Where do I start!?!
Having my partner in crime, Chelsea Hamashin, come visit me was such a blast!!! She got here May 5th, just as soon as the month of Fería in Córdoba was kicking off (so much to do!) As soon as she arrived we were literally out the door exploring the Judería (the Jewery) to see the public patios with the beautifully decorated...well, patios. We walked around and saw the Mezquita, La Correderra, etc. and called it an early night since she was pretty exhausted.
The next day we explored a bit more and then we met up with my friends Jackie and Caitlyn to go the ¨wine tasting¨. It was anything BUT that. They have this ticket system for all of their events, very much like the fairs at home if you want to go on the rides. We bought 10 tickets between us, thinking we would only sample 5 types of wine and maybe buy a bottle because the prices were generous.
I was not aware that out of the 100 casetas (tents) that they would all be this distinct (in my opinion...nasty) white wine, called ¨vino fino¨. Lets just say by the end of the night I couldn´t tell you my name, I will never show my face on Vial Norte again, and I have no clue how we managed to get in a taxi and me tell where I live because I know Chelsea couldn´t help because she doesn´t speak a word of Spanish.
I woke up the next morning hating myself. I have only had one beer since 3 weeks ago. Me being a bad hostess and Chelsea being a good sport set off to the farmacía to buy me some meds since I was absolutely disgusting with my smokers cough (apparently I´m allergic to the olive trees here in Spain..get to that later) and she brought back the nastiest medicine ever. I had to plug my nose to swallow it and it was just fatal. Looking back, I probably should have been consistent with taking it.
Anyway, by the time I had motivated myself to get out of the apartment a lot of our afternoon was lost and we headed out to get a bite to eat since Chelsea managed to eat everything in the apartment the night before. Jackie saw us off before we took our 5 hour bus ride to Madrid. I was really looking forward to this...we thought we were going to be up all night in Madrid going to a seedy Sevillana bar listening to music and enjoying cheap beer and wine until we had to catch the metro to the airport because our flight left at 6:30 in the morning.
However, come to find out the metro closes at 2 AM and re-opens at 6. Problem #1. We were clear across town when we found out. Problem #2. It was 1:50 AM when we found out. Problem OH SHIT. So we ran down to the closest metro stop and took it as far as we could before it shut down for the evening (I thought Madrid was the "town that never sleeps"...no, thats NYC. Don't label yourself with that motto unless you stick to it). We got off at Avenida America because it seemed promising. Boy, that was not right at all. There was a lone cabbie chilling outside chain smoking and looked sad for us. We eventually convinced ourselves that this was in fact the night that we had not planned and gave up around 2:30 and made our way to the airport. 23 euros later we had arrived to the airport.
Apparently everyone had our problem because there were many people sleeping in the fetal position scattered around the airport. It looked like a war zone with luggage and zombies. Then I realized...I forgot my boarding pass, which was on my bed at home. It costs 40 euros for Ryan Air to print you out a boarding pass and I was really stoked when I found that out. Well, 6 AM arrives and I'm first in line to check-in at the Marrakech counter and I go up to the lady and in Spanish I explain what an idiot I am for forgetting my boarding pass and she was really sympathetic but she told me that I had to go wait in line at the RyanAir counter to pay for the boarding pass and I walked off feeling defeated and pissed because now I had to use the 40 euros I was going to spend on my train ticket home (2 hour trip) and now have to buy the bus ticket home (5 hour trip). So we're standing in this line and it hasn't moved in 30 minutes and its insane now because flights are getting canceled due to this ash cloud and I'm thinking we won't even make the flight because of me and all of a sudden this little woman is walking around saying, "Alejandra Warenik"!??? And I was like, "sí, yo" and she explained that her associate had printed out my boarding pass and I could continue to my gate. I almost kissed the woman and was jumping up and down! We were off to a great start!
As soon as we got on the plane...well, I don't remember much after that. We passed out the 3 hour plane ride and shortly had arrived in Marrakech! We made it to the great and vast continent of Africa!!!!! It sounds so cool.
First things first was getting to the bus station to buy our tickets to the coastal town of Esssaouria. Want to know the sketchiest place in all of Morocco? The bus station. Clearly. We thought the only dependable bus company was Supratours so we walk in and we are looking for it, right? Well...its nowhere to be seen and this guy comes up to us and is hustling. He was like, "headed to Essaouira!?" and we turn to each other...how did he know? "No, were looking for Supratours". "You won't find it here, its at the train station (that makes sense). You will be wasting your time. The next bus leaves at 2PM and I've got a bus bound for Essaouira in 15 minutes and it will get you there by 12PM." We didn't know whether to believe him or not but we only had 5 minutes to figure it out. It was unanimous. "Okay. 2 tickets to Essaouira." He managed to get round-trip tickets out of us for 120 dirham (12 euros round-trip). WOW!
Well, we realized this was going to be an uncomfortable trip as soon as we got on. I've never smelled so many foul people together at the same time and so many creepy men coming on and off the bus all at once. We were supposed to leave at 8:45 and probably didn't pull out until 9:30 because of blind men begging, men preaching from the Koran, men selling food, etc. Even while we were moving people were continually jumping on and off the bus. Weird.
So we made the bus ride end quickly by passing out for most of the 3 hour bus ride. Around 12 we had finally arrived in Essaouira! It had a completely different vibe from the second we pulled in.
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