Our Spring Break Schedule:
Thursday through Sunday: Budapest, Hungary
Sunday morning to Sunday night: Barcelona, Spain
Sunday night to Tuesday night: Agadir, Morocco
Tuesday night to Saturday morning: Marrakech, Morocco
Saturday day: Layover in Casablanca
Saturday night to Sunday morning: Barcelona, Spain Round 2
So readers, brace yourselves for this will be a rather long entry.
These past ten days were everything I imagined and better. I went to Budapest with Mallorie and Jennie both of which I knew, but not really well, and ended up falling in love with them. Jennie coincidentally goes to IU and we have hundreds of mutual friends and Mallorie goes to Boston University. We decided to take the night train considering it was a nine-hour ride, and it worked out flawlessly. The car had three beds, a fancy pull out sink, and the smelliest conductor my nose had ever been acquainted with. We arrived in Budapest at 9 am and were hassled by a lurking cab driver, that ended in a good laugh when we read in the “Top Ten Budapest” book to specifically not take a cab when he is waiting in the train or bus station..oops!
We finally arrived at the Carlton Budapest, a great hotel with great location that happened to be a business hotel. The staff had never seen the eyes of youngins like the three of us. The room wasn’t ready for check in so we bought our tickets for the Hop On Hop Off bus and began our glorious day. The first stop announced was the Citadel which seemed like a breathtaking view of Budapest so we hopped off, took a long stroll around, sat down and overlooked beautiful Budapest while listening to Mallorie’s ipod speakers. Once we got back on the bus and it began to drive we realized we saw the COMPLETELY wrong area due to the fact that on the other side of where we were was the national monument and many statues and green gardens. Once again…oops.
We continued to ride and stopped off the second largest Synagogue in the world. The temple was spectacular and was a perfect way to honor the Passover celebrations none of us were properly partaking in. Outside of the temple was one of the best Holocaust memorials I have ever seen, a silver tree and each leaf had a person or a family’s name on it. For lunch we bought ourselves a bunch of delicious treats and had a nice little picnic by the water then saw the Parliament building and decided it was nap time.
That evening we went on a magical sunset boat ride down the Danube river. The scenery was stunning, the company was fabulous, and the champagne wasn’t half bad. After the lovely cruise we went to one of the best Italian dinners I’ve had thus far in Europe at Faustos. My meal consisted of a delightful caprese salad, scallops, and many many glasses of red vino. So good! Then met up with some boys that were friends of friends and went clubbing in Budapest.
The first bar we went to was really cool with lots of sitting areas, graffiti, and hookah. We met some British men with whom we began discussing our future travel plans. We informed them that we were going to Agadir, Morocco when he started blurting out, “AGADIR IS FUCKIN’ WENDAY.” We were all super confused with what WENDAY meant, and he just repeated over and over “FUCKIN’ WENDAY.” Eventually he got the point across that Agadir is a very windy city. We left the first bar after meeting many a creepy men and headed over to a club called Morrison II. This club was awesome, the bar area was outdoors and there were multiple indoor dancing areas. The first one played generic music and was extremely crowded. The second was a karaoke room where the lyrics were on three different screens so the entire room could be belting the correct lyrics at the top of their lungs. The final and favorite room played everything from Sweet Dreams to Jitterbug and we loved it.
On Friday we rode the funicular to the top of the hill on the Buda side were we saw the beautiful National Museum and the Castle and church. Afterwards we decided to finally make our way to Margaret Island. Margaret Island was in the Top Ten Budapest book and we had our hearts set on it since the early morning. The only problem was that people kept misleading us and telling us we could walk to Margaret Island…honestly the whole day we were questioning, “Can we walk to Margaret Island??” and the question remains unanswered. Regardless it was great, we walked around parks, saw a UNESCO heritage site, and ate some delicious cotton candy. Post Margaret Island time we took a nap that resulted in us waking up at 8 am. We were tired little girls.
We officially declared Saturday Museum and Bath House day, and Museum/Bath House day it was! We went to the Museum of Fine Arts after having some great corn on the cobs from a stand outside. The museum was great, it housed my new favorite Van Gogh, which was a piece that he painted whilst being in the insane asylum. The piece was titled “The Prison Courtyard” and you can truly feel his angst and pain.
After we headed over to the Bath House. Being the silly girls we are we forgot towels and flip flops, so we had ourselves and bathing suits….and this wasn’t the most sanitary facility. We had to use the bathroom before heading over to the pools, and ive never tried harder to stand on my tippy toes in my life. The room reeked of sulfur mixed with #1 and #2, super vile. We perseveared and headed to the indoor pools, and after seeing only men over 60 we thought maybe we wanted to head to the outdoor pools. The pools were so crowded, we couldn’t even imagine what high season would be like. Obviously we were harassed by a group of scary looking German men and followed around by a guy on a kick board until we decided it was time to head on out of the Bath House. We met up with my friend from freshman year again and went out to an authentic hole in the wall Hungarian Restaurant. Polished off a nice bottle of vino and headed back to the Carlton to get some rest before our 6 am flight to Barcelona.
We spent the day in Barcelona where we met up with the fourth member of our traveling crew Liza Bo and saw my friend Seidmon again. When we arrived the weather was horrible, but we kept our positive attitudes and the sun came out soon enough! We went to Parc Guell again because Mallorie was a first time Barcelonian and we all didn’t mind seeing Gaudi’s work round 2.
We ate some amazing food and had some GREAT laughs. About an hour before it was time to leave for the airport the sky grew pitch black and began to POUR rain. Within a few minutes the four of us were the sole people on the streets and everyone was laughing at us from their cars. Eventually the rain turned into a hail storm with wind so strong our umbrellas were turned inside out and we were laughing so hard each one of us peed our pants a little. It was absolutely hilarious when we showed up to my friend’s house to get our bags and we were dripping wet as if we had showered with our clothes on. Back to the airport, and off to Morocco.
We landed in Marrakech, Morocco at 9:25 PM and the car we reserved to drive us to Agadir obviously didn’t show. So although we didn’t want to we hopped in a cab. Our first cab driver was named Abdul and he was not a happy camper to have to drive four hours at that time of night. He stopped literally every five minutes and it began to freak the four of us out. Eventually he stopped at a gas station where he found a friend of his from Agadir and pawned us off onto him. He also ripped us off but we were ready to just get to Agadir.
Our new driver was named Hussein and he too was big on the stops. I guess Moroccan cab drivers just don’t understand that it’s a business and seem to think the stop and go scene is okay. About two hours into the drive Hussein stopped at a great little gas station, having to pee Mal and I went in to see some great looking food and Hussein chilling with a cup of coffee and about five friends. I was like, “Hussein, lets get going..?” He responded with, “few moments.” I guess that’s just how Morocco does it!
Upon arriving to Agadir we were exhausted but checked into our hotel. The lobby looked nice enough so we thought it would be an okay situation. The bottom line is that the Golden Beach Resort is not so golden at all, I wouldn’t even give it a bronze…it was garbage. When we got to the room all of the windows were open and I smelt a stench that is truly indescribable. Here I will try though, perhaps body odor mixed with a week old wet towel. Liza and I slept on the couches and woke up at 8 am to some seriously loud construction. To say the least this was not an ideal living situation for our spring break beach get away. So we got ourselves dressed and decided to see what Agadir had to offer. This Morrocan town is literally a beach, and nothing, I mean nothing more. But what we did find was an incredible all inclusive resort across the street, so we meandered in and got a great deal for one night. One hundred dollars a person for one night, ALL inclusive.
And since we were checking in at 10 am the day of we were able to score eight LARGE meals out of the situation which includes breakfast, midday snack, lunch, and dinner, and did I mention all you can drink? We were some seriously happy campers. So we lounged by the pool, met a ton of really nice people, and ate till our bellys were going to explode. We sat by the ocean and watched a beautiful sunset. The weather was great but truth be told it was a little “FUCKIN WENDAY.” All in all it was a great day.
The next day was not so great. Yes breakfast was amazing with every delicacy a girl could dream of, but the sun as not shining and as I said before there is nothing else to do in Agadir. So we booked a car and decided to head back to Marrakech during the day time. Our drivers showed up and turned out to be 21 year old and 19 year old brothers. They immediately loved us and put on their 7 hour mix tape. This tape had some classics including Eminem, 50 cent, our favorite song Stereo Love, and obviously some Jay-Z. We jammed out the entire way and the driving boys got a total kick out of us. The only way to communicate with them was through my broken Francias, but somehow they understood and we got by! The scenery was beautiful and we were so pleased with our decision to book it to Marrakech in the day time. We saw mountains and rivers and the sun set from our car and it was all great. When we got to Marrakech our drivers hooked us up with some guys pulling buggies to put our luggage in. The walk to our Riad was pretty nutty. Mallorie and Jennie invented this term called “bobble-heading” and this is when you cant look straight ahead you are constantly looking to your right and left in order to take everything in. Walking through Djemaa el-Fna the first time was a sight to be seen. Belly dancers, monkeys, snake charmers, food stands, henna artists, basically absolute insanity. We were staying in a Riad which is basically a small Moroccan home turned into a hotel, it typically includes 5-7 rooms and has a courtyard, roof, vegetation, and a body of water. Our riad was brand new literally opened in March and therefore our little buggie men were unaware of its location. Luckily all the people of the alleyways of Marrakech were kind enough to guide us, we literally had an entourage of 20 kids and men guiding us to Riad Azukar.
This riad was amazing with great service, perfect location, comfortable beds, and a spectacular roof that overlooked Marrakech. On the roof was a group of 4 people formerly from Thailand that currently live in London. They told us to go out to a club named La Couptoire with them and we weren’t about to turn down an invitation. We smoked Shisha and danced to Arabic music spun by a great dj then decided it was time for a grub fest. We went to a great little kebab stand where they did it the authentic way. Loved it!
The next day we ventured into the Souks.
Let me tell you if that this was my jam! I loved the colors and literally wanted to buy everything offered to me, turns out bargaining its quite my forte. We wandered the souks for what seemed like days until we went to the Ben Youssef Medersa. The Ben Youssef Medersa is home to the most beautiful architecture in Marrakech and was a former school of the Kuran that closed in 1962.
The tiling on the walls was magnificeint and we could go upstairs and take a look in the rooms that the students spent their time in. This building dates back to the 14th century and was one of my favorite sites on the trip. On our walk back to the riad we decided to get some Henna which they said would last three weeks. I would round this down to about three hours, because by the time we got home it was completely gone…can you say rip off? For dinner we went out to a delicious Morrocan meal including belly dancers galore. Jennie and I got a little tipsy off of the wine and were ready to pass out early on in the meal.
Thursday morning we had arranged to get a tour guide. She turned out to be wonderful. Her name was Ouidad and she was very well spoken and had some of the greatest grown up braces id seen in some time. She took us to see the Bahia Palace which housed an old king, his 4 wives, and his 24 concubines, busy man no? Then we went to a couple of parks and sat down for lunch in an old palace. After lunch Ouidad surprised us with bringing her absolutely adorable three year old daughter, Rehab, to spend the afternoon with us. We went to a Berber pharmacy where we bought herbal oils, snoring remedies, got 20 dirham massages (1.5 USD) and other goodies. We had a great day of learning with Ouidad.
Friday was my most favorite day of all. We woke up at 9 am and went on a tour to Ourika Valley. The valley is in the Atlas Mountains where we were able to go inside a Berber home. The Berbers are Islamic mountain people that live off their own wellbeing, meaning they make their own bread, have their own cows for milk, own honey bee hives for honey, etc. They sat us down and explained to us their tradition and gave us a tour of their home. He showed me the “Berber Bathroom” and having to go I asked where the “Berber Cloth” was to cover myself. He closed the door and I began to make my business when all of the sudden a HUGE SNAKE slithered out of the hole I was peeing in!!! Without pulling up my pants I sprinted out of the “Berber Bathroom” screeching about the awful snake.
The entire Berber household was laughing their asses off and my three friends all peed their pants in laughter. Then the Berber man beat the snake to death with a stick…it was quite the experience.
After that we went to another Berber pharmacy where we snagged some more cheap massages and free samples. Then was off to the camel rides! It was such a tourist trap but we loved it anyways. Finally was the main event, a hike up to the Cascades. Our walking tour guide had a dog named Joe Rasta and his whole body was shaven other than his head which looked like dreads. It was a hoot.
Once we got to the cascades we realized that it was FREEZING water from the top of the Atlas Mountains but somehow the entire village began to cheer for us. Literally from the top of the mountain were kids and people cheering us on to make the leap into the ice cold water. Somehow we were persuaded into it and it was amazing!!! We laughed for an hour after. We ate lunch on the river and chilled with some Morrocan men sitting on a blanket behind us.
Our flight was at 6 am again and we had a 7 hour layover in Casablanca where they wouldn’t let us out. In transit we napped and ate until we landed back in Barcelona at 11 o clock. We went out to one of the most fun nightclubs of my life called Razzmattazz and both me and Mallorie got our phones stolen. We stayed at the club til closing at 6 am and stayed up til our flight at 9.
These were the best 10 days ever. Now I am waiting for my best friend Melanie to arrive, and she is not happy with the no phone situation.
Munich for Spring Fest this weekend!!!
