Morocco Part 1

We went to Morocco for a week in December and visited Marrakech, Imlil, and El Kebab (where my friend Yorda is working for the Peace Corps.)  This is going to be a series because it was awesome, and I wrote in my journal a lot. 

Welcome to Marrakech!

Em, Dave, and I flew into Marrakesh after a stressful ride to the airport. Our ride had been sick for weeks and did not wake up to her alarm, phone calls from us, or Emily throwing soft yet dense objects at her window - which all occurred at 5 AM.  In a panic, Em called me and my 'brilliant' plan was to take our car and leave a key in the secret compartment and bribe a friend to pick the car up from the airport.  Luckily, Emily's host mom was awake (since she was leaving for Nicaragua on the same morning) and she awesomely drove us to the airport.  After running through the airport trying not to knock little old ladies and families down - I believe Dave hurdled over a chair, we saw that the terminal was quite far.  So, we had to run down a hallway, down a set of a stairs, over a moving sidewalk, through customs, and up another set of stairs, and we finally make it to the gate, with maybe 2 minutes left.  Somehow, I was one of the first people on the plane* and managed to snag us 3 exit row seats and we were finally off to Morocco.  

We booked a beautiful Riad (Moroccan guest house) through Homeaway that fit 8 people for the same price as a hostel. It was a traditional Moroccan house with 3 floors, beautiful stonework, a rooftop terrace, and a courtyard with 2 orange trees and a fountain where we ate our breakfast.  When we arrived Fatiha, our host, served us traditional Moroccan mint tea.  Yum!

D outside our room on the balcony overlooking the courtyard.

Our beautiful courtyard.

Our Riad was a quick 10 minute walk to the main square of Djeam el Fna. We left and went to meet Mounir, someone I contacted though CS in order to get a real, un-touristy view of Marrakech.  We quickly became friends because he is awesome.  We could not have gotten through our time in Marrakech without him, and our friend Eric would have been stuck in Fes but more on that later. He took us to an AMAZING restaurant and juice place called Agnaoue which we went to every day we were in Marrakech for their juices.  We then walked around the famous Marrakech souk (market) and ooggled at the beautiful fabrics, crafts, shoes, etc. 

The twisted derbs of the souk - getting lost is half the fun!

Beautiful Cookies

That night we visited Djema el Fna - a UNESCO world heritage site.  It is crazy walking there - you have to walk through narrow streets dodging people, motorbikes, cars, bikes, donkeys pulling carts, horses pulling carts, people pulling carts, beggars, merchants with their wares spread on the ground and more!  The Djema at night is amazing:  storytellers, gnawa musicians, impromptu banjo and drum concerts, women applying henna, and people selling these amazing delicious cookies.  During the day the huge square is full of snake charmers, monkeys, water sellers, and merchants.  By night is totally different:  more people, more things to see, and my favorite - where bare concrete was a few hours before almost a hundred restaurant stalls are set up!  It was amazing.  

Storytellers speaking in Darija so we didn't understand it - but very cool!

Dried fruits/nuts stalls

We went back to our Riad where Fathia had spent hours cooking a traditional Moroccan dinner- a fresh salad with argan oil, Beef Tagine with prunes rolled in sesame seeds, preserved lemons, and soaked almonds.  For dessert:  an amazing chocolate, banana, and orange blossom pie.  Wow!  We spent the night drinking a Cote du Rhone style (Moroccan!) wine in our awesome candlelit courtyard.  We tried not to eat the whole pie, buton unsuccessful. 

Fatiha decorated our courtyard with candles and put our amazing dinner in the dining room. 

LOOK AT THIS PIE!!!!

"The smells are amazing:  Fathia's cooking, spice stalls, people, diesel.  The last two don't smell bad, just different - it actually reminds me a bit of the Philippines.  As I write this the call to prayer is sounding and I'm sitting on our rooftop terrace watching the sunset.  What an amazing city!" 

*  Differences between Europe and the States:  EasyJet doesn't assign seats, so its basically first come, first served, much like Southwest used to be.  However, people don't really line up, its more of a giant mob. 

Sweden and an improptu Baltic Sea cruise to Finland.

While D is processing his pictures from Tuscany, I thought I could skip around a bit and talk about our visit to beautiful, cold, dark, cold, fun, cold Sweden.  

The Ytterjarna Fjord

D and I went to Sweden to visit his sister Kathleen who is helping out with an amazing organisation here called The International Youth Initiative Program .  It is based in Ytterjarna, Sweden, south of Stockholm.  We flew into Arlanda and had to take a bus to a train to a different train to a bus to get to Ytterjarna and cost us about 500 krona (or 50 Euro).  It took us a bit more than 3 hours - usually it only takes an hour and a half and only costs about 10 krona!  It was a fun journey though - we don't know Swedish so it was fun trying to pronounce the stops.  We took the bus and kept getting deeper into the Swedish countryside and finally pulled up to our stop in the middle of a field.  Kathleen (thankfully) met us at the stop, since otherwise we would be wandering the countryside knocking on doors and asking (in English) if anyone knew Kathleen.  

The first thing we did was have fika - a coffee break but so much more.  It was amazing to see Kathleen again, sit by a warm fire, drink hot coffee - or cocoa, and eat delish Swedish food.  The buildings in Ytterjarna are beautiful and designed to mimic the land.  Sweden (especially the area around Ytterjarna) is very good at waste management.  They compost, and have a new technology that consists of burning waste to get energy, and their sewage system is basically all natural.  I'm not really sure on the details but I all the soaps etc. have to be biodegradable because there is little chemical filtration. 

Fika is also a great reason to come in from the cold - we had fika at least twice a day!

For the first time in my life I had nothing planned for the trip.  I did a bit of research reading about Stockholm but didn't even have any sights or anything picked out.  Shocking.  It ended up being a great thing because on the day we arrived we decided to take an impromptu Baltic Sea cruise to Finland the next day.  It is called "The Booze Cruise to Finland" because during the summer you don't need to get a cabin for the overnight ride, you can just sit at the top of the ship and drink. The three of us went into Stockholm and purchased tickets for the ferry which left a mere 4 hours later.

Snowy Stockholm

Two of the 10 tourists visiting Stockholm in November

The colors were beautiful

The street names were unpronounceable.

 Stockholm is situated on many different islands.  We walked around the old town area of Stockholm called Gamla Stan and saw amazing architecture, the royal palace, Stockholm's narrowest street (and where they filmed a Moby music video apparently), and explored.  We then took the bus to the ferry (where they have signs on the road pointing to 'Finland').  I was expecting a large ferry but it was actually a small cruise ship!  We took Viking Cruise Line and it cost us a mere 30 Euros for a round trip ticket with a cabin for 3 from Stockholm to Helsinki.  We stood at the top deck as we pulled away from Stockholm, it was cold, snowy, and gorgeous.  

Kathleen and Dave in the narrowest street of Stockholm, which only got smaller!

Braving the cold - that plastic bag is full of reindeer sausage!

Impromptu Baltic Sea cruise.

We also chose to do a Julbord - a traditional Christmas dinner in Scandinavia.  The Julbord had cheeses, caviar, different types of bread, salad, Swedish meatballs (way better than Ikea), and  we had so much cold smoked salmon.  It was amazing.  They also laid out a wonderful dessert buffet - we had something called a Cone Cake which was shaped like a pine cone, and apple cinnamon charlotte, and a lot of other delish desserts.

So much Salmon!

After dinner we explored the ship and it had a karaoke bar, pub, a nightclub, and just like a normal cruise ship, a hot tub and sauna.   We decided to digest and sit in the sauna, where we met Sum 41, a band that I used to love in high school.  Very random.  We ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the night.

Helsinki was gorgeous, and we met two of Kathleen's friends and had a wonderful talk with them.  One of her friends, Matt is involved with a group called Homeboy Industries.  If you haven't heard of the group check it out, it is doing some amazing things.  It was started by a priest who wanted to give LA gang members a second chance, if they want it.  Homeboys gives at-risk youth counseling, tattoo removal, and employment.    He runs a poetry workshop.  This summer, Kathleen let me borrow a book Fr. Boyle wrote a book entitled Tattoos on the Heart and it was very inspiring.  It was great to hear Matt's stories about his own experiences working with Homeboys.

No fika is complete with something to eat.  Here - a kannelbulle.

We walked around Helsinki and visited the Russian Orthodox church which towers over the city.  Their main shopping concourse has heated streets so the snow doesn't collect.   We also had some delicious Nepalese food (according to Kathleen's Finnish friend, Finnish food is not so good).  We visited the Market Hall in Helsinki and went back to the ship a bit early because it was SO COLD. 

More Salmon!

We have maybe 5 pictures of us without jackets on.

The next day we hung out in Stockholm and went to the Vasa Museum where a beautiful ship form 1628 was restored after it sank on its maiden voyage.  We visited Ostermalm Saluhall and ate more lox.  Finally, we figured we had to go to H & M since it is a Swedish store.  We went to the H & M flagship store, and when we exited we realized we could see at least 5 different H & Ms.  They have different stores like H & M children, young and trendy, home, men, women, etc.  Crazy.  We took the train to the bus home and were a bit lost when the bus driver dropped us off in the middle of a field in the middle of the night in rural Sweden.  Luckily, he also pointed us in the right direction. 

The beautifully restored ship

Julmust - a traditional Christmas drink.  In Sweden Coke sales fall 50 % in December.  Not all that delish.

GIANT TURKEY, surrounded by normal (European) sized turkeys.

Thanksgiving was wonderful, we were able to bring Thanksgiving to Sweden and show about 50 non-Americans what Thanksgiving is all about.  We cooked 3 turkeys, peeled and mashed a garbage bag full of potatoes, made a vat of Bernaise sauce, and a LOT of stuffing.  We also had apple, pumpkin, and pecan pie, and amazing Swedish bread.  Thanksgiving was wonderful.  At the end of it, everyone looked uncomfortably full and we told them they did it right. 

Dave mashing vats of potatoes.

The rest of the days were very relaxing, and we explored rural and not so rural Sweden.  We had lots of fika, hung out with Kathleen, discovered an amazing Swedish dessert, and enjoyed the beautiful light cast by the sun.  It basically looks like dawn all the time, and the sun sets at 3:30.  YIP put on an open mic and were fortunate to hear Kathleen's poetry, Ani's singing, and lots of talented yip-ees.  

We were lucky to be in Ytterjarna for the Light Festival.  They light thousands of candles all along the nature paths by the fjord, and it is a beautiful experience.  The candlelight on the snow and a clear sky made it magical.  They also put on a fire show, with flaming poi balls.  It was gorgeous!  It made a beautiful end to a very fun week!

Bar Trip # 1 - Burgundy Wine Region

Our home for the week!

A few weeks after arriving in Europe, we had a great visit from Stacy and George.  Stacy is a good friend from law school - I wouldn't have made it through without her.  

We rented a house in Change, France through Homeaway.com.  Homeaway.com is a site we always use to book vacation homes.  It was a wonderful place, a former winemaker's home, complete with fireplace, pool, sauna, and a washer and dryer!*

Hospice de Beaune

 The first day we were there, we visited the Hospice de Beaune, a charitable hospital in Beaune, France, which operates to this day.  Hospice de Beaune also owns 61 acres of vineyard, many Grand Cru and Premiere Cru.  A very important wine auction is held in November of each year, and this charitable wine auction sets the prices for wine of the region for the next year.  The Hospice de Beaune has a beautiful glazed tile roof, which is common in the region.  We all remarked that we did not think that this would be the architecture of French countryside, and looks more like something from Germany. 

We also attended a Burgundy Wine class at Sensation Vin.  It was an interesting class to learn about the wines of the Burgundy region.  Our teacher taught us the basics that we already knew - how to taste, etc. and had some very useful charts in addition to the basic wine wheel.  She also taught us how to read a Burgundy label, and about the terroir of Burgundy.  It was quite interesting. 

The Cellar

The next day we took the 'Prestige' wine tour at Patriarche Pere et Fils with sommelier Jean-Michele.  I fully encourage going on specialized wine tours such as these if you really want to learn about Burgundy wine.  The normal wine tours are 10 Euro/person and you go on a self guided tour of the cellars, taste the wines set out for guests, and receive a tastevin for which to taste.  These were used back in the day to help winemakers taste the wine.  Now, its a kitschy tourist thing.  According to Jean-Michele, they are given out to ensure that the individuals taking the tour won't get drunk.  

Our Wine Tasting

Our group with Jean-Michele

Jean-Michele took us on a private tour of the 13th century cellar.  It was amazing!  They have over 3 million bottles of wine, the oldest from 1907.  (If I remember correctly) At the end of our tour, we had a private tasting with Jean-Michele in a candle-lit private room in the cellar.  The whole cellar had very low light in order to protect the bottles.  We tasted 8 interesting bottles of Burgundy, from Village to Grand Cru.  It was a wonderful tour and at the end we were each given a bottle to take home.  The tour costs 40 Euro, but the bottles given to us cost 35 Euro, which brings it down to the cost of a normal self-guided tour. 

The next day we did a similar tour at Marche aux Vins.We did the 'Best of Burgundy' tasting.  It was interesting, but we liked the wines at Patriarche better.  That night, we had a wonderful picnic (mostly cheese) in the world famous Montrachet vineyard. 

We drove around the Burgundy region - in both the Cote de Nuits and Cote de Beaune.  The area is beautiful - many rolling hills with vineyards as far as the eye can see and beautiful little villages. 

 

We visited Clos Vogeout - one of the larges Grand Cru plots in the region and even helped harvest grapes!  We were there during harvest time and asked some pickers of we could help them for a bit.  It was great fun, but I probably would not like doing that for more than 30 minutes.  

We also visited the Romanee- Conti vineyard, one of the most famous wines of the world, and definitely the most famous of Burgundy.  They only have 1.8 hectares and produce about 450 cases per year (about 5,400 bottles).  Each bottle costs about $6,000!  We did not try any while we were in Burgundy.  

The last night of our Burgundy trip we took a tour of Domaine Monnot Roche.  The owners were the agents of the owner of the Homeaway house and showed us around the home when we first arrived.  We asked if we could visit their winery, and they were happy to oblige.  They presented many (many, many, many) of their wines and even treated us to a Burgundy specialty - gougeres.  Little cheese puffs with spices.  Delish.  After our tasting they took us on a tour of their winery, we saw the barrels, the fermentation room, aging room etc.  We purchased wine and they let us label our wine ourselves (we weren't very good).  They even let us taste the 2009 Burgundy (great year) straight out of the barrel! It was a wonderful way to end our trip.

Next Post:  The Cow Festival!

* How things are different in Europe # 2:  There are very few dryers here - most everyone line dries their clothes.  Great in general, as we normally do the same back in the States, but sometimes you just want a freshly laundered warm towel or to shrink your jeans back to size.