Sugar, Spice and Everything Moroccan

Upon arrival in Casablanca, our whole group was quickly loaded onto a bus and driven two hours to the more northern city of Rabat. We were dropped off at the Majestic Hotel on Hassan II street (interesting to me because one of my host family's cats is named Hassan and...well... it reminded me of him. In all actuality Hassan II was Morocco's last king who basically put anyone who disagreed with him in jail and was responsible for countless humans rights violations that are still being worked on today by his son and successor, Mohammed VI - or M6 as is fans call him). P.S. the king has lots of fans. A whole country full. And they're not just fans because they have to be - he's the first king who hasn't made it unlawful to dislike him. Also, he's allowed the women's rights movement to start in Morocco, lead by the Moroccan women. And he's nice to the rebels in the mountains who are never up to any good and hate all government, so they're less feisty lately. From what I could tell, he's doing quite a bit of good.

This photo hung above the reception desk in our hotel lobby, as well as in many other establishments and homes.
Around 1am we drug our suitcases past him and up four flights of stairs to our little three-person rooms. I shared a room with Jenise and Alice. We barely had time to discover (the hard way) that our toilet did not possess a toilet seat before passing out in our beds.

We awoke to a bright Moroccan morning streaming in through our windows. The view was breathtaking. From our floor we had a gorgeous view of the Medina - the old city - inside it's fire-orange walls. Everything was lit up by the early morning sun and the muted sounds of a crackily radio playing music with an upbeat bass-line and bustling crowds wafted in as we threw back the curtains.
Heading downstairs to the bakery cafe on the ground floor, we met up with the rest of the group. As we sat down we were served a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice (you can see them squeezing it behind the bar), a fresh chocolate croissant and a small glass of steaming hot Moroccan mint tea. You don't get very much, but with the potent mixture of gunpowder green tea, several sprigs of fresh spearmint and TONS of sugar, you don't need a lot. They like their tea sweet, and although it was too much for me at first, it grew on me. You have to sip it very slowly anyway, because it's very hot. The sweet hot tea cuts the cool buttery croissant... perfect combination of tradition and colonialism.
After our modest breakfasts we walked through the Medina for about fifteen minutes, watching shop keepers set up their store fronts, lay out their wares, sweep the street, cook food, or just sit in a doorway drinking tea and chatting. The morning bustle had a sleepy air to it. Nobody was in a hurry, but the day had definitely begun. Every night they take down the market, and every morning they put it back together again.

That first day we took a bus tour around Rabat, which gave half of us some background knowledge on the history of the city and the workings of the government, and the other half a nice two hour nap. We also got an orientation lecture, giving us pointers on Moroccan culture and particularly the culture of haggling, after which we were given 10 dirhams (a little less than one euro) and instructed to go bargain for something in the market. Going back into the Medina in the afternoon was a completely different experience than walking through it in the morning. It was fully set up now; shops crammed next to each other explode with colorful wares, spilling out onto the narrow cobblestone streets with racks of clothes and shelves of goods. The thin winding roads of the marketplace are shoulder-to-shoulder in the afternoon and evening. Parts of the medina are almost impossible to pass through, the crowd is so dense. We found the visual and tactile variety overwhelming. Being constantly jostled and yelled at, avoiding grimy puddles, stray cats, children and old beggars, and trying to figure out what you might want to purchase with the little coin held hot in your hand was a sensory overload like nothing before. When you include the olfactory cacophony (spices! sewer! soap! cat piss! fresh pastries! rotting vegetables! Pidgin-dung-cured-leather!) that was at constant war for the attention of our nostrils, you might understand how quickly we became exhausted by our shopping experience. The actual interactions with the shop keepers were almost as tiring. We found it difficult to communicate with them in English, and as soon as the realized we were tourists the majority of shop keepers had no interest in haggling with us. The shop keepers were very eager to sell to us, but were uninterested in any lower prices we offered; sometimes even offended. I often got the "oh honey. don't try that with me, I know you're a loaded American with cash to burn" look a lot. Defeated after an hour of these responses I bought a keychain that was in my price range and accepted my failure. Medina = 1, April = 0.

The next day we went on an excursion to a small northern rural village called Tiddas. We left at 8 a.m. on a tour bus and drove for 2 hours into the Middle Atlas Mountains. We arrived outside the village and walked in, leaving the bus on the outskirts. The weather was extremely hot and dusty, and the sun was shining full force on our heads as we trudged along the dirt streets, through adobe and brick houses, tons of trash and even more donkeys. It seems donkeys are to Tiddas as bikes are to Amsterdam. I literally couldn't not take a picture of a donkey.
We made it to the market after about a 15 minute walk (I started wondering if I'd brought enough water, after that thirsty trek) and got a very fascinating tour of the weekly market, which is held every Monday in that town. The stalls were very different from the shops in Rabat. Everything was set up on the group, in the dust. Sticks held up blankets as makeshift canopies, and price tags were non-existant. It strongly reminded me of Bater Faire (for those of you who know what that is), except no hippies, no drugs, no dental hygiene, and a lot more poverty. It was surreal; at times I felt like I had walked into a National Geographic photo. This is such a supremely first-world way to explain something, but it's the best I can do. As we walked through the market, led by a native of the village and a translator (and getting stared at by EVERYONE) we learned more about the people who live there and the social importance of the weekly market. One man offered to let us ride his donkey, and some of us took him up on it. I wanted to do it too, but I had a skirt on and wasn't about to flash a whole village of muslims by throwing my leg up in the air. We solved this by mounting me sidesaddle, which worked surprisingly well. I felt oddly dignified and silly at the same time. I would have liked this whole donkey experience a lot more if I hadn't seen a group of local boys beating and kicking one of the donkeys while laughing. Apparently it was good fun, and they thought we'd agree until several of us got alarmed and angry, and motioned for them to stop. They stared at us with confusion as we petted the poor downtrodden animal and spoke to it reassuringly. Crazy Americans. We stopped to buy some spices at one of the stalls and I bought about a cup of saffron for 10 dirham! Some people bought enough to outfit a whole spice cupboard, it was so inexpensive.

After shopping and exploring the market, we were extremely ready to be off our feet and out of the sun. Walking back through the town was rough, mainly because it was uphill, even dustier than before, and I had run out of water. We went to the parent's home of our excursion director (Tiddas is his home village), and they had an extravagant meal of cous cous laid out for us. Cous cous is usually only eaten on Fridays, but they made an exception in order to give us a quintessential Moroccan meal experience. We absolutely stuffed ourselves, and it would have been perfect except we had no water to drink. I was pretty parched by the end of the meal, and was very grateful when they brought out small glasses of mint tea. This didn't fully quench my thirst however, and when headed back outside to visit a local NGO of the village before departing, I seriously considered what would happen if I fainted. Luckily the NGO was nearby, and they provided lots of bottled water during the following lecture. The NGO worked on eradicating slums from the area through the promotion of education, especially building campuses for girls. The room in which the meeting was held was the only library in the village, and had about 15 books on the shelves. It also had wireless internet that was available for anyone to use, but I couldn't really imagine too many people having laptops or ipads around there, so I'm not sure how useful that service is to the people of Tiddas.

Tuesday was a day full of lectures. We learned about Islam in Daily Life, Sexuality in Islam, and Family Code and Gender Dynamics. We also were fed an absolutely heavenly lunch in the cafeteria at the Center for Cross Cultural Learning (CCCL), where all our lectures were held. Each day we had a different delicious array of dishes, and it was buffet style so we could eat as much as we wanted. Needless to say, I gained a few pounds during the week we were there.

Wednesday we had a lecture on Gender and Migration and got to speak to some Moroccan university students and compare life in the US to life in Rabat. This was pretty interesting, and we met a lot of nice people. That evening we got broken into groups of two or three and send to different host families for dinner. Our host mom was a short, plump lady with thin graying curls poking out from under her headscarf, and a wicked cackle that was half scary witch, half infectiously mirthful. She didn't speak a lick of English, but Alice (who was in my group) spoke a little bit of French, so we were able to communicate very basic things as we walked to her house through the labyrinth of high-walled narrow streets that make up the inner workings of the Medina. As we arrived at her door she was greeted by her son, a boy of about 12 who openly greeted his mother with an affectionate hug and kiss, before returning to playing football with his friends. That alone was strange to us, but things quickly got stranger. We were about to follow her into the house when a guy about our age walked up and greeted her. We immediately recognized him as the friend of one of the girls in our program because he'd met her at our hotel a day or two before and we'd been introduced. Needless to say, we were very surprised to learn that our host family happened to be his aunt or cousin or something like that, and he was staying for dinner. We were excited about this because his English was quite good and he was friendly. Also Alice and Jenise didn't think he was bad to look at, although I have to admit the mega-uni-brow was a bit too much for my taste.
Later, as we sat in the living room with Hamid (that's his name) and one of the many kids who lived around there (a girl about 6 years old, didn't really even speak French), I was struck by how different the family dynamic is there. Women kept coming home from work or school, taking off their headscarves, talking loudly and laughing, sighing or collapsing on a couch. The couches were situated in a circle around a low table, and the TV was on full blast above us all, playing Turkish soap operas. There were relatives of all types, and each one shook our hands and kissed us three times on the cheek before sitting down. One or two brought men with them, but we were unsure of their relation to the larger group. Our host mom disappeared altogether for about 2 hours, leaving us to talk to everyone around us. Luckily the family next door had an American exchange student doing an SIT program in Morocco and she came over to have dinner with us. This was good because Hamid was really only interested in talking about weed and soccer. We really hit it off with Carly, and it turns out she was born in Ballard and lived there until she was about 10! I was very excited to meet another PNW peep, so we gabbed about Washington for a while. All the while the little girl kept trying to get our attention and even made up a card game and then forced us to play it with her. It basically just consisted of stealing cards from each other, but it got us to tickle her and that seemed to be her goal, so she was happy. At one point one of the guys started playing Shakira's "Waka Waka" song and the little girl (forgot her name :( )got up on the table and did all the dance moves from the music video while singing all the words. Needless to say, we were kind of stunned and very impressed. This little girl had Africa pride, alright! She was adorable and got us all up and dancing around a little. Finally, around 9, dinner came out. It was cous cous again! We ate with big spoons, all crowded around the dish (probably close to eight of us in all), the little girl eating off everyone else's spoons and stealing bits of chicken from us. The food was gone in the blink of an eye (and there was a lot of food!). Not long afterwards they escorted us back to our hotel.

Alex an I wearing different traditional costumes...hilariously

Thursday was another day of lectures, and we learned all about the veil and Moroccan costumes. We got to try on all the different traditional dresses for both men and women, and talked a lot about the evolution of dress along with colonialism and islam. It was a fascinating session, and one that left me with a completely opposite view of the Hijab than I had entering the class. It is seen more as a feminist statement in Morocco, and is disliked by more traditional muslim men for it's women's rights symbolism. It was a very interesting and enlightening talk, and I felt a lot better about my views of Moroccan women afterwards. Later that evening I went shopping in the Medina again, this time with more success. I learned from Carly that the best bargaining happens between 4pm and 10pm, and once I gathered a few more techniques and quite a bit of boldness, my haggling resulted in modest success.

Friday was a boring day. We had another lecture and visited an NGO in Rabat. The lady who spoke to us about her organization wasn't exactly a captivating speaker, so I ended up just doodling and writing letters home most of the time.
That evening things got more interesting. Me, Lily, Kelsey and Alex decided we wanted to go to a Hammam (public bathhouse). We'd heard you could go and get a massage, or even scrubbed down for not much money. We went to the market and bought scrubby pads (basically abrasive handsocks) and got buckets and towels from our hotel. We also brought some body wash and shampoo, just in case. The program director showed us how to get to the best Hammam in Rabat, and just around dusk we headed over there, unsure of what we were getting ourselves into.
Arriving at the Hammam we were surprised to be greeted at the front window by a man who asked for our money (not in English, of course). We had no idea how much it cost so we just handed over some money and he gave us some change. The entrance cost turned out to be equivalent to about 2 euros each, which wasn't bad. We were then sent through a door into a tiled changing room full of half-naked women. Nobody there spoke a word of English, so they communicated to us by moving us around and doing lots of pointing. We ended up getting undressed (under the watchful eye of a couple employees) down to out panties and flip-flops. They took everything else, until we were standing there with our buckets, unsure of where to go next. They quickly ushered us through big double door on the other side of the room, taking us into the bath house proper. We found ourselves in a three-chambered room tiled floor-walls-ceiling in turquoise and absolutely FILLED with naked women. We had hit rush hour, and there was barely a free tile to stand on. Lots of women wearing pink underwear (like the ones who had taken charge of us) were rushing around, filling buckets with fresh water, dumping out dirty water, and performing other chores. Alex suggested that they were probably staff, which turned out to be right. So pink undies meant employees, and we quickly realized this when each of us was taken by one of said clad matrons and plopped down on the ground, squeezed in among the buckets and butts and boobies that pervaded the space. We had apparently signed up for the scrub-down of our lives, and they weren't going to waste any time on it.
Laying me down, my lady began by pouring water all over me, and then taking a dark green goopy soap (kind of looked like a mixture between snot and wax, and smelled like eucalyptus) and rubbed it all over me. I mean like, ALL over. Gave me a wedgie, the whole nine yards. I was a little affronted at first, but she approached it like one might approach hand-washing a particularly dirty pan... I was an object that needed cleaning, nothing more. She flopped my limbs around at her will, making sure she got everything. There were a couple awkward moments where i found myself unwittingly cupping her breast and she scrubbed my inner arm, but she didn't seem phased by it so I just followed her cue.
The next step was a thorough rinsing, followed by the scrubbing. Ah, the scrubbing. She took my scrubby thing and started on my arms, working to my chest and torso, and then flipping me over. She scrubbed me so hard I watched in amazement, ready to see my skin start peeling off at any moment. What happened instead was large amounts of dead skin balled up, looking gross and making me wonder how long it'd been since I'd had a bath. Realizing how much dead skin I just had sitting on me all day gave me the willies. After that it was really rewarding, seeing her scrub it all off. I kept thinking "off! off, damn dead epidermis!" And once she'd finally finished scrubbing - there was a moment there, while scrubbing my tummy, that I was seriously afraid she's rip out my bellybutton ring - and had rinsed me off I looked at my shiny skin, all pink from agitation and felt immensely clean.
Luckily for me, she wasn't done with me yet. Next she took some of the body soap we brought with us and washed me down again, this time flipping me over so much that I nearly slipped and slid across the floor like a rouge bar of soap. Again I was rinsed (by emptying multiple buckets over my head), and my hair washed. I started having the distinct feeling I was 2 years old again, being washed by my mother. Sitting there with my hygiene in the hands of someone else, unable to communicate verbally and quite literally naked in every sense of the word, I felt a relaxing calm. It was the pleasant warm feeling of being completely taken care of. Not pampered: she wasn't treating me like a princess. I liked it.

After a double-shampoo and several bucket-fulls of water being thrown at me from every angle, I was pronounced clean. Without warming (or maybe there was a warning, but I certainly didn't catch on), she pushed me out of the bathhouse and into the changing room. There. Done. Just like that. I stood there dazed for a moment, unsure of what all had just happened in the last hour. Then some lady motioned to my towel and I nodded. She handed me my stuff and I began to get dressed. i was soon joined by the other girls, and we dried off and got dressed in a room even more full than when we'd arrived. Our personal scrubbers came up to us and asked for a tip as we were getting dressed. Unsure of how much to give them (we assumed they were asking for a tip; there was no verbal enlightenment on the subject), we just kept handing over bills until it was enough. We spent about 70 dirham each, or about 8 euros. Well worth the experience, we concluded. Then, clean, wet and laughing about the pure differentness of what had just happened, we trudged home.

Saturday was a day of shopping, as I attempted to get some christmas presents without breaking the bank. We also did some exploring, but the day was largely uneventful.

Sunday we drove back to Casablanca, where we caught our flight to Spain. We spent a few hours in the airport there (Madrid, I think), after switching airlines (boo) and then got on our flight back to Amsterdam. We arrived to brisk fall air and got on buses to take us home. I live so far away that I got my own taxi (muahaha). I was home by 1 am, back to my own room, my own bed, and my lovely host family.

All in all it was a fantastic trip and definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But it is nice to be home, even if it's cold here now and the food isn't quite as good (well, that's not true. My hosts are blessedly fantastic cooks and dinner is probably my favorite time of the day).

Now I'm settling into fall here in Amsterdam. If you're interested, here's a fall playlist to get you in the mood for rainy days, thunder, and long nights:
http://8tracks.com/arhj/it-s-fall-now

Kroatië!

This update is long overdue, and for that I apologize. I've been having very patchy access to reliable internet, lots of traveling, and SO many things have been happening. But I've kept track and I'll relay it now.

The night before I left with my program for Croatia, my host family celebrated my host mom's 44th birthday. We got all gussied up (dresses!) and biked (biked!) into town, which included the ferry ride. I felt very european, biking around in my evening-wear. We went to a Swiss restaurant called Bern and had delicious fondue. I tried a Yemeni (of Yemen) salad, and it was AMAZING. I have no idea what it was doing in a Swiss restaurant, but I approved.
After dinner Blue and I left to go see a band he'd heard about. They were playing on the other side of the ferry though, and we missed it by a hair. So we sat and played tic-tac-toe (and I won every time it wasn't a cat's game *smug smile*) and hangman (he gets kudos for playing in English). Once the ferry came again we hopped on and rode to a different dock, where we biked through a weird industrial area with lots of empty concrete buildings and rouge teens on motorcycles smoking and being loud. When we rounded a corner however we saw a low grassy hill surrounded by parked bicycles, and on top of it a big greenhouse lit from inside and playing music. There were lots of people milling around and bonfire going. I was very pleased to find the greenhouse was a bar (those Dutch... so funny), and even more pleased to find a bunch of Bellingham-looking people there. Mostly hippy-looking euro hipsters in their late teens and early twenties, sporting some impressive dreads, tie-dye, and american apparel.

The next morning I had a blessedly uneventful time finding my group at the train station. We got to the airport in time and everything went smoothly, at least for me. My friend Jenise has a hard time flying so I held her hand during part of the flight, but before we knew it we were in Croatia! We had a tour bus that took us from the airport to our hostel. We were staying near the center of the capitol city, Zagreb. Our hostel was called the Funk hostel, and was pretty funky alright. Thankfully the good "I got the funk" kind and not the "please put your shoes back on" kind of funk. However, we were bunking up 6 to a room and the water pressure in the showers left you with the sensation of having had a teacup of lukewarm water dribbled over your head... so it wasn't all peaches and cream. Nevertheless, we were excited to be there, and antsy to explore the city.
One of the girls quickly made friends with a British guy named Doug in the hostel. He was playing soccer for the Croatian team temporarily and had already been in Zagreb for a few weeks, so when he offered to show us around we were quick to take him up on it. He showed us how to take the trams (which are free, frequent, and well-maintained) into the city center. From there he walked us around for a bit, showing us the cathedral and some of the older streets. He was quite nice, giving us the little bits of history that he knew. However, we soon broke apart into twos and threes. I wandered with Jenise for a while in the city, now lit up in the dusk. We got lost in the old streets as we admired the architecture of the buildings and the mild night air. Eventually we stumbled upon a little park with two lit fountains and a gazebo in the middle of a square. There was tango music wafting toward us, and we followed it to the gazebo, where we found about half a dozen dancing couples. Joining the few onlookers, I throughly enjoyed observing a few dances. Many of the dancers seemed to be couples in more than just the dances, whispering sweet Croatian nothings into each other's ears, gazing into each other's eyes. They ranged from young adult to elderly, and all looked to be quite competent, though recreational dancers. I was hoping to join in, but it seemed to be too intimate of a gathering for me to fling myself into, especially with my rusty-at-best tango moves. But it was wonderful nonetheless, and as we left I dreamily air tangoed away, getting some weird looks from the passers-by.
The park was also full of teenagers sitting on the lawns in groups, running around, singing, playing music, laughing, talking, smoking, drinking. We were very impressed with the robust population of youngsters and it seemed this park played the role of major meeting place for the underage teens of Zagreb.

The next day we embarked after breakfast provided by the hostel, resuming our previous night's wanders. We visited the cathedral first, which was an impressive structure if a bit generically churchy from the outside. In the entrance it had a sign that forbade short skirts or PDA. As I entered I found myself captured by the air of majesty the church possessed. I have been in similar cathedrals before, and structurally this one was nothing special. There was something about the feeling of the place... for being a non-religious person I definitely felt the holiness. I just sat on a pew for a while, taking it all in. I felt a great sense of peace fall around me. My only explanation for this remarkable feeling is that Croatia is a predominantly Catholic country, and most of the citizens of Zagreb probably come to this church to pray. Maybe it hears so many of the whole community's whispered hopes and desires and confessions that they fill the air, rubbing shoulders with each other and moulding around your body as you walk through them. I also explored the courtyard between the church and the Nunnery, which had a little garden area. It was quite nice.

When I returned to the square outside the entrance to the cathedral, I was surprised by a odd ceremony taking place in front of the fountain. It appeared to be similar to a changing-of-the-guard ceremony, with soldiers in what looked like traditional garb marching, riding horses, and playing drums. There was lots of barking orders and saluting. There was no explanation offered, so we just assumed it was a tradition of some sort, and felt lucky to have witnessed it. However, we were later informed by a local that the ceremony is completely contrived for the sake of tourism, and that the Croatian army never wore those costumes or preformed that ritual. This puzzled me somewhat because the 'soldiers' never collected money from the crowd that gathered to watch them, but I suppose some elements of the tourism trade are beyond me. I felt kind of let down, having been tricked into believing I was watching something authentic, but it was still a cool ceremony, regardless of traditional significance.

Later that day, after we had lunch at an Indian restaurant and got mildly accosted by an old man (he came up to us speaking Croatia and touched some of the girls' faces in what I can only assume was a gesture of fondness but translated as a serious person space violation), Jenise and Sarah and I took a tram to the 'mountain' - about the size of the Chuckanuts - to go for a day hike. We got the the last stop and were just getting off when we were approached by a Croatian woman who asked if we were intending to go hiking. We said we were, and she said she was going chestnut gathering and wanted to know if we'd be interested in accompanying her. She assured us that she went all the time and that she wasn't affiliated with sex trafficking, but just wanted some company. We were intrigued and didn't get creepy kidnapper vibes from her, so we agreed. She led up along the tram tracks and up the mountain a ways, following a trail that was apparently there but seemed quite invisible to us. She stopped under some chestnut trees and showed us how to step in the shells to get the nuts out. We then spent the next few hours wandering around the forest, stomping on nuts and chatting. Once we'd gathered quite a lot we sat for a while to rest in a field. While she chain-smoked, our new friend Anna gave us a rundown of Croatian economics, politics and society (according to her views as a college-educated, 28-year-old grocery cashier). She was quirky but quite friendly and personable, and we learned a lot from her about religion and politics, and the aftermath of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
After our break we wandered back down the hill. I collected an impressive number of thorns in my feet, having had the misfortune of wearing open-toe shoes that day. The way down was definitely not a trail, and we kind of opted for the free-fall method of uncontrollable running until you hit a tree, brace yourself, and then launch yourself downhill again, pausing only long enough to remove embedded vegetation from your flesh. We found an overgrown pear orchard at one point and filled our pockets with nearly-ripe fruit. Once we found the tram tracks again we munched on our stolen snacks as we walked to the tram stop, swinging our plastic bags full of chestnuts happily.
On the tram ride back to the hostel Anna gave us an impromptu rundown of Zagreb's history, pointing out important buildings and museums as we rode along. She was very happy to share her knowledge, and we got off at our stop with a much better understanding of the city and the kind of people that live there.
That night we went out for Croatian food (lots of minced meat, mashed potatoes and beer) and passed out early.

The next day we visited the open market, had lectures, and I experienced the best cookie known to man. Our program director bought snacks for us between lectures and unwittingly introduced me to my new obsession. They are soft gingerbread cookies, not too sweet. But what sets them apart is they are not in the shape of cookies... oh no. They look like big soft bavarian PRETZELS. And as if that wasn't enough, they're coated with melt-in-your-mouth milk chocolate. I know. I bought a box because I couldn't fathom living without them and I don't know if they're available outside that country.

We had all our lectures in the Human Rights House of Zagreb, and most of the speakers focused on topics pertaining to the recent war and the breakup of Yugoslavia. When discussing this topic in terms of gender and sexuality, you get fun subjects such as war rapes, spousal abuse, trauma recovery, etc. Some other lectures we had dealt with the Sex Ed problem in a Catholic state, and how the church is trying to form the curriculum. Mostly it was heavy stuff, and we tried to do fun things during our free time so as to keep a light-hearted attitude.

Our second night me and a couple other girls stayed in and made dinner at the hostel. We roasted our chestnuts for dessert and relaxed.

The next morning i woke up to itchy bug bites, which had been steadily accumulating since my arrival. On of the other girls in my room was getting eaten alive, to the point where we was desperately trying to find bug spray or something to combat the onslaught. We weren't sure what was biting us because we didn't ever see mosquitos and if it was bed bugs everyone would have them, but it wasn't pleasant. At one point my bites turned into hives, and then later looked like the little red marks, as if a blind nurse had tried to administer me an IV. Jenise's bites blew up to the size of baseballs, and at one point she had six on her face alone. She was more tormented by the itching than I was, so while she sought any cure under the sun, I just dealt with it. But I still have no idea what was feasting on us and why nobody else in our room seemed to be affected.

The next night we got kicked out of our room by the hostel to make room for another group and were divided up into other rooms. Jenise and I got a 6-person room upstairs with a Canadian couple and two young German men who were backpacking around Europe. I got to eavesdrop on the Germans a little as they spoke to each other in what they thought was a private language, but they didn't stick around long and we ended up watching Eurotrip and going to bed.

The next day we had some free time and a group of us decided to go to the Contemporary Art Museum. For a while I was torn between this museum and the option to go to the gallery of Broken Relationships, where people send in the things neither person wants to hang onto after a breakup. The deciding factor was that the Art Museum had a slide. So we took the tram a ways outside of town and upon arrival were informed that we were there on monthly museum day and admission was free. Happily, we wandered around the exhibits for a while, taking pictures and goofing off. Eventually we realized that all the pieces had to do with the war, violence, and injustice. Slowly we sobered up as we looked at dozens of plaster face casts of women victims of violent spousal abuse that were each accompanied by the womens' harrowing tales. Eventually we were so somber that we needed to cheer ourselves somehow. This, I think, is why they installed the slide. There are actually two slides, one from the 3rd story and one from the 2nd. I took the latter because the 3rd story slide looked more like a roller coaster ride, and I was extremely thrilled. It was a blast, I don't know why every exit isn't a slide. It is obviously the superior way to vacate a building.
Sarah and I went to a really nice restaurant called Nocturno for lunch where I paid the equivalent of $6 for a huge helping of delicious pasta, a side salad and hard apple cider. It was by far the best dining experience I had in Zagreb. This was doubly confirmed later that day when our whole group went to dinner at a fancy mexican restaurant. The burrito I ordered was definitely not a burrito, they had no guacamole and no hot sauce. If you took mexican food and then stripped away everything that makes it good, then reduced the portion sizes, you'd have what that restaurant served.
The night was luckily saved by our next destination: the closest thing to a gay bar Zagreb has to offer. It's called the "alternative people's bar" but is basically just a huge beer garden that was absolutely packed with young adults. There was loud music playing, lots of bar tenders who flirted with our group and gave a lot of girls free drinks and even took shots with everyone. Apparently drinking on the job is just all in a night's work as a Croatian bartender. They said they have roughly 20 shots a night, each night they work. I wonder if that comes out of their paycheck...

After a late night out (which extended to being a late night in once we got back to the hostel drunk shenanigans lasted into the wee hours of the morning), it was rough getting up early for our bus ride to Krk. We were all a little groggy and grumpy to be driving through the mountains, ears popping form the altitude with a bus driver that didn't understand English enough to stop and let us have a pee break. Or he just didn't want to stop... At any rate, we arrived in Krk around 1 pm very ready to get off the bus. We had a hotel this time, and it was situated right on the coast with it's own beach access about 20 yards from the front steps. We had two person rooms (a huge relief after living the dorm room life for nearly a week) with their own showers (with decent water pressure, yay!) and toilets. When we got there it was beautiful and sunny. I quickly changed into my bathing suit and minimal clothing, savoring my ability to enjoy warm weather in October. Three other girls and I walked into the little town of Krk, about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. It was extremely charming, with little cobblestone streets on which no cars traveled. There were lots of little stray kitties wandering around, potted plants sitting on stucco windowsills, iron-wrought spiral staircases, quiet little courtyards...
We got delicious Kebabs and then lovely gelato as we wandered through the streets, looking at the extremely touristy shops. The nice thing was there were hardly any tourists around, so we weren't surrounded by crowds of kaki shorts and sunburns.
We meandered back to the hotel and I decided it was high time to go swimming. I went down to the beach and found several other girls already floating out in the bright blue water. They waved me in and although it was cold at first, once I jumped it it was wonderfully refreshing. The water there is also quite salty, so we were really buoyant and could bob around effortlessly in the gentle waves, peering down at the fish and rocks below us. The water was absolutely crystal clear, and a breathtaking color. We all noticed that some of the other beach-goers were wearing their birthday suits, and we quickly decided our bathing suits were superfluous and followed suit (no pun intended). We spent a long time splashing around, sunbathing, and enjoying a beautiful Croatian afternoon.
The rest of Krk was consumed with little dance parties in our hotel rooms, free meals, watching movies, exploring, and enjoying the weather.
However, we woke up on Friday to a dark and ominous sky. It sprinkled for about an hour before letting up, at which point I decided it was worth venturing out. I went with Jenise to the village to do some shopping and buy stamps. We got lunch and then went into a shop for about ten minutes. When we came out the sky had darkened dramatically and a wind had picked up. The temperature had dropped and it felt like a blustery late evening - even though it was barely past noon. We were getting gelato when the storm hit. I had made the bad decision to wear a skirt that day, and the first sign of trouble was when the wind decided to play dress-up with me and I involuntarily flashed the gelato man. We decided to make a run for it just as big fat drops started pelting us. I gathered my skirt us and we bolted. But we couldn't outrun it. The next fifteen minutes were spent partially blind, mostly deaf, and soaked to the bone as we ran through a gale of wind and rain... and then lightning. It was hilarious at first, getting soaking wet in a matter of minutes, having gelato turn into gelato soup, and my skirt turn into a drenched flag, slapping heavily against my bare legs and nearly tripping me. But when the wind and lightning started taking trees down, we realized the necessity for speed. We put our heads down, and with rain streaming down our faces so heavily that we could barely see where we were going, we pushed ahead with branches cracking down around us, pinecones flying like missiles. A tree cracked and fell on the path right in front of us, and in a fit of frightened hysteria I took a picture of it... and then kept running. When we finally made it back to the hotel we were as close to being soaked to the bone as I've ever been. The hotel staff laughed as we fell in through the door, creating instant puddles with every step. We were probably a miserable sight in our summer clothes, looking like drowned cats. We had to go up to our room and take everything off and hang it up. It was only then that we realized we'd send all our laundry down to the reception to get washed. So we were stuck in our room, naked, for several hours. Finally we had to figure out how to go down to dinner. Jenise had an fancy dress she'd brought with her, and I had a sarong and wrap-around skirt, both aggressive (yet clashing) colors of orange. So I covered myself up as best I could, looking like a colorblind homeless gypsy and accompanied by Jenise, who looked like she was expecting a date to pick her up any minute. The waiter outright laughed when he saw me, but I reminded myself that it was a lot less offensive than if I'd shown up naked and he'd still laughed.
That night I started feeling sick, and sure enough the next day I had a cold. The chill had gotten into my bones, and I was all nice and sick for the two bus rides, plane trip, four countries and 14 hours of traveling ahead of me. Fortunately I had my bright red pants to cheer me up. Every time I wore them I got compliments, and they were comfortable and flattering.
So we drove through Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy (which, by the way, has gourmet food at rest stops) to an airport outside Florence. We checked our baggage and then sat around waiting to board our flight to Morocco. I decided to go to the bathroom, and as I was walking in I took a step and simultaneously heard a "riiiiiip!" sound. My mind instantly said "uh oh!", and then when i turned around and looked at my butt in the mirror... "Shiiiit". A huge hole had decided to tear itself from the top to the bottom of my left butt-cheek. Usually this wouldn't be a problem, I could just change into a different pair of pants. Except I had just checked my baggage and was about to fly to an islamic country. Having my butt hang out was not an option. I resorted to tying my cardigan (blessedly long) around my waist and then going out to show all the girls what had just happened. We had a good laugh and I was able to get a scarf to cover my bare shoulders (shoulders are scandalous, just not as scandalous as butts). By the time we were in the air I'd completely forgotten about it. The view from the plane as we ascended was breathtaking. We got a bird-eye view of Florence from the air at night. The lights of the city, the canals... it was beautiful. I mostly forgot about the rip until after our long bus ride from Casablanca to the hotel in Rabat. Once we got to our hotel room I checked the rip again. It had worked its way down to nearly peaking below my cardigan, and was now exposing most of my butt and underwear. Although I was sad to lose my favorite pants, I was very happy they hadn't ripped a day later, perhaps walking through the marketplace in Rabat.

And now I'm in Morocco! I'll do another post about that soon, when I have the time and energy (it's amazing how draining this is!). Feel free to ask questions if you're still curious about Croatia :)