Semana Santa en Salamaca (y otros cosas de mi vida ahora)
¡Buenos!
Sorry about the short and inconsistent messages of late. I am in the process of buying a new computer charger and will then be able to show you guys some photos and write at length about the variety of situations I’ve landed myself in.
In brief, the last week has been interesting. I hopped down to Morocco with the crew of random English-speaking nationalities. Overall, the country (or what we saw of it: Casablanca and Marrrakech) was great. The food is incredible, the people are fantastic (most of them) and the culture is completely foreign. We all got sick for a spell in the middle of the trip, which proved a trying and depressing 24 hours. But once we recovered we were able to enjoy Marrakech and I got used to the haggling and came away with a sweet camel leather coin purse (a must for traveling in places where a chunck of change in your pocket can be worth over €10) and a plain silver ring (something I’ve subconsciously desired for a long time) for decently cheap. The covered souks market in Marrakech truly is a site to see. The colors and sounds and smells are overwhelming, in the best of ways.
On my last night we got out of our uncomfortable and disease-lingering hotel room and found a riad called ‘Jardin des Reves’ (The Garden of Dreams). We only went in on a whim and when we saw the inside we immediately knew it was out of our range. There was a garden courtyard and a wading pool and all of the furniture was black and white and a full 24-hour staff, etc. We let the manager, George, show us around anyway and he only had one room that could accomodate 3 (Dave had gone into the desert with the girls we met in Casablanca so it was just Nick, Adam and I at this point). It was gorgeous. He said his usual pricefor the room was €150 per night. We laughed. I guess the backpacks and dirty clothes hadn’t alerted him to our budgets, but he then said, since we planned to stay 2 nights (which I had at that point) he would give us a good deal, €60. It was still too much, more than the hotel, which we thought out loud that we could return to if all else failed. George was adament to host us and made the final offer of €50, that would be under €17 each, still out of our desired price range but the place was magnificent. We accepted.
Although the room was pristine, h said we had to wait for them to prepare it for us. We went back downstairs to the courtyard where he gave us mint tea (a disgusting traditional Moroccan tea served for free everywhere, even in shops, that we had downed far too many glasses of that week) and a tray of assorted cookies was produced. We were as happy as plums (whatever that means). George was equally happy to accomodate us and beamed with excitement (as everyone ineveitably did) upon finding out where eahc of us was from. Soon our room was ready and I realized what the preparation process entailed. There were red and whte rose petals everywhere (even floating in the half-filled sink) and a bottle of cold mineral water with three glasses waited on the black wooden coffee table. We then realized we’d landed ourselves in a honeymoon suite, literally.
That night we ate at a traditional Moroccan buffet and turned in early to watch CNN (one of the three English channels of 200+ on our flat-screen cable TV, the rest were mostly German porn). In the morning Nick and Adam set off for a one-day desert tour and I flew to Madrid, just when Morocco was becoming the Garden of Dreams it had been advertised as in my mind prior.
I spent one night in Madrid where I returned to the street with the cheap Indian food and saw the Prado (truly impressive), which missed out on last time, the next morning before taking a train over to Salamanca, where I am now. On the train I met a group of three guys from Newcastle (two Brits and an American from New Jersey). We ended up hanging out last night and I am currently trying to figure out how to meet up with them today (as we eglected to exchange contact info yesterday) so we can play some football in the park and then enjoy more Semana Santa fesitivities. Last night there were parades all through the town and sermons given by PA to the masses gathered in the courtyards in front of churches (of which there are many here, and they’re all magnificent inside a nd out). Statues of Jesus and Mary adorned with candles and flowers were carried throught the streets and so many people were out to watch and eat churros.
Tonight I’ll be in Salamanca again and then tomorrow I go to Santiago de Compostela, the city where I experienced my first encounter with that dangerous four-letter word called Love four years ago. I’m kinda nervous about it. But it should be cool to be in the third holiest place in the Christian world during Easter.
In other news, in my absence I was voted Match Secretary for Guilford Rugby (meaning I schedule all of the matches and get the refs and am in charge of the blog), which I was kinda unsure about at first but have accepted. I also registered for classes, I’m taking ‘History of Christianity’, ‘Buddhist Emptiness Theory´, ‘African Drumming’, and hopefully an English course to finsish my writing minor and I’m trying to get into the full Ceramics 1 or Photo 1 classes. Holla. I’ll be living with my friend Luke and two girls who I only kind of know but they are both great. Luke and I are going to brew beer from the apartment, I can’t wait.
I can put my bangs in my mouth now.
Love, Life, etc.,
MBG in an internet cafe overlooking the main plaza in Salamanca, Spain, Europe, the world, the Universe, A blade of grass under Nick Hunter’s boot on the Linwood rugby pitch in New Zealand, probably…
