Saturday April 12 - Fez

After breakfast, we started today by driving up waaayyy above the medina of Fez, where there are amazing views. Observe:

Beth and I are SO ready for the day.

Then we drove down and started winding our way through the medina itself – on foot, of course. Just walking through a small part of the medina took pretty much all day. The colors, animals, food, scents, music and other sounds was a constant attack on the sensory system, but after a couple hours we adjusted to it. That was one of the most interesting days of my life, between what we learned about the medina itself from our guide, to what the storekeepers told us, to what we got to see and eat, to attempting to navigate our way through the medina without becoming hopelessly lost…

The first thing we saw as we walked toward the medina. A castle, I believe.

The doors of the royal palace, which was recently declared a public building (prior, it was private).

A glimpse of the alminar (tower) of the mezquita aljama (in Spanish, that means main city mosque; I'm not sure what an exact English equivalent is. Keep in mind all tour info was in Spanish).

The descent into the medina...

One of the MANY donkeys

Olives? Check

Books? Well, just the Koran...but, check

Sequins? Silks? Check, check

Rainbow-colored chicks? Absolutely

Snails? I'm glad you asked

Slippers? Uh, yeah

Fresh camel feet? Let me check. Yes

This was one of the coolest things we did or saw during the entire trip. We walked way up to this really tall balcony that overlooks the leather dyers, and the stench of animal skin was so bad that we had to shove mint leaves in our noses to keep from getting sick, but the unforgettable scene that unfolded before us was this:

They're pits in the ground, filled with dyes and leather and people all swimming around together so that the leather soaks up the color. It's a very traditional method of dyeing leather, and it's amazing to see. Right next to all the dyers are bright yellow animal hides stretched to dry in the sun. These too, will eventually be dyed.

This is a photo of a preschool, which is located in a tiny little room just like all the stores and homes and everything, right in the middle of the medina. The teacher was so happy to see us and let the students see us (foreigners). They're being taught in French, I think (the posters on the wall are in French). The two official languages in Morocco are Arabic and French.

A kid walking down a super narrow alley in the medina

Umm, donkey crossing? Donkeys for sale? Not sure

Mosque containing the tomb of the founder of the city of Fez, Moulay Idriss.

Here are two photos from the medirsa (I think that's the word, but that might be Arabic) - the Koran school. We went in right after the students left, and it was so quiet and peaceful.

Toward the end of the day we walked through the Bab Boujeloud gate, built in 1913. It’s covered with tiles – blue (the color of Fez) on one side and green (the color of Islam) on the other – and glimmers in the sunlight. Really beautiful.

The blue side

The green side
That morning most of us agreed to go to this cultural thing (uh, a little unclear about the specifics), because a) it sounded fun and b) we had NO idea how tired we would be after a whole day in the medina. Even though we didn't have much energy, we pretty much had to go to this thing, where there were a couple belly dancers and a mock wedding ceremony, because we had already paid for it.

Requisite belly dancer:

Beth and I met Julie and Britney on this trip. Here's Julie, dressed as one of FOUR women who are all marrying the same man in a wedding ceremony. Aw, how touching. Here, she's about to be lifted over everybody's head and spun around, probably so that she'll forget she's marrying a dude with a bunch of other wives.
Here's Julie, second from left wearing blue, with the main wife (in the middle with the huge headdress), the two other wives, and her new husband. Congrats, Julie.

Friday April 11 - Algeciras, Ceuta, Chefchaouen, Fez

Today Beth and I woke up at about 4 am and walked to the Torre del Oro to depart for a weekend in Morocco with and Spanish travel agency. We were supposed to leave the Spanish port of Tarifa and take a ferry to Tangier, in Morocco. But bad weather changed our plans, and we had to drive further and depart from Algeciras and landed at Ceuta, one of two Spanish cities in Morocco. From Ceuta we crossed the border into Morocco – official passport stamp and all. Then we drove for hours (three? four?) to get to the city of Chefchaouen. Along the way we passed lots of lush green valley-like land – not exactly the image that comes to mind when you think of northern Africa. Really pretty views.

In Chefchaouen, we stopped to check out the city and eat lunch. Our guide Abdul showed us around the steep winding streets of the medina, or the old walled city. Pretty much every city in Morocco either has or consists solely of a medina, which is always a walled city with extremely narrow winding streets filled with EVERY kind of shop you can imagine. Walking through the medina at Chefchaouen, we saw super small living spaces crammed in next to shops selling jewelry, spices, fabrics, books, meat, slippers, fish, furniture, beads, olives, sweets, leather belts/bags/jackets/shoes etc., interspersed with huge, beautifully decorated mosques and medirsas (schools for learning the Koran) that you don’t even realize are right there because from the outside all you see is a tiny door. Just walking down the streets is tough because every two seconds there’s a giant donkey packed with like 1,000 pounds of clothes/furniture/whatever trying to get by, and you really have to get out of their way. One second I smelled a spicy dessert baking, and then a second later I turned and saw (and smelled) a giant bloody goat head for sale hanging from a hook. The poultry seller will cut the head off your chicken for you while you wait and watch, while right next door (literally 3 feet away) a woman buys beautiful silk and brocade fabrics. Contrast much?

The entrance into the medina.

It was really interesting to see practically every street and house in Chefchaouen painted bright shades of blue. Abdul said this was to keep flies away, but I’m not sure a) how exactly that theory is supposed to work or b) that it is working at all. Anyhow, the tiny homes, doors and streets all painted blue are cool.

These don't need much explaining...

A view looking back up at the city.

For lunch we had amazing tagines of chicken and rice for something like 30 Dirham, or less than 3 Euros – about $4.50 each. All the food we ate in Morocco, especially the rice and meats, was unlike food I’ve had almost anywhere else. It was really heavily spiced but with sort of sweet savory spices, nothing that burned my mouth. Beth and I didn't drink any tap water there, which tends to taste like chlorine and can make travelers really sick. Whenever we ate it was a huge ordeal though, because there’s no real concept of having something already prepared to eat. Everything is made pretty much from scratch and each dish is made separately, so rather than make two servings of chicken and divide them up for us to eat, they’d cook the servings separately, one at a time. It took a lot of time but tasted good enough that it was worth waiting.

These are tagines for sale in the medina - they're made of clay and a lot of foods, especially rice and meat, are cooked in them. Their shape helps trap moisture and put it back into the food.

After leaving Chefchaouen we drove on to Fez, getting there with just enough time to eat dinner and go to bed exhausted.

Sunday April 6-Thursday April 10

Nothing much happened between the time I got back and April 7, when Mom and Dad came back to Seville, on their way to Madrid and ultimately on their way home. On calendars, Feria de Abril (April Fair) begins on April 6 this year, but technically it begins Monday evening. The fairgrounds near my home stay were decorated to the extreme, with paper streamers, thousands of paper lanterns and twinkling lights. The grounds were filled with casetas (tent-like booths with tables and chairs inside EVERY single one, and we’re talking about maybe more than a thousand of these things). There are also lots of carnival rides and games and booths for food. For a week, families all go to their caseta and party together, drinking rebujito (Sprite mixed with sherry, which is surprisingly good and very refreshing) and dancing late into the night. The womens’ dresses blew me away. I had seen them in stores but never believed that anyone really wore them. Well, they definitely do. The are full-length, made of heavy material, often polka dotted or plain (never patterns like stripes or flowers), with ruffles galore all over the bottom. Then they wear a shawl in a complementary color pinned around their shoulders, high heels, and matching bracelets/earrings/necklace/rings/giant hair flower. They are, without a doubt, the most cumbersome, senseless outfits I’ve ever seen. Oh yeah, and it rained and poured during much of Feria here in Sevilla, which made for extremely muddy fairgrounds, which meant that these poor women took hours to get ready in their best dresses, only to go get drenched. The men wear suits and some wear trajes flamenco (a special outfit of tailored pants, tight jacket and very low-heeled shoes, worn only during Feria). Walking though the fairgrounds, I was reminded of being at the OC Fair because of all the rides, kids, games and food. But then I’d wander by a caseta of impeccably dressed women and their impeccably dressed children, and I remembered I was in Sevilla.

During the week of April 7, which was void of school and work, I went to the Feria grounds a few times but ended up spending too much time indoors because it rained so hard. Every night the rain in Sevilla was on the news, because so much money is invested in the activities of Feria that some people worried it would be a huge economic bust. But it wasn’t. Sevillanos love their Feria, rain or shine.

The Feria gate, lit up at night.
Exhibit A) red polka-dot Feria dress.
Exhibit B) two more polka-dot dresses. Note: these women are walking around in the dirt with all their ruffles and finery.
Exhibit C) Elaborately dressed woman riding horseback.

A funny photo of a bunch of horse butts with very well-dressed riders. All these men are wearing very nicely tailored suits. And behind them, note all the casetas. There were SOOO many of them.Three adorable little girls, dressed in ruffles from head to toe, riding in a horse-drawn carriage. Even the horses are dressed up.
Incredibly cute little girl: please note that she is wearing a dress with more ruffles and lace than you can imagine, AND she has a pacifier in her mouth. You're never too young to dress flamenco in Sevilla.
Good shot (creeper-style, but a good shot nonetheless) into a caseta. Note two polka-dot dresses on the left, lots of chairs and tables, and the family eating and drinking together. Feria, in a nutshell.

Sunday March 30 - Lisbon

Today we took a series of trolleys out to Castelo São Jorge, which is suuuuper high up on a hill (Lisbon is a really, really hilly city, especially compared to ultra-flat Sevilla). Built by the Muslims during their occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, the castle fell to Christian control in 1147 during the Siege of Lisbon. Lisbon became the capital of the new Christain Kingdom, and so it was also the seat of the royal court. The castle was not dedicated to Saint George until the 14^th century by King João I. Between the 14^th and 16^th centuries one of the castle towers was used as an archives building for the Kingdom. The castle was the setting of the reception of Vasco da Gama (who discovered a water route to India) by King Manuel I in 1498. The castle HUGE, with drawbridges, turrets, Roman artifacts scattered throughout and sweeping ocean views. Entrance gate/doorway thing.
Amazing view of the coast. To the left of the bridge is a giant statue of Cristo Rei (Christ the King), similar to the HUGE one in Rio de Janeiro of Cristo Redentor. Lisbon's version, Cristo Rei, was a gift from Francisco Franco.
A view of the courtyard area from which the views are quite nice. Roman artifacts scattered throughout.
A peacock was there, just for good measure and aesthetic enhancement.

Awesome bridge and a small corner of the castle.Shot of the steep, tall castle walls.

A shot showing where you can walk - all up along the castle walls. Very few hand rails, combined with very strong wind and stupid tourists, make Mom sort of nervous.A shot looking out of the windows of one of the many turrets.

After seeing the castle, we headed just a couple kilometers away to see the Sé Cathedral. The oldest church in the entire city, construction began on the cathedral in 1147 – same year Castelo São Jorge fell to the Christians. The first building, finished during the 13^th century, is in the Romanesque style. At the end of the 13^th century King Dinis I had a Gothic cloister added, and his successor Alfonso IV had the main chapel converted into a royal pantheon in Gothic style for him and his family. The earthquake of 1755 destroyed the main Gothic chapel, the pantheon and the cloister. The cathedral was not fully renovated until the 20^th century. The cathedral is quite dark and has little decoration but is really beautiful nonetheless. Its floorplan slants oddly to the left as though to accommodate a structure to its right that no longer exists – but we never figured out if that was true or not.

For some reason I didn't take a photo of the exterior of the cathedral from up close. I took this one, looking across town at it, from the top of the elevator...read on.

Beautiful Portuguese-style altar.

Requisite stained glass photo.

Honey-colored ceiling of the main nave.

To end the day we headed back into the center of town and rode the Elevator of Santa Justa. The elevator was built by Raoul de Mesnier du Ponsard (an apprentice of Gustave Eiffel, which explains the structure's similarities to Paris' Eiffel Tower), to provide a link between the downtown area and Bairro Alto (the lowest and highest points of the city, respectively). Built in 1902 and originally powered by steam, the elevator is 45 meters (147 feet) high and is built in the Neo-Gothic style – it’s covered with filigree. Tiny winding staircases up at the very top provide beautiful views of the city.

The lift itself.

This is actually a really eerie image. This is the Convento da Carmo (Carmo church), built between 1389 and 1423 in the Gothic style. The church was a victim of the earthquake of 1755, and only its Gothic arches and walls survived. The empty arches used to support stone ceilings which fell during the earthquake, killing then entire congregation, which was in the church because it was All Saint's Day. Today, the former main altar is home to a small archeological museum with treasures of Portuguese monasteries.

A view of Castelo São Jorge from the top of the elevator.

A view of the plaza from the top of the elevator.

Around 10 pm that evening I hopped on a plane back to Seville, and Mom and Dad headed off to Morocco two days later.