i am home.

it's over. the end of this chapter of my life. onto new ones. and the end was great. seriously nonstop fun for a week. we took full advantage of our last week. the last night our program basically took over this bar and danced, laughed, and cried all night. it was terribly fun and terribly sad. most of us had to leave early in the morning so we just stayed up all night. which we were absolutely feeling the next day...but it was worth it. it was all worth it. all the energy all the tears all the missed sleep- it was worth it. this was the best four months of my life and i am absolutely changed for the better. it is over. i am home.

the last night my dear three best friends and i ventured up a large hill to piazza michelangelo. we sat in silence and watched the sun set over the beautiful city we loved. so i jotted down some words on the back of a receipt

Our hair is longer

Our skin is darker

Our wallets are emptier

Our hearts are fuller

Our Italian is better

Our eyes are wider

Our horizons are broader

Our friendship is deeper

Our suitcases are heavier

Our futures are brighter

i left home to come home.

i saw the light

video mashup of spain, amalfi, cinque terre, easter, rando florence
song: i saw the light by state bird

THE amalfi coast

we finally caved and did an organized trip through florence for fun to the amalfi coast. there is simply too much to see and not enough time to see it. so we decided to let someone guide us instead of aimlessly wandering around and missing half of it. our home base was in sorrento but we honestly only slept there. every day we went on day trips to nearby towns such as...

capri- friday was capri day. our bus got in at 230am and we had a few hours to sleep before leaving for capri at 8am. we took the ferry to the island and immediately embarked on a boat tour around capri. which was nothing short of stunning. the weather was gorgeous and the water was sparkling. we stopped at the blue grotto and some lovely friends of mine paid for me to go in as my belated birthday present (ps i'm broke.). you have to lay flat in these skinny boats and go through a 1 meter opening in the cave at the moment wave goes down or your boat will be crushed. pretty thrilling. and inside is so cool. it's really just a cave but something about the reflection of the sky on the bottom or on the water causes the water to be brilliantly bright blue. like unreal. our boat tour continued and we saw some natural beauties as well as the houses of sofia loren, giorgio armani, and mariah carey. from there we climbed up to the top of capri (which is actually much farther and steeper than we'd assumed) and back down the other side the to the beach. the view was amazing and the whole time walking down we were skipping with excitement to get to the beautiful beach. we finally made it down to the clear water and smooth rocks and laid out for hours. swimming was limited due to an overwhelming number of jelly fish but south carolina stacy and i decided to jump in anyway. so we dove headfirst into the mediterranean sea. freezing, jelly fish infested waters. but worth it. made it home ate dinner and passed out. very long, adventure filled day. i loved it.

walk down to the beach

boat tour

positano- day two was a trip to the black beaches of positano. weather decided otherwise. beaches were out of the question but we still walked the 800some steps down into the city in the pouring rain. quite and adventure. without weather we didn't have much to do so we shacked up in a cafe and capuccino-ed all morning. eventually we started playing cards. and ended up staying for four hours. we did get food (some of the BEST calzones i've ever had in italy!) and sat around and talked and laughed all day. when the rain mostly subsided we ventured out for a little shop browsing and ended up with nothing. positano wasn't really what it was intended to be but was still actually quite a lovely day. friends are wonderful. and we're only together for a few more days so might as well make the most of it. we ended up playing cards again after dinner and having a mostly chill day compared to the go go go day we had before.

playing cards

ridiculous girls in hotel room.

pompeii and mt vesuvius- i have had this weird obsession with pompeii ever since i was in like elementary school. i have no idea why. it just fascinates me. so being there was quite cool. unreal really. 25 feet of ash covered the entire city. yet archaeologists far more brilliant than myself managed to restore it to almost what it would have looked like before the tragedy. this is beyond me. we saw casts of skeletons in the exact position they were in when they died. strangely twisted bodies with horrific facial expressions. and teeth. they still had teeth. we walked around for a while with a tour guide who's name i cannot remember. it was very cool. i'm a big fan of pompeii. eerie and a little on the depressing side, but so interesting. then we ventured up mt. vesuvius. busses can only drive a little up so we had to hike the rest. we walk a ton in italy but rarely uphill so we were a little more out of breath than we'd bargained. but it was very cool. how often do i climb volcanoes, much less mt. vesuvius? it was cold up there and we were actually in a cloud so the view wasn't incredibly impressive. but we could see inside it. and it was smoking. creepy. plus we kept hearing these huge bangs which sounded like it was exploding. it didn't. but we still don't know what that sound was. we couldn't see actual lava and we were coated in bugs but well worth the hike. then hopped back on the bus for the seven hour ride home.

body cast in pompeii

pompeii ruins

vesuvs

inside vesuvs

amalfi was beautiful. very eventful and exciting. full of adventure. it was a great final excursion and i think i'm finally ready to leave. i feel like i did italy. i did europe. i've lived harder in the past four months than my whole 21 years combined. and i'm ready to take it all home and see how i fare in good old ellicott city, maryland. the adventure is only beginning.

cinque terre

saturday i embarked on a hiking adventure with my dear friend lauren and her lovely mother allison. the saba sisters. we left at 7am and took a few trains to get to the regaled cinque terre. which really just means five cities. you are supposed to be able to hike between each little city. they all kind of look the same with tall, thin, colorful clumps of buildings on the water. absolutely beautiful. some trails were closed so we ended up only hiking from riomaggiore to manarola and taking trains between the rest of the cities. had a lovely lunch on the water in manarola. it's fun having a mom here, i get to pretend she's my mom. and allison is a painting, no clothes wearing, hair dreading, hippie which is so my kind. we sat on the water for a while and painted with water colors. it was such an adventure, we just wandered all day. and i can't think of two people i'd rather do that with. thank you lo and allison for letting me join you. and paying for way too much. full day of travel but so worth it.

my traveling companions

cliffs we hiked

keys on via dell amore

barceloooona

barcelona. worth it. plenty of expensive travelling, but worth it. i've never seen anything like it. definitely the most unique city i've ever been. i mean gorgeous. crazy architecture. gaudi sure did know what he was doing. or maybe he had no idea what he was doing and he's just brilliant. overall i love barcelona.

thursday- 12 hours of travel. lots of waiting. and more money than we'd expected. but as soon as we got there we didn't care. while it wasn't quite as warm as we'd hoped it was beautiful. our good friend denny met us at the bus stop and we walked across the city to our hostel. i have never seen architecture like spain in my life! we had a very packed night. straight fun til 5am. literally. we hit up bo de b for spanish goodness dinner. then to a bar to meet denny's friends for drinks where we met hilarious people and played ridiculous games. then to opium- this sweet club on the beach. i mean unlike any club i've ever been too. we danced so hard until we crashed at 5. such a long day, but so worth it.

our friend ariel eating patatas bravas at bo de b

friday- after a good amount of sleep we took on the day. first to park guell full of gaudi goodness. kind of a mixture of whoville and wonderland- enough exploration to last a whole day. then we grabbed some food and had a hilariously fun picnic in a little park. and ate and ate and ate. ran to a surprise denny had for us which turned out to be a sweet fountain light show so we camped out and watched for a bit. then hit up champagneria for some world famous champagne and chicken sandwiches. so worth it. decided to get the most out of denny's blanket so we headed to the beach and looked at stars. another full, happy day.

park guell

park picnic

fountain show

saturday- got up early enough to snatch some hostel breakfast. mmm bread. went to check out sagrada familia. i have never seen a church like it in my life! again more sweet spanish architecture. got the BEST churro's i've ever laid eyes on and wandered around an antique market. went to a different inside food market and stocked up on more picnic materials. went to the beach and laid out- eating of course. an infamous local perpetually naked man named "sassquach" graced us with his presence. lucky day. we napped in a pile until it was time to eat again. of course we had to go back to bo de b. more spanish goodness. then headed out to a bar to watch the barcelona madrid soccer game. tied in the end but such a fun cultural experience to be there!

sagrada familia

churrrrrros!

beach picnic

and sunday we left. we went hard all weekend and took in as much of barcelona as we physically could. so much fun. thanks to our very dear friend and tour guide we got a full spanish experience. we love you denny. it was perfect. and i do love spain.

i am in love with this city

i can't believe i have to leave in three weeks. seriously can't believe it. i know it seems kind of far away but i just can't imagine leaving. i mean i will. and i am excited to come home. but i am not looking forward to leaving. i love this city.

florence has honestly become my home. i feel so comfortable here. i know where i am at all(most) times. i know how to get wherever i need to go. i can walk around all day by myself and never get bored. i actually do that quite often. i can walk into gusta panino and know exactly what i want. and that andrea will be working and will make my panini exactly how i like it. i spend my afternoons in between classes at volume, my favorite coffee shop, for hours at a time and never get kicked out. and i mean hours. i have italian friends. i have restaurants i frequent. i'm a regular.

florence has changed me. i am more independent and adventurous than ever (if you can believe it). i have become even more passionate about life and i feel like i know what full life means. i hope i never lose this drive. that i continue to explore god's glory every day for the rest of my life. because we're not living in forever. and i don't want to miss anything. i love god more because of the awesome things he's shown me since being here. through art and nature and people and life in general. and that doesn't stop in italy. but i do have this experience to thank for that.

i am so attached to this place i don't know how i am ever going to leave.

FUTBOL.

actually in italy it's called calcio. but i prefer futbol. so fun though. first we had a richmond university game against a school called capa. i was told this would be a. all girls and b. an impromptu pickup game. i mean i played soccer for a good 7 years. it's been a while but it would be fun. turns out it was a. all boys on the opposing team and a few bold girls on our team b. in a stadium and most of our school came to watch. pressure. i wasn't geekin too hard but definitely a little nervous about what the heck i signed up for. i warned some of the guys that i wasn't good and they shouldn't expect too much from me. they in turn decided i wasn't allowed to leave until i scored. great. so we got there and shot around a bit and pretended like we were a real team who practiced/at least knew each others' names (like the other team). we started playing and my oh my i forgot how much i love soccer. i am by no means good- quite rusty actually. but it was so fun! and our team actually worked really well together. and wouldn't you believe it i did score! it was kind of a fluke and i was totally set up but i put it in! the stands went wild it was so fun. we ended up winning 2-1 after some far more impressive goals from taylor and chris. we had an awesome team and even better fans so it was actually a blast!

our lovely roooooms came to cheer us on!

representin the ladies

sunday we went to an actual fiorentina milan soccer game. got there and wouldn't you know it our school got us 3rd row seats. and this was a seriously big game. italian soccer fans are bloody nuts. it was awesome. we went with some boys from our program who bet us that milan would win. well they're number one but we stuck with our home team. and we lost so now we have to make the boys dinner. but the game was a perfectly italian cultural experience. they love their soccer. even though florence isn't that good. it was quite an event.

the girls at the game

greece vid

a lil greece vid

song: generator^1st floor by freelance whales

arno rats

i can't believe i haven't written about this sooner.

there are rats in the arno. not little scurrying rats. like huge stampeding rats. we heard about them and assumed the were a legend/exaggerated. and how horribly understated they were...

i wish i had something to show exactly how big these suckers are. 3 feet on average including their tail. at first we thought they were actually beavers. but close inspection and pictures prove they are nothing but rats. and don't worry there's a huge nest of them right by our house. we've actually become quite fond of them and enjoy showing them off to visitors. they don't bother us. they're just huge. freakishly huge. and real funny. so in case you ever hear a tall tale about huge mutant river rats- know it's real life.

top five things i miss/don't miss

top 5 things i miss about the u.s.:

1. peanut butter.

2. any concept of lines or taking turns. and personal space in general.

3. the ability to wear a sundress in 70 degrees without getting touched/stared at like you're sunbathing in the arctic.

4. free water in restaurants.

5. drying machines.

top 5 things i do not miss about the u.s.:

1. having to tip anyone ever.

2. the mediocre quality of pizza, pasta, and gelato.

3. the general "rushed" feel of everyday life/need to be busy all day every day.

4. expensive airfare. and inability to hop to any country at any moment.

5. textbooks.

and of course i miss you all. i'll come home eventually i think. just not yet.

greeciest week ever

greecey perfection. the best spring break we ever could have imagined. all we had was a plane and a hostel for a week on a random greek island we knew nothing about. and from there... we just let life happen.

rhodes is one of the biggest greek islands. such a chill place. we stayed in a village called haraki that was literally just a quarter mile strip of beach and a few houses and shops. plus it's not tourist season yet so most places were closed. we stayed in haraki mare apartments which was lovely. we had a cute little loft only 50 feet away from the beach. run by stella and eleftheria- the most hospitable sisters you'll ever find. and we were actually the only tourists in all of haraki. therefore we befriended the locals. the only bar/restaurant open was haraki dreams owned by a lovely man named mike. friends with bartenders= big connections and free drinks and crepes.

mike's bar

orange festival. the first full day we were there we walked a couple miles to another village that was holding an orange festival. we didn't really know what that meant but man was it worth it. so greek. music and dancing and free food. we were obviously the only non-greeks. we just sat for hours and took it all in. there was a stage where greek performers in cool costumes would dance. on the ground, impromptu dance circles would form when popular songs came on. people would just gather and dance and they all knew the steps. i was sitting in my seat trying to learn the footwork. got some down. mostly we just sat and creeped. and took pics.

orange festival

greek dancers

several days were spent doing absolutely nothing. waking up whenever we woke up and laying on the beach all day. so relaxing. no agenda no plans. just straight chilling. we hiked up the rocks by our beach one day. i can't get over how beautiful greece is. like untouched natural beauty. it's my kind of place. blue skies and clear water doesn't hurt either. watched movies on my computer at night. read. wrote. talked. ate. we needed this.

rhodes from the mountain

lindos. another village by haraki of whitewashed houses. the way i picture greece. we walked around and went in a bunch of shops. explored. took pics. laughed. ate gyros. decided we wanted to ride donkeys up this hill to this castle thing called acropolis. lo and i got on our donkeys and ju was behind us. next thing we knew ju's donkey was running away and the guy was not holding the reigns. her donkey ran most of the way up the hill with her bouncing all over and lo and i dying laughing behind her. worth it. walked back down from the hill and wandered around more. very cool little village.

overlooking lindos

riding donkeys

one night at mike's bar a guy walked in who we recognized as a performer from the orange festival. so we talked to him a bit. and the next night ended up at his bar in the next village. his name is spiros and he is loads of fun. we danced and sang all night at his bar with him and had a blast. the next day he took us into rhodes town and we walked around and did more exploring. he's a local so he knew all the sweet places. and he took us to all of them. he was so nice and went far out of his way to make sure we had a great time. which we did. he even took us into this secret cave in the side of the mountain next to our apartment. so fun. we hung out with him and his friend angelos for the rest of the trip. they were great. greek friends. legit.

rhodes old town

girls and spiros

the last night we were at mike's with a bunch of retired british couples. hilarious. we played bingo. i won a lollipop. everyone made fun of me for picking the lollipop over a bottle of wine. whatever i know what i want. then i won again with a full board but gave it to ju so she could be a winner too. we won 14 euro! and used it to cover our drinks and crepes. sang karaoke with a hilarious woman who we dubbed barb. very drunk. very into karaoke. not very sure of the words. ever. we laughed for about 3 hours straight that night. life is so funny. we definitely left haraki with a bang.

me and my winning lollipop

so overall i would say it was the best spring break ever. better than we'd imagined. i hope i travel like this for the rest of my life. and live. life is good. god is great.

i'll tell you everything about livin free

video montage number two. rome, venice, and random florence

song: vagabond by wolfmother

LIES YOUTUBE REMOVED MY SOUND. WORKING ON IT. DON'T WATCH YET

haaaappy birthday to me

i would say this may have been the best birthday ever. i have never felt so loved in my life. many of you were a huge part of that and i thank you. even from thousands of miles away! and thanks to some sweet friends here i had an awesome day.

i woke up to little notes everywhere. on the window. next to my bed. in my bible. on my intended birthday dress. on our door. in the bathroom. everywhere. my roommate lauren decided to let me know why i'm awesome...EVERYWHERE. overwhelmingly wonderful. she also put a bueno bar next to my bed (european bliss...so bueno). then i got on my computer to find several emails from my family including some very generous birthday presents...an online book of my life and a serious chunk of cash. which is exactly what i needed. i read the ebook and cried. i uploaded it to facebook for those of you who make an appearance. i got some more emails from some more sweet friends and went into the kitchen to find these little AWESOME chocolate pies from a bakery near our house. and a note from more sweet roommates. it felt like home. headed to class feelin good in my birthday dress that i've been saving for months. ps it was 62 and beautiful out. i mean beautiful.

after some classes through which i doodled and daydreamed, lauren met me for lunch at the american diner. we got cheeseburgers and chatted. it was lovely. easy way to make my day- get me a cheeseburger. then we wanted to sit outside since it was so lovely so we went to this fountain by our school and just chilled and talked. a guy walked up to us (we think homeless-and a little nuts) and said "ragazze! uno...due....tre..." and turned around and pulled his pants down. yes we got mooned in the middle of a piazza. happy birthday to me. went to italian class and got out early. i ended up getting little gifts (mostly of chocolate) throughout the day from thoughtful friends i haven't even known that long. touching.

we headed back to our house with julianna and sarah. i watched ever after by myself in my bed and they wrote papers. as lame as that sounds i love watching movies in my bed. and ever after just makes me so blissfully happy. we all headed to dinner with my other roommate megan and her wonderfully hilarious friend kassi from home. a bit of a walk but il teatro is worth it..by far our favorite restaurant here. great good great wine and special attention from the owner. so funny. my sweet friends pulled together to get me a massage when we're in greece! i've never had one before and i'm pumped. so many presents. so loved.

since it was tuesday i was supposed to volunteer but i skipped for my birthday. oops. went to a club called bebop that has a beatles cover band every tues. and it was so fun! we made a bunch of friends and just danced and had a ball. we were kind of way in the back but we could still hear to it was fun. we met some of the "beatles" on their set break and told them it was my birthday. so when they went back on stage they called me up and sang happy birthday to me! we got front row seats next to the band manager and a free bottle of champagne. and i danced on stage for a little which was half embarrassing and half too funny to pass up. finally we headed over to our favorite club, red garter, for a bit of dancing. it was pretty empty since it was real late on a tuesday night. so we were pretty much the only ones dancing but we did anyway. awkward dancing. things we're good at. some friends from our program were there too so we all got to hang out. made it home by 3. successful night. great birthday. possibly the best. i am so blessed.

the dance party that broke out at midnight on birthday eve

cheeseburger paradise

il teatro dinner

complimentary champagne and a glimpse of mossimo

being sung to by the beatles!

VENEZIA

venice. it's sinking. beautiful, but sinking. if you're not paying close attention the waves could come up over the edge and soak your feet. sometimes the tide comes up so high that there is over three feet of water- everywhere- and people have to walk on these raised sidewalk things. so if you haven't been to venice, GO! soon, because i don't believe it will be there too much longer.

i've heard venice called an adult's disney land. although the colors and talk of carnivale create an upbeat atmosphere, it is definitely a small town. we found ourselves not exactly out of things to do but definitely visiting the exact same glass shops over and over and over. we toured some interesting churches and schools of art but if i'm being totally honest i'm reaching my limit of renaissance art. never thought i'd say that. but there are only so many annunciations and pietas one can see before they all blend into one large biblical entity. i wasn't as stoked on the titians as i should have been. but art is art and i do love it. st. mark's basilica was cool. i love my biblical landmarks. but in terms of actual things to do in venice...we weren't overwhelmed.

a "street"

lots of people took the ferry over to morano to go watch glass blowing. which is cool. but we decided to check out gondola rides instead. so worth it. 60 euro for the four of us which isn't bad. 40 minute ride. our gondolier was tomasso, an older italian man with a voice straight out of a movie. we sang frank sinatra and a lil celine dion through the canals of venice. so much fun. the thing about venetian water is it's actually real contaminated. we had a friend who somehow or another fell in and he was super sick for the next two days. he had had a coin in his pocket and just from the thirty seconds he was in the water the coin completely rusted. the water is pretty to look at, but i wouldn't suggest trying to touch. it would be hard for some people in our program to go an entire weekend without going out, so the poor only bar in all of venice was stuffed with aifs students saturday night. which actually was pretty fun. very chill night.

tomasso!

the guggenheim! sunday we went to peggy guggenheim's modern art collection and man oh man i thought i was going to cry. i've been a bit modern art deprived and it was totally refreshing to catch up on some pollock and kandinsky. i appreciate renaissance art so much and will in no way diminish its brilliance but i'm a modern art girl when it comes down to it. i walked by myself in the museum for over two hours. and it's not a huge museum, it's just her house turned into a museum. but i was captivated. and i bought myself a kandinsky poster because he is one of my favs. definitely top five. and it was a beautiful day. venice really is lovely.

guggenheim

happy 150th birthday italy!

march 17th 1861 is the day italy was unified as one country. therefore, last thursday marked the 150th birthday of italy. and let me tell you they do it big. starting the night before there are parades, performers, decorations, mayhem. it's awesome. three different piazzas had big events going on, santa croce even had a hot air balloon. the streets were ten times more packed than i've ever seen here...which is real packed. people get dressed up in green white and red and just hang out. everywhere. so much singing and italian pride. it was so cool. after midnight there were fireworks in piazza signoria and we danced to this sweet band...

walking through the italian-decked-out streets

ponte vecchio lit up in italian colors

palazzo vecchio with fireworks. i. love. fireworks.

a lil moroc vid

words can't describe.

(i wrote this blog and accidentally deleted it. here's some of what i remember)

there is no way to encapsulate the past six days into words. seriously. so much of this has been beyond anything i could explain. so i'll give some main points. just know that it goes deeper than you can imagine. i could (and do) easily say it was the best trip of my life. here's a glimpse.

the first three days we spent in taghazout...

the riad: we stayed in a surf riad. which for the record is the chillest place i've ever encountered. everyone is friendly and talks to everyone else. no one wears shoes. i can't explain it. but i know it's my kind of place. very open. like you can see in everyone's windows. and there's no door on the bathroom just a toilet and shower. do the math. our riad was run by abdul, a funny moroccan man who was everywhere. seriously every time you turn around abdul is there asking if everything is ok. i think he knows that phrase in 14 languages. such a character. the riad had a very family setting feel, everyone ate meals together and just hung out. sunsets from the roof were insane. there were also always a random array of animals around. turtles, birds, and scruffy the dog. you just feel home instantly. it's the kind of place i want to live. chillin sooo harrrd.

surf riad

sunset from the roof

surfing: oh surfing. turns out we were the only ones with the snow or sand program. but about 20 of us went out surfing every day. we were the noobs. but we learn quick. and if nothing else we're determined. far more than anyone else learning. we surfed 5 or 6 hours every day. no one else did. there were several times when we were the only ones out and everyone was just watching us from the beach. they said they didn't believe we'd never surfed before! which is probably more ego boosting than true but i'll take it. we really did work hard. got to a point day 2 where we were standing up on every wave. never mastered turning. next time. don't think we were really good or anything, we weren't. our friends called lo "surfs on sand" because she stands up really late and me "surfs on knees" because sometimes i don't stand up at all. so we're not pros yet. but to my surfing friends: i get it. i get surfing. and i love it too. the second and third day we got up at 6am for a sunrise surf sesh. and oh my lanta there is nothing like it. we went out and the waves weren't good but we just laid on our boards and didn't talk and watched the sunrise. nothing like it, nothing at all. i plan on continuing. and getting better. i'll do it. watch me.

our little surf camp

surfing

not surfing

surf instructors: funnyyy guys. zu, moglie, and bagira. zu is the number one surfer in morocco. legit. moglie's name is munyi but we think he looks like moglie from the jungle book. bagira's name we don't know so we dubbed him jungle book also. funny guys. they took us camel riding. which was a funny experience. short and really unstable feeling but funny as crap. then they took us on a private tour around taghazout. so cool. we didn't feel like tourists. we felt like locals. so we just hung out and talked and stuff one afternoon. we found over and over that moroccans don't leave morocco. didn't meet one who'd left the country. which is interesting. they're fine with that. they're just people who don't have much yet are far happier than many who have much more. interesting concept. inspiring. kind of the way i plan to live my life. anyway all the surf instructors would come to the riad at night after dinner and just hang out and watch surf movies. sweet stuff.

taghazout with moglie and bagira

on a frickin camel

hammam spa: oh my hammam. not the spa you'd picture. which we knew going into it. but didn't know what it actually meant. boy were we not ready. two spanish girls, lauren and i were dropped off and told to take off our clothes. we walked in and there were just naked moroccan women. everywhere. big ones. it took a while and some guts but we finally got down to our underwear. the second we got our bras off there were women pulling us into these steam rooms. and we were gone. there's three rooms and each one is hotter than the last. so naturally they brought us straight to the hottest one. i mean hot. like reallllly hot. there were 40 or so women in each room just sitting on the floor washing themselves. so the ladies plopped us down on the ground and started rubbing this green goop all over our bodies. all over. no. alllll over. the moroccan ladies were laughing at us, i'm pretty sure it was clear we were americans. we just sat there and laughed til we cried, non stop the entire time. the ladies laid us down and washed all the green stuff off of us with these exfoliating gloves. much like steel wool you would clean dishes with. painful. then they flipped us over and washed the back. removed the small amount of dignity we had in our underwear. so we're laying with our faces in 2 inches of gross water, crying laughing, being vigorously scrubbed by naked moroccan women. it could not have been funnier. then they stood us up and dumped two buckets of water on our heads and pushed us out the door. one of the funniest experiences of my life but i wouldn't do it again. one of the girls we were with described it as "mom cleaning a fish". pretty accurate. i am, however, very clean.

people: we met tons of people. ismael, a young moroccan, wanted to teach us how to surf so bad. really friendly, no ulterior motives. just a funny little nice guy. the frenchmen: nicholas and pierre. probably our best friends in taghazout. hilarious beyond belief. we had dinner with them every night and surfed a bunch. so much laughter. one night we were sitting at dinner with the two french guys, three spanish friends, and a norweigan couple. it was so cool just looking around the table and seeing so many people from around the world. we just talked and laughed all night. and we met plenty of random friendly moroccans. it's possible that half of the appeal of morocco is the people we met. unreal.

our surf weekend only lasted three days but we couldn't get a flight until tuesday. so we headed back to marrakech for two days where we planned to lay low and chill.

marrakech: big city. real big. the first day we just chilled in the hostel. met some sweet americans and dinner and hung out with them all night. smoked hookah. stargazed on the roof. tuesday we went out and explored with our new friends. literally walked around all of marrakech which was lovely. so cool. like a movie. there's this call to prayer five times a day that comes from loudspeakers all around the city. everyone stops and faces east. kinda creepy the first couple times but it was cool. walked through several sweet gardens. saw so many possible pictures. culturally mind blowing. marrakech is cool. nothing on taghazout. but man i love morocco.

garden in marrakech

so now we're home. in florence. where we have to wear shoes and it's raining and we can't walk to the beach. i love florence, i do. but i will go back to morocco. mark my words i will. maybe i'll live there one day. because why the heck not? doors are opening and believe you me i'll take it.