To Dine in Rome

The all-you-can-eat breadsticks and salad of Olive Garden are the average middle-class American’s prototype of a great Italian dining experience. On weekend evenings and Sundays after church, the line weaves out the door and down the block. Most people in line tap their feet and check their watches with frustration. Once your pager buzzes and the hostess whisks you away to your table, you’re immediately greeted by Joe. If he’s a good waiter by the restaurant’s standards, he serves you in a timely manner with a big smile. You peruse the gigantic menu filled with rich dishes like fettucini alfredo, chicken parmigiana, and sausage-stuffed giant rigatoni.  While you wait, you scroll through your Facebook feed on your phone and let everyone know that you’re at Olive Garden.  

Twenty minutes and two drink refills later, Joe brings out your ridiculously- large portion of pasta, and you scarf it down in record time. As soon as you’re too full to function, Joe brings you the check and you reward with him a generous tip. “It was my pleasure to serve you,” he calls robotically on your way out, as he pockets the extra cash and the next family takes a seat. Your total mealtime is thirty-two minutes.  

Jump to Rome, Italy. The city’s traditional recipes, descendants from a Roman cookbook known as Apicius, are as ancient as their ruins. These recipes are followed in modern trattorias on every block and incorporate locally grown, harvested, or produced foods such as olives, figs, chickpeas, seafood, and cheeses. Though pizza was born in Naples, its predecessor, focaccia bread with toppings, was a Roman staple. My pre-trip misconceptions, based on my Olive Garden visits, are quickly dispelled on my first free evening in Rome. 

My friends and I stumble upon a quaint ristorante in an alleyway near the Spanish Steps. Thinking we would avoid the crowds by dining after eight in the evening, we’re surprised to find the small patio filled with Italian couples slowly sipping vino rosso and munching on light appetizers without any hint of urgency. We wait by the entrance for a few minutes, as waiters move carefully through the tiny gaps between closely-set tables. At last, one waiter notices our presence and gestures nonchalantly at a table that hasn’t been cleared yet.  

Sitting down and rapidly opening our small menus, we fail to recognize half of the dishes listed. Among the pastas are spaghetti alle vongole veraci, noodles dotted with clams, and cacio e pepe, a macaroni tossed with grated cheese and ground black pepper. They’re simple dishes not overtaken by excessive seasoning, sauces, or additives like the Americanized-Italian we’re accustomed to. The one basket of plain white bread resting before us is a far cry from the unlimited garlic bread of Olive Garden. Bread in Italy is not meant to fill up the customer, but rather as a pre-meal snack or as an instrument to soak up leftover sauce from your main course. Bread enhances, but doesn’t detract from, the chef’s preparations. I begin to think that this chef would be offended to see his recipes slaughtered with creamy sauce and mounds of salt. I begin to think that Olive Garden should remove the word Italian from its dictionary.  

When our meals arrive sometime later, we realize that we have lost track of time in our internet-free conversations and that early evening has turned surreptitiously into nighttime. We delight our taste buds with various seafood, pizza, and noodles. I savor each freshly-prepared bite of my pasta with pesto sauce, making sure that I take the time to appreciate the flavor. Our waiter is in no hurry to herd us out of the restaurant, though my watch reads half past ten and we haven’t yet thought about dessert. With our plates clean and our selves satisfied, we don’t even mind that our waiter takes an extra twenty minutes to bring us our check or that we have to rummage around in our purses for cash because we can’t pay individually. My previous notions that eating here would be anything similar to an Olive Garden experience seem silly. There is an art to eating in Rome that is lost on its American mimickers.  

           Structural differences explain part of the wide separation between American  and Roman dining experiences. Joe, the ideal Olive Garden waiter, is financially dependent upon the tips that his patrons leave for him because his employer only pays him about two dollars an hour. As a result, the American dining experience is focused on quick service. The faster the customers dine and leave, the more tables Joe can turn during his shift, and the more tips he can earn. Italian waiters don’t work for tips like their American counterparts—they are paid fully by their employers and thus less inclined to strive to please the customer. Speedy service is a low priority for the waiter, giving the customers more time to enjoy their meals and to interact with one another. 

Intertwining with this concept of slow service is the Italian concept of dining as a social affair. Americans worry about resolving their hunger and moving on, evident through the popularity of fast food chains and microwave dinners. It’s the result of a culture with a lack of dining traditions and the need to make everything time efficient. In Rome, they view eating as a time for conversation and for enjoying the camaraderie of friends and family, which is a product of their strong familial bonds and of their focus on community. They aren’t in a hurry because their priorities are different; they are focused on the nature of their overall dining experience.  

            Romans are more concerned about the quality of the food they put in their mouths over quantity. They rank more time-consuming, freshly prepared food higher in importance than food prepared with time-saving shortcuts. Though large portion sizes are becoming more common because of the influence of the United States, traditionally, a Roman meal consists of small portions of three or four dishes. Multiple courses provide them a variety of tastes. The average serving of pasta is only about 100 grams, contrasted against American portion sizes that triple or quadruple that amount. An excess of pasta leaves no room for additional taste bud thrills. 

A combination of historical, social, and cultural factors has shaped the art of dining in Rome, a tradition that has been passed down with each generation. It is, simultaneously, all about the food and nothing about the eating. To dine as a Roman is to savor the experience as much as the flavors. It is a far cry from stuffing your face with a pile of processed noodles at Olive Garden. This art is something I discovered in a quaint ristorante in an alleyway near the Spanish Steps, and it belongs to this bustling capital city of the boot-shaped peninsula called Italy.  

Pompeii: Reflection in the Rubble

        Two point six million people a year shuffle through the high arch of the Porta Marina and into the remainders of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Some of these visitors meander into the town forum, guidebooks in hand, and mentally rebuild towering marble columns from the crumbled ruins. Or perhaps they journey to this sacred spot to imagine the cobblestone streets alive with tradesmen, children, and slaves. Perhaps, like me, two point six million people a year come to Pompeii and reflect upon death. I came face to face with my own mortality in the wreckage.

When I first arrive at the Pompeii-Scavi train station, the only reminder of death is the murderer herself looming in the distance. Mt. Vesuvius erupted last in 1944, killing twenty-six people. Scientists say she is due for another eruption soon. Of one thing they are certain—she, who sits on a 154 square mile layer of magma, will spew lava from her top again and the consequences will be cataclysmic. It’s unnerving how her grey figure stands in the distance above her destruction, watching, waiting. She was made to create chaos and her work is incomplete. Under her watchful eye, tourists explore what she destroyed on that tragic day in seventy-nine A.D. The explosion that brought darkness also brought light by burying the town alive and consequently, preserving it. I am here today because of her. Her hand could bury me tomorrow.

The bits and pieces of conversation that I hear along the walk to the entrance to the site are lighthearted. Signs advertising cheap pizza and free Internet access line the walls. Persistent men push their arrays of multicolored selfie sticks into the face of every tourist who comes within ten feet. People here actually buy these egocentric devices that maximize the amount of people you can fit into one picture you take of yourself; I see a group of teens bartering in Italian for one. It’s not the concept of the “selfie stick” that is so disturbing as the context in which they are being sold. Pompeii is a place where thousands of Romans were smothered under pumice and ash; it is a place of remembrance and mourning. Imagine the disrespect of someone selling selfie sticks at a graveyard. Everyone smile, you’ll make the spirits proud. Why does no one give this practice a second thought here?  We are at the ultimate historical graveyard, eternal home to both young and old, healthy and sick.  Are the Pompeian’s dead to a lesser degree because they died two thousand years ago?  At what point does death demand less respect?

The clicks of camera shutters surround me as I enter the forum. Picking up my own Nikon, I snap a few pictures of the rust-colored rubble contrasted against the bleak sky as I try to push the thought of death from my mind. My group follows our guide to a corner, where the plaster casts of victims are on display. Excavators filled plaster into the hollow spaces left within the hardened volcanic debris after the decay of the bodies, creating lifelike statues from the molds. They are graphic reminders of the last moments of life here. One man crouches with his hands pulled up to his face as if in prayer. Another lies down with his face buried in his arms, too afraid to look death in the face. A jaw with perfectly preserved teeth opens fully in mid-scream. I can barely look at the image of the pregnant woman without feeling a deep sense of sorrow because she never looked upon her growing child’s face. Click. Someone next to me takes a photo of the casts. Click. Click. Click. The clicks grow more prevalent the more I pay attention to them. As the shutters close, my mind opens. Where I see death, some see plaster. When I look at these casts, I imagine myself in their position and suddenly I am screaming, praying, and fearing for my life. Click.

Disturbing thoughts of the dying woman follow me around for hours until I’m unable to separate myself from her. I think of my aspirations and everything that I want to accomplish before departing the earth. I want to love people the way I imagine the pregnant woman loved her baby—fiercely, bravely, unconditionally. Whose faces will I picture in my last few moments? What legacy will I leave behind?

It’s strange and uncomfortable to think about one’s own mortality, but it’s also an important part of the human experience. The technological distractions of this day hinder this kind of reflective thinking. Suddenly, the successfulness of selfie sticks makes sense. It’s not that we intentionally disrespect the dead; we just prefer to ignore them. It’s less painful to smile for a selfie than to face the thoughts of our own death. It’s easier to place these people into a category marked Ancient and snap a picture. When we are unwilling, unable, or too distracted to dive deep into mortality, we lose our appreciation for both the past and present.

“The beauty of things must be that they end,” Kerouac wrote. The beauty of life stems from our humble mortality. We must always seize the day or again in the words of Kerouac, “Climb that goddamn mountain.” The mountain represents our passions—the things that make us feel alive and whole. One-day molten lava may bust down our front door and we’ll never look up from our Iphones. One thing is for sure--the Pompeians never wasted time looking at a screen. The pleasant Italian climate meant they spent a great deal of their lives outdoors. Romans from elsewhere traveled far to vacation in the picturesque setting. The ruins of their houses, brothels, bathhouses, frescoes, and even the grid of their streets reflect a tight knit community of people. Running water and the ingenious design of their bathhouses suggest they were smart, clean, and sophisticated. They valued art, music, family, theatre, sex, love, and the Gods. Pompeians climbed that goddamn mountain. 

Even in death, these ancient peoples embody life. Blood stopped flowing through their veins thousands of years ago, but their legacy marches on for two point six million tourists a year to uncover.  Put down your cameras. Refuse the selfie sticks. Pay attention to the voices of the people who perished here. Learn from them. Life and death intertwine and coexist, and there are few places that shout this louder than Pompeii if only you pause and listen.

The Italian Man in Seat 37E

         The navy blue cloth of an airline seat back gradually materializes in front of me as I awaken from an uneasy slumber. For a few seconds I lose any sense of my whereabouts as my fuzzy mind struggles to find reality. Who am I? Elizabeth Sager Miller Campbell. Where am I? Somewhere on an airplane in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Where am I going? Italy. I’m going to Italy to travel write.

         My body aches as my legs untangle and I free myself from my contorted position between two armrests. Looking around, I see familiar faces sleeping soundly despite the desperate wails of a toddler nearby. On my right, I notice an Italian man with gray-speckled hair and half-moon glasses snoring across the aisle. His blue striped linen shirt and ironed pants suggest that he is careful of his appearance and his worn leather shoes reveal that he has traveled many miles. He looks like the kind of tired that comes from too much living. His crimson Italian passport peeks out of his shirt pocket and I wonder about the stamps that line its pages. Where has he journeyed? I am acutely aware of the vast cultural ocean that separates this man from me. My mind travels along the deep wrinkles that line his suntanned face—what wisdom do they hold? What is it like—this place he calls home? It is surely not like mine.


        I imagine that he lives in the rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside with his apron-wearing wife of many years. She raised the children and cooked the spaghetti. He worked long hours on the family vineyard until his back started to hurt and the heat wore him out. Like his father did for him, he passed the business down to his hardworking sons. He wakes every morning with the sense of satisfaction that he has given back to the earth, and he spends the remainder of his days bonding with his grandchildren in the garden behind his little house. He is never bothered with rush hour traffic and he doesn’t carry a watch. He lives by dawn and dusk, worrying little about what tomorrow will bring. His home is wine, family, and the fresh country air. His home is Italy.


       My home is Arkansas. Memories of my almost twenty years of life flash through my head one by one. I recall learning to ride a bike on the suburban streets of my old neighborhood, playing tennis with my father on Sunday afternoons, and the fast pace of growing up with parents who worked long hours at the office. A product of the technological age, my life has been defined by widespread Internet access, text messages, and impatience for anything that takes more than a few seconds to download. My rural house is a picturesque refuge from the rush of the city. My home is sweet tea, southern hospitality, and thirty-minute commutes.


        The elements of my home make up everything that I am so far. My travels, too, have shaped me. The charming streets of Europe and the breathtaking views of the Swiss Alps have shown me physical beauty. There has been pain in the form of homesickness, stolen wallets, and the weariness of sleeping on another hard hostel mattress. But most importantly, my journeys have shown me humanity. I think of the roofless home of a Moroccan family in Rabat and how they were more than kind to a tiny American girl who did not speak a word of their language and whom they would never see again. There is my Spanish host mom, Elvira, who revealed the pain of losing family members and the joy of welcoming new guests, like me, into her home to stay. I see the tears of strangers and the grin of the elderly man I passed by every day on my way to school in Seville. With each new destination, the differences between the next person and myself shrink. As I explore the cultures of others, I recognize the flavors, colors, languages, gestures, flairs, and backgrounds that make us unique but not divided. We all miss someone. We all lose people we love. We all hurt, laugh, feel and share the experience of the fragility of being human. Perhaps we are not so very different after all. Maybe the Italian man’s home is not so different from mine.


         I aim an ear-to-ear smile at my elderly neighbor in seat 37E, who is now wide awake. He mutters something friendly back in Italian that I do not understand. The language barrier does not matter anymore—the oceans in his eyes seem to write back to me. I imagine we communicate on a deep level, both searching for what holds us as beings under the same constellations; as breathers, thinkers, and lovers; as creatures who start wars and who are simultaneously devastated by them, together. We are both on journeys that have little to do with our destination. I hope he, too, has found true beauty on his.

The Power Of Communication

     I can't believe it's been a month since I last blogged. Time here in Spain is a strange thing. It seems to pass slowly, especially during the lazy, warm hours of siesta. But at the same time, this morning I woke up and realized that I have less than two months left in this paradise. Spring has finally arrived, the days are 70 degrees and sunny. Each day after school, I lay by the river, soaking up the sun until lunch. We've been spending late afternoons in the park or drinking chai lattes in a cafe or taking advantage of 3 euro movie nights. These are all things that the locals here do as well, so I guess I've finally made this place my second home. I'll go home to the United States with a piece of Seville in my heart. When I'm sitting in class next semester on a dreary day, I know that I'll be wishing for the Spanish sun. I belong to two places.

     Since I went to Amsterdam, I've been to Cordoba twice, Granada, Cadiz, and Malaga. The highlight of all of this was seeing Carla, my precious Venezuelan friend. Carla studied at my high school two years ago. She came to America without knowing any English. Over the school year, we became best friends. Without her example, I probably wouldn't be sitting here typing this right now. I think she probably gave me a little bit of her courage. It's hard to learn a new language, much more difficult than I first imagined. It doesn't come easily. I've found it frustrating at times to have such little command of the Spanish language when writing. In English, I can write a complex, meaningful sentence without any thought, and even with all of my attention, I can't reproduce the same thing in Spanish. Have I improved since I came here with NO knowledge of Spanish? Absolutely. Can I effectively communicate with those around me? Yes. Am I fluent? Close to it. Will I be bilingual by the time I leave? Absolutely not. In CLIC, my international school, there are 6 basic levels of learning languages (this goes for all European languages.) I started in level A1-- beginner-- which according to the CEFR means that I "can understand and use basic phrases, introduce myself, and interact in a simple way." I'm now in the 4th level, B2-- upper intermediate-- which means I "can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in a field of specialization, can interact with a degree of fluency that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party," and I "can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options." And the last level, C2, means that you interact like a native speaker.  These guidelines of language learning have really changed my perspective. I used to think that you either speak a language or you don't. But it's much more complicated than that. You can be fluent in a language, but not bilingual. In fact, it would take years and years of study and immersion for me to call myself "bilingual." I'm not perfect when I speak Spanish, I make mistakes, but I can communicate. This will serve me well wherever I may be, in Little Rock or Latin America. And when Carla came to visit, I was the one who was speaking a new language. It was really interesting the way that we communicated, I would say a sentence in Spanish and throw in an English word or two. She would say something in half English, half Spanish. It was completely chaotic, but it was effective. Anyone else listening to us would have been lost, but we understood each other better than we ever have before. A Venezuelan. An American. In Spain. Speaking each other's language with southern accents. And it's all worth it, a thousand times over.

     There's a girl from Ecuador in my English class that I help to teach once a week in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Seville. She speaks very little English, so our conversations are always in Spanish. Our worlds are nothing alike and without this new language, they would have never collided. Today, we bonded over music. There we were, walking down the street, listening to Romeo Santos, and laughing like old friends. You know what? We're not so different after all. 

We're not so different after all.

Until next time,

Elizabeth 

Why You'll Miss Walmart When Studying Abroad in Spain

"To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted." - Bill Bryson

 Here are some things you may not know about Spain: 

1) The schedule 

Spaniards move at a pretty slow pace, at least in the south. Work here starts a little bit later (my school starts at 9:15) and lunch is around 3. After lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day, there is the best part of the day, siesta. Siesta is wonderful. Siesta is two to three hours of relaxation and rest. Siesta is also when all of the stores shut down. Pharmacies, supermarkets, you name it. If you need something you better get it before 2pm, or else you'll have to wait until about 6pm. It can be really inconvenient. Dinner is eaten around 10pm, though my host mom isn't hungry until almost midnight. 

2) Living

Most of the houses and apartments here don't have central air conditioning or heating. During the summer, they open the windows, turn on their portable fans, and say "Que calor!" During the winter, they put blankets on their beds, exchange the fans for heaters, and wear six layers and slippers at all times. I'm used to walking around barefoot and my host mom seems to find this shocking. She even bought me slippers for Christmas so that I wouldn't catch a cold from the freezing floor. The best thing about winter in Spain are the tablecloths. They're basically big blankets that you cover your lap with and that trap the heat from the heater underneath the table. I could spend hours eating dinner because of this. Also, they're much more energy conscious. My host mom placed a timer in my shower because I was using too much water. She turns off my power strip when I accidentally leave it on. It really has taught me to be more aware. 

3) Shopping

Walmart. Don't ever take Walmart for granted again. Until you get outside of the United States, you don't realize that the rest of the developed world doesn't have access to the same things you do. For example, my friends and I want to make cookies for Valentine's day. In the States, you would go to Walmart/Target/Kroger and have all sorts of varieties of cookie mix. You probably would even have a whole aisle dedicated to baking. In Spain, they don't have cookie mix in the supermarkets. I ended up having to pay about 6 euro for a box at the tiny American store here and they only had one kind, chocolate chip. I'm not complaining really, just marveling at the variety and abundance of what we have in the US. Also, if you want Tylenol, you go to a pharmacy. If you want shampoo, you go to a toiletries shop. If you want bread, you go to a bread shop. If you want pencils, you go to a school supply store. Each category of items has its own separate shop, there is no place where you can buy everything. Watch this video of a few British guys talking about Walmart if you want to see it from their point of view: here. 

4) University

The European college experience is super different from the American one. Dorms, school spirit, sports, fraternities and sororities, and parties filled with red solo cups are non-existent. Spanish students pick their path of study while still in high school, and then go to the part of the University that offers it. They have to take an exam in their chosen career before they enter. If they decide they want to change careers halfway through their studies, they have to start all over. Also, students live with their parents (this very normal for Europeans, even into their late 20's) or rent apartments, there are no dorms. Extracurriculars and academics are kept separate, too. University is for studying and your free time is spent off campus. This makes me appreciate college back home a lot more.

5) Jobs

Spain is in an economic crisis right now. Basically, the young educated Spaniards can't find work. I have a friend from Seville who I met at a little cafe by my house. She's 25, an architect, and works full time as a barista at this cafe because there are no jobs in construction right now. This is a very common story. I've met lawyers, writers, and teachers who are about the same age who are either unemployed or overqualified for their day job. As a result, the young generation is leaving Spain for other countries in Europe or the United States. 

6) Mindset

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking by the river in shorts and tank top, because it was 70 degrees and sunny. I kept getting stares from all of the people who would pass me by. They were all wearing heavy coats, scarves, boots, and hats. I asked my host mom why no one was dressing for the weather. She told me that Spaniards follow the seasons. It's still winter here and so Spaniards wear winter clothes, no matter the temperature. I found this funny, but also consistent. The people here are very dedicated to traditions, culture, and family. They adopt many of the habits of their parents and grandparents, and connections with their past are strong. America may be new and exciting, but Spaniards know who they are and they're proud of it.

I can't believe I've already been here for a month. I'm excited to celebrate Valentine's day with cookies and Sweethearts that I bought at the American store (because they don't have those either here.) Saturday, I'm leaving for the Netherlands to visit Amsterdam and see an Ellie Goulding concert. I'll definitely post about the trip. Wish me luck!!

Elizabeth 

The Not-So-Glamorous-Side of Student Travel

The holidays are officially over and after spending some great time with my family back in the States, I'm ready to take on Seville for four more months. I'm not going to lie. It was much less exciting returning here than the first time. The city is no longer a secret. I'm already back in the routine of school. I know which winding, narrow back roads to take to get me where I'm going. I'm used to walking by the Guadalquivir river every day. I'm able to communicate in the language without awkward pauses and hand gestures. Seville is familiar. I crave the unfamiliar. But I have the feeling that there's a lot more to discover here. This semester is about finding it.

After the long flight from DFW and a few siestas, I left my apartment to meet the new students that are here for the second semester. As I was walking to meet them, I couldn't help but grin at my surroundings. There's something exciting in the air. Or maybe it's just the smell of the orange trees. I just have a good feeling about these next few months.

But in contrast, I think that sometimes people have the idea that everything in my world, in Spain, is perfect. And while I'm having an incredible time so far, I'll reflect on December's trip to Madrid to clear things up. Because I'm 18, independent, and making mistakes. 

Why take the high-speed train for 100 euros when you can take a six-and-a-half hour bus ride for 40 round trip? This the conclusion that my friends, Sophie and Faith, and I came up with when discussing how we would travel to Madrid, which is located in central Spain. Why pay more than 12 euros a night for a hostel? It seems that sometimes, in our quest to save money, we teenagers forget the little phrase, "you get what you pay for." 

And so we boarded the bus and arrived in Madrid pretty late at night. After a long ride on the Metro, we emerged into the glittering center of Madrid, which was still bustling with people. With instructions to look for our hostel between two shops, we found a sketchy door with graffiti plastered all over it. A closer inspection revealed a small sign with the name of our hostel, directing us to the third floor. We dragged our bags up the stairs and walked into the 1 star lobby filled with drinking, tattooed men and were promptly checked in by one of them, who seemed to care more about inviting us to the pub crawl than anything else. We were welcomed to our room that we would share with 8 other people, pointed to the bathroom that lay on the other side of the building, and allowed time to get to know our stained sheets. I'm not exactly sure when we realized that this was not the best idea, probably when the stench of the man's feet in the neighboring bed wafted near me. Call the Ritz. We're getting out of here. After a few calls to our parents for extra money and an extensive TripAdvisor search for a decent place to stay, we literally ran out of the place and into the overpriced comfort of a basic hotel room. I was just grateful for the lack of insects and a warm shower.

The next day we had to move hotels because ours was booked for the rest of the weekend, along with the rest of the hotels in all of Madrid. We chose to travel on a holiday weekend, which meant that we could find no place to stay! Finally, after sitting in the lobby for two hours, we found a decent hostel for a reasonable price. I'd say that we lucked out, because our choices were narrowed down to the street or the same hostel that we ran away from. FINALLY we were able to enjoy Madrid. 

The best part of our trip began and ended with the Imagine Dragons concert. At my graduation in May, they played one of their songs as we entered. Here I was in Europe a few months later, screaming with my fellow Spaniards as we danced to the very same song, feet away from the band. It was a strange feeling, like I was being reminded of everything I've accomplished since then. 

Everything quickly went downhill the rest of the weekend as the extreme crowds made it difficult to enjoy much of anything. Walking through the city center was a struggle because it was literally wall to wall people. We saw a few of the touristy sights, but mainly were just exhausted by the effort it took to get to them. Things really, really, really, went downhill on the last day as we were headed home. We had to take the Metro to the bus station and of course, had all of our luggage with us. I guess in the chaos of it all I wasn't paying enough attention to my surroundings. As we entered the train, I became separated from my friends. Seemingly by chance, but in reality it was all part of a scheme to steal my wallet. And steal my wallet they did. As the Metro began to move, I realized that I had nothing to hold on to to keep my balance. The woman standing next to me gestured at the rail in front of her. I unassumingly grabbed it, putting myself in an awkward, vulnerable position for her to have access to my purse. A few seconds later, I felt a tug on my purse. I looked down to find it out of my line of sight, covered by the jacket in the woman's hands. I quickly pulled it back and it was zipped. I opened it up to make sure that my wallet was still in there.... and it definitely was long gone. I knew the woman beside me had stolen it, so out of anger and adrenaline I yanked her jacket from her hands to look for my wallet. She pretended as if I she didn't know what was going on and had already handed my credit cards, money, and ID off to her accomplice. When the Metro came to a stop, she ran out before any of us could even really process what had just happened. It was the worst moment of my time here in Spain. We then missed our bus talking to the police, because my ticket was in my wallet (that was probably somewhere in a trashcan in a sketchy part of Madrid.) I had plenty of time to think on the long night ride back, so I came up with a few things that I would do from now on.

1. Actually use the money belt that my mom insisted I wear when traveling (sorry.)
2. Look up detailed reviews of hostels before I book them.
3. Take an earlier form of transportation so that I don't arrive to my destination at midnight.
4. Not ever take the cheap bus ride from Seville to Madrid again, because the companies aren't very sympathetic when you have to buy three new tickets after a crisis.
5. Maybe pay a little more for things next time. 
6. Don't overpack and have to carry two bags and a purse on the Metro, which clearly makes me a target.
7. Not let this experience keep me from enjoying traveling, but just be more aware next time.

And though some things about this country evoke horrible memories, today is January 26th. Today I walked along the river in shorts and a tank top. Today I layed out in the sun and 70 degree weather. Today I got a sunburn. Today I was grateful to be here. 

At the end of the day, I love Spain with all of my heart.

Un abrazo,
Elizabeth 

A Moroccan Adventure

Hola todos,

 A few weeks ago, I took a ferry from Spain to Africa in forty five minutes. In the States, my family drives over ten hours to the beach in Florida. It's strange how traveling very short distances here can put you in an entirely new world and continent, where the language, religion, and culture is vastly different. De hecho, from Tangier, Morocco, you can see the coastline of Spain perfectly. I don't know exactly what I was expecting to find on my four day trip, but I imagined a lot of exotic animals and treks across the desert. While you would find that in Kenya, Morocco is an entirely different story. It lies on the western edge of Africa and has fought off conquerors and colonizers throughout its history to become an independent mix of European, African, Arabic influences. Our first walk through the streets revealed the deep ties of its people to Islam, strange chants out of a minaret called the men to prayer in the mosque, while women were covered with hijabs (headscarves.) We soon learned that women play a very subservient role in the culture, which made me a little uncomfortable, because I have grown up believing that gender doesn't define who you are, what you can wear or not wear, or what you can be. We were able to talk with local students over tea and pastries on our first day to see their viewpoints on their religion. One girl voluntarily wears a hijab, and the other one doesn't wear one at all, but both insisted its a personal choice. What struck me most about the students was how similar they seemed to us American teenagers. Yes, we practice different religions and live in different places, but we all struggle with trying to find meaning in our lives. We ask the same questions and face similar problems in our respective countries day to day. What I knew about Muslim countries before this trip, was limited to the horrors shown on television, sixty second news flashes that are meant to evoke fear. But what I found in Morocco were friendly, welcoming people who are eager to learn as much about my life as I am about theirs. I think that if I we all attempted to understand and accept the similarities between people around the world, instead of pointing out our differences, it would eliminate a lot of the ignorance that comes with fear of the unknown. 

On a happier note, we were surprised with camel rides along the beach on our first day. We got up close and personal with the animals, petting them and taking selfies with them. It was truly a unique experience. Then, we drove to a little seaside town to have couscous and admire the amazing view of the Mediterranean. It was in that quaint village that we discovered a place on a wall where you take your picture and then upload it to Instagram with a particular hashtag. That way, all of the people around the world that have been in that spot are connected with a push of button. It's strange to see the way technology impacts and enhances our lives, even in the oldest of places. Speaking of which, for the majority of the time, I had no phone service or wifi. It was probably the longest time I had gone without Internet since I was twelve. Though technology is good for so many things, it was refreshing to look at the views without Tweeting or Facebooking or texting. 

That night, we headed to the capital of Morocco, Rabat, where we met our host families and had dinner. Visitors are seen as gifts from God in Islamic tradition, so we were treated very well. The house I stayed in was very open, with curtains separating one room from another. The Moroccan household is a place of community and family. We were treated to large dinners with fruit, couscous, tea, pastries, and salad, while failing to communicate effectively with hand gestures. Mostly, I just smiled and everyone just smiled back. The thing I found particularly challenging was the shoe rule. If you walk on carpet, you take off your shoes. If you walk on tile, you put on your shoes. It proved to be a hassle to constantly switch between the two and found myself accidentally breaking the tradition often. There are modern conveniences in Morocco, like lights and running water, but its still a developing country. My particular family thankfully had a Western style toilet, while some others did not (think hole in the ground,) but our shower was a bucket of water and a loofah. After a day of exploring different sites in Rabat, we all had the opportunity to go to the public bath, called the Hammam. All the girls went to one of the many rooms of the bathhouse and filled buckets with warm water. We then washed and exfoliated our skin. Let's just say it was quite the memorable experience that made me very appreciative of my hot shower in Seville. 

My favorite part of the experience was going to a village in the Rif Mountains to meet with a family. It was a long drive by bus, with a police check in between. We learned that in the future, the government will start following the Moroccan Exchange students around this part of the country, to keep tabs on us. I say that only to communicate that it was no touristy trip-- we were seeing the real Morocco. We arrived and hiked for twenty minutes up to the house, seeing some incredible views along the way. We really were able to interact with the family-- understand their daily lives, learn about their work, and what makes them happy. The father wanted all of his children to have an education, however far they had to walk to school or whatever sacrifices had to be made. It made me cringe to think about all the times I complained about homework or going to class. Education is a gift, a tool, that shouldn't ever be taken for granted. These people understand that, they really understand the things that are important in life in better ways than we do.

 Only one person was allowed to take pictures of and with the family, and I was happy to be the one to get that opportunity. I spent a lot of time photographing the little children, who were fascinated by the images of themselves. These villagers don't have cameras, but my photos will be hand-delivered back to them so that they will have memories of the visit. I was glad to use technology for someone other than myself. 

Our final stop was Chefchaouen, the blue city, where we spent time bartering in the markets, buying super cool pants, and getting authentic Henna tattoos. Our night was spent reflecting on our time in Africa and the ways in which the trip had impacted us. I remembered that the girl on the first day said that her truth may be different from my truth, but that doesn't make one better than the other. I left Morocco wanting to travel more, to see more of the world, and to stop judging. So far, so good. 

P.S. Watch my video of the trip if you haven't: Moroccan Video

More updates soon,

Elizabeth