Porto-Morocco-Barcelona

At the end of February I went on a little trip to Morocco. Stopping in Porto, Portugal and Barcelona, Spain in the process.

February 23-25: 

Morocco was great. I was traveling with two American girls (Kate and Claire) that are on exchange with me in Bordeaux. We took the plane from Bordeaux to Porto and stayed at a very nice hostel called "The yellow house hostel". The owner of the hostel was a friendly and witty British man who was very entertaining as well as kind. As it later turned out he was the guitarist from the well known British music group "James". I was not aware of this at the time and perhaps for the best as I might have embarrassed myself seeing as I am a fan of "James". We took an unofficial tour with a young woman called Anna, who is from Porto and a qualified teacher, but does these tours as she loves Porto and there are no available teaching positions in Portugal at the moment. She was amazing and it was obvious that she did it out of the love for the city. There was no fixed payment, but we could give a donation if we enjoyed the tour. Everyone contributed. We met two Americans during the tour and spent the rest of the day with them visiting the city and getting free samples of port wine from multiple distilleries in Porto. It was clear after a few hours that these two Americans (one male and one female) had, had enough of travelling with one another. This became obvious after a number of tense moments that were followed by awkward silence. They were both very nice, just not to each other. After two days in Porto we took a morning plane to Marrkech.

Claire and Kate with a view of Porto

View of Porto

 

Feb 26-29

We started our trip in Morocco with Marrakech, which was very beautiful in terms of small streets and architecture, but equally overwhelming. The small streets were very maze like and it was easy to get lost for hours in these massive bazaars/streets. The locals, especially children, found it amusing to misguide tourists and send them off their course. It becomes more confusing when streets have no names, streets have more than one name or have street names changed since your map was printed. In Morocco they are switching all the street names given by the French colonizers and replacing them with more Moroccan ones. In every city the main road will always be named after the current king and changed when the king does. In the main old square of Marrkech there is something happening all day including: Snake charmers, musicians, Orange juice salesmen (very popular in Morocco) during the day. At night the Square turns into a giant restaurant with tens of sections where you can eat. The strange part is that the restaurant/stalls are not competitive price wise with one another, but rather all have the same prices. The competition is rather amongst the waiters who try to lure tourists into their specific restaurant. Some of these waiters are very convincing and speak multiple languages others can get aggressive when their offer gets rejected. 

Kate and I in Marrakech

Street view of Marrakech

We spent a a night in the desert with the berbers. This of course was something we could not do on our own and required us to arrange it with an organisation through our hostel. As the desert is more than 400km away we were driven in a van holding 8 or 9 people. The driver was excellent, but the route was nerve racking as it went through the mountains with very narrow roads and at high speeds. If the went off the road there would be absolutely no chance of survival. After a few hours I learned to accept this and the drive became more pleasant with an amazing view. The desert itself was a very tourist oriented experience. As soon as we arrived to the drop off point there was complete chaos. There were the drivers, the tourists, the Berber guides, disgruntled camels and a pack of Moroccan kids waiting for hand outs. Soon enough twenty tourists were on camels and heading into the desert. The timing of this was picked so that we would be riding into the sunset. The camel ride was symbolic and could not have lasted more than 45 min. We realized the next day that the guides had been walking us in a large zig zag  and that the camp was in fact very close to the drop off point, this was not evident in the darkness and excitement. The camp itself was very nicely laid out with large tents and beds already set up. There was a fire burning and dinner was already cooking. The dinner was served in a large tent with tables, dishes and candles. This was followed by singing berber songs by the fire. In my opinion it seemed as though the Berbers singing were having too much fun singing a song that they must sing every single night for different tourists. It is, therefore, my suspicion that they were mocking us in these songs. Too much laughing and smiling going on,not to mention that I would  have done the same thing if I were them. Overall the experience was fun and interesting, but completely artificial. I do realized, however, that you cannot go into the desert alone as it can be dangerous due to the people and nature of the desert. It was also extremely cold at night! 

 Ait Benhaddou (Kasbah Ellouse)

Desert with camels

Desert near Zagora, Morocco

Mountainous view on the way to the desert

Feb 29 - March 2

We returned to Marrakech the next day and soon after left for Meknes by train. Meknes was a medium size city that did not have much to offer tourism wise and one of my fellow travelers became sick. It was however a change from Marrakech, which was large with many tourists and constant harassment from street vendors. 

March 2-4

Chefchaouen seen from the above

We arrived in Chefchaouen by bus. Actually we arrived on a highway 5 km away from the town. The bus did not only have a bus driver, but also a ticket collector and a luggage guy that all rode with us all the way. You would think this would make things more efficient, but I feel like having so many people operate the bus made things more complicated. After five hours the bus suddenly stopped and the guy in charge of the luggage told us to get out as we were here. We were on a road, no city in sight. A taxi pulled up and took us to the downtown. Chefchaouen is a beautiful city known for being painted blue (once a holy colour), but now has the reputation as being a large producer of Kif (a type of Cannabis), which is exported throughout Morocco and Europe. This Northern part of Morocco was also invaded by the Spanish at one point and therefore Spanish is more prevalent than French, which is used more in the South. Meaning we now had a language barrier with most locals. We stayed at a pleasant hostel and spent two days visiting the mountainous country side and the small alleyways of blue. 

Chefchaouen, Street view

March 4-5

We arrived in Tangier by bus and immediately disliked it. It was loud and very busy. As it is close to Spain it has a lot of international traffic. Luckily we arrived in the late afternoon and left the next morning. We met a young German medical student named Max who was just starting his trip in Morocco. At dinner we told him stories and tips from our trip that he seemed to appreciate. In return he told stories of his recent trip to India. 

March 5-7:

Basilica Sagrada Família

Barcelona was totally different from what we had been used two the last 10 days. I was relieved as could have more food choices, as I was mostly living off couscous and some seafood in Morocco. We were also no longer in a Muslim country, which made it easier to order alcohol. Though we saw some of Gaudi's work and walked around downtown Barcelona we were pretty tired from our travels and quickly tired and would often find somewhere to sit or get something to eat. Returning to Bordeaux felt very strange at first, but after a day or so it was as if we had never.

February in Bordeaux

...So i'm a little backed up, but i'll see what I can tell you about February. 

February was generally calm. I went to class...Always. I maintained my friendships in France with regular outings and out of school events, I took part in a fancy Valentine's day dinner with my other exchange friends, Sarah (another uOttawa) came to visit from Grenoble for two days...to be honest, its been too long ago so I don't remember that much.

My main memory of February was the cockroach infestation that took place in my building. It started at the beginning of the month and at first I did not mind their infrequent presence in my room. I would even be so kind as to pick them up and put them outside on the balcony. The situation worsened, however, and soon I was being flooded by these cockroaches from all the cracks in my room. I would return home and find them being very at home in my room. About a week and a half into their stay with me I caught one of them near my toothbrush and another one on my bed. After those incidents I became a lot less gentle with the cockroaches, some might even say violent. As they mostly come out when it was dark and when there was minimal movement in the room, I knew when to expect them. I would rush home after being out late, open my door slowly, turn on all the lights and squash them all with my shoe. 

Another strategy was that I would go to bed with my pocket flashlight, mostly because I was scared they were planning to mobilize against me. I would wake up in the middle of the night and very discreetly shine the light around the room looking for them, eliminating the late night snoopers. 

After two weeks I thought I was winning the battle with these critters as there were less of them and the ones that remained were the smaller ones. Out of a hint of nostalgia for their departure I decided to ease up on the few remaining cockroaches. In hindsight I realize that this a personal moment of weakness and a huge mistake. They came back in greater number and size. 

By this point I had become mildly obsessed with the cockroaches. I would talk about it with all my friends and in class plot different strategies against them. I would spend time on the computer researching methods to get rid of them. Then one day I came back to my residence to find a sign warning the building of an extermination that was to take place almost two weeks later. I was both glad and upset. I mean at least administration had taken notice, but two weeks was a long time to wait. This was around the same time as I became convinced that there was a rat living in my wall who would eat elaborate six course meals in the middle of the night. 

My neighbour cracked before me. One day I came back to my room to find him treating his entire room to a powerful anti-cockroach repellant. Toxic stuff. For me this was a last resort, but figured it was time. I used the spray conservatively, which brought results, but was poisoning me as much as the cockroaches...the trade off seemed worth it at the time. Eventually the extermination happened and I left for two weeks during the break. I have just gotten back, but have yet to see a living cockroach in my room. I suspect that they may be regrouping in a safe zone. 

That was what I remember the most about february. 

First Three Weeks

So I thought I would write a post every week, but it was just not in the cards for me. So then I said I would wait until someone gave me a hard time about not posting anything. As my friend Brad, who lives vicariously through this blog, has expressed discontent with my lack of writing...I have decided to give him something to fill his mundane life.

Once in Bordeaux the Mormons accompanied me from the train station to the nearest bus stop. There I waited 20 minutes for the next bus that would be going in the direction where my couchsurfing host lived. The Mormons took the same bus as me, even though another bus going their direction left 10 minutes earlier. I finally arrived at my hosts house at 11:45pm. Ruth, my host, is a pleasant Irish girl who is teaching english in Bordeaux. She was very nice feeding me and chatting to me even though she had to get up early the next dayto work. So I slept in the living room next to the kitchen on a small, but adequate couch. The next morning I was awakened early by the loud noises coming from the kitchen, I assumed it was one of the other tenants and tried to go back to sleep. The noise continued and sounded more like a thorough cleaning not that of someone making a quick breakfast. Then I heard singing and more pots banging...this was starting to annoy me, I understand I am just a guest, but there is no need to be purposely loud. All of a sudden a dark haired middle-aged woman comes out of the kitchen. She spoke to me and I could barely understand anything she was saying, this was on of my first "French" interaction since arriving in Bordeaux so I was severely concerned about my level of comprehension. I started to speaking to her in French, but could not understand her responses and all the while thinking how this semester will be impossible if I don't understand the French. Then it suddenly dawned on me that this woman was not speaking only in french. I now remembered how Ruth mentioned a cleaning lady that came in on Thursdays. A Portuguese cleaning lady who did not speak french very well.  The conversation somehow got easier once I figured out that she was speaking in Portuguese...I don't know how, but we started understanding each other, at least I think...she seemed very nice.

I decided to start my day as sleeping no longer seemed a reasonable option as I was neither enrolled or had a place of my own. I took my first shower in three days and ate a breakfast from my supplies as well as from the pre-approved food Ruth had left for me. I was eating quietly desperately trying to connect to the internet when one of my host's roommates walked in surprised to see me. He didn't seem too happy to have me invading his kitchen, so I kept quiet and he went to eat at the other table.

I left the house and took two trams to get to my university, without getting lost. At the university I walked into three offices before finally walking into the international office. It all went well enough and I found out I do not need to properly register for classes until a few weeks after classes start. Once noon hit all administrators have lunch until two. I called Canada and then decided to get lunch I sat down at one of the outside table near my university in a central square. As this menu was complex I did not understand all my options so I asked the waitress if she had any seafood, she quickly listed off four or five meals from the menu. I told her that I wanted the first of the list, but had no idea what I had just ordered...except that it came from water. Fifteen minutes later a plater of oysters with red wine came out. I had never eaten oyster and was now forced to debunk this problem in the middle of a busy square with many spectators. I somehow managed to eat all six of them without injuring myself, but the whole process took over an hour. I left the restaurant tipping a euro, even though it is not necessary, I would have felt guilty not tipping (this feeling has since then disappeared).

School has been interesting. I am not actually registered...yet. The way they do it is that you just audit the classes and once you pick the ones you want than you go and register officially. I have yet to do this, but I am still waiting for some of my classes to start as the start date keeps getting pushed back. One of my classes does not start until March as the Prof is doing field work somewhere in Africa. The university itself is beautiful, right downtown and has a library that resembles that from Harry Potter. The Anthropology department is tiny in total around 40 students, but only 30 show up regularly. Also there are about 10 elective courses from which French students can only choose two, I can many more as I have not taken some of their core classes. These elective classes are pretty specific... for example: Mutation of anthropological sciences in Europe: Romania (Its about anthropology as a discipline in Romania as well as eastern Europe). There are only 5 people in this class. The prof is a really nice young woman from Romania. She often gets so excited about Romanian related events that result in massive digressions... still interesting thought. The more traditional French Profs sit at the front of the class room and read from a page, while sitting. I have not yet felt the distance between prof and student that is supposedly infamous in France, but perhaps it is since this university is so small. I met a girl from Quebec in my French african literature class who I think is on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. She was extremely unhappy with the way our university operated in France...it probably didn't help that the prof was 20min late for that class. I have since then tried to appreciate the schooling for what it is and not take it to seriously, I would call it more of a cultural experience than an academic one. In a good way of course.

Friends: Yes I have made some. I have made some american exchange friends and hope to travel with them. They have been great making me feel like one of their own. I mean Canadians rarely go traveling around Canada/USA during the school year, it is the same here. I am planning a trip with two of them to Morocco (with two days in Porto and then Barcelona), but that will be dealt with in another blog post.  I have made a french friend from couchsurfing named Laura who has been very nice to me and invites me often for lunches or dinners of some sort. She always has a couple couchsurfers at her place so I have met many nationalities thanks to this. I have managed to make some friends in my anthro classes who have invite me out on thursday to go out with them and yesterday I was invited to a professional rugby game (Bordeaux vs. Lyon)... Bordeaux won yay. The french have been very nice to me and love to mock my French Canadian accent...(I am not saying I am French Canadian because I am not, but that the french I learned is...to clarify). I have met a nice Irish girl who hosted me my first night in France and a Polish girl who I have just recently met. Finally, I have a great neighbour in residence who is from Morocco and we spend time together to, although sometimes I have trouble understanding his french and he has trouble understanding mine, but we make it work. I do make an active effort to spend time with my french speaking friends and not get stuck with only english speakers as I have seen happen to others.

Otherwise I went on a wine tasting tour/ lesson last weekend. It started at 10am with a two hour lesson on the wine production and wineries in the region plus how to taste wine properly. Then a six hour visit of two wineries and more tasting...by 6pm when it was all over I was completely exhausted and had no more ambitions of drinking that day (8 hours of steady wine tasting really takes it out of you). I have come to terms with the construction crew constructing a new building right out my window...it insures that I wake up at 7am everyday...early starts are key! Also for those who do not follow the news, this is the coldest year in Europe more nearly 30 years. Though unfortunately more than a hundred people have died of cold in Eastern Europe, it has been working in my advantage in Bordeaux as I do not have a fridge and keep my food on the balcony. The French here are very concerned with the low temperatures and the potential fall of snow...it hasn't dipped below -5C, but that is still very rare here.

P.S. I saw the two Mormons I met on the train twice. Both times at the grocery store...I have the feeling that we might go to the same one. Both times I avoided contact with them...as I have no intention to going to a three hour sunday service with them. I was even tempted to tell the manager of the grocery store that the two Mormons were evangelizing in the store, probably leading to them getting thrown out. I came to the conclusion that his would not be a very ethical move, but I cannot say the temptation was not there.

Overall things are going well. I miss certain things about Canada, but I am enjoying France as well.

My bathing facilities

Desk/Bed in my residence

Balcony/Fridge

View out my window

Place de la Victoire-Université Bordeaux 2 is the building on the far right (my school).

Winery I visited

From Poznan to Bordeaux

I have been pushing back writing this for three days and now it's Sunday night and I have an early class tomorrow so this is going to happen.

I arrived in Poland on January 4th and spent a week visiting the people that I should see. Seeing as I was only in Poznan for six days everyday had a very intensive schedule, while attempting to re-adjust to a European time zone. Though I did not yet know how I was going to get from Poznan to France I had my options open. Three days before my departure I found out that my uncle, who co-owns an import/export business, was sending a transport truck to France. The truck could only take me as far as Lyon (600 km from Bordeaux), but that was good enough. So now I was actually nervous since there was a transport set in stone, meaning I actually had to go to France, but I wasn't really worried about that part...what really concerned me is what I would talk about with the trucker whom I would be driving with for two days. Honestly I don't think I have ever had an interaction with a trucker before, well perhaps a nervous nod in a highway service area men's room, but that would have been the extent of it. I definitely overreacted and stereotyped all truck drivers, but that happens.

Tuesday morning I left my grandparent's house at 6 am to be driven by my uncle to gas station an hour out of the city where this polish trucker was supposedly waiting. Looking back on the whole thing the operation may have seemed a little dubious to an outside observer. Its 7am, still dark outside, when a luxurious Mercedes pulls up next to a transport truck in an empty parking lot by a gas station. Two people get out of the car and one out of the truck, they all shake hands and proceed to move three bags from the car to the truck. One of the individuals leaves briefly to take care of some business in the bushes (yes... it was me), then two people get in the truck and one in the Mercedes, both vehicles drive away in opposite directions. Seems questionable.

The ride started out silent and awkward, probably since we didn't know one another and both of us had gotten less than three hours of sleep. Slowly the trucker started talking to, mostly about trucker life and I never had any good responses. So for example:

Trucker: Last week I was doing a drive from Madrid, I stopped to sleep somewhere in Northern Spain. I woke up to the noise of some sort of movement on the side of the truck. I look out the window and see three Bulgarians trying to syphon gas from my tank.

Antoine: Oh yeah...? (What do you say to something like that)

Luckily the conversations got more two sided. We really got talking when the trucker started explaining to me the proper way to prepare and cook a carp. He claimed that you buy the live carp, kill it on the same day and then freeze it until the day comes to eat it. I did not agree with this, as I had heard from a reliable source (my grandmother) that you are supposed to buy the live carp then put it in fresh water for a few days so it can cleanse itself from toxins, you proceed to killing it on the same day as you eat it so as to avoid freezing. This conversation lasted a good half hour before I decided to back off, as the trucker had actually prepared a carp and I felt like he might have a greater idea of what he was talking about.
The conversation then turned spiritual healers, which the trucker had incredible faith in and was telling me first hand accounts, listing examples of when a doctor had failed and a healer had stepped in to cure a patient. Then when he found out I was Canadian he told me a story of when he once picked up a Canadian hitchhiker who started rolling marijuana in the truck, going into detail about how this angered him and how he almost threw him out of the truck...I should have lied about my nationality. The truck driver kept offering me sausages and other forms of meats he had brought for the ride, I continually refused and would always find some excuse. I chose not to tell him the real reason as I was worried he might loss respect for me. I felt guilty about not taking his food, but eventually got over it as he trice refused my hard boiled eggs.

We parked outside of Nuremberg, Germany at 3pm as the trucker had driven the maximum amount of hours he was allowed to in a day. We prepared food together in the truck as it was equipped with a fridge and he even pulled a butane burner. Sleeping was not an easy task for two reasons: 1) It was 4 in the afternoon 2) The trucker had insisted on telling me horror stories about truck drivers getting robbed or hurt while parked in these parking lots. When it got dark and I needed to go to the washroom I held off as I continually imagined three Bulgarians with bats and oversized wrenches waiting for me to get out of the truck... I blamed the trucker for this paranoia. Once again the the trucker and I both got only a couple hours of sleep.

We started our ride again at mid-night and drove in the dark until we reached the outskirts of Lyon the next morning. The trucker walked me to the train station in the village near by where we had parked. We said our goodbyes as the train pulled in and as the train started moving I could feel that I would miss traveling with this truck driver he was a good man. I arrived at the main train station in Lyon and am able to catch a train to Bordeaux two hours later.

The train ride is six and a half hours, time I was hoping to put to finishing The Alchemist. However, this was not in the cards for me as I was lucky enough to sit down next to two American Mormon missionaries my age. These two were currently stationed in Bordeaux and were coming back from something or other. I figured I would talk to them for a little bit and then we would all return to our respective activities. This also did not go as I planned as they were very interested on my views on God, far more interested than me. I indulged them for a while, but then I began amusing myself with my own answers. When conversation became forced I asked one of them what kind of books he read, his answer was "I pretty much stick to fiction", then a couple minutes later he said that he did not have much time to read for pleasure as they mostly read their Mormon texts. I cheekily said "I guess you do mostly stick to fiction then" (jokingly), the other one looked shocked at what I had just said. I tried to laugh and say I was just joking, but I could tell they were both a bit shaken (I was proud of myself). Another interesting situation occurred when one of them asked me if I had ever thought about going on a mission I said a hanging yes, his eyes lit up with excitement, and then I finished my sentence "but then I reconsidered"... he was disappointed. I thought about my friend Trish and how she would have enjoyed this situation...I wish she was there so we could have double teamed them...it would have been beautiful. No matter it was still fun. I slept a lot, periodically waking up to answer a question or two about my views on God and they would sit there reading their Mormon Bible preparing their next questions. Near the end of our trip the Mormons tried to give me one of their Bibles I said I had too many things and couldn't. They insisted on giving me their contact information and were curious if I would make it to their three hour mass on Sunday...I did not make it.. They took me to the bus stop and coincidently were taking the same bus as me...Fantastic. They were very nice to me and were very good about the abuse they received from me...maybe I will see them again.

The transport truck-somewhere outside Lyon

Waiting for my train outside the Lyon Train station

...There is more to tell, but I will leave it at that for now.