Proud to be an American!

As we near the 4th of July, I remember how proud I am to be an American. Even though I rebelled, married a Spaniard, left the country and adopted a new culture and lifestyle, I am and will always be American. I am very proud of it and maybe even more so, as I sometimes feel like I'm the only American for miles around.

The World Cup has given me more reason to be proud and patriotic.

When I was home last I made sure to buy a big American flag because Pablo said, during the word cup and 4th of July we have to hang the American flag outside our window to represent! I though great idea! So I did just that, I bought the flag at Lowe's and we hung it out the window on the days America played their World Cup games.

Our window

I felt very proud having my American flag out the window while everyone else had their spanish flag (we put the spanish flag out during the spanish games!). Now everyone knows there is an American among them! Not sure how I feel about it as now I feel like I'm stared at but that is a whole other story.

Back to the World Cup.

So, on what happened to be America's last game, I had put the flag out the window, like I did 3 times before. We lost but I still kept it outside the following day because I was proud of America's showing! On this day, Pablo and I were at home preparing lunch, we sat down, right by the window, ate lunch and had a good old time. We finished and started clearing the plates. As we finished up I checked the flag because the wind would often blow the flag up on the window ceil and so I would fix it and let it hang down again. But this time as I went to fix the the flag.....I saw it.............a HOT DOG!

What the hell, how did a hot dog get on my flag???

We are technically on the 4th floor but really its the 5th so how anyone could chuck up a hot dog from the street and have it land on our 5 inch window ceil is beyond me, so we concluded it must have come from above. But someone had to think really hard and have good aim, and just the right touch that it would land right on, again, our 5 inch window ceil.

Why would anyone throw a hot dog out the window???

Typical answer: "They are Spanish, there is no answer for them."

My first reaction was oh my goodness,,,, a hate crime,,,, they hate me, I'm being discriminated against. I hate all Spanish. Why can't I represent my country? Why do you have to be so mean. I started screaming my new Spanish profanity so all the neighbors could hear. (we have paper thin walls and I hear everyone pee and sing in the shower. We are very close here)

Pablo laughed and laughed and laughed.

I have to admit (after a week), it was pretty funny, maybe ironic, maybe an accident, but pretty damn lucky to get that hot dog to land and stay right on the flag. Pablo seems to think it was a coincidence and I think it was on purpose. We'll probably never know.

Anyway, below are the pictures to prove it.

Julie told me about this video on the internet about American's winning goal in the 90th mintue and said it was really good. I looked it up and pasted the link below. It, once again, made me even more proud to be American. It has a whole new meaning to me now that I'm an outsider looking in. These are my people and I miss them so much. No matter how long I stay in Spain, no many how many little spanish children I have, I'll always be American, no matter how much my new family tries to change me.

The people in the video will always be my people and I will always be proud to stand next them, root for anything and everything American no matter where in the world I am. That is the power of the United States of America!

http://usa.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/best-youtube-ever-2.html

Happy 4th of July America! I'm proud to call you mine!

Visitor, Espicha, Walk & Concert

We were fortunate to have another American visitor in Madrid. My friend Chris from college stopped in Madrid on his european tour and we got to hang out. I was bummed we only had one day with him since we had already made plans to go to Mieres for the week. But we made the most of it. Chris stayed the night at our house, we did his laundry and then we took him downtown and showed him some of the main sights.

Plaza Mayor

Museo del Jamon

After we left Chris we headed up to Mieres and went to the espicha. We went with Pablo's parents because whenever anyone says espicha we are there! It was the end of the year party for the adult school where Pepo takes his english classes.

We enjoyed some tapas and sidra and Pablo's parents showed us how to dance since we need some major help. We don't want a repeat of our first dance for our island dance because after watching the video all we did was make-out since we have no idea how to dance. Very embarrassing. The husband of Pepo's english teacher has a band so they played all night and it was actually pretty fun.

Espicha

Dance Machines!

While in Mieres we went on a nice walk that my family did and told me about when they were in Mieres. I was a little jealous they found a good walking trail that I had never heard of before so Pablo and I recreated my family's adventure by doing the same thing!

Mieres

Big Bike

Lastly, we had the chance to go to the La Oreja de Van Gogh concert in Mieres, right next door to Pablo's house. I'm a big fan of theirs but they changed their lead singer so I was a little hesitant to go. But we got free tickets from a friend so we decided what the heck. We braved the rain and really enjoyed the concert. They are really good live and the new singer has a great voice.

Braving the rain

Camels, Berber lunch and Hookas

Our third day in Marrakech we decided to ride camels. This was Pablo's priority along with smoking a hooka and since he was the birthday boy and no one else had any better ideas we all agreed. Najat set us up on a tour and we were picked up at the hotel at 10am. We didn't really know what to expect but we were told we'd ride camels and then have a traditional lunch with a family.

Our driver and english guide were both very nice and met us at our hotel, walked with us to our van and drove us to the Palmarie. It is an area outside the city that has tons of palm trees, huge houses and tons of camels for the tourists who don't have time to go to the desert and ride them. Our guide book called it the Beverly Hills of Marrakech. As we drove through, we saw all the different camel places, golf courses and new housing developments. It was very suburban. We passed all the main camel places and proceeded farther into the palm trees on a dirt road. I have no idea how the driver knew where he was going but finally we arrived in the middle of nowhere and stopped by a group of 7 camels and a little house made of clay.

Our guide and camel man led us over to the camels and started dressing us up one by one in our blue dresses and head scarves. We had no idea we would get dressed up so we had a good laugh at everyone. Then they loaded us up on the camels one by one and what a sight that was. Jeanne was the first to get on, which was easy, but when the camel stands up you need to hold on for your life because they stand up with they back feet first. This means for a couple seconds your face is pointing straight down to the ground. Then finally they stand up with their front feet but its quite a ride. It was hilarious to watch everyone!

My camel was in a real bad mood and didn't want to stand up. It was growling and pissed. I was freaking out and thought I was going to die. And its name was Laura of all things. Finally she finally got up and we started our journey.

I have to say that riding a camel is not the most comfortable thing in the world. First of all I had a death grip on my seat because I felt like I was going to fall off the whole time. But we had a nice ride around the Palmarie, through the little clay houses and luxury neighborhoods. We were probably on the camels an hour and that was plenty of time for us.

After our ride we headed to the clay house where we had a wonderful lunch. The woman who lived there cooked us couscous over an open fire and this wonderful salad. The woman was hilarious just talking and talking and laughing. She was quite a character. We shared lunch with our camel guide and english guide. Our camel guide told us stories about how my dad's camel was in the new Prince of Persia movie and how he did stunts as a camel rider for other Hollywood movies. Our english guide answered all questions my dad had from religion to politics. All the things you aren't supposed to talk about but he was very kind and answered all of them!

The house we had lunch at

All of us after our ride

Before our lunch was served our host decided to call all of us girls into the adjoining room one by one. First they called in Laura and we had no idea what they were doing. Then Julie was next and all us finally made it in. Our host had pulled out her clothes and dressed all of up in them. It was hilarious to see Laura, she had the best outfit on by far in my opinion. Then we surprised the boys with our beautiful outfits! It was pretty entertaining.

All dressed up with our host

Couscous

Salad

After camel rides we headed back to the Riad. Today was the day Pablo, my dad and I got our Hammams. Great way to clean all the camel smell off you! So we relaxed and enjoyed the afternoon before our last night dinner. We headed to this fancy restaurant by our Riad that Najat recommended and made reservations for us. They had belly dancing and we enjoyed our last Moroccan meal. After dinner we headed up stairs to their room top terrace and shared a hooka and after dinner drinks. It was a great way to end the trip!

Our last dinner

Dancing with fire (part of the show)

Dad and Pablo shaking their bon-bons

Moroccan Salads

Hooka time

Marrakech Day 2

After the wonderful first night in Marrakech we were all feeling pretty good. We woke up to beautiful sunny day and headed up to the rooftop terrace for our first Marrakech breakfast, served to us by the great ladies at our riad. We had mint tea, crepes, bread, yogurt and fresh squeeze orange juice. It was delicious and just what we needed to start our day exploring the city.

Professional tea pourer

We didn't have any real plans but decided to heads toward the main plaza and check out the souks (market). We left our riad and walked the short distance to the main square and were amazed at all the action. Cars driving back and forth in no apparent order, people all around, music playing. Our first problem was how were we going to cross the "street" with all these cars whizzing by in no apparent order. We braved it and somehow we all made it across unscathed. It was intense.

We were immediately bombarded by monkey men and snake men and people selling henna tatoos. They spotted us a mile away and we were dead on a arrival. We got our first taste of the very pushy moroccan people, always looking for a way to take your money, and they made out good here. The monkey guys threw their monkeys on Julie, my dad and Jeanne. Pablo wanted the snake and we were all laughing and taking pictures (actually I was running from the snakes and monkeys) it was all fun until they demanded money and Pablo thought they would give change. My new husband, precious darling, learned the hard way- why would they ever give change? He gave those snake guys probably a weeks worth of money but he learned his lesson fast.

So after being completely overwhelmed and ripped off in less than 5 minutes, Pablo argued with the guy for change and I thought there'd be a fight, we headed into the souks. It is a maze of tiny stores selling everything you can imagine, tourist gifts, clothes, jewelry, dishes, spices, fruit, rugs, everything. We walked and walked and walked, looking at all the shops, dodging people and motor bikes and mule drawn wagons. We had no idea where we were going and probably looked like 7 scared Americans. The shops were really cool once you get past the hustlers. It was fun to see all the things they were selling and if we weren't heckled at we probably would have enjoyed them and stopped and looked at things a little more.

We all kept saying, when does it end, where is the exit? After a good while we finally found a way out of the maze. We were headed in the direction of a mosque Najat had recommended and was highlighted on our map. We figured if we headed to the end of the souks they should be right in front. Problem was once when we left the souks we learned that hardly any streets had street names, our map only showed the major streets and we had no idea where we were. We followed dad as he seemed to know where we were and we walked, and walked, in the hot sun with people everywhere. Laura didn't feel good and we need water.

We finally get water and pull out our map to try and figure out where to go. First mistake! Don't pull out the map! Before we know it we have this man telling us where we have to go and he'll walk us there. We learned quickly that there aren't many, if any people willing to help out of the goodness of their heart but my dad starts following him. I'm like dad he just wants money. We try to lose the guy but there is no where to go. Finally we are back to where we started, an hour later, and paid the man to leave. We realized coming out of the souks we went right instead of left and we were right where we wanted to be. So we find the mosque but it is surrounded by a huge wall and we can't see anything and we aren't allowed in because we aren't muslim. After circling the thing we finally find a cafe in the museum and sit to have a drink. I think at this point everyone was in a bad mood, we walked for hours and ended up not seeing anything. Our glowing compliments of Marrakech after our dinner the night before had been erased when we were faced with its reality today.

We enjoyed iced mint tea and relaxed a bit and tried to find the energy to face all that again.

My dad can never sit still for too long so he was trying to find the fastest route to the next Mosque, the famous one, near the main square for the next stop. I said the best way is to go back the way we came because we are never going to find the streets and we'll just get lost again. After some debate on how to get there and making two wrong turns at the start, we ended up going back through the souks and luckily made it back to the main square without any problems. In a short time we had become professionals, we dodged the motorbikes and mules like pros, we ignored the hassling every 5 steps and broke free into the square.

At this point it was lunch time and we needed some much needed fuel. We thought a place up high overlooking the plaza would be good. There were so many to choose from but one had a ton of flags and was far away enough from all the music and hustlers of the square we thought it would be good. So headed over and found that it was a cute restaurant, with a nice terrace and they served beer! SOLD! We order 7 beers a mix of food to share and relaxed.

view from restaurant

After 2 rounds of beers and food in our tummies we felt a little more confident. We headed over to the main mosque so we could finally say we actually saw something! Again we ran into another busy street we had to cross. This was by far the biggest we've had to cross and it was scary! They had crosswalks but no lights and no one stops for pedestrians. There is no way to describe it. See video

The mosque was very cool and it was sad we couldn't go inside. But it had nice grounds so we explored and took pictures. It was next to a very nice garden with tons of roses but it wasn't very well maintained so it was a little sad.

Mosque

At this point it was time for some people to go back to the riad for their Hammams. We had signed up to get Hammams which are like baths. You get washed and massaged for an hour by a woman in our Riad. We read that they were a must do in Marrakech, we were a little nervous since girls had to go in only with their bikini bottoms and no top, but we went for it. Since there were 7 of us and they took an hour each we split it up between the two days. Not all of us had to go back to the hotel but we all wanted to. After the stressful day, our riad became our sanctuary. We heard the rooftop terrace calling our names and knew we had wine, so really how much better could it get!

After 4 of the hammams were complete we planned to check out the night market that happens every night in the main plaza. The vendors set up food booths and there are people telling stories and doing magic. After the day's experience we were all hesitant about going, the food we would find and the hassling we would have to endure. We made a plan to meet at a spot in 45 minutes and then we would head to a bar Najat recommended for drinks.

At night the market was really cool, smoke billowing up from the grills, the lights, and the music made it look really fun so we head in to check out the food stalls but we are once again bombarded by the men working there. It was insane but now we knew to ignore and move on. It was a little hard though because how were we supposed to eat when we couldn't get a good look at the food with all these men in our faces? We made a full loop and finally just sat down at a place that look realitvely clean. It turned out to be fine. We got a menu, ordered some kebabs, sausages and couscous and watched the circus aorund us. Once again we were surprised by how good the food was. We had no problem eating everything. After a bit I was feeling more confident and really grew to like the market. If we had more time I would definitely come back and eat there again. It had a real laid back atomosphere full of tourist and moroccans once you got past the hustlers.

Kebabs

After dinner we headed to check out the 'shows'. There were the storytellers the magician and various other random things. Finally it was time to meet back at our meeting point and head to the Kozy Bar for drinks.

The bar was really fun and nice. We sat on the rooftop terrace, enjoyed the views and alcoholic beverages. It was a good end to the evening and oh yeah, Pablo's birthday! Happy 32nd Birthday husband!