Pero Barcelona, Es Que Yo Te Quiero Tanto!

found this old post that was never finished. i ran into a woman on the Path to 23rd last weekend that was visiting from Barcelona and she was so happy to know I loved it so much. just got a chance to reminisce, read along if you would like to as well :)

My second or third day in Morocco I mentioned to my friend Grace that I might want to go to Barcelona because flights from Morocco were supposed to be cheap and quick. 3 weeks later I booked a flight and a hostel and found myself thrown onto Las Ramblas with nothing but a book bag and a guidebook (and of course Grace). Fact is, after this weekend, I can easily say that I love Barcelona, or at least the taste I had of it. The city had everything I could have asked for and more, I didn’t want to leave! We went to school in Rabat on Friday and left at 11:15 after our morning classes for the airport in Casablanca, an hour away. We walked the airport giggling the whole way and got on the plane around 3 pm. The flight felt so quick, possibly because I was so excited (and it was less than 2 hours). While Grace slept, the man sitting began a conversation with me. He was a Moroccan working in Barcelona who had gone back to Casa to visit his family. He was very interested in why I was studying Arabic and was all up in my homework while I was doing it, haha. I think he was confused on where I was from though, we were speaking a mix of Spanish and Darija (Moroccan Colloquial Arabic) and at one point he heard me speaking to Grace (who doesn’t speak Spanish) and told me my English was very impressive. Lol.When we arrived in Barcelona we were an hour ahead and made our way to the Aerobus. It felt so great to begin speaking Spanish the second I got there, knowing almost everyone there was able to understand me, it felt so natural. The main language in Barcelona is Catalan, which sounds like most to a mix of Castilian Spanish and French and something else that I can’t put my finger on (a little Euskara and Latin is definitely present). Here’s some info on the language: http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Catalan/Catalan.htmlI found the language and the city fascinating. We got off the bus and were immediately surrounded by the crowds of people moving down Plaza de Catalunya onto Las Ramblas. It was pretty funny because we were so shocked by the amount of people wearing skimpy clothes, piercings and crazy outfits as well as the amounts of PDA and bi racial couples. Normally, none of this would shock us or make us excited but we had been in Morocco for 4 weeks, where none of this is visible on a daily basis. We were so happy to have a bit of a cultural change in the middle of our trip. We walked towards our hostel, marveling at all the shops and people and sounds and architecture. The Hostel (Center Rambles) was on a small street called Carrer de’l Hospital off of the Rambla. Going up to the room we felt like we were in an American (or rather international) dorm. There were students with large backpacks, on the computers, looking at maps, watching TV, speaking different languages, all over the place. A large majority of them were US American. We met and immediately clicked with one girl from Quebec, Canada which was Emilie, our roommate (we had 8 roommates, lol). Emilie was beginning a month long trip around Spain- by herself and without speaking much Spanish. I am very impressed by her fearlessness and independence, I hope to one day truly travel alone, with no program, no schedule, just a chance to experience something new. After letting Emilie get some rest (after a 15 hour trip!) Grace and I immediately changed and went to dinner, a beautiful restaurant called Tramoia (recommended by Anna Lustberg). We shared a bottle of Sangria de Cava (Barcelona’s sparkling wine), chicken croquettes with assorted sauces, bread with tomato and olive oil, mixed paellas and a beef fillet with vegetables. Suffice it to say that by the time we finished eating we were so stuffed we could barely move. We sat outside for a while and stumbled back to the hostel to leave to Catwalk Nightclub (another Anna recommendation). Catwalk is so great, it has two floors: the first with techno and girls dancing on a stage and the second with hip hop and popular American party music. Of course we spent the majority of the time on the second floor which was packed with young people, most of which were Americans living abroad. We ordered Cosmos and danced the night away. The next day we got up early and went out with Emilie, having croissants and orange juice in a café nearby. We decided to take a bus tour on the Barcelona Bus Touristic (a great recommendation from Anna) because you get a pay one price for the whole day and get to hop on and off the bus whenever you want. While you are riding you can plug in your headphones and listen to a guide (in whatever language you want) tell you about the city and the stops you are passing. Our first stop was of course Gaudi’s Temple de Sagrada Familia, an enormous cathedral with modern sculpture and gothic sculpture and designs along its façade. There is no way to truly describe Sagrada Familia, it leaves you speechless. All I can do is show picture to explain it (note how the construction is STILL not completed, that’s how important it is to the city). Sidenote: I love how important art and architecture is to this city and its government and its residents. After this we got lunch nearby and headed over to Park Guell (another Gaudi masterpiece) on the bus.

A couple of pictures of the weekend, somehow we went to even more amazing gems in the city that I didn't get to finish writing about. We must have fit a week's worth of places into a weekend but it was totally worth it, I enjoyed each second :

Maroc est un Reve

at the ancient roman ruins of volubilis, built by the carthiginians in the third century bc.
i fell in love with this flower, i felt like i could breathe in this place.
near meknes, morocco

so its been over three weeks since I have arrived in morocco and it feels like a dream.
sometimes, even in the moments when i feel frustrated, i have to remind myself that this is my life. that i am really doing this. that i am here: in morocco. in africa.
recently i got into a slightly drunken conversation with my buddy here, christina, about how we ended up in morocco and both of us had these almost cosmic explanations.

originally i planned to go to rome this summer to study art history (one of my majors) with my housemate, alexandra. to plan ahead i attended a summer study abroad info session which just happened to be given by my friend mark. as mark was presenting he flashed through slides of the different locations and i noticed an arabic intensive program in morocco and was immediately interested.
some background: since i have entered college and decided to study politics i have been interested in learning standard arabic (fuseha) however, every arabic speaker i discussed this with would simply tell me that arabic was too hard to learn in a couple of semesters. and so i never took an arabic class. then in the bridging the gap diversity retreat i participated in an activity that asked me what was a place i would like to visit and i responded morocco. this was possibly because it was foreign to me, possibly because it is an arab country with a french influence, possibly because it is a very liberal muslim country, because of its notoriously rich culture and because of its location, in africa, between spain and the sahara.
i told my mother about my interest in applying to go to morocco and i must admit she wasn't too happy, the program was more expensive for me, the credits didnt count towards my major and it was a country that she didn't know much about: she didnt see the point. because of this lack of support and my longterm plan to go to rome i applied for summer study abroad with rome as my first choice and morocco as my second. alexandra and i both turned in our applications after the priority deadline despite the large number of students applying for the same program (we were busy, and sooo non proactive) and as we did, i confessed to her my feelings that i was not meant to go to rome and that if i was rejected i would decide go to morocco. two weeks later alexandra and i are waitlisted for rome, the first thing i did was smile. and so it was meant to be. me and al-maghrib.

to tell you the truth morocco is much more fitting to what i was looking for. i am the only rutgers student who applied, in a small group of 10 american students (all of whom are adventurous and committed and experienced travelers), living with a host family in the capital city of rabat, in an amazing and ridiculously rigorous language program with amideast, in a country where i speak at least (at least) three languages everyday just to get a point across in daily interactions. this is me. i am here, learning something new everyday, completely out of my element and despite the struggle and temporary frustrations i thank God for it every night. layla saida (good night) from morocco.


good job grace koehler on catching this

ps: i have been reading "a thousand splendid suns" by khaled hosseini and iyanla vanzant's "acts of faith" religiously since i have gotten here. couldn't imagine this trip without these two books. incredible.