The Days in Morrocco

Across the long Straights of Gibraltar, with the wind in our face, we went.

To Tangier we went for one night instead of streaking right through. Then
we travelled by a rickety old bus to a town called Asilah. We stayed
there for two nights. The town is right on the coast and we got to watch
the waves break on the rocks for half of an hour. After Asilah came
Rabat, the capital city and it is much more liberal. We got to see a huge
Roman trading post that is from 500BC. There were lots of people playing
on the beach and surfing off the coast of the city. Now we are staying in
Meknes, one of the Imperial Cities of Morocco. We found an extra day in
our schedule so we are staying here for another day. Next we go to
another huge tourist city called Fez. Then we go to Chefchouen, a town at
the foot of thre Rif mountains. Then we head back to Tangier to end the
visit to Morrocco.

While we were walking in Rabat we saw a kid sleeping on the corner at
3:00 with people walking 1ft away. Almost when and where ever you sit
down the are kids walking around selling gum or tissues for their food.
Some kids even run market stalls.

Our hotel in Meknes is called a Riad,or garden hotel. The sitting room
has a really arabic feeling. There are rooftop terracesand lots of
Moroccan crafts and art. I like the low round pillows to sit on. The
people are good managers because they try to entertain the guests instead
of some places they say here is you key, bye.

Some people are really nice and don't want tips for rederecting or
letting you look at things in their shop. But others want up to a half
dollar or make you buy what you touch. Were been able to talk and laugh
with people that don't speak very good English. And of couse we don't
speak Moroccan. So it is fun to try to communicate.
My favorite food so far is Thé de Menthe(mint tea with mint leaves and
green tea)and flat bread(which is a version of a pancake). But we've had
some really good sweets from the market. I really liked the Hiara soup
that we had in our hotel.
There is lots of stuff positive about this country including the market
stalls and the tourist trinket shops. We've been seeing alot of ruins of
palaces and the picture attached is of my dad and I in front of a roman
ruin and a ruined mosque of Chellah in Rabat.

Where Was Erich Now?

Where was Erich now?

He was at:
36 8 2.9N
5 20 45.4W

For those of you who didn't figure out the last Where was Erich now (WWEN)
(See Monday, January 7, 2008 Blog posting at
http://www.whereiserichnow.blogspot.com ) Erich was at the Alcazar in
Sevilla.

The Alhambra

I ascend the last steps to the top of the Broken Tower, the tallest tower
in the Alhambra, and look left to the immense cluster of mountains called
the Sierra Nevada powdered with white and with an accompanying foreground
of brown. I really enjoyed the sights off of the top. One could see all
of the town streching out below, with white houses and tall church
towers. I would have made a really, really, tall tower in the middle for
a better view but the Broken Tower with the famous bell was still pretty
tall. The mountains looked intriguing.

I couldn't find the tower in which the maidens of the Alhambra lived in
Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving. But the fortress still holds
up to the comments other wise. One other thing that I really liked is
towers. The towers followed almost the exact pattern one would think of
as a medeival castle. Also the towers were spaced excellently and were
just the right hight when looked at from a distance. My favorite was the
Broken Tower because it was the tallest and was at the point of the
castle since the fortresses shape is like boat. Broken Tower gave a
tremendous view of the surrounding area. Mom says the Alhambra is famous
for its gardens, terraces, Almodahar architecture, and all its fountains.
It was a lttile hard to take it all in. She is writing about that. For
me, I liked the tower and the views best.

Mosque Cathedral of Cordoba

For the last two weeks we have been traveling with my visiting aunt
Michele and seeing some of the main sites of Andalucia. My aunt flew into
Sevilla where we stayed for 4 days then we took a train to Cordoba.
Cordoba is a little more to the North and East. For three days we saw the
sites of this city. After Cordoba came Granada. I think we should have
stayed one less night in Cordoba and one more in Granada. In Granada we
saw the mighty Alhambra(see separate posting) and the Cathedral there.
Then we moved on to Malaga and to the coast for the first time in five
weeks. Here we saw the Picasso museum (see separate posting.

In Cordoba we saw interesting sights including a Roman bridge and we went
to a famous tortilla espanola restaurant where I met the owner. The most
famous sight in Cordoba is the Mezquita, a mosque and cathedral started
in the 7th century. The size of this mosque is amazing, and also the
quality is remarkable. If you wanted to walk the perimeter the walk would
be five minutes at a moderate pace. This amazing Muslim site of prayer
was built in ten months.

The most immpressive part was the 50 red and white columns each 10 ft
away from each other and 15 ft tall. All of the 15 ft pillars were reused
as to consume less time. Some are Visigothic but mostly the columns were
Roman.

The orange garden was splendid and remined me of the gardens in the
Alcazar in Sevilla. There were also cyprus trees and one olive tree to
symbolise the mosque. Originally the gardens were just olive trees but
the Christians replanted it.

When Cordoba was taken by the Christians, a hole for the Catedral was
taken out of the Mosque and the city church was errected in the middle of
the Muslim pillars. This is one the biggest, and prettiest mosques in
Spain.

There are TWO OTHER POSTINGS with pictures on my blog.

www.whereiserichnow.blogspot.com

Picasso Museum

The world would be a different place without those that are mentally ill
in our society. Those few challenge the minds of others in the society.
From inventions to art, the world has been changed by them. When I was in
the Piccaso Museum I had the idea that maybe Piccaso was a little off the
deep end. His art really challenged my thinking.

This museum is in Malaga, which is where Piccaso was born. The museum
had 12 rooms of paintings organised according to time. The museum
presented his early works where his paintings were fairly normal to later
works where the lines get blobbish and irregular to his ending ones which
are getting a little more regular. There were a few tidbits of painted on
pottery.

My favorite was titled Man. It was the oddest and most colorful of
the paintings we had seen. It had many different color pallets. Also it
was in the second to last room. It was a sombrero on a sphere with a
bunch of out of the ordinary lines that distantly resembled a body.

In my opinion his paintings were a little overload on the weird side.
As I said in the begining, I think that Piccaso might have been a little
off the deep end. One of his painting that was one of the weirder ones
looked like a pair of boots laying on the beach on top of a tan ball that
has two white circles paited on it. His painting were really weird and in
that case chllenged my mind, and plenty of other peoples' minds, too.

While in Malaga we also took a tour to some dolmens, a natural park, and
a town calld Ronda which was up in the mountains. Attached is a picture
of Aunt Michele and I at a restaurant ovelooking the gorge in Ronda and
the "new bridge" which as built in the 1800's.

Holidays in Sevilla

I have spent the holidays in an apartment in Sevilla. Christmas was
great
with all of the Belens and carolers. New Years was a blast with the grapes
and yesterday was Three Kings Day and the cake and parade. Holidays here
are much different than they are at home.

The main thing here that the Sevillans do for Christmas is set up
huge numbers of Belens, or nativity scenes. Belen is Bethlehem in
Spanish. The province that we are in is famous for it's Bethlehem scenes
which are set up all over the town. When we went around looking at
Bethlehems there would sometimes be carolers standing around singing in
Spanish. Usually kids don't get presents on this day.

New Years was great! There is a tradition where as the bells ring in
the New Year, you eat 12 grapes (one with each clang of the bell) that
represent the months of the year. I wonder how no one has choked on the
grapes yet. We had been seeing little packages of white grapes in the
store and people were showing up the the Plaza Nueva with these packs of
grapes - there were hoardes of people from many countries. People drink
Spanish fizzy wine and throw 6ft ribbons that zing all over and get
tangled up. The crowd was so loud that we couldn't hear the bells for
when to eat the grapes. There were fireworks and everyone was yelling.
After we got back Mom and I stayed up watching Dr. Zhivago until 1:30 am.
I think it was the first real New Years Party I have ever been to.

On Three Kings Day there was a huge parade and when I could see the
whole road all of it was people. There were floats and marching bands and
everyone in Seville must have been there. The floats in the parade barely
fit by the people and it
was like a shock wave how it completely closed around the float and then
open back up around the next people that came. The candy was totally
different because it was all hard stuff and no gum or smarties or any
thing but hard
stuff that you can buy for three cents at the store and you had to bash
and
smash you way to get anything. CARAMELO CARAMELO PORFAVOR CARAMELO means
candy candy please candy so every person watching was shouting. The
floats had all of
the differrent styles. One was even Harry Potter. I didn't think they had
that book over here or at least it wouldn't be as famous. There is also a
special cake that is meant to be eaten on the holiday and it has a little
tiny pottery painted king inside the cake and who ever gets the king get
good luck for the rest of the year. I got the king in my piece!!

Over all the holidays have many differences between the U.S. and
Spain, and there are some similarities like what days they celebrate. The
people over here celebrate the holidays differently also. On New Years
there are grapes that resemble months that you
eat one per dong of the clock. Christmas isn't as much for Santa as is
for Christmas. And Three King's Day is a really big holiday here.

Where Was Erich Now?

Where was Erich thoroughly enjoying surroundings now?

GPS clue
37.383696N or 37 23 1.3N
-5.991250W or 5 59 28.5W