Oh right, I have a blog.

Hey everybody. Soo looks like I made it halfway through the semester blogging and then just got way to busy! So sorry about that! I am currently still living in Florence, in a hostel by myself. I am here till June 1st, when I am going to work for a family on a farm near Ljubljana, Slovenia (through workaway.info - check it out) till June 18th, when I fly to Oslo, Norway, spend the night there, then go to Haugesund, Norway to stay with my aunt's friend and her family. I'll be there till July 4th, when I go to Andalucia, Spain, to work for a family there till July 19th. I then come back to Firenze and depart from here to go back to Dallas on July 21st. Whew!

I'm really thankful that I am getting to stay in Europe so long, and would appreciate your prayers as I am traveling by myself! But anyways, I guess now I am going to try to remember what I did the weeks after my last blog post from spring break.

Friday, April 1st - Siena & San Gimignano
This day I was actually planning on going to the beach at Viareggio with Haley H., and her friends Carla and Kelly. Woke up early to catch the trail there, walked in the coldish weather to the train station in beach clothes and got lots of weird looks, and then it turns out there was a train strike and we couldn't go. Boo. But it turned out alright, because I rushed home, changed, and then made it just in time to go with SAI to their Siena trip I had heard about! It was free and they had extra room on the bus so it worked out great.

My terrible picture of the Duomo of Siena

We got to Siena late morning, my friend Amanda and my roommates Alyssa and Andrea were also on the trip which was nice. We had a short tour of the town which basically consists of the Duomo, the main square, and little streets.

Duomo

Piazza del Campo. They have a huge horse race in this main piazza every year

After the tour, Amanda and I wanted to explore Siena because we had only seen like two places there. But then for lunch we had a wine tasting that lasted like 2 hours, and then we had to leave which was super lame. The wine tasting was pretty good but I was bummed that I spent more time inside learning about wine than seeing Siena. Anyways, then we were supposed to go to Montepulciano or some town that I hadn't seen before, but for some reason we instead went to San Gimignano, where I had already been. We were there a total of like 30 minutes and then had to leave. I love San Gimignano though, such a nice little town. Soo yeah overall it was a nice trip, but I kinda wish I had done it on my own. I love how diverse Italy is and all the little day trips you can take to those little towns. 

Saturday, April 2nd - Verona

Me, Amanda, Eliza, and Haley P. went to Verona for the day! We took the train there and got there around noonish, wandered around, had lunch, and just explored the rest of the afternoon. Verona is a beautiful town that is neither too big nor too small, perfect for a day trip.

Rome isn't the only place with a Coliseum!

Main Piazza where we had lunch

Love the colorful Verona buildings w/ the flowers on the balconies.

If you didn't already know, Verona is probably most famous for being the place where supposedly Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet took place. The main attraction is Juliet's house, with the balcony where she said the famous lines, a statue of Juliet where if you hold her breast it gives you good luck or something, and a wall where lovers write their names. If you have seen Letters to Juliet, however, there's not reallyyy a place to write actual letters to Juliet. I think you can like email her or something, and there's a room above one of the shops around there that has some framed letters to Juliet, but it's nothing like the movie.

The wall

Juliet's house & the famous balcony (bottom right)

After we saw Juliet's house we wandered around to the other side of the river, saw two beautiful churches, relaxed in a nice park, and wandered to the top of a hill for a fabulous view of the whole city. 

It was getting to be sunset, and we decided it was about time to head back to Florence. The train station was a bit of a walk from the center of Verona, so we wandered around trying to find wi-fi, and eventually had a hotel receptionist look up train times for us. But then... problem. We had missed the last train out of Verona and there wasn't one till 4:00 AM! Soo we were basically homeless in Verona for the night! We went and saw a movie (No Strings Attached) in Italian, without subtitles, and then wandered around Verona for as long as we could, it was actually pretty boring and we were getting soo tired. We went to the train station and tried to find where to buy tickets but couldn't, it was pretty freaky being there at 3:00 in the morning actually. But our train finally came and we could buy tickets on the train. It was actually a sleeper train coming from Germany and we finally made it back to Firenze around 6 or 7 in the morning. Crazy! Lesson learned: Check the train times going AND coming when you are traveling somewhere!

Ok I'll hopefully blog again soooon! Thanks for reading, ciao!

Morocco

Ciao friends and family! So I haven't updated since before my spring break in Morocco, sorry it's been so long. I absolutely loved Morocco, I didn't want to come back to Italy as crazy as that sounds! It is unlike any place I have ever been and I am so so so glad I got to spend a whole week there. Anyways, here are the highlights!

Day 1 (Saturday, 3/19)

Haley and I had to take a bus at 3:30 AM from Florence to Pisa. It was weird walking to the station with our luggage when everyone was still out partying haha. I ended up getting about 1 hour of sleep the night before. Took about an hour to get to Pisa, then our flight from Pisa to Marrakech was at 6:30 am. It was delayed for two hours because of fog but we eventually got to Morocco safely around 12:30! Met our "local expert" (tour guide for the week basically) Miloud at the airport, and took a van to the center of Marrakech. Driving from the airport, I was overwhelmed by how beautiful Morocco was, the mountains and trees and buildings are just awesome. We walked through the narrow streets of Marrakech (in which we almost got run-over by motorcycles like 20 times) to get to our nice riad (hotel) and had a traditional mint tea welcome. All our group was together by then, there were just 8 of us girls (all studying at FUA as well) and then Miloud, it was a really great group and perfect size. We then went to the main square and had the best fresh-squeezed orange juice I've ever had, and lunch. I had chicken couscous which was really good. Being in the main square of Marrakeck felt so unreal. There were monkey tamers, henna artists, local vendors, and the music of snake charmers adding to the atmosphere; It felt like a movie or something! It didn't feel like Africa at all either, it was so different than my experience in Kenya I can't even compare them. Morocco is very Eastern feeling, it's so cool. Anyways, it was a pretty hot day actually, but it was so nice to get out of the dreary rainy weather we had been having in Florence. We then went to see some beautiful gardens by the large Koutoubia mosque; there were roses and orange trees mostly, and we heard for the first time the call for prayers from the Mosque. It was pretty creepy sounding actually.

Anyways, after that we went to a spice market! It was really cool, the owner showed and explained to us the usage for so many spices, seeds, herbs, oils, etc. They were all really unique and a lot were used for natural remedies which was really cool. We all spent a lot of money there but it was worth it.

After our long time at the spice market we went to dinner in the main square. At night all the restaurant guys set up tents and tables right next to each other and all try to get you to come eat at their restaurants, it's crazy how forward they are! And hilarious, it really feels like an obstacle course because you literally have to dodge them by ducking and running and going around them. Anyways, we ate at Table #41 and it was really good! It was a lot of food, but I really like Moroccan food and it was really nice to have a break from Italian cuisine. 

After dinner we shopped around the square for a bit and then went to bed, I was exhausted but it was a great first day! Oh and we heard the craziest, silliest pick up lines from Moroccan men everyday. First of all, they are much more forward than even Italian men, almost all of them called out something at us! I actually wrote down a list of Moroccan pick up lines. For example, we got "Spice girls" a lot, "Shakira", "Fish and chips" (they thought we were British apparently), "Chicken with lemon" (I don't know..), and one of the best ones: "Am I the one you've been looking for?" hahaha and much more!

Day 2 (Sunday, 3/20)

After breakfast at our hotel we went to the Dar Si Said Museum, a beautiful old palace that had a lot of random old Moroccan things, it was really beautiful, I just love Moroccan decorations and motifs. We then walked through the souks/markets to the main square and saw snake charmers and held monkeys!

We then went to the beautiful Majorelle gardens (designed by Jacques Majorelle) built in 1947 which had a memorial to artist/designer Yves Saint Laurent. They were so lush and had bright blue buildings which was cool.

We then took a horse carriage ride from the gardens and that afternoon we went to the Hammam, kind of like a public Moroccan bath. It was a true Moroccan experience, but what happens in the Hammam, stays in the Hammam. We had another yummy dinner in the main square and went out for some more lovely mint tea, I love that stuff!

Day 3 (Monday, 3/21)

On Monday we spent the whole day driving to the Sahara desert. It was supposed to take about eight hours but ended up taking twelve! I survived though because we stopped many times along the way, and the Moroccan scenery is absolutely beautiful. It is the most diverse country I've ever seen: there are both lush green mountains and barren, snow-covered mountains, deserts, plains, everything! It's all beautiful.

(That's me)

We were supposed to ride camels at sunset but we didn't get there till it was dark unfortunately. But it was hilarious getting on camels in total darkness, we were all laughing the first 10 minutes straight. Something that was really cool was that that night, we saw the moon come up over a sand dune, it was huge and beautiful, it happened to be that that night the moon was closer to the earth than it had been in hundreds of years! We rode for about an hour through the Sahara Desert, I have no idea how those nomads know where they are going, but we eventually made it to the campsite of the Nomadic tribe we were staying with! We sat on the ground and had tagine for dinner, and the funny thing was that there were about eight cats wandering around us, trying to get food. They were so cute and I really wanted to pet them, but they just wanted food. Then we smoked hookah, and went out to dance on the sand dunes with the nomads playing drums! It gets really cold in the desert at night, but we slept inside the nomad's tents with thick blankets so it was okay.

Day 4 (Tuesday, 3/22)

Woke up to watch the sunrise over the dunes in the Sahara Desert. Amazing. We then fell asleep on a sand dune, till our prankster nomad guide came and woke us up by dragging Haley down the sand dune, stealing my camera to take pictures, and other silly things. Moroccans are all so funny, right when you meet them they joke and prank you! Anyways, we then did one of the highlights of the trip, riding camels! (I liked it better in the daytime) We rode again for an hour, it was so great. 

My favorite picture I took in Morocco!

After camel riding and breakfast, we drove a few hours to Todra Gorge, yet another amazing part of the landscape of Morocco. That afternoon we went rock-climbing in the gorge! I don't think I had ever been rock climbing so I was a little nervous, but I absolutely loved it! Just might be one of my new favorite things to do. Our Moroccan rock climbing guides/belayers, before we climbed, had to free climb up to set the rope, they free climbed part of the way without shoes on it was crazy! They then proceeded to smoke cigarettes while they belayed us, would never fly in America, but so funny. 

That's me woo!

We then took a beautiful walk back to our Riad for dinner. After dinner we had more drums and dancing! We had a lot of fun that night, for some reason everything was hilarious, especially the dance moves of the Moroccans. One of the nomads was dressed really nicely, we ended up calling him "best dressed nomad" haha! Overall, I think Tuesday was my favorite day!

At a fossil/quarry place we stopped at on one of our drives

Day 5 (Wednesday, 3/23)

Woke up and drove to Imlil, in the High Atlas Mountains. On the way we stopped at Ouarzazate, a beautiful Riad with a great view of the always amazing Moroccan landscape. We again arrived when it was dark out, and had a 45 minute hike in the dark to the house we were staying at! Thankfully we had flashlights. Apparently at Imlil our altitude was 1740 meters and we hiked to Armed, at 1960 meters. Another first, I had never hiked at night before, but it was fun and no one got hurt thankfully! We arrived at the house of a Moroccan family who served us Tagine, and then played some Moroccan card games. 

Day 6 (Thursday, 3/24)

Beautiful day of hiking in the mountains! We hiked around Armed which is a really cool old village. We had tea in the mountains and stopped at a shop where we were given some hats. 

Sunset over Essaouira

After lunch at the house we walked back down to Imlil, and drove the rest of the afternoon to Essaouira, a beach town. We checked into our hotel and then went to dinner, smoked hookah, and got henna tattoos on our hands! The henna was so beautiful, the lady that did it was a true artist. 

The group with our hennas and the henna lady!

I didn't get a picture of mine, but mine looked a lot like this!

Day 7 (Friday, 3/25)

Started off with Miloud leading us around Essaouira. I absolutely love that place. It's such a cool, chill, trendy beach town, I definitely want to go back. Half the people there have dreadlocks and wear plaid all the time, I loved it. We saw the port, a cool old fortress with old cannons in it, and every single door and window there is painted blue (influence from Jewish people), with the yellow and white buildings it looked beautiful. 

We then had fresh fish for lunch, which was good, but fish just gross me out so I kinda had to get over the gag reflex and I could only eat some of it. We then had free time which we used for shopping and sitting by the beach for a bit. I really really wanted to just sit on the beach all day, but we had to head back to Marrakech which we did all too soon. On the way home we stopped at an Argan oil place, with Moroccan ladies making the oil by hand, it was really cool. (Argan nuts are kind of like almonds and have a lot of uses) 

We arrived in Marrakech for our, sadly, last night in Morocco. We went out to dinner and then out for drinks and a belly dancing show. We were all unbelievably sad that it was our last night in Morocco. I know it sounds really bratty and spoiled, but we didn't want to go back to Italy! The next morning we said beslama (bye) to Morocco and were back in Florence by early evening. 

Morocco was one of the most amazing trips I've ever been on, I really think everyone should go if they can, it is a truly wonderful, unique, culturally rich place. Well I will update again soon! Ciao for now.