So, I can rightfully say that this week has been the best of my life. My short 17 years on this planet haven´t produced anything better than this, so I think that it is a fair statement. When you´re here in Spain, (the land where 40 oz of beer is cheaper than a bottle of water...) you are bound to have some good stories, so throw in a trip to Morroco and Semana Santa, and you could have a publishable story.

So it started 2 Wednesdays ago when it was the cumpleaños of one of the girls in my group. So..... to make a long story short, the spanish police aren´t as bad as the american police. We had about 40 people in this little flat, and I guess the neighbors didn´t like that too much, so la policia showed up, took some passport numbers and were off, thats about it. (*note to mom and teachers: We don´t do this every day, close, but not everyday) That was the begining.

The next day with the school, we went to the ¨campo¨ to have a spanish style picnic. In total we cooked up about 10 gigantic platters of paella over open fires at the base of the Sierra Nevada, and we brewed up a 95 liter trash can of sangria, yes, you heard me right, on a school outing we brewed up a trashcan of spanish jungle juice. Ahh the life. We ate paella, drank sangria and sat around lazy in the sun all day. The scenery was amazing, it was comparable to that generic scene from The Sound of Music, but with a lot more wine, and minus the nazis. That was day two.

On Friday we left for Africa. We took the bus from Granada to Malaga, Malaga to Algeciras, and then the ferry to Cueta in Africa, then across the border to Tetouan in Morroco. Besides being in a coach bus, in a massive group, the trip really made an impression on me. For me to have been in an Islamic country, especially in the times we are in now, was an amazing experience for me. To really see and experience the culture first hand, and not be fed the classic steryotypes about the extremists or the terrorists was an amazing experience. I cannot even say I scratched the top of Arabic culture because my trip was only for the weekend, but I can say that to experience the culture first hand, completely destroyed all of my previous thoughts about this culture. The people were amazing, we walked through the berber market in the medina in Tetouan, and I was offered tea at almost every corner. Luckily, i´m not blonde haired and blue eyed, so a couple times I was mistaken for arabic, and I bet I could of pulled it off untill i opened my mouth, (my grasp of arabic runs out quite quickly.) Tetouan´s Medina is the second oldest in Morroco, second to Fez, and to walk around in the tradicional market was an experience I´ll never forget. It was raining, it smelled like absolute shit, but to see the people interact and go about their daily lives was amazing. This was day three.

That Saturday we went to Tangier and Tetouan again. Tangier isn´t a typical ciudad morroqui because just about every major country has had a part in developing that city. There are distinct neighborhoods for the specfic countries (USA, UK, France, Italy, Germany....) But they also have a more touristy Medina in the center of town, which is alright, but that area is swarming with pick pockets and faux guides, Its pretty tough to distinguish a genuinley nice Morrocan from a Morrocan who just sees your wallet. Over all Tangier is alrigh to visit but not my favorite in the country. From Tangier we went to the Northern Coast. We went to the place were the Atlantic and Mediterranean meet, and there I folded and I rode a camel. (very touristy, but it was fun) Probably the most obvious thing that I noticed was that the landscape was nothing like how I imagined it to be. It looks exactly like the south of spain with green lush mountians, and abundant water. This makes perfect sense, considering that they are so close, but I´ve always had the image of endless desert, and camels and berbers.... yet another stereotype busted. That was day four.

Sunday was definatley the best day of the trip. We went fom Tetouan to a city called Chef-Chouen to the south, in the Rif mountains. This was probably one of the most beautiful cities I´ve ever been to. It looks exactly like the typical pictures from greece, with the whitewashed buildings and sky blue domes. The city is built on a cliff side with natural running water everywhere. The Bazaar and the Medina are some of the best preserved in Morroco, but the catered more towards the hippy tourists than to the locals. I was with three of my friends when I met a local man who ended up inviting me to his house, because his wife ¨gave the best henna in town.¨ So we followed the man to his house, his family gave all tea with na´na in it (really sweet spearmint tea) and the woman of the house gave the girls I was with tradicional henna tatoos on their hands. While they were getting that done, the man who I followed, (Said, pronounced Sah. Heed) gave me a copy of the Koran. It was an amazing experience to be in essence, be taught the koran by a morrocan in his home. He ended up giving me the book. It was amazing how easy it was for me to communicate in this arabic country, compared to how difficult it was for me to communicate when I went to Portugal. Everybody I spoke to in Morroco spoke spanish, but nobody I spoke to in Portugal spoke spanish. It was very strange. After that amazing experience, we retured to the group and had our last kous kous kebab meal of africa, and we headed back for granada. We left Chef-Chouen at 15.00 and a ferry and three buses later, i returned to my flat at 23.00. I was pretty beat when I returned home, but right as I shut my eyes in bed, this music started in the street. So I walked out on my balcony to find a religous procesion going down my street. I forgot it was Semana Santa. Semana Santa is sort of hard to describe, It involves a lot of processions through the streets carring amazing, old altar pieces that can weigh up to around 1000 K, ( the first one I saw was from 1520, and wieghed 1100K)I´ve never seen anything so detailed as these altar pieces, they are all covered in fresh flowers, and are usually of carved wood, or of intricate gold and silver. There are men with incense that walk close to the altars as well, so when they pass the street smells like burned rose petals for quite a while. Los penitentes are the people who are dressed up like the KKK, for lack of a better explanation, and they all carry massive velas (candles). There is usually an amazing marching band that accompanies the processions that play very strong, intense music, and every procession of everyday is in correspondence to one day of the passion. The altar pieces depict the passion step by step. Everybrotherhood of every church wears different colors to represent their church. And I lucked out yet again, because I live on a very central main street in Granada, and all I have to do is step onto my balcony to see these prcessions. That was day five.

Days 6 7 8 were mainly spent at school and watching the processions. There are all different kinds, and the most notable one was a silent procession, where the street was packed from side to side, all the lights were out, and it was completely silent. The smell of the incense and the light of the candles were the only thing present, there was one break of silence were a gypsy sang a hymm to the altar in pure Flamenco style. It was completely hypnotizing and erie at the same time. This altar was so tall as well, that the men carrying it had to get on their knees to carry it in the church, remember that they have a shared load of 1000 some kilos on their backs with their knees on cobble stone streets.... es un imagen fruerte.

The Thursday we had off, so we decided to go to the nearest beach to take the sun. We took the bus from Granada to Salbreña, and had an amazing day on the beach. (back to my summer color) Friday was spent relaxing at home and watching more processions and a reggae concert around 3 that morning. Saturday we went back to the beach, but the weather was absolute shit, it rained on us and was windy,... nothing much to report there. Sunday was easter and the processions were the most fruerte this day. The ressuretion had the strongest music and the best altars of carved gold and silver, some roads where drapped in gardenias and lillies.... good day. However, i did miss having my good easter supper. Somehow having a fried egg sandwich for easter dinner isn´t as fulfilling as the one back home. ( ahh,the kitchen of a student....)

thats about all i have so far.... oh wait, there´s more, this morning when I went to dry myself in the shower, there was a cockroach on the towell that I didn´t happen to notice untill it was crawling up the back of my neck. Thats not a good way to start the day. Other than an infested apartment, life is beautiful.

-eric