botanical garden in madrid

took a break from studying to practice some shots with my camera.

just wanted to share.

Mallorca

Eat, Sleep, and Drink.

That was pretty much the theme of our trip.

We pretty much went from white, red, to brown. Well, I’m still recovering from the mild sunburns that I earned from our little vacation. I went with Antoinette to the island of Mallorca, which is off the Eastern Coast of Spain. Amazing and probably some of the most relaxing days of my life.

I have mixed feelings about Mallorca. Mostly, because the beaches are amazing, but the people were speaking mostly… Dutch? German? I can’t even tell you. All the restaurants had menus in 3 or 4 different languages. Even the tv channels were in random languages. It was just sad that my last few days in Spain didn’t feel like Spain. 

but, it was beautiful =)

Morocco

So this is pretty sad, because I’m currently on a bus tour of Southern Spain and a little bit of Portugal and every hotel has a different policy for the internet… which means, I only have internet when it’s free. Therefore, I’m writing this post for a word doc… and I’ll try my best to add pictures later.

I need to catch up (which is the story of my life) and so here’s my recap of Morocco, AFRICAAAA! So we booked a round-trip flight to Tangier before reading the description that Tangier is like the Tijuana of Mexico. Fail.

It’s okay though, because I still had a wonderful time, and Morocco leaves me wanting more.

We basically stayed in Tangier for the weekend and made a day trip to the beach town, Asilah. We didn’t actually SEE much, but it was definitely a huge culture shock.

You know you’re in Morocco when you notice a change in:

1. The language. They speak mostly French and Arabic and understand very little English and Spanish… It was pretty funny getting around bc we had to write down prices and make sure we had the exact change, etc.

2. The food. There was flavor and a little bit of spice. Ah, heaven.

3. The demographics. I was pretty much scared for my life traveling with three other girls. We dressed conservatively, but still got attention. Most women were covered from head to toe or just weren’t outside at all. There were men EVERYWHERE. It was like women don’t exist…

Reasons why I would go back (aka who wants to go with me Spring Break 2011?):

1. Exchange rate (they use dirham). We ate a full course, seafood meal for 5 euros… I bought a magnet for like $.20

2. My AMAZING hostel/palace. We chose a place from hostelworld and the family was soooooooo nice. After we arrived, we heard another knock at our door, and we were pretty much scared out of our minds. We peeked through the door (with the chains still on) and it was the mom with a GIANT plate of couscous. Later in the trip, she brought us fruit and MINT TEA (sigh, so good). The family even drove us back to the airport for free!! (This experience leads me to believe that Moroccans are friendly once you get to know them).

3.  My henna! Although this lady was pushy, I still liked it. =)

4.  Most importantly, I still need to ride a camel.

arabic.

asilah

mint tea and our henna

in my palace (our hostel/apartment)

BULLFIGHT

or they call it the CORRIDA de TOROS.

surprisingly, i was able to stay for about 75% of the show. the fights started to look the same.. which is the reason why we decided to leave.

after searching for tickets all day.. we took a chance and decided to buy them at the stadium instead. we got to the ticket counter and we told them we wanted the cheapest seats they had. he laughed at us and told us it was 11euros. i was confused bc i thought they had seats for cheaper than 5 euros. we asked him exactly what we were buying.. and he told us it was the TOTAL for five people.... LOL so we asked him for the next cheapest seats and ended up paying about 3.50euros per person. the seats were pretty high in the stands, but it was better bc we couldn't see the blood and gore.

Every CORRIDA de TOROS has 3 bullfighters that each kill 2 bulls. Each fight takes about 20-30 minutes. So the entire thing is about 2-3 hours and 6 bulls are killed. I didn't realize at first, but it's sad bc it's such an unfair fight..

The first round includes a man and horse in armor. The man stabs the bull with a spear between the shoulder blades.

The second round has a few men with shorter spears with some sort of decorations. They run up to the bull and stab it in the same place. The decorations dangle off the bull for the rest of the "fight."

The matedor finally comes out and places his hat on the ground to dedicate the fight to someone. This part is really interesting bc he uses his cape to distract the bull.. and the bull just goes in circles around him following the cape. Bulls are colorblind.. so they're really only following the movement of the cape. After a few passes, the main bullfighter takes a sword and stabs him between the shoulder blades. Once he hits the right spot, the bull staggers and falls. It's pretty surreal.

The worst part of the CORRIDA is when they bring out horses to drag the bull away. It usually leaves streaks of blood.... My pictures are like a million times zoom... so I couldn't actually see all the blood... lol or else, i might have fainted.