Tuesday, December 16, 2014

That weekend in Marrakech - where we blessed the rains down in AAAAAFRICA!!!

Weekend 18! Marrakech, Morocco
Saturday, December 13th
                We woke up nice and early and took the 7 o’clock flight to Marrakech. After thinking we were late, a 3 hour flight, and a long line to get through customs, we made it into the city! We took the bus right into the main square (or Medina/old part) of town then wandered a little bit to find our hotel was just around the corner. We dropped our stuff off then we were off to brunch!
                As the hotel was right on the main square of town (Jemaa El Fna or Djemma) we explored the square and found a nice terrace restaurant to observe the hustle and bustle of the square. For breakfast we had some fresh squeezed orange juice, a cheese omelet and some traditional eggs and dried meat smoked in a tagine pot (like a little steamer clay pot), and of course some mint tea. This café also had a lot of really cute kittens roaming around. Little did we know – the rest of Marrakech was swimming in cats…
                After breakfast we walked around the square and saw some of the stands and ventured into the souk (flea market) a little bit on our way to the Badi Palace. The Badi Palace is the remnants of the Saadian king’s home from 1578. It had originally jail cells in the gardens but now there are just orange trees being farmed there. There was also a nice little FLOCK of storks that guarded the tops of the castle (they made a really interesting sound with their beaks clashing). There was also a neat underground tunnel system with rooms. It was pretty creepy, but felt like you were walking into a movie set or something. We also saw a nice view of the city from the terrace of the palace. Pretty much this palace looked like you walked into the sultan’s palace courtyard in Aladdin.
                After that we headed to the Saadian Tombs. The tombs were attached to a really large and beautiful mosque. The tombs were made during the era of Ahmad al-Mansur (1578-1603), but were discovered in 1917. They have been restored and are really beautiful celebrations of life – except no one has a name on the tombstones. The Saadi Dynasty rests in the main mausoleum or basically a really decorated crypt /church thing (pictures are definitely worth 1000 words here).
                After this we tried to find the church we were going to go to this weekend, but had the wrong address and ended up in a not-so-nice part of town that lined the one of the main gardens of the city (Jardin de L’agdal).
                After this minor detour through the city, we went to the Bahia Palace. This palace was smaller than the other one, but a lot more modern and well decorated. It was made in the late 1800s (intended to be the greatest palace of its time). Apparently the rooms that lined the main courtyard were intended for the concubines of Si Moussa (grand vizier of the sultan). Again check out the pictures for better details.
                After that we went back to the hotel through the souk (market) to drop off the camera and go to church. We found the correct address an hour before church so we grabbed a snack at a pretty fancy Pizza Hut (some of us missed American pizza/breadsticks…ok both of us did). We then went to probably the only catholic church in the town of mosques to celebrate the third week of advent with about 20 other people. 
                We made our way back into town where the main mosque in the center of town has beautiful and tall minaret (La Koutoubia) so we stopped to get some pictures of it lit up at night. The town was also having an international film festival where there was a huge projector in the square playing a movie. Unfortunately it was sprinkling that night so the people had to stand getting a bit muddy.
                We decided not to watch the movie (13 Assasins, in French as French is the main language of Marrakech next to Arabic). We found a cute upscale and authentic Moroccan restaurant called La Marrakechi to have a quiet meal. There was no one on the second level of this restaurant (which was a bit weird, but very nice and quiet). The scenery was so cute with all the Moroccan designs and candles. The waiter then told us that we should move upstairs to enjoy some traditional music, so we did. Dinner was SO GOOD and we enjoyed some nice music with a room full of people. Stuart had some chicken kabobs with rice and I had some beef stew type thing that was delicious with a side of couscous and veggies topped with onions and chickpeas sautéed in cinnamon (so good!).
                We were ready for bed after that large meal!

Sunday, December 14th
                We checked out of the hotel to go get some Moroccan breakfast! We walked into the souk only to get turned around and cut across it and back track a little (<that is very easy to do). We stumbled upon a recommended café for breakfast (Café des Epices) in the spice market area of town. We got a huge Moroccan breakfast with mint tea, fresh orange juice, a fruit salad, and an assortment of three breads and three dipping sauces. The sauces were olive oil, a homemade chocolate peanut butter thing (so good!), and a cinnamon sugar honey. The breads were batbout (or pita), harcha (pan fried flat dense bread), and msemen (pan fried pancakes, similar to crepes, but crispier).
                After that meal we were definitely ready to take on the day – even if it rained off and on all day. We made our way over to the Marrakech Museum only after getting lost in the souk (we even asked for directions!). We finally made it to the museum after a cute little school boy lead us to the museum (of course we gave him a nice Moroccan tip of some dirhams). The museum was a little small with all the rooms branching off of a main indoor courtyard. It was a beautiful place with detailed architecture and modern Moroccan artwork. The museum is housed in the Dar Menebhi Palace which was restored in 1997.
                After that museum we went to the Ben Youssef Madrasa or the old Islamic college. The college was found in the 14th century and was reconstructed in the 1560s or so. The college was closed in the 1960s and is now a historical site. The college has 130 dormitory rooms (super creepy and small, but some were quite quaint – must have been the senior rooms). There was also as many as 900 students at one time at that school…talk about roommates. This school was one of the largest theological colleges in North Africa.
                After the school, we walked through the souks to buy some souvenirs. Stuart perfected his bartering skills after some awkward encounters with some scarf salesmen. I’d say 70% off of the first asking price is pretty good for a first bartering experience!
                After the souvenirs we got our backpacks and headed to the airport.

We just want to say that we did bless the rains down in AAAAAAAaaaafrica.
Next adventure on the agenda: exploring Paris with Joan, Mitchell, and Bradley for Christmas!!! Then it’s off to Italy!

Joyeuses fêtes! Happy Holidays!
Love,

Stevie and Stuart

Monday, December 8, 2014

Castles, Clocks, and Crashes: Our weekend in Prague

Weekend 17! Prague, Czech Republic
Friday, December 5th
                We got into Prague about 8 pm and took the bus into town. Once we got into town we found our hostel just off of the main Old Town square. We dropped our stuff out then went to find some dinner. We also noticed that the CHRISTMAS MARKET was going in the square, so that was pretty at night with all the lights. Also there were a lot of lit up devil horn headbands…a St. Nicholas tradition that we will explain later. We found a cozy little touristy Czech restaurant not too far. For dinner, Stuart got the beef in a creamy sweet sauce. I got a nice little kettle of Czech style goulash with some dumplings to go with it. All the main meals in the Czech Republic were a lot of pork and meat with a gravy sauce and potatoes dumplings. After dinner we got a dessert at the Christmas Market, some trdelník  bread. Basically it was dough rolled on a metal rod and roasted rotisserie style then rolled in cinnamon sugar with some almonds. SO GOOD, fresh and warm too!
               
Saturday, December 6th
                St. Nicholas day! A big deal to any Christmas loving Christian population and Prague was no exception. Our tour guide later explained to us that the people with devil horns represented the Krampus, or the devil that accompanied St. Nick. According to tradition, if the Krampus were to scare children and they did not sing a Christmas carol (or were particularly naughty), the Krampus would kidnap them and then later eat them of course. So Friday night we saw people dressed as St. Nicholas and the Krampus wandering around the main square partaking in this frightening tradition.
                We started the day with some nice pastries from the bakery just next door to the hostel then observed the astronomical clock tower in the square chime. The clock was installed on the tower in 1410 and on every hour, four little puppets start moving and doors open up on the top of the clock to show the 12 Apostles waving to the people in the square. The puppets represented the four fears that people back in the 1400s feared – vanity, greed, death, and the Ottomans (<the Czech people were taken over by a lot of other people throughout their history – the Ottoman Empire was around the 1400s for Czech). We wandered around a little before we met up by the clock tower again for a free walking tour.
                The tour guide we had was a Romanian International studies master student who just stayed in Prague, for three years…The first stop of the tour was observing the Church of Our Lady Before Týn. This was the main old church on the old town square. It also took awhile to build and the drawings were lost so the two towers were different widths. Also on the square is St. Nicholas’ church and the tour guide told us about the old conflicts between the Catholics and Protestants. A couple religious skirmishes actually ended with people getting thrown out windows or the bell tower.
                The next stop on the tour was the Rudolfinum or the concert hall that houses their philharmonic orchestra. The tour guide told us about the history of the Reinhard Heydrich or Hitler’s right hand man that took over Prague. The concert hall had a Jewish composer statue on the top of it and Heydrich’s henchmen were told to destroy it, but instead they destroyed Hitler’s favorite composer. Their lives were quickly ended.
                After the concert hall we saw the “Old-New synagogue” or Staronová synagoga, where the guide told us the legend of the Golem that was locked up in the attic of the synagogue. The next stop was a statue of Franz Kafka as portrayed in one of his books. The Czech people didn’t really celebrate Kafka until recently as he wrote in German and Germans took over their city in WWII. After the statue we saw this old church (Church of St. James) that had the forearm of man. There was a story that the famine in Prague was so bad one year that a man tried to steal the necklace off of a statue of Mary to sell for food, but she caught his arm. The priests found him in the morning hanging from Mary so they slowly cut his forearm off and Mary then let go of the arm. The church was destroyed in a fire soon after that, but a new forearm was replaced. You can see the shriveled up old forearm hanging from the ceiling of the church warning any other thieves.
                After that nice image of the shriveled forearm hanging from the ceiling we walked towards the “new town” and the Powder Tower, one of the 3 remaining old towers from Prague’s old wall. This tower used to hold the city’s gun powder. Next to the tower was the beautiful municipal house of the city. After that we walked to the concert hall where Mozart conducted Don Giovanni for the city in the Estates Theater. Mozart was offered to stay in Prague but Vienna offered him more money and more musical opportunities.
                For lunch we got a nice kebab and sausage baguette sandwiches from the Christmas market then met up for another tour of the Castle district of Prague. We made our way across the river and took a tram up to the top of the hill where the castle was located. We walked across this really cool old stone bridge over a stream then saw the interior of one of the courtyards in the castle. Apparently the Prague Castle is the biggest medieval style castle in the world, but some wife of a nobleman wanted it to look more modern so she had a façade put on the castle. The Cathedral of St. Vitus next door to the castle looks more authentic with its Gothic architecture. The cathedral was started in the 1300s and the construction just ended in the 1929, over 600 years after it was started. The final four architects put their faces in the main façade of the cathedral to be remembered forever. Some other neat things that we saw in the courtyards of the castle were an obelisk, a balcony where Hitler once spoke, and a misspelled gate to the castle due to a stingy old king.
                After checking out the castle courtyards and cathedral, we watched the changing of the guards then headed towards a nice place to have a view of the city. Prague has a mini Eiffel tower in its main park (not really sure why) but we got to see that and the city. After the view, we went to this old monastery that made ‘holy beer’ or some of Prague’s best beer from a really old recipe.
                We walked backed towards Old Town over the Charles Bridge which was also built in the 1300s. After the flood of Prague in 2007, the mortar of the bridge was tested and was found to have raw eggs, beer, and wine in the mixture.
                We took a quick break at the hostel as we were frozen! It had been drizzly and cold all day and two walking tours made for some grumpy tourists…After a nice warm up we went out to dinner and had some more Czech food. Stuart got a pork steak and I got a quarter of a roasted duck with the traditional red cabbage and dumplings. The night was complete with some hot mead, cider, and watching some Christmas carolers at the Christmas market (as well as seeing the Krampus again!).

Sunday, December 7th
                Sunday morning we went to church at the Church of Our Lady Before Týn, and then got a nice sit down breakfast at a café around the corner. We tried to go see the old Jewish cemetery (which had 12 layers of graves on top of each other), but the line was just too long. We then walked to Wenceslas square and saw another mini Christmas market. We made it back to the square and got a nice view of the town from on top of the bell tower. After that we tried to use the rest of our Czech Korunas on snacks at the Christmas Market (fresh potato chips and ginger bread!). We also enjoyed some cute kids dancing in traditional Czech costume.
                After that it was time to catch the bus to airport. Good thing we left in plenty of time, because our bus got in an accident with another tour bus. The other bus was in the wrong lane and tried to cut off our bus at a left turn. Our bus ended up clipping the other bus and losing its right side mirror. Two of the windows were broken in the other bus. I hope no one was hurt on the other bus. We had to wait for the police to spray the areas were the buses were in the accident then we pulled over to the side of the road, as there were 4 city trams lined up that we were blocking. A new bus driver was called in and drove us the rest of the way to the airport (without a side mirror!). But we made it home safely, so that was good.

It was quite a fun, tour filled, cold, but delicious weekend in Prague!
Next stop:  Marrakech Morocco in AAAAAFFFFFRIIIICAAAAAAAAAAAA!
À plus (later!),

Stevie and Stuart