TEDx and Morocco!!!

TEDx Blog:

    Oh my goodness! I almost forgot to write about my TEDx experience! Well let me explain. So on August 2nd, I  was given the opportunity to speak in the union (quite a big deal… let me tell you) as a TEDx speaker. For those of you that don’t know what TED is, it is basically a youtube like website for motivational videos. The whole point of TED is spreading ideas and sparking new thoughts and inspiring discussions. So before you continue reading, go to www.TED.com and check it out. I guarantee that you will find one video that might have the possibility to change your life.
    So Lara, the licensing director for TEDx boarded the good ol’ MV Explorer on the last day in Greece to help orchestrate/ attend our TEDx event. A TEDx event is an independently organized TED event that is not organized directly by TED, but is based on the same values and ideas that TED is based on, but just created for smaller and more intimate audiences. So, Jami (the Communication Coordinator of SAS) decided to create a TEDx event for Semester at Sea! It was based on the idea of living with purpose, traveling with purpose, and something else with purpose. There were four speakers, one other student, a professor, and Lara’s husband. It was a pretty special evening, and truly showed me how much I loved speaking.
    All of the speakers spoke about different things, but all somehow intertwined into making yourself a better person, and the world a better place. I chose to speak about how to live a fuller life, and shared my life theories to the Union. I don’t really want to go into toooo many details, but when I have the video of my talk, I will post the link to this blog so you can all  watch it :D.
    So this blog has been quite rambling, sorry about that, but the purpose of this is to explain that Semester at Sea has shown me one of my talents! I never belived that speaking and motivating people was a talent, but TEDx showed me that it definitely was. After my talk, I had random people coming up to me telling me how much of a difference I made in their lives/ how motivating I was, and the feeling I got from that was unexplainable! It was a very special evening and showed me how rewarding public speaking can truly be ☺.

Moroccan Blog:

So here it is, my last blog entry written about a country! I might write a super emotional blog post about leaving Semester at Sea later in life, but as of now this is the last one about a country. Of all the countries, Morocco was the biggest culture shock for me and the least European country I have ever visited, but I absolutely loved it! It was such a great experience that I will explain… now!
(Side note: I hope you have all enjoyed the increased corniness that my blogs have become…. I guess I just get Nostalgic as my wittiness kind of fades away ☺)

August 7th:
    The first day in Morocco arrives! I am a little bit worried because we were warned that Morocco is much stricter than Turkey, and the fact that we were visiting during Ramadan only added to the anxiety. However, I was ready to take everything with open arms! Sooo I head off the ship to embark on our own personal Moroccan adventure with Olivia, Hannah, and Stephen. Olivia met a Moroccan named Anas through other SASers, who was essentially a Moroccan tour guide that would be our personal tour guide through Morocco. While I was excited to see what that entailed, I really had no idea how incredible our time with Anas would be.
    The ship docked in Cassablanca, but Anas lived in Marrakech, which is a much more happening town than Cassablanca anyways (and not to mention that pretty much the whole ship was also heading to Marrakech). So we take a cab (which is truly a roller-coaster type ride that is somewhat life threatening at times)  to the train station to catch a train, and we learn that there are no more trains running to Marrakech. So, we take another cab (really just driving in Morocco at all times was quite the adventure) to the bus station and buy our tickets. We have three hours to spare, so we head out to the old Medina (city) of Cassablanca to walk around and do some shopping.
    Stephen and I end up just sitting on a park bench for most of the time, while Olivia and Hannah explored the town. After a while, we head back to the bus station to catch our bus. I end up sitting next to this awesome guy named Zachariah and we ended up talking for about an hour! He was originally from Morocco (specifically a Berber village) and has pretty much traveled and lived in a ton of different countries. He was probably my favorite conversation that I had with anyone on public transportation!
    We arrive in Marrakech after a 4 hour bus ride, and Anas is waiting for us at the station. We take an open truck type of taxi to the main square area, which is right around where Anas lives! We walk to his apartment, which was SO cool to see. It’s hard to explain in words, but I will post the video that I took that shows his apartment, because it is nothing like any house or apartment in America. We arrive at his apartment just in time for sundown, which means it is time to BREAK FAST for Ramadan! Hannah decided to fast for Ramadan to have a true cultural experience, so it was very exciting for all of us to break the fast.
    Ramadan was very interesting for me to witness, because I assumed that as soon as the sun set, the people would have a HUGE feast and eat until sundown. However I was very wrong, so it was exciting to actually be able to participate in Ramadan (minus the fasting part) first hand. So as soon as the call to prayer was announced, Anas immediately opened the delicious Mango juice and water bottles and poured us all a glass. We then sat there drinking water, mango juice, and the tea and coffee that Anas kept making for us. After a few hours of louging on his outside “lounge area,” we all head to main square of Marrakech and witness the craziness that sundown brings during Ramadan. The square is absolutely crazy! It is alive with people and vendors and everything. It was so cool to see all of the shops and little restaurant stands opening up especially for the feast of Ramadan. While walking through, Anas explains that these restaurants are for tourists, so we stay far away.
    We then head up to this restaurant café thing and drink some sodas and coffee and relax. By this time it is about 11:00 pm, and there is still no food being eaten. So, we head back to buy supplies for dinner, and pick up some pita bread and this Ramadan cake to eat as an appetizer. We then head back to Anas’s apartment to eat our bread and what I thought, was to eat dinner asap. However, we then go back to his place where we leisurely eat the pita bread and Ramadan cake, and before I know it, I have completely fallen asleep! I guess I was super tired from traveling all day. But anyways, I get woken up at about 4 am by Anas explaining that it is time for the Break fast (which I though we already had with the bread and the cake), and I groggly head over to his apartment (because we are sleeping outside on his porch essentially) to see this massive feast of  chicken and potatoes with yogurt drinks and pita bread and all sorts of food. While I didn’t really eat the chicken, the potatoes and the pita bread were absolutely delicious! After somehow stuffing my face at 4 am, I go pass out into a deep sleep once again.

August 8th:
    We all wake up at a leisurely pace because most Moroccans sleep in very late on Ramadan to help make fasting easier. So we wake up and get ready at our own pace, and  get ready to head to the mountains! I’m not exactly sure what we are embarking to do, but I know that we are driving to some waterfalls and probably camping somewhere. So we get in our little Moroccan rental car and drive about an hour through the countryside, which was SO cool, until we get to the place to start hiking.   
    Okay, so we start hiking, and while it is a little bit difficult, It is nothing harder than a Pearlstein water hike or a good old day at Devil’s punchbowl (hahah). Until, we have to climb this rickety ladder on the side of the mountain to continue hiking, which kind of freaked me out. But then we continue hiking and reach some more waterfalls, and then Anas takes up literally straight up a mountain where we need to walk on all fours to get up. It was kind of very scary especially because I am not the most coordinated person. Anyways, I am wishing that we weren’t literally climbing up a mountain, but we are, and then we reach the highest waterfall (#7 of 9 I believe… because #8 and #9 are inaccessible pretty much) and relax on this large rock underneath this huuuuuge tree. Anas takes a nap while Stephen climbs a tree and Olivia and Hannah have fun in the waterfall.    
    It starts thundering and raining a little bit while we are there, which is surprisingly cooling, so we decide to start heading back. Anas says that there is an alternate route to get down, but I soon realize that this alternate route is absolutely unnecessary, and we are ACTUALLY scaling a mountain. Climbing up the mountain on all fours with loose rocks falling all around us and then having to climb down the mountain which is much more difficult then climbing up. Everyone else seems to figure it out, while I am like having 100 panic attacks and Anas has to actually hold my hand down the entire mountain. But, low and behold I did it! It was a fun experience, but after getting down I realized the route we took was absolutely unnecessary and was just pretty much the wrong way. But, whatever, because I definitely learned from it/ almost had 12  heart attacks and 100 panic attacks.
    Okay so I somehow make it down the mountain, while seeing some REAL MONKEYS along the way which was SUPER cool because I haven’t ever seen a monkey in its actual habitat. So I make it down the whole mountain (yay!) and then we go to the store to stock up on drinks and snacks for breakfast, and head to this little outdoor dining area right by the river. We sit there and drink and eat and relax and it is SO nice because we are so tired from hiking. We then drive all around the area around Marrakech because Anas is trying to find a place for to sleep and eat our official break fast. This drive includes lots of Kid Cudi and great music which really sets the mood for an incredible night drive.
    We arrive at this little restaurant with a REAL TOILET and running water so we literally go crazy!! They also have delicious coffee where we relax and drink and enjoy the night. We finally arrive at this lake “guest house”/ restaurant where we sleep on these little chair/ bed things that rock on the ground underneath this ramada type covering. We eat our first Tanjin dish for breakfast which is SO GOOD, and we all happily go to sleep full of delicious Moroccan food.

August 9th:

    After about 3-4 hours of sleep, we all wake up because we are being attacked by buzzing flies and the sun is already so warm and rising rapidly, and these little rocking things that we are sleeping on are not very comfortable. So we all relax and basically just lay there until Anas wakes up. We get our things together and head to another part of the lake that we are sleeping next to, to swim and such! So we stop by this bakery where Anas picks up literally like 8 loaves of freshly baked bread and throws them on me in the car and they are still warm and smell SO delicious. So as Olivia, Stephen, and I are all munching on delicious bread and drinking amazing juice we head to the lake. We arrive and set up our little blanket (aka Hannah’s sleep sheet) and jump into the warm water! It was so relaxing and nice.
    We continued to lay and enjoy the day while Anas went to buy food for us for lunch (even though he was fasting… what a kind soul ☺). He then comes back and prepares a full Moroccan salad with tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers, and olive oil and spices and so much fresh bread and it is SO DELICIOUS. He also brought lots of yogurt milk drink which is a Moroccan specialty and it is deeeeeeeeeeeelllliiiicccciiiouuus :D.
    After eating as much of the salad we can (which isn’t much :/) we all head back to the car and head to this town in the mountains to prepare to break fast. We sit down in this little restaurant while Anas and I head in to town to buy ingredients for our dinner. It is really cool to be in such a local town and to see how everything works and how everyone does business. We head back to the restaurant where Anas gives the restaurant the ingredients for our Tanjin, and they cook it for us! Imagine if that were to happen in the US…. It never would. Moroccan culture is very cool. The call finally sounds and we all dig in to all of the delicious food and drink and enjoy the warm evening. After we sit in the restaurant for actually 5 hours, we head back to Marrakech (before stopping at that great coffee place) to sleep at Anas’s house.
    We are all exhausted so we fall asleep on his outside porch couches before he gets back, but apparently he came back and prepared another full break fast meal for us! He wakes us all up for the traditional 3-4 am meal, and I am way to full to function, but groggily manage to eat some pita bread. After eating (from the 3 am meal and the meal at the restaurant), we are all too full to function and fall into a deep sleep.


August 10th:
    We all wake up at a leisurely pace (per usual) and decide to go shop around Marrakech. Unfortunately Anas has to leave (sad face) to go to the mountains with his friend, so his two neighbors lead us around instead. We had met these two men during the early morning feasts, but were normally in too much of a sleepy haze to properly acknowledge them. We head into Marrakech and do our standard shopping, get some henna (which was supposed to last three weeks but rubbed off after 4 days <ARG>) and go to a tourist trap to eat some lunch. Ironically, this was the first meal we ate at a restaurant that was not prepared by Anas, and it was the worst meal!
    After saying a sad goodbye to our home for the past 4 days, we head to the bus station to catch a bus home. We soon find out that the next bus does not leave Marrakech for 6 hours, so we walk to the train station that has much more frequent trains. The train station also has a MCDONALDS with Air Conditioning, free wi-fi, and bathrooms with flushing toilets and running water in the sinks! While I know it does not sound like a big deal, I had never been so happy to be in a McDonalds before in my life.
    We arrive back in Casablanca and while I THINK we are so close to a shower, we get hassled by like 12 taxi drivers who try to get us to pay 50 euros (freaking JOKE) to get back to the ship, but we finally get a normal taxi driver who gives us a price in dirham. After a small altercation with my taxi cab driver and the port gate, I finally find myself back on the ship taking the best shower I pretty much have ever taken.

August 11th:
    This is the FINAL day in port of the summer!! So sad ☹. So, Erica and I head out to see the few sites that Casablanca has to offer. We head to the King Hassan II Mosque which has the second highest minaret in the world, and is absolutely beautiful. While it was only built in 1994 (I think), it is still just as breathtaking as the mosques built hundreds of years ago. We then make friends with a taxi driver who agrees to be our personal tour guide for the day (even though we never asked him to do that), and drives us to the Bazaar. We shop around for a while until we get too hungry to function, so our taxi driver takes us to his favorite restaurant (that is open during Ramadan).
    We divulge in a delicious lunch full of freshly squeezed juice, cous cous, delicious coffee, and finish with a nutella crepe. Needless to say, the 320 dirham lunch (about 20 bucks a person) was 100 percent worth it. After lunch, we head back to the ship and say goodbye to our final port of the voyage.