between the lands

The title is true. Our first evening ever in Africa,(Morocco to be exact) and it was snowing. I guess it shouldnt be such a surprise(it snowed Granada the day before), but its just not what I expected.

What is there to do except make the best of it? After meeting up with my boy Rob, we hiked up a mountain and had a snowball fight with some local kids.

The snowfall in Granada the day earlier was the first ever in jessicas life,(FLA. represent!!) but she demonstrated much skills in snowball packing and guerilla warfare tactics. [JESSICA SEZ: i had seen snow before but not while it was falling. and the truth is i got clocked in the head many more times than i made a hit of my own]

ANDREW RETURNZ:
Oh yeah..Morocco. We spent a few days in a Town called Chefchaouen. Its nestled in the Rif mountains a couple hours south of the coast.

The entire town is painted White and Electric Blue.

There are lots of artisans in Chefchaouen, and it also happens to be the kif production capital of the world.(as biggie said: if you dont know…..) Muy tranquila, si?

Through our cultural ignorance, we also were not expecting to encounter the Djellaba (pronounced-like ‘Jalabi’)–a cool Star Wars looking tunic, which is a traditional outfit in Morrocco, and clearly keeps people warm in the winter.(although they have thin ones for the summer too.)

Unfortunately, most of the young people in Morocco seem to be moving away from wearing the Djellaba.

We stayed warm thanks to Rob, who buit a nice fire in our sweet guest house(using electric blue wood of course).

Much love also goes out to Jaime, Nancy, and Hisham. Unfortunately, Jessicas Camera was sucked into the Moroccan vortex and we lost our only pictures of them.(if you guys are reading this, email us some pics!!). ***And if you are the person that took Jessicas camera–could you at least send us the pictures on the chip? And do you realize how stupid you are now that the proprietary battery has run out and the camera doesn’t work???***

I digress…So after a few relaxing days Chefchaouen, we had to check out Tangier for a night.

According to our guide book, the fleabag hotel we stayed at is where William Burroughs stayed when he wrote Naked Lunch.. problem is, our book says he stayed in room number 9, and the rooms only go up to 8. While there is a chance that this bano used to be a bedroom, we cant be sure.

But Im relatively positive that Burroughs chilled out on this patio at one time or another. you can just feel the history…

Besides being a good cheap place to buy a new camera, one of the coolest things about Tangier, and Ceuta (a Spanish city on the African mainland where we crossed into Morocco) was how people are speaking, sometimes in the same sentence, French, Arabic, Spanish, and English. [JESSICA SEZ:It ‘broke our heads’ as the locals would say. I suffered from a wierd travelers aphasia - i’d open my mouth to speak in one language and some other language would come out, or it would be an unintentional mixture. Then my brain would just shut down and I could only laugh at myself.]

After a boat ride back to Spain, where we gazed at the rock of gibraltar, we made it back to Granada after missing only 2 days of school.

Pero, en el barco, estudiamos muchos, por supuesto.

A few days later, we finally made it to the Alhambra, but you will have to wait for those pictures and blog entry coming soon..suffice it to say–that thing is totally incredible. Stay tuned!!!