a:= kg + boojab
b:= know a
if b goto L2
L1
So I'll start with KG, Kendra Gedney. She lives on the street parallel to our ex-house in Madison. Our houses were about 500 yards apart, if you walked through the swamp and Indian graveyard. We grew up playing Polar Bear hockey together, and when we got to high school, her dad was the coach of the girls' team (still is). That's why I also refer to her as #6. Her dad could never remember the names of his hockey players, just our numbers, even his own daughter. We'd be at their house hanging out in the basement on the weekend or something, and we'd hear from upstairs, "Hey, number six, number fifteen!" When we were freshmen and sophomores, he'd let us drive the jeep home from the hockey bus. Luckily, we survived to actually get our licenses. After that, we carpooled to school every day.
Now, she's at Trinity. Both of us were too lazy to showcase ourselves in hockey, so we're both just doing pickup/club, but still loving every second on the ice.
Also, I think it's important to note that I attended not one, but TWO Gedney steak dinners, a privilege that few have had the opportunity to enjoy.
She studied abroad in Peru last term, so Becky and I were in awe of her Spanish abilities this trip.
So, now, Becky Jablonski, Hahvad, Boojab. She attended Shoreline Christian with me for a few years in elementary school. In second grade, she gave me a little orange piece of paper rolled up and secured with a rubber band. She showed me that she had the same one, and I opened it up to read a declaration of best friendship. That's when Stevie stepped in (I'm not going to give a Stevie explanation, because if you don't know who Stevie is, you probably don't know me, and I don't know why you're reading this). Stevie was p.o.-ed. At recess one day, it went down. I though they were going to throw down right there in the middle of tag, but instead they both just glared at me angrily, demanding to know whose best friend I really was. Decision making being an area I struggle in, the next thing I knew, I was in the principal's office.
Needless to say, Becky left SCS. Although I like to think it wasn't because of that situation, our relationship did struggle in the next few years. It wasn't until we got to high school that we really reconnected. KG, boojab, and I were all in the same friends group, and we definitely bonded. One of my favorite experiences with them was skipping school one day senior spring to go to NYC and do nothing all day, like the Beat authors of the 50s, so that we could write about it for our final lit paper.
L2
We had a private room at our hostel in Algeciras. The woman who worked there we called Mama because she was such a mother. She made sure we were awake in time for our trip the next day, walked us down to the port and showed us where to get our tickets for the ferry, got us churros and coffee....definitely a Mama.
So the trip we took was to Morocco; Africa for a day, no big deal.
The night before we left, we went down to the bar adjacent to the hostal to get some tapas. Another guy who was staying in Algeciras joined us. He was actually studying IN Morocco. We couldn't believe it, since we'd heard it was so dangerous. We had a big discussion on his experiences there. He agreed that it was rather corrupt, and he'd even seen his professor bribe someone. He had a reaction to canned fruit, and in order to get him into the hospital quickly, his professor slipped the receptionist a large bill. On a similar topic, Kendra said that when she was in Peru, they told her if she ever got pulled over, with her pale skin, light hair, and blue eyes, to just tell the police that her father was a diplomat, and they'd leave her alone.
Our new friend's name was Toshe, short for Toshiro. When he told us this, I immediately exclaimed, "Oh my gosh you're Japanese!" He laughed, and said, "Because Toshe rhymes with Yoshi?" I had a better reason, though. Kayla, one of my best friends from school, is hoppa, and her middle name is Toshiko. Therefore, Toshe had the guy version of her name. (You'd think I'd just be able to tell from appearance, but yea, it took until he told us his name for me to come to a conclusion about his ethnicity.)
We were woken by Mama the next morning, and clambered out of bed to catch the ferry.
We positioned ourselves on the deck at the back of the boat, and began the short crossing to Ceuta.
We had opted for a guide through some organization called Transafrica. Ceuta is actually a Spanish colony, and from there we went to Morocco.
When we landed, we waited around, not sure how we were supposed to find our guide.
(Kendra even had the Transafrica sticker stuck to her hat to ensure that our guide would see it and recognize us)
Finally, he found us. There were two other girls on our trip, and one older, heavyset man. We played a guessing game as to where in the US the girls were from. Both were blonde, and one was wearing tight spandex that were NOT opaque. Remember, we were going to Morocco, where they are covered from head to toe in loose clothing. Thus, our guesses included Jersey shore, Miami, LA, Atlanta. None of us were prepared for the truth: Massachusetts. Even more surprising, they both go to Smith College.
Then there was Victor.
Victor is from Argentina. He's a happy old man, who had been visiting his daughter in Spain.
Unfortunately, he was also a bit of a sucker. All day, the vendors on the street followed him around, trying to convince him to buy their products. He wound up with some things he definitely didn't need, like a little toy drum, a carpet, a porcelain bowl or two.
From Ceuta, we went first to Tetuan. After passing through the border, we drove for a bit as our guide told us about Morocco. On top of many of the houses were storks' nests. It was neat to see these huge birds standing in pairs on the rooftops.
When we arrived, our guide took us through the narrow streets of the market. There were Mosques on nearly every corner. There are about 500 little streets in there, so we were told that if we got lost, we should just stay where we were, and they'd come back and find us.
According to our guide, the taller the door for a house is, the higher the economic class of the inhabitant.
I wouldn't say this family is loaded, persay, although Becky J is six feet tall. And I'm thinking maybe Peter Jackson imitated these architects when constructing the set for the Shire in LOTR.
We also passed a bunch of cute kids
and even spotted some death eaters.
There were cats everywhere, and I was going to take a picture of a couple cute ones, but Becky J got me with the comment, "Rach, we have cats in America." Yea, she'll tell it to you straight.
Our guide took us into a massive store filled with colorful carpets. We were led to the roof, to look out at the city.
Check out that sky. And the jagged glass on the wall behind Becky J.
It was quite lovely. What we didn't know was that the people who owned the carpet shop were the guide's family, and we were about to be overwhelmed by their efforts to sell us something.
See the anger on Kenny G's face? She somehow escaped, though. I don't know where she went, but Becky and I were left sitting there as this guy whipped out carpet after carpet. I didn't say a word, and boojab kept saying, "We don't have room in our bags." These guys are really persistent, though. When we wouldn't have the carpets, they tried with the ceramic pieces and jewelry and other little odds and ends. Finally, we settled on a few bracelets, which we got down to three euros for two. Satisfactory.
Then it was lunch time! Yay for food. I had at least ten pieces of bread, and they served us tuna fish salad and couscous with chicken and veggies. It was pretty delicious.
We then journeyed to Tangiers, about an hour ride away. The drive was nice, though.
(scene from the van...the lovely spot you see on the right half was on the window)
This city was much more modern, with McDonalds and clothing stores and such.
We walked around a bit, then walked into what I guess I would call a natural herbs shop. They had everything from lipstick and hand creme, to saffron, to medicinal herbs. The guy who worked there spoke just about every language. As a joke, Victor asked him if he could talk in Chinese, and he actually did.
I actually bought a little bit of this stuff that's supposed to help you stop snoring. Apparently ever since I arrived in Europe, it's been a problem. Liz says she doesn't remember me ever snoring last term. I think maybe it's the really flat pillows they have here. Who knows, but this stuff seems to work. I don't even know what it's called...I should probably look it up to make sure I'm not ingesting something extremely detrimental to my health.
Some sights from the ride back to the ferry:
Ta ta for now.
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