Que romantico! The very wise Margeaux Taylor once told me, “Boys suck. Which is why I’ve moved on to MEN.”  Which is exactly what I’ve done (as flattering as they were, 12 year old frat daddies just weren’t cutting it).

The other night, my two friends and I went to a 400 year old bar (400 years old!!) to get some tapas. They had gone to the bathroom, so I went up to the bar to get a glass of wine. Two adorable old men (think Spanish version of guy from Up! and Spanish Jack Nicholson) heard my accent and asked where I was from. When I said Tejas, they got very excited and said oh! dun-dun-dun-dun while “riding” horses. We talked a little bit more, but the bartender finally told them to stop bothering us so that we could eat. 

That is when I met Vincent. This crinkled up little old senor shuffled toward me and handed me a napkin with a note scribbled on it. It was hard to read, but essentially it said that my dress was like the color of lilies and he thought my henna tattoo was beautiful. He then came up five minutes later with another note that said something about how they say that the three daughters of Elena are beautiful, but they are nothing compared to my friends and I.

Oh, Vincent. I would have shuffled away into the sunset with him right then and there if he had asked. 

 

Oh naan naan what’s my name? Mmmm food! My favorite thing.

If you ever go to Africa, don’t listen to all those people with sissy stomachs that say you should be weary of the food. Eat everything. This weekend was some of the best food I’ve had yet. Kebabs, couscous, stuffed tomatoes…mmmm it was all so good. 

Maroc/Marruecos/Morocco. Everyone I asked here who had been to Morocco before how they liked it always replied with the same answer: Fue una experiencia. And that’s exactly what it was. I have been fortunate enough to have traveled to different places all over the world and have seen some amazing things, but this weekend’s adventure is definitely up there with craziest lifetime experiences.

For one, I was able to cross some more things off my bucket list:

• Went to Morocco 
• Crossed the Strait of Gibraltar 
• Got henna. The women doing it were hilarious. One of the guys on the trip asked to have a camel drawn on his back. The girl starts drawing it, but then bursts into giggles once we all realize that her camel ‘humps’ look more like lovely lady humps. That’s when the other girl leans over and decides to make it a ‘five-legged’ camel. All of the women there, Moroccan and American, were hysterical with laughter. For such a conservative country, I was at first taken aback by their vulgarity. But, girls will be girls. I guess they have to express their sexuality somehow. 
• Bought a hookah
• Went to a hamman. A legit one at that. When most people think of a hamman, or an arabic bath, they think of a luxurious spa environment. But, we did as the natives do and went to a local hamman in Meknes. The hamman is like a dry sauna where you go to wash yourself once a week; if you’re a woman, it is also your main place of gossip, so you could be in there for hours. When you walk into a hamman, you leave your top (and bottoms if you’re real hardcore) and sense of personal space behind you. Literally every crevice of my body was scrubbed down by a giant, topless, very forceful black woman. She was very friendly though and laughed at me when I didn’t understand that her tapping my back meant lay down over her leg so she could take a layer of skin of my back. It was like being washed by an older Moroccan version of Queen Latifah. Definitely a memorable experience. But, my skin feels amazing now!  

And here are some things that weren’t on my bucket list, but are still noteworthy:

• Got in a bus accident. Slow down family gossip tree, I’m okay. It was on our way to Fes. I’m not sure what happened because I was sleeping and woke up to the bus going off the road into the ditch, so I think the truck in front of us slowed down suddenly and our bus swerved to try and miss hitting it. We ended up side swiping it though and cracked our front windshield and lost a side mirror. Really though, everyone in the bus was fine. It just made our traveling time closer to 15 hours instead of 11 because we had to wait for the police to arrive to file a report.  
• Sat on a 95 degree bus in the African heat. Our bus just had issues. 
• Bought watermelon from a truck on the side of the road, in Africa.
• Peed on the side of the road (twice) in Africa. Everything just sounds more amazing when you tag ‘in Africa’ to the end.  
• Got asked for my MSN messenger screen name by the hotel doorman. The last time I used MSN messenger I had buck teeth, a tamagotchi, and a crush on a boy who wore Jincos.