopping in and sitting there for a few confused minutes he started yelling at the driver and told us all to get out. “This guy wants to charge you more money!” Eventually we found another taxi and got in … then the guy got in the front seat with us.

As we were driving from the new town to the oldest and biggest medina in the world, he kept trying to get us to go on a camel trek in the desert. We had already conceded to the fact that due to time constraints a camel trek was not going to happen, not to mention the fact that there was absolutely no way we were going to go with this rando, so we said no thanks. Eventually he randomly hoped out of the cab, surprisingly without asking for tip, and the cab driver dropped us off at Bab Bou Jaloub plaza, right at one of the gates to the medina.

As we walked through the crowded medina streets we gazed at the motorcycles flying past us, the array of cats running around everywhere, and the tiny streets lined with busy little shops selling leather jackets, candy, food, carpets, scarfs, and anything else you could think of. Finally, a kid named Mohamad found us and brought us to the Dar del Jasmine. Dar means house and all of the houses in Morocco are typically skinny and tall with an open air space in the middle. Think as if the middle of your house was a living room and it was on the ground floor, and had no roof. On each level there would be bedrooms on the outer edge surrounding the open air middle, which lets in the fresh air and moonlight. A riad is typically a similar structure but at the bottom is a garden.

At the Dar del Jasmine we met the owner, Mhamad, who informed us that the reason his name is spelled slightly differently is because he grew up in the desert. Went out for dinner an hour after our arrival but the streets were eerily empty now. It seemed as though everything had frantically shut down. The shops that were bustling with energy an hour before were now just a closed gate on the side of the filthy cat infested streets. We eventually found a restaurant but the waiter was not too happy that we weren’t very hungry and just wanted a couple dishes. We shared a Moroccan salad and a chicken tajine.

We woke up the next morning and had breakfast at the Dar with Mhamad and his friend, Mohamad. They had called a tour guide for us, which we had heard very mixed things about but figured could just use for the morning, get some useful info out of, and then get rid of in the afternoon. Throughout the entire day she was incredibly persistent about making us shop, since I’m sure she was earning a little side money off our every purchase. However, during the actual tour I learned that Morocco had been Orthodox Christian before the Arabs came and converted them to Islam, that Fez was created in the 8^th-9^th century by Idris the second, that the city is home to the biggest mosque in all of Africa, and that the oldest existing educational institution was founded and still operates in Fes. But my favorite part of the tour was the tannery.  

The tannery consisted of a bunch of pits where they were soaking animal skins. The first stage is to soak the skins in limestone pits in order to get rid of all the hair and to treat the skin. They then mix in some pigeon poop in order to get rid of all of the meat still stuck to the animal hide. Finally, they soak the skins in a variety of different pits in order to color them. After going through this process, they hang the skins all around the pit area in order to dry them out. The place smells god awful, but it was really neat to see.

After viewing the pits from above with some mint leaves shoved up our nostrils, we went downstairs and they of course led us through the store to search for stuff to buy; que the bartering process. Mikael and I each walked out of there with a jacket and some other various leather items.

Eventually the tour guide brought us to a nice place for lunch where I had a tajine and Margot and Mikael had couscous. We then had our guide bring us home through the maze like streets of the medina. In retrospect, thank god we had a tour guide because the streets were insanely confusing. Everything was dead as we toured throughout the day since it was Friday, which is a very religious day of the week where Muslims gather to pray in congregation. This kind of sucked for us, but hey, do what you can with what you’ve got.

We hung out for a bit with Mhamad after getting back to the Dar and he showed us how to make tea before we went out to grab some dinner. We had pastilla, which is essentially chicken, almonds, and spices, cooked inside of this waffle like pastry with powdered sugar and cinnamon on top of it. It was delicious but definitely different.

The next morning we woke up and grabbed breakfast before walking through the market to grab a taxi. I thought it was funny that the market was so busy as we arrived and left Fez, but during our stay here it was completely dead. Damn did we time that well!

The train station was fucking nice, like honestly probably the nicest building I saw during my entire visit through Morocco. I had a smoothie and then got on the train an hour early to relax. Right before the train departed this group of four women, one with a baby and one that spoke French, occupied the remaining seats in our compartment. Margot and Mikael talked to the girl who was pregnant and had just gotten married, while I found it easier to communicate with the baby.

Our compartment companions left in Mekenes and we continued onwards towards Marrakech. The compartment filled up and emptied at every stop as we slowly made our way through the eight-hour journey. We finally arrived in Marrakech and immediately got ripped off on the cab fare to our Riad. Once we finally saddled up and begun our hunt for the riad, Mikael realized that he had left his phone in the taxi and thus lost it. Shit!

We eventually found our Riad tucked in the dark corners of the Moroccan alleyways and the first thing we did was walk over to the medina to get some food. The medina was a crazy, expansive, bustling place. Out front was a huge square full of people and every ten feet there was a circle of people watching someone play various instruments. A drum circle here, a guitar circle over there, music was everywhere and it was great. We found our way into the spice market and grabbed some freshly cooked food that ended up being kind-of expensive for Morocco.

After resting up and grabbing some breakfast, we went out to take another shot at exploring the Medina, where we promptly got lost. In our search to find our way back we bought a bunch of cool Moroccan souvenirs and eventually popped out at the familiar main square. We then walked home, relaxed awhile, and went back out on another adventure. We grabbed some lunch, re-entered the median to do even more shopping and then the darkness of the end of the day forced us to return to the riad. I slept like a baby in preparation for our flight to Paris the next day however, I heard later that Mikael was up the entire night with a nasty case of food poisoning.

On December 17^th, we went to the airport and split up with the suffering Mikael so that Margot and I could grab our flight to Paris, France. As we rolled into Paris I was surprised at how excited I was, even after 130 days of traversing all across the European continent I still got unusually excited about arriving in a new city! We met our friend Waeli upon clearing security at the Charles de Gaulle airport and she had a little welcome sign, some much-needed food, and most importantly, a big hug. Fortunately for us, Waeli was in Paris doing a study abroad program so she had some spare time to hang out with us during our brief stay. It was nice to see an old friend again!

We took the train into the city and then hopped on a metro to our AirBnB apartment. Margot and I quickly dropped our shit off and then went back out again. We went to get on the metro and after embarrassingly struggling to get through the metro gate I had to be rescued by a random Lady who let me through. After our ride we attempted to see a museum but it unfortunately closed literally as we walked up to the door. We instead deferred to plan B and walked to a Christmas Market just down the street from the Arc de Triomphe, which was just so fucking cool! It was night- time by now and all the lights were glistening through the cold December air onto the market and arc de triumph.

After wandering through the market and drinking some mulled wine we met Waeli’s sister, Emily, and her friend for dinner. I had a scrumptious duck dish. After dinner, we took the metro to the Eiffel tower. We came around a street corner into the park and suddenly the tower was right their sparkling in the cool night air. I tripped more than a few times as I gazed up at the tower while we approached it. Staring up at the tower, I couldn’t help but think what a spectacularly cool first day in Paris this had been.

The following morning we woke up, grabbed breakfast croissants, and met up with Waeli and her friend Mathew. Together, we ventured to the Notre Dame and took our time gawking at the painted ceilings and stained glass inside. The decision to make Joan of Arc a saint was made in this very church. What I liked most about the Cathedral was the old, grimy feel that characterized it…well and the sweet gargoyles!

After we’d had our fill of the Notre Dame we walked down the river and crossed lock bridge, we strolled past the Louvre, and continued our walk through the beautiful park that was headlined by the place de la Révolution. 

This was where Marie Antoinette was executed by guillotine in 1793 after being convicted of high treason during the French Revolution. Standing in the middle of the park you can see the Arc de Triomphe in the distance in one direction and the Eiffel Tower in the other. After admiring the view and skipping around the fountain a few times, we stopped to get lunch. I had some bread with cheese and ham on it.

After munching down lunch we went to a nearby museum and took our time meandering through the hallways. I spent most of my time in the section for impressionist paintings, where Alfred Sysley stood out as depicting some of the most beautiful landscape paintings that I’d ever seen. After we had finished up at the museum we walked over to the Sacre Coeur Basilica, with a quick pit-stop on the way at the I Love You Wall, where “I Love You” is featured in 250 different languages. We then concluded our day by checking out the Moulin Rouge and enjoyeing some macaron’s.

On Wednesday Margot and I slept in severely late, I guess we were exhausted from 5 months of travel. By the time we got out we dad lunch near the Louvre with Margot’s fathers old college buddy.

 After lunch we finally went to the Louvre and essentially spent the entire day exploring the museum and didn’t even come close to seeing everything. When we finally got burnt out on art, we went back to the apartment and relaxed until Waeli came over. We ate Chinese food and drank champagne to celebrate the last day of our journey before passing out.

On December 20^th we woke up and had brunch with Waeli.

 Said goodbye and caught a train to the airport where we flew back home to Denver, CO. 135 days after arriving in London, the Euro-trip was finally over.

       August 8, 2012                               December 22, 2018

Spain (Eurotrip_2012)

       Margot and I spent December 2^nd traveling from Bern, Switzerland to Barcelona, Spain. This required train transfers in Geneva, Valencia, and Savignon, which meant that we spent a total of fifteen hours on trains and a couple more hours waiting around between them. Needless to say, when we got into Barcelona we were beat. After riding the metro to a stop three blocks away from our hostel we reluctantly entered the party that was our hostel. Arriving at our hostel at 9 PM in the evening, we found the music blaring, the pool tables crowded, and the beer flowing. The entire building was bustling with people. Looking at each other with groggy and apprehensive eyes, Margot and I tried to discern whether we had stumbled into a bar or a hostel. In addition, the employees were right in the middle of a shift change that for some reason took fifteen minutes to accomplish. To the credit of the hostel however, the second that we walked up to the empty counter a manager ran over, “How would you guys like a free beer….because of the wait of course.” “Sure!” We greedily accepted.

    After finally getting checked in we ventured out to La Rambla, the main walking street in Barcelona, and paid way too much for a piece of pizza and a bottle of water. At midnight we returned to our twenty person room to discover that the lights were still on, half of the people in our room were drunk while the other half were in the process of becoming thoroughly inebriated, and they were all being insanely obnoxious. During the next three days I constantly felt like I was in some twisted time warp. At 4 AM you could expect all of the lights in our room to be on and everyone to be awake, while at 11 AM the lights would be off, the shades would be tightly closed, and everybody would be snoring away. If you went to the bathroom at midnight all of the showers were packed full of people getting ready to go out but at 9 AM the bathroom was a ghost town. Everybody travels in their own way and I’m not trying to sound superior to the other people at our hostel, but as Margot said to me after our first night, “staying there felt like being on an alien planet.” This simply was not the way that we preferred to travel. And that first night after spending fifteen hours on a train, the one thing that we desired above all else was simply a good night’s rest, even if according to our friendly bunk mate the only way to get over an awful train ride was to, “go out and get fucked up.” At 1 AM as my patience was petering for the three Italian men drinking, smashing bottles, and yelling at each other below my bunk, and rapidly deteriorating for the three drunk girls who were talking about their favorite band member from NSYNC, I finally plugged in my headphones and let the day’s exhaustion sweep over me and knock me out. Unfortunately for Margot she did not have as much luck. The next morning I would hear about drunken hooliganism, attempts to purchase marijuana, and a sick girl puking in the next bunk over from her, which all lasted until about 6 AM that morning. The story would’ve sounded a bit too outlandish if I hadn’t seen firsthand how crazy the people in this hostel could act.  

When we woke up in the morning we had to check out and then check right back in…to the exact same room, which I never fully comprehended. Then I let an exhausted Margot take a nap while I worked on this blog down in the common room, which was completely empty of any human presence because, well, it was only ten in the morning. After waking up my travel buddy we hit the town, walking down La Rambla to the bay and then along the shore before cutting up into the city and randomly stopping at this great Spanish restaurant for lunch. Halfway through our meal this lady sat down next to Margot and a comment about the chandelier above our heads sprouted into a long conversation and a new friendship. The lady, originally from Barcelona and named Carolina, had coincidentally spent three months living in Boulder in 1999. She told us all about her awesome experience there, what she did for a living, and some good places to visit and eat at while Margot and I were in Barcelona. She was incredibly nice, spoke perfect English, and would have given us a tour of the town had she not been sick with a cold. For food I had veal with mushrooms, a fried pear, catalane spinach, which has raisins and nuts in it and is incredibly delicious, and of course some sangria to wash it all down. After dinner we said good-bye to Carolina but not to her cold, which would haunt us for the remainder of our trip.

After lunch we went to see the Santa Maria del Mar Church, accidentally ending up at the Cathedral of Catalana instead. When we arrived at the church we both just assumed that the two churches were one and the same instead of questioning my impeccable ability to read a map. The Cathedral was nice but cost a fortune to enter, so we decided to satisfy ourselves with the image from the outside before taking a stroll through a Christmas market. Sorry Spaniards, but the Spanish Christmas market didn’t hold a flame to the Swiss one.  

After wandering through the streets we found ourselves in the Parc de la Ciutadella, venturing up just north of the park to check out the Arc de Triomf before returning for a stroll through the parks tropical atmosphere. 

In 1714 the Bourbon King Philip V conquered Barcelona after a thirteen month siege of the city and in order to retain control, built the largest fortress in Europe in the form of a star shaped Citadel. Since then the fortress has been demolished and replaced with this beautiful and expansive park. After a short walk we found ourselves standing at the base of the amazing Cascada fountain, which was gorgeous. The sculptures and fountain features were interlaced with beautiful green vegetation that gave the Cascada a striking appearance. And since Gaudi had been involved in the creation of the fountain, there was more than a bit of creativity involved. The gargoyles spewing water at the base of the Cascada all differed from each other in one way or another. One had butterfly wings while the other had dragon wings, one had the face of a lion while another had the face of a demented dog. And atop the fountain and the staircase was a depiction of Justice being pulled in a chariot by her four horses, completely clad in gold. The fountain was peaceful as a whole but became interestingly aggressive when you singled out each piece of its design.  All in all, I found it to be a beautifully picturesque piece of art.

Margot and I continued through the park to check out the parliament building before jutting off the path and dodging past the zoo. A short while after leaving the park we stumbled upon the actual Santa Maria del Mar church, which we had been searching for that morning. Inside, the six-hundred-and-thirty year old church spewed a feeling of true authentic Spanish design. The church displayed some real wear and tear on its walls, which were bleeding black trails of grime. The massive gothic style church was completely open inside and betraying its mighty structure, somehow seemed to be of simple design. The church was lit by a stream of stained glass windows that circled the entire church. It was amazing! The church felt so old, authentic, and naturally beautiful that I decided right there on the spot that it was one of my favorite cathedrals of the trip.  

After visiting the magnificent church we walked back to our hostel, rested for a bit, and then ventured out for dinner. As was becoming a trend, we couldn’t find the place that I had intended to eat at and instead settled for another place that was on the corner of a dark deserted street, just two blocks off of La Rambla. After passing by and checking out the set menu on a stand outside their door we returned a few minutes later and sat down for our meal. For dinner I had a ¼ liter of red wine, salad with caramelized goat cheese, chicken soup, salmon, chocolate ice cream, and bread. The food was amazing but I was completely stuffed when we finally left an hour in a half later. We took a stroll down La Rambla to work off some of our meal before arriving at our hostel, which was once again crowded and bumping with music and activity. Fortunately for us, none of our eighteen roommates were home yet, so we took advantage of the temporary peace and quiet and went straight to bed.

The next morning we took the metro out to the famous La Sagrada Familia, which ranks up there with Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood in terms of pure eye opening beauty. After coming up from the subway stop I was casually searching my surroundings when Margot told me to turn around, I was immediately smacked in the face by the unique and creative church that Antoni Gaudi had designed. As we crept closer commenting on how the whole face of the cathedral appeared to be melting we finally decided to go grab some breakfast before engulfing ourselves in the splendor of the building. We walked around the block and found a local coffee shop, where we enjoyed a decent breakfast for a quarter of the price of all of our other meals in Barcelona before wandering back over to the Church.  

The first thing we did after buying our tickets was take an elevator up one of the towers sprouting up from the Nativity façade, which was the only portion of the building that had actually been completed by the time Gaudi died in 1926. The other three towers on the west side of the building, which we ventured over to via walkways connecting the towers, were completed in 1930. I also found out later on that the churches main center tower, which is dedicated to Jesus, was restricted to a height of 170 meters by Gaudi because that was the height of the tallest hill in Barcelona and man should never out-do God.

The Basilica of the Sagrada Família was actually the inspiration of a Catalan bookseller, Josep Maria Bocabella, who after a visit to the Vatican in 1872 returned from Italy with the intention of building a church inspired by one he had seen in the city of Loretto. The crypt of the church, funded by donations, was begun in 1882 on the festival of St. Joseph under the design of the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar. In 1883 Villar retired from the project and Antoni Gaudí assumed responsibility for its design at the young age of 23. Gaudi dramatically changed the designs and lengthened the construction time considerably. By the time of Gaudi’s death in 1926, only 20% of the building was estimated to have actually been completed. The construction was immediately taken over by another architect but was hindered from 1936 to 1940 by the Spanish Civil War. During this time much of Gaudi’s building plans and designs were destroyed by Catalan anarchists, but construction continued based on reconstructed versions of the plans. The construction of the vast building, which was actually not intended to be a Cathedral, is estimated to be completed by 2028.

After returning from the tower we began our tour, which started on the east side of the building with the Passion façade. This façade, which displays the story of Jesus’ last days and crucifixion, was intentionally made to appear simple and bare, in order to signify the solemnity of the death of Jesus Christ. This portion of the building was constructed by studying the designs, blueprints, notes, and quotes from the then deceased Antoni Gaudi.  The façade is made of three rows of porticoes, which are to be read like a story. The lowest level depicts scenes from Jesus' last night before the crucifixion, including The Last Supper, Kiss of Judas, Ecce Homo, and the Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus. The middle level portrays the Calvary, or Golgotha, of Christ, and includes The Three Mary’s, Saint Veronica, Saint Longinus, and a hollow-face illusion of Christ. In the third and final level the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ can be seen. Gaudí intended for this façade to strike fear into the onlooker. He wanted to "break" arcs and "cut" columns, and to use the effect of chiaroscuro (dark angular shadows contrasted by harsh rigid light) to further show the severity and brutality of Christs’ sacrifice. The four towers in the background of the façade each represent an apostle; James, Thomas, Phillip and Bartholomew. A bronze figure situated on a bridge creating a link between the towers of Saint Bartholomew and Saint Thomas represents the Ascension of Jesus. Facing the setting sun, the facade is indicative and symbolic of the death of Christ.

I then ventured inside the Sagrada Familia, passing by a puzzle of numbers which whenever added together always create the number 33, Jesus’ age when he died. The inside was remarkably breath taking, incredible stained glass windows shed a beautiful array of light all over the forest-like interior. You could tell that this church, unlike any other we had visited during our trip, was modern. It was clean, fresh, and perfect, but it also had another unmistakable characteristic which made it unlike any other cathedral we had seen, it was designed with insurmountable creativity and ingenuity. How Gaudi thought of these ideas and designs, figured out how they would actually work on a building, and then designed the building so that everything would fit so perfectly, is a wonder. Margot mentioned after we visited the cathedral about how it was trying to do so much, which I agreed with but added that it was still somehow accomplishing everything that it was trying to do without being overwhelming. We both agreed that Gaudi was a fucking genius.

Walking around the inside of the church to reach the Nativity Façade on the east side of the building, I had to constantly rub my neck from the strain of awing up at the incredible architectural achievements. To give you perspective on how vast the interior of the building was, the naïve reached a height of 150 feet while the central vault reached a height of 200 feet. The pillars supporting this massive structure were designed by Gaudi to literally act like a tree, with each pillar branching off to spread out the weight distribution. These support beams, which were made of three different types of stone, depending on the amount of weight it had to bear, also add an incredible aesthetic appeal to the interior of the church. And shining all over these beams and the pristine interior of the church is the richest array of colors I’ve ever seen produced by stained glass. For the two hours that it took me to walk the 400 feet from one side of the naïve to the other, I felt like I was in a fairy tale. The architectural designs that Gaudi enacted into this building are so genuine and absurd that I’ve never before, and doubt I ever will, encounter any building quite as dramatic and unordinary anywhere else on earth. The outrageous amount of planning that had to go into this cathedral before the first brick was even laid is unbelievable and I simply have to tip my cap to Gaudi for giving me something to talk about and remember till the day I die.

After La Sagrada Familia we went to Guell Park, which was full of more of Gaudi’s architecture. By the end of the day I was reaching the point where saying that Gaudi was my favorite architect was just a given, all of his architecture blew anything else I had ever seen out of the water. It was all just so … different. A bench was an array of colorful stone, a support beam created an intricately designed cave, and the stairs were a staircase lined with statues, waterfalls, and mirages. Nothing was simple and nothing was overlooked. Gaudi thought of it all. He knew his art form and mastered it to a level I had never seen before. Margot and I had an amazing time strolling through the park and getting our fill of the designs peeking around every corner.

              After wandering through Guell park and watching the sun set we took the metro back home and grabbed some dinner down the street at a place that was showing the Real Madrid soccer match. I had some paella while we enjoyed the game and after reaching the point where Madrid had the game in the bag we went back home and got some rest.

The following morning we woke up, took the metro to the train station and caught a high-speed train to Madrid. There we met up with Mikael, Margot’s father, at Sol Plaza. We went from there to the Hotel in order to get settled and then set off to begin exploring.

First stop was the Plaza Mayor. When we arrived to the Plaza it was already dark out, which seemed to me to make it all the more splendid. They had tiny lights strung all over the plaza to light everything up and we skipped from tent to tent in search of souvenirs for our friends and family back home. After bargaining on a few items and debating about whether to buy Margot’s nephew a costume or not we marched off from the Plaza Mayor and onto the Cathedral and Parliament. Since it was late at night we couldn’t actually tour or visit these sights, but we gazed in through the gates from the street and oohed and awed at the splendor.

On our way to the Plaza Mayor earlier we had been seduced into a Flamenco restaurant to buy tickets for later now returned to see what all the hubbub was about. I would soon learn that any-and-all hubbub regarding flamenco shows is warranted. It is absolutely incredible! The dancing style reminds me of no other and is so in your face that it grabs hold of you and forces you to pay attention to every swirl and foot stomp. The food was great as well, but it was hard to take my eyes of the show long enough to shove some paella in my face. I went to bed happy that night.

The next day, December 6^th, 2012 I lay in bed sick for half of the day. Finally however, Margot and Mikael pulled me out of bed and we all went to 100 Montaditos for lunch, a local Spanish tacos restaurant that our friend Alex Shaffer had recommended. It was just as delish as had been promised and we happily left to go on an adventure to help Mikael search for the place that he had bought a guitar several years ago during a previous visit to Madrid. We actually did find the place we were looking for, but unfortunately for Mikael it was closed.

       From there we went onward to another adventure to a Museum. I believe myself to have an open mind, but this was an awful Museum. There was a room full of dogs, with human heads, having sex and a bottom row of old people in wheelchairs. All I remember after walking through most of the exhibits was thinking “what in the fuck!” It was as if they just pulled some bloke off the street with a mind deteriorating illness and said, “what would you like to make?” The exhibits were obnoxiously random and pointless. I walked through a section of Franco de Guyo, which I actually did thoroughly enjoy. However, I also got my first experience with Picasso and have to say that he is just not my style. Maybe I’m naïve or too narrow minded, but it looked simple and basic. It evoked no emotion and instead of drawing my attention into the painting, immediately sent me glossing past it and onto the next un-inspiring painting. After ditching the museum, actually we got kicked out, we grabbed some late night dinner at the closest restaurant we could find and then stumbled home and climbed into bed.

The following morning we immediately hopped onto a train and took it all the way out to Valladolid, where we planned to spend the day wine tasting. We got picked up at the train station by an associate at the Winery who drove us through the hills to the orchard. Mikael had already arranged the tour as he was interested in ordering wine from this orchard to sell in his liquor store in Boulder. The wine tasting was very interesting and was elevated by doing it alongside Mikael, a man who actually knew what he was doing. After the wine tasting we returned back to Valladolid and sat down for some coffee before proceeding onto visiting the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Holy Assumption.  There was absolutely nobody there so I was skeptical about walking in however, we did end up creeping in and quickly wandering around before skipping out.

We then briefly explored the University of Valladolid, which was founded in 1241, before catching a train back to Madrid. Once back in town Mikael wanted to go see about the guitar shop, so we dropped an exhausted Margot off at the Hotel and strolled over to the shop where I was introduced to Angel, the eccentric store Owner. While Mikael shopped the guitars, Angel introduced me to his odd personality and mentioned, among other things, that he liked to stick his finger in girls’ ears, whatever the hell that means. After Mikael was done shopping we went out to grab a drink together and Angel brought along a student he introduced as someone who “buys stuff for him.” We spent about 3 ½ hours at the bar sucking down wine while stuck in a heated argument. Eventually, we said good-bye to Angel and his friend and grabbed Margot for some late night dinner.

On December 8^th we woke up really late, shook off our hangovers, and checked out of the hotel. Margot and Mikael went to another museum but I’d had my fill of Madrid museums and instead wandered into a nearby Catholic Church where a service was in session. After gazing around the Church I decided to sit down and hang out during the service, but since it was in Spanish I didn’t understand a lick of it. I then discovered Retiro park and explored the beautiful park before meeting back up again with Margot and Mikael in order to catch a train to Granada.

Once in Granada we tossed our bags into the hotel and immediately went out for some tapas, snails, and drinks. Dinner was amazing we ended up having a long chat with our extremely friendly waiter, Fernando, who had just spent fifteen years in Oregon.

The next morning we went on a tour of the Alhambra, which is a humongous fortress set on the top of a hill overlooking the entire town of Granada. The Alhmabra was constructed in the mid-13th century by the Moorish emir Mohammed ben Al-Ahmar of the Emirate of Granada during the Nasrid Dynasty. He was forced to flee to Granada in order to avoid persecution by King Ferdinand III of Castile and the Reconquista supporters working to end Spain’s Moorish rule, and had the Alhambra constructed as his residence.  In 1333, Yusuf I, Sultan of Granada, had the Alhambra converted into a royal palace.

The last Nasrid Sultan, Muhammad XII of Granada, surrendered the Alhambra in 1492 without even being attacked when King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile took the surrounding territory.

After the conclusion of the Christian Reconquista in 1492, the site became the Royal Court of Ferdinand and Isabella. It is actually the place where Christopher Columbus received royal endorsement for his expedition which lead to the discovery of America.

The literal translation of Alhambra, "the red (female)," reflects the color of the red clay of which the fort is made. It’s also the color of the surrounding mountains, which are dry and desert like. In fact, the Alhambra sticks out among the otherwise arid landscape as a beautifully colorful fortress full of green vegetation, flowers, and humongous old trees. This is done via a conduit 8 km long that is supplied by the Darro River and intricate irrigation system composed of acequias within the fortress. As we walked through the fortress water was trickling past us in some form or an another the entire time.

After touring the Alhmabra we grabbed some dinner in town where we munched down on some octopus and enjoyed some sangria, wine, and tapas.

The following day we took care of some laundry and spent some time admiring a local cathedral before having some lunch and coffee in the square. The rest of the day was spent shopping around the streets of Granada and catching a train down to Algeciras.

In the morning, we woke up and immediately caught a ferry to Cueta, Spain, which is a city on the African continent entirely surrounded by Morocco. From there we took a bus to the Moroccan border and actually crossed by foot, where a funny border-crossing incident took place. I’ll save that for my next and final Euro-trip post, though.