A Whole New World

I sleep anytime I am a passenger in means of transportation... so it wasn't surprising to anyone that I would immediately close my eyes the second I took my seat on the Ryanair flight to Marrakech. When I awoke I had been transported from one world to another. Stepping off the plane was surreal, it was straight out of a movie, the wind blowing my hair in the desert, the sun shining and the heat hitting as I walked down the stairs.

Once inside I got my passport stamped (helllllooooo Africa) and exchanged some moolah. Our hotel arranged our pickup and we were greeted with a sign so as to not have to barter our way into the center. We stayed in a Riad, a traditional Morroccan home or palace, ours was a home. Some of the photos I saw on google images are extremely extravagent, ours however was more modest but still gorgeous and authentic. After dropping our bags and not obtaining a map, we ventured out to get acquainted with the city.


Heyyy me in the mirror.

The fist day was spent wandering the souks, trying to get our bearings and decide on which purchases we wanted to make and where, although you can never decide where because almost guaranteed, you won't find it again. We had mint tea in a restaurant on the square. ** sidenote: tea is my new favorite thing. The square is a circus all day and all night, snake charmers, henna artists, orange juice vendors, kebab stands, lantern sales, this, that and the other. There was no way to get around anything other than putting the blinders on and shaking your head. We continued back through the souks until our hunger got the best of us and we headed to dinner.



Dinner was in a different restaurant in the square. The place was deserted when we first got there and we took that as a bad sign.. but we ventured in anyways after someone's stomach growled out loud. Up the stairs, on the balcony, we found others. We settled for a bottle of water and chicken cous cous with veggies. Freaking delicious. (Raquel will tell you of my love for this, considering it is one of our main dishes here in Spain since you can cook all of it on the stove) After dinner we headed back to the riad for bed. We were not about to go out in Morrocco and the streets were a little dark, so we thought it best to head back.

Let me tell you of my favorite part about Morrocco... breakfast. That is right, not the snake charmers, the extreme machismo, the millions of shops where I could barter my way to a still too high price... nope, the breakfast. Many of the time when we travel, the final decision as to where we should stay is based on the breakfast that place offers. Our first experience of breakfast was fantastic. We headed up to the rooftop, (i want one with my garden) and were the first ones up there. We were greeted and shown to a mosaic table inside the black berber tent. The day was cool but the sun was hot. I had just taken a shower and the steam was rising off of my hair. I unfortunately was unable to witness this, but my friends were amazed by it. It was probably the fastest my hair has dried in quite a while. As we were sitting there, freshly squeezed orange juice **Let me just tell you this was the most delicious oj I have ever allowed on my taste buds, made its way to the table, along with an assortment of fresh jam, honey, and date spread. We were given a choice of tea or coffee.. I chose the coffee as I knew there wouldn't be a shortage of tea that day :)) and then came yogurt, (I am now liking the plain) bananas, a semolina (read: pancake made of cornmeal) and bread. We smeared a variety of jam on both the semolina and the bread. Our breakfast lasted two hours and I could have stayed longer and had the same thing for lunch and dinner.



.... and then there was a cooking lesson