Day 46

The College Jeopardy! online test ended up not being too bad! I don’t know if I did well enough to qualify for an in-person audition, but only time will tell.

So I went to bed around 2:30 or so, and then woke up at 6:45. Oh joy! I had to get ready and finish packing before 8 so that we could go grab breakfast before heading out to our group meeting point. Going on this trip was Katie, Tiffany, Gina, and me. We took the #3 bus to Puerta de Jerez and crossed the river over to Plaza de Cuba where we found our tour group. We went with a company called We Love Spain, who, unlike Bus2Alps, has older, very experienced tour guides. That was definitely something we wanted to have for this trip because, well, it’s Morocco.

We were grouped into two buses: the red bus and the blue bus. Our little group was on the red bus, and our group leader was Nicole, who’s American but has lived in Seville for five years. The other bus’s guide was Davíd, who was very much a Spaniard. This worked out well for us, because we were the only four people on the entire trip who do not feel totally confident in communicating in Spanish (which I guess makes sense, since most of those people are in Spain for the whole semester with the sole goal of becoming fluent).

First, we had to go down to Cádiz to pick up one girl who I guess is studying there. Then, we headed towards Gibraltar. We stopped at a nice little rest stop along the way where I got a yummy pastry. 

Entering Gibraltar was interesting. We had to cross the border on foot and show our passports (though they weren't stamped). And just like that, we were in an English-speaking country! It was very refreshing, even though we were just there for a few hours. We took some photos, did some shopping, and had some AMAZING fish and chips. I even found a Cherry Coke!!! (They're not widely sold in Europe).

Go 'stros!

We crossed the border back into Spain later in the afternoon and then had a short ride over to the port of Algeciras. Then, we got on the ferry that would take us to AFRICA! It was pretty windy on the upper deck, but I was not taking any chances at potentially getting seasick. Also, we saw dolphins (I even saw one jump!!!), so that made it worth it. And seeing the sun starting to set as we pulled into the Spanish North African port of Ceuta was pretty amazing, too.

Look how the sun was framed by little pieces of rainbow! 

Go Astros! Go Cubs!

So we finally made it to Africa! My third continent! But we were still in Spanish territory. We met up with our Moroccan tour guide (who was awesome), who helped us in crossing the border into Morocco. It was one of the weirdest and sketchiest experiences of my life. There were a ton of Moroccans on either side, trying to get in and out, carrying huge boxes and bags full of bedding. It was confusing and kind of scary, and took a while, but we finally made it in.

Driving around Morocco at night is somewhat terrifying, especially if your bus driver is a reckless Spaniard. It's very hilly and at times even mountainous, and there are absolutely no street lamps to light the way. After about an hour or so on the road, we made it to Tangier, which was nice and lit up, and then we arrived at our hotel. We were assigned our rooms, dropped our bags off in the room, and then went straight to the hotel's restaurant for dinner. Katie and I thought our room was super cute, but everyone else was full of complaints. I suppose I'm used to tiny, dinky hotel rooms after my EF tour last summer. I was just happy that towels were provided and we didn't have 8 other roommates!

Obviously everything in the room was tangerine-colored

Dinner was served in three courses. The first was some sort of salad situation--parts of it were good, and others were not. We were slightly concerned about the entree to come. However, it ended up being fried fish, rice, and vegetables, all of which were very good. Of course, we had had fried fish for lunch, so that was a little unfortunate, but it was better than being served something gross. Lastly, we were each given a little piece of cake for dessert, which was good. 

We showered and then went to bed slightly paranoid after hearing a girl in the hallway complaining about bedbugs, but of course we did not end up having bedbugs (she probably didn't either, truth be told). I went to bed very tired, but super excited for the day to come.