Rain, Crazy Moroccon's & Future Stuff

Hard to follow Marty's fantastic eastern adventures, but I shall try.
On the Pommy side of the English channel I have been up to many an adventure myself since my last blog. Trips such as Amsterdam, Germany, Spain and Morocco and even small tripsaround the English isle all come to mind.

Most recent was the Melissa and my effort to the supposedly sunny Spain and Morocco. Being fully aware that Marty has written a blog before me on the same country I will try not to repeat to much of his encounter in mine.. Although in such a random place such as Morocco, I think it would be hard to talk to two people who had a similar experience.

After sloggin away at our English school for the last couple of months, Melissa and I thought we quite deserved our upcoming trip to the sun drenched lands of near equator, Spain and Moroc. Unfortunately Spain let us down BIG time. It was hard to get a real feel for the beautiful city of

Barcelona. I had heard so many great reports about its uniqueness, unrivalled carnival summer atmosphere, blah blah blah blah blah blaahhhhh. FOR ME IT RAINED!!! It rained so much, that our solitary warm sweatshirts that we had belatedly decided to bring a long, almost got holes in them from such over use. To compound matters, my undying optimism that it would soon turn into the goldern paradise I had been promised, prevented us dishing out a measley 5 euro for an umbrella... Eventually Melissa saw sense and purchased a bright orange umbrella that gave us a sort of fluresent reflective glow reminding our fellow depressed tourists what the town should actually look like.

Spain also conspired to unsettle our travel plans a little. It seemed the Spainish had all decided to test out its train network for the first week of April. I hoped they all liked it, because we certainly didn't get much of a ride. A word for the wise, when traveling in Spain, perhaps prebook some travel.... A million and one hours in the bus later, (I like to exagerate when it comes to bus travel...I hate buses, If you were 1.93m tall you would no what I mean.) we arrived at various destinations including Valencia, Grenada, and Algeciras. Granada was definitely the highlight, but it was cool to get a quick peak at the America's cup village and Team NZ HQ (and boat) in Valencia.
Grenada is a fab little town if you ever get the chance to go see it. It was essentially the first and the last place the African armies (the Moors) occupied. It has an amazing legacy in the Alhrambla left behind. The Alhrambla is said to be the finest piece of Islamic Moorish architecture in the World. Melissa and I didn't manage to get inside (tickets were booked up to a month in advance, not the weeks that we tried), but we did see it from across the valley in the old quarter of the city.

Morocco is something else.. I would describe it as intense. It is difficult in someways to look past the poverty. With tourists there for one time only visits, and the money they offer in such demand, many hard sell pushy tactics are used. Similar to Bali I suspect. When confronted with the urge to buy something, always more than half the the price stated!! Every one is a potential sales person as well. People in the street may ask you if you want help to find a hotel, but they are surely enough always in it for the commission, this is subsequently added on to your price. As you can tell, I probably didn't get completely over the superficial sort of things completely. Its definitely very smelly, dirty, polluted and intense. Its also very lively, unique and beautiful in many ways. I found it hard not to wonder if there was a better way. Seeing rubbish just piled over banks into rivers made you realise that there is hardly enough money at times to feed people let alone develop basic infrastucture.

We traveled to Marakesh, Essouira, and Fes. Marakesh is the tourist capital of the country, extremely keen to sell you everything they can make or bake. Essouira is much more laid back, and has a beachy feel that is very very cool. Fes is the older more religiously conservative city with bags of history and 14th century streets to get lost in. The craft of the people in these cities was amazing. We saw leather making, silk and carpet weaving, and wood turning to dazzling standards. Truely impressive amounts of time and effort goes into a hand woven carpet! Some can take up to 5 months for one person to make, with over 450 ooo notes per sq metre!

Morroc is definatly an interesting place for woman to visit. In some places like Fes, it is very intriguing for the locals to see a 'Western' woman. Fes prides itself in its religious conservatism, in my mind this seems to clash with its often in your face rudeness in which locals will look Western Woman up and down learingly. It can be a very uncomfortably experience to walk down the road even in conservative western clothing in Moroc.
Overall though, it was a great place to see, it has soooo much to offer for a tourist in terms of sights, sounds, and experiences.

Next on the travel agenda for Melissa and I is Galway, Amsterdam, Italy (to see Marty!), Paris(to see Melissa's Parents) Niece and maybe Italy again!
Then of course its off to Japan! If you don't already know, Melissa and I are off to Japan in August to take up Jobs at the British School in Tokyo. Crazly I will be Teaching yr 1-3 (5-7yrs olds) P.E!!!!! Can't wait to make the little blighters run..just jokes.

Love to all, see you at Christmas

Rick and Melissa