TravelStream™ news feed for member myates on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/myates en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:21:46 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/myates/1/1245185939/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/myates/1/1245185939/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/myates/1/1245185939/tpod.html Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:21:46 -0400 Once in a lifetime

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Berlin, Germany

Reasons to love Berlin....* The public transport is fantastic and the tubes run all night on weekends!* Loads of people ride bikes! There are fantastic bike lanes and the cars watch out for you!* It has lovely parks and an interesting history* You see something new every time you walk down the same street.* The best places are often the hardest to find...* It's very unpretentious, indivisual style beats expensive brands any day* You can wear whatever you want and be whatever you want..* There's always something to do and something happening somewhere* Nightclubs don't close... until the last person leaves... even if that doesn't happen until Tuesday night..* Parties are held in the most unlikely of venues sometimes illegal... and clubs are found in dusused powerplants and old parts of the U-bahn..* 'Beach bars' on the banks of the spree are decked out with couches as well as swings, trampolines swimming pools and the best wood oven pizza ever! * Drinking is allowed on the street, on the bus.... anywhere....* Kiosks selling beer are open 24 hours and a 500ml beer won't set you back much more than 2 euro* They have a gay mayor* People are generally quite relaxed... except when they don't like something.... then they sometimes riot...* There's public table tennis tables down by the canal
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Berlin, Germany

Five pm I left from Copenhagen to fly to Berlin. The flight took 45 minutes, the bags where there waiting when we reached baggage claim and then it was straight out to the bus stop. I don't think I've ever had a quicker more uncomplicated journey. A 10 min bus ride to the tube, 20 mins on the tube and I had reached Rathaus Neukoln where I just had to find the house of my couch surfing host and ring the doorbell. I stayed with a German girl called Christina who was absolutely lovely and very helpful. She gave me a map, recommended places to see and helped me with apartment searching.My first week in Berlin was dedicated to apartment hunting and I would still be doing it now if I hadn't had a stroke of luck. My time in Berlin so far has been defined by something really good happening and then something really bad... losing my phone on the train.... getting an interview for a job... losing my sunglasses on the tube... finding an apartment... paying 25 euro for a 5min phone call to the bank because my bank card won't work... finding a german course that I can start next week.... et. etc.I stayed with Christina for two nights and then with a cousin of my uncle Raymond, Sabina. They were also really lovely and helpful. We went into the city on Saturday where there was a big celebration because this year is 20 years since the fall of the wall, 60 year celebration of the German constitution plus there was an important election in the parliament which is right next to Brandenburg Tor where the celebration was. Apart from that I haven't seen much of Berlin. I walked around Mitte between Alexander Platz, down unter dem Linden to Brandenburg Tor but that's as far as I got with being a tourist. I am, although, through my apartment searching getting to know all the different neighbourhoods in Berlin and becming familiar with the public transport sytem! Which I have to say is very good. Perhaps not as regular as the London tube (trains come every 4-5 mins instead of every 1-2 mins) but there is the bonus that the tube here doesn't shut on weekends, it operates all night long which is awesome. It also doesn't feel like you're going deep down into the centre of the earth every time you use the tube either. Here the underground is only just below street level and is atually quite often not even underground at all... You even have phone reception on the tube (a novelty for anyone who has live in London)! Also everybody rides bikes and the traffic doesn't seem too bad!Since Monday I have been staying with another couch surfer in Prenzlauer Berg which is in the north of Berlin. I was only supposed to stay a couple of days but in light of my current circumstances she said I could stay until Tuesday when I move into my flat which is such a relief.So Tuesday I move in, the contract is only for three months but that suits perfectly for the moment. It also means I don't need proof of income and a whole lot of other crap that other rental agencies wanted that I clearly don't have!!! The apartment is also furnished and the price includes all bills. I just can't wait to move in and resume some resemblance of a 'normal' existence!So I still had about 5 days before I was to move in to my flat and start German lessons... Over the weekend was a big festival 'carnival of the cultures' that had a big parade around Kreuzberg it's supposed to be something similar to carnivale in Rio or Notting Hill. I've never seen such a big parade, there were hundreds and hundreds of floats and it would have goneon for several hours but I didn't stay that long. Looked like all the particiapnts were having a ball though.I also managed to do some sightseeing. I went on a free walking tour which was quite fantastic, it went for 4 hours and included the main sigts in Berlin and gave lots of interesting information. We started at the Randemburg Tor and saw The Reichstag (parliament building) The Holocaust memorial, Berliner and Franzosich Dom, memorial for the book burning Checkpoint Charlie and various other things. I went back to the Holocaust memorial the next day to the information exhibition underneath.
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Karlskrona, Småland and Blekinge, Sweden

After Egypt I stayed in London for a week. The main reason for staying was to attend a recruitment fair for international schools that was being held over the weekend. The fair is for teachers and international schools from all over the world to meet, find out about vacancies, apply for positions and have interviews. I was obviously hoping to find a job in Berlin. As it turned when the list of attending schools was published, there were no Berlin schools coming. Since I had already signed up I decided to go anyway just for the experience. I met lots of teachers teaching all over the place, attended some information sessions and had an interview for a job in Portugal and one in Dusseldorf (neither of which I was actually qualified for and therefor had any chance of getting).Saturday night was a social event, drinks for an hour beween 6.30 and 7.30. Just a chance for people to chat informally. I talked to a few people and somehow managed to down four drinks in the hour. From there I went straight to Jo's where I was handed a glass of wine. A girl I had met on the Egypt tour came along as well and we had a night out in Clapham Junction. Unfortunately everywhere we went it seemed to be last drinks so we moved aorund a bit. Everybody insisted that I keep up with them drinking perhaps not really realising that I was already 4 drinks ahead of them. I think we had a good night, from what I remember anyway...Apart from that I went to see a couple of movies at my favourite cinema, The prince charles, I saw The Reader and Che part 1 and 2. I also went back to the Bristish Museum to see all the treasures that the British have 'stolen' from other cultures over the years. I went spcifically to see the Egyptian section including the Sphinx's beard and the Rosetta stone. I walked around the park in Hampstead Heath one day and generally had a lovely time enjoying the nice spring weather.Exactly one week later I was also greeted with lovely spring weather in Sweden and if I had thought London was green, it was nothing compared to Sweden. The whole place was just blooming and was absolutely beautiful. I spent my time with my family, trying to study some German and trying to understand German apartment websites with the help of my aunt Helen! As I said the weather was lovely... except of sourese the day that I helped plant apple trees.. that day it rained!! Kalle and Marta had 3500 apple trees delivered frozen from Belgium, they had to sit in water for three days and then were to be planted in rows with a metre between each one. I was out there in the rain, digging holes and planting trees for at least five hours with my Farmor (dad's mum) who I have to admit is much stronger and fitter than me!
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Cairo, Egypt

On Saturday morning at about 7am it was time to get off the Felucca. Our crewmen had woken at about 5am and sailed us across the river. We were woken up at about 6.30 for our last breakfast on the boat before we transerred to a bus. We drove north to Luxor (the site of the ancient capital Thebes) which took a couple of hours. We stopped at a temple along the way called Kom Ombo. Again the temple was covered in amazing carvings. There was one part on the celining which had some remnants of colour which is pretty amazing! The temple is dedicated to crocodiles?? I'm pretty sure that's what we were told but now that I'm writing it it sounds kind of crazy. I think there was some kind or wierd reasoning that seeing as crocodiles were so dangerous and such a threat that they thought that if they worshipped them then they would be safe from them... Anyway the priests actually kept some crocodiles at the temple in an enclosure and fed them and looked after them. When the crocodiles died they were mummified and kept at the temple.That evening we went to an Irish pub for dinner.. some people made a night of it and were up until all hours. Seeing as we had to be up at 6am the next day I opted for a reasonably early night. I still managed to miss my bus in the morning though. I was sure we were leaving at 7 and seeing as that's what Deanna, my room mate said also I was very surprised in the morning when my whole group had already left. Apparently my bus left at 6.30am... so I had to go with group B on this day which was fine, at least I didn't miss out. Today we visited Valley of the Kings which was pretty amazing. The site was chosen because of it's natural pyramid shape. It was built in the new kingdom where it had been realised that building pyramids etc. was to much of a target for tomb raiders. These new tombs were bulit deep undergound and the door sealed up. There are 62 tombs in valley of the kings and having all the tombs in the one place menat that they could be guarded and that there was always workers around. The tombs were all eveentually raided (I think some by of the workers themselves)  the only one left relatively undistured was Thutankamun's which was not found by archaeologists until the 1920's. There are still excavators at the site digging for a missing tomb that according to some ancient scroll should exist there. Out of the 62 there are about 18 open to the public and out tickets enabled us to see three of them. There was one tomb that was said to be especially deep and small and windy and not recommended for claustrophobic people... I didn't go into that one. I visited there different Rameses tombs (there are 13 Rameses!) They were all quite similar, steep steps down to a tall long corridor covered in paintings leading down to the burial chamber which contains a stone sarchophagus and some empty rooms to the sides which would have contained treasures. It is amazing to think how long thepaintings have been there and how well preserved they are, they look like they could have been done yesterday.Unfortunately, but understandably no photos are  allowed in the tombs. Taking a photo, as a girl from my tour found out resulted ina very disgruntled security guard confiscating one's camera, deleting the photos and asking for a very heafty fine to get the camera back!After Valley of the kings we went to the funery temple of Queen Hatshepsut. All the kings that were buried in the valley had tehir own funery temple where the deceased was kept for 40 days during the embalming and mummification process. Thsi day was especially hot and these sights offer very little in the way of shade. We were all pretty exhausted after lunch when we began the second half of the day, infact our group had diminished in numbers by about half. We visited Karnak temple which is one of if not the biggest religious temple in the world. We were then supposed to visit Luxor Temple but we chose to stay on the air conditioned bus and look at it and hear it's story from there. Weak I know but you would have done the same! In the afternoon we had a few hours of free time which I think everyone spent in the pool. We went out for dinner before getting on an overninght train back to Cairo. Last day in Cairo we went to a mosque in the Citadel of Al Salladin, a Roman Church, the bazaar and the Egyptian Museum. The museum is where all the treasures etc. that were found at the grave sites are kept inclding all the contents of Thutankamun's tomb. That is to say all the treasures and arifacts that remain in Egypt, if you want to see the Sphinx's beard, or the Rosetta stone, or some of the other great treasures you have to go to the British Museum in London and as Yuki always liked to say 'and please tell them that we need our monuments back'.!
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Aswan, Nile River Valley, Egypt

Two days after arriving in London and not yet recovered from my jet lag I set off to Egypt. My flight to London had gone fairly well. Apart from all the screaming babies on the overnight Singapore to London leg. There was at least 5 of them crying, it was like dominoes, one started and all the rest on the plane followed suit.It was a 5 hour flight to Cairo and incredibly bumpy, I flew with a British airline called BMI, the plane sounded like it was going to fall apart most of the time.Airport transfers were included in the tour so that was nice. The resort we stayed in was about 20 minutes out of the actual city of Cairo. From the second floor viewing platform the pyramids were visible. The rooms were pretty average but the swimming pool was divine. The main downside was that because of our distance to the city there were no shops or restaurants close by so we had to do with the four that were in the resort (cheap by London standards but not by local). I shared a room with an Australian girl called Deanna, she had also arrived a day early like me. Monday we had free until the orientation briefing session at 6.30pm. We got a taxi into central Cairo downtonwn area just to look around and sort out some money issues we couldn't do at the hotel.(Internet at the hotel was an incredulous 10 GBP an hour)The city of Cairo was packed with cars and traffic was similar to that I have experienced in most other developing countries, no lanes or apparent road rules, constant beeping of the horn and general chaos. There was not a car on the street without dings and scratches all over it. Walking along the street in downtown we were hassled by just about everyone we came across, 'hey aussie aussie, where you from? Kangaroo, Captain Cook, Sydney, Melbourne etc. You come into my shop, you see I have Australian flag, I have photo with Molly Meldrum I, my uncle, he is supplier of white musk essence to the body shop etc etc. etc.'We managed to get out own little tour guide called Aladdin he showed us an internet cafe, where we could change money and taught us how to 'walk like an Egyptian' ie. cross the road.... his advice "close your eyes and pray to Allah". I don't now about the theory but it seems to be just what the locals do... the traffic is incredibly heavy and there are no gaps. They just walk out and the cars have to either stop or swerve generally missing them by just a few centimetres. I found the only way to cross was to get next to a local and walk when they walk using them as a kind of a shield against the cars..The rest of the afternoon we spent by the pool.That evening we had out briefing session. There were 77 people on our tour, only 2 of whom were not Aussie or Kiwi and 95% of who were living and working in London. We were split into two groups with two guides but we all stayed at the same hotels and did all the same things. I was in group A with Yuki. My room mate Deanna was in the other group with Sam which was slightly odd and confusing and resulted in me missing my bus one day as the groups were leaving at different times. The first night was an optional acitivity which was a dinner and show cruise along the Nile. It was buffet dinner and the food was awesome. Just rice and meat dishes, hard to describe but very tasty. The show was a couple of guys in bright orange with sticks jumping around in time to some live music. This was followed by a very ordinary belly dancer. Next came a man dressed in a long skirt, this is apparently a traditional form of dance which involves the man spinning round and round and round so that his skirt flies out around him, after a while he held his skirt up above him so he looked like a spinning top and then he took it right off and kept spinning it above him. I felt dizzy just watching him!!Tuesday the tour really began with an early morning start, 8 am we were off to Sakkara to see the Step pyramid, the first pyramid ever built. Second stop the pyramids of Giza, thought to have been built between 2589-2566 BC. A truly amazing sight; from a distance they look like they are made up of small rocks only slightly bigger than bricks. On closer inspection I found the rocks were almost all my height and weigh an average of 2.5 tonnes each. The pyramids can be entered but at an extra fee and there is nothing inside, just a small dark tunnel, no carvings or anything. Any treasures were taken by tomb robbers many thousands of years ago or placed in museums around the world. We also visited the sphinx which is just to the south of the great pyramids.We had checked out of the hotel before we left for the morning and at 8pm we were off to the train station. We took an overninght train to Aswan, Egypt's southernmost city. Here it was a lot warmer with temperatures about 38 degrees the middle of the day and not a whole lot cooler at night. We checked into the hotel and had a couple of hours free time before we started out Aswan tour. The hotels we stayed at were all pretty nice with the highlight always being the swimming pools where most people spend the bulk of their free time. The tour of Aswan consisted of a visit to the unfinished obelisk, the High Dam and Lake Nasser (before the Aswan dam was built the Nile used to flood every year, since it has been built the waters on the south have risen and some of the monuments had to be moved) and Philae temple which is located on Philae Island and is dedicated to the goddess Isis.Thursday morning we had a very early start! 3.30am we were on the bus. We had to drive to a meeting point to join the tourist police convoy. We drove with all the other tour buses visiting the site on that day, each with an armed guard on our bus.... Abu Simbel is 300km south of Aswan right near the border to Sudan. Abu Simbel was one of the most impressive things we saw; huge figures carved into the side of a mountain. This was one of the monuments that had to be moved when the dam was built and the whole mountain has been cut apart and put back together on ground about 80m higher than it was originally. Inside the walls are covered in wonderful carvings but of course the most impressive sights are never allowed to be photographed. We returned to the hotel at 1pm and at 2pm we boarded the feluccas, a type of sailing boat which was to be our home for the next 2 days. We were 12 on each boat and the deck consisted of one gigantic mattress. Our meals were served to us on a plastic table cloth and consisted of pita bread tahini, salad, pasta and various soups and stews. We spent our time just relaxing; sitting or lying down were the only options so sleeping, reading and taking in the view were the main activities. If we needed to go to the toilet we had to pull over and find a bush. At night we pulled up on the bank and we slept on the deck in our sleeping bags, lined up like sardines. Friday we sailed all day except for a long lunch break. As soon as we stopped moving the absence of a breeze made it apparent how warm it was and most people opted for a dip in the Nile, very refreshing. We were given a task list for the evening which was to be a bonfire night. We had to complete such tasks as collect/find egyptian coin,ID and flag, group song, impersinate tour guide, belly dancer, girl dressed as boy, boy dressed as girl. This occupied us for most of the afternoon.
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Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

My flight back to Australia was uneventful. The first leg from Heathrow to Singapore was in one of the new 380's which I have to say was quite fantastic. There was a great feeling of spaciousness and it was a very smooth ride, barely felt the take-off and landing and no bumping around up in the air either. Singapore to Adelaide was a much older smaller plane and I was sandwiched against the window but an overweight middle aged man who's sides were spilling over into my personal space and the stanch of his breath was making me dry reach. As we neared Adelaide and I could see the familiar yellow and brown plains I started to panic slightly. I'm not sure what brought on these feelings but I we began our descent I was hyper-ventilating slightly. Something about coming home after such a big journey and knowing I was leaving again made me a bit uneasy.Dave was waiting for me at the airport and drove us back to Parkside where he lives with his twin brother, Kevin and another friend Caitlin. It took me a while to get used to be being back home. One of the strangest things that I found was that it was bizarre to be back in a place where I wasn't in the minority, where I could use terminology such as 'heaps good' and 'hang on I'll just put some thongs on' without getting strange looks. The accent took me a long time to get used to again and mine seems to have mellowed somewhat.The weather was absolutely beautiful, I had missed the hideous heat wave of 50+ degrees Adelaide has experienced and the days were a lovely, sunny 30+. The first couple of weeks I just hung out, Dave had holidays and we went to the York Peninsula for a few days. I started looking to some relief teaching work quite soon which proved to be harder than I thought it would. I think I gave my resume to over 40 schools before I started getting called in (term 1 is notoriously slow for relief teachers). I eventually got about 5 weeks of reasonably solid work at three different schools, all a substantial drive away from home but well worth it for the money!All in all time went really fast. Dave has booked a flight to Europe, leaving on the 16th of June, so about 8 weeks after I arrive. We are hoping to relocate to Berlin.... so once again begins the search for employment, accommodation etc..... 
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The Hague, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

I had made a huge mistake at Oktoberfest and that was to completely disregard the fact that my body needs water to survive, especially when drinking alcohol. I was so consumed by all the crazyiness and activity that all I was focused on was beer drinking and bratwurst eating. Which was fine until about 9pm when we walked back to the station and I got the worst headache of my life and was unable to function. As you can imagine to get accommodation in Muncih during Oktoberfest one must book like.. a year in advance. We solved the problem by getting on a 10pm overnight train to the Netherlands. We were eternally grateful that we had forked out an extra 15 euro to get a sleeper compartment and didn't have to share the normal carriage with other drunken hooligans many of which were vomiting!We arrived in Den Haag the next morning feeling a little bit fragile. We were greeted by Nicole and Raymond (Dave's dad's cousin and his wife) After freshening up and lunch in the garden as is was an unseasonally warm day, we headed out in to Amsterdam, this time taking Nicole's new mini. We stopped in a neighbourhood where Dave's Grandma lived and where Dave's dad was born before heading right into the city. We had coffee and went on a canal cruise which was really nice. Nicole and Raymond insisted on paying for everything while we were there including taking us out for a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant.Apart from spending time with Dave's family we spent one day in Den Haag and one day in Amsterdam. Unfortunately the good weather disappeared and we walked around in the rain most of the time.
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Karlskrona, Småland and Blekinge, Sweden

So before I write any more on Sweden I would like to backtrack about 2.5 months back to Mexico and mention the traffic lights. I forgot to write about them at the time and have since not got around to it. In any case at pedestrian crossings in Mexico, as in most countries a green man is light up when pedestrians are permitted to cross... when time starts running out (normally) the green man starts flashing. But in Mexico the green man is animated and starts walking and then running.. it was the cutest and most hilarious thing ever and I just had to tell you!! Back to Sverige (Sweden) to get back to Karlskrona from Dalarna involved a 2 hour train ride to Arlanda airport, Stockholm and then a 45 minute flight. My uncle Bosse, married to my mum's younger sister Jacqui picked me up from the airport in a small town called Ronneby. It was Jacqui's birthday so we were going in to town for a meal. Bosse's daughter Linn (Jacqui's stepdaughter) was visiting from Malmo with her boyfriend Johan (very common name in Sweden!) Anyway we had a nice dinner and came back home for coffee and cake. Saturday I went to my friend Lisa's house for dinner. Well her parents house anyway, Lisa, like most other's I know here has moved away to study and is just home visiting during summer holidays. We were just a few people from dinner and then some others joined us to continue the party. We eventually left for the purpose of experiencing Karlskrona's 'not so happening' nightlife..! Despite being peak summer time the weather has been very average and unfortunately not warm enough to hit the so called beach... more commonly known as swimming place as beaches as I know them do not really exist here. Instead it's big rocks/cliffs right to the waters edge or some poor excuse for sand and a slimy bottom.  Another surprising thing is that the water isn't salty as it is back home and there are no tides. Karlskrona is made up of a series of islands and out on the water is a very beautiful place to be.Apart from the for-mentioned I have spent my time seeing family, I have been mainly living at my Farmor's, my dad's mother with frequent visits to various aunts and uncles and cousins!I have stayed at my dad's place a few times but he works during the day and there is not a lot to do where he lives and nowhere to go! My dad lives in a place called Bjallerhult which is about 100kms from Karlskrona. To get to his house, which has been there since 1830 requires driving on a dirt road for the last 5kms. The property which is around 52 acres consists of the old farmhouse which has undergone and is still going through some major restorations, some forest, fields, and two barns plus a large garden. Unfortunately for me my dad has not come as far as having running water or a bathroom. The water comes from a well in the front yard where one has to wind down a bucket to get water. The toilet is out in the barn and is basically a bucket placed under a wooden bench with a hole cut out of fit. The house like so many Swedish houses is made out of wood and painted red. Wood because there's so much forest here that it is the cheapest resource to build from and red was and is the cheapest paint! Back in the day only rich people could paint their house yellow so it became a status symbol but now it's just traditional and therefore popular. My dad's house is wooden on the outside as well as the inside his floor his walls his roof and most of his furniture is all made of wood. He has no stove as yet and cooks either on his BBQ or his 'ved spis' (wood fire stove) which of course requires making a fire in the stove.. it also means that it is really hard to control the heat! The house has been in the family for many generations and was in fact the house that my grandfather was born in and grew up in. Many antique pieces on furniture and farm tools have been found about the place that my dad has fixed up and are now decorating the place. That combined with the stuffed birds and antlers mounted on the walls makes the place rather unique. 
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Karlskrona, Småland and Blekinge, Sweden

I have now used my final ticket which was to Heathrow and bought another for four hours later to Copenhagen. I left Jo in London with her sister. I now find myself back in the small town of Karlskrona where I was born and spent the first five years of my life. Here I am surrounded by family, good food and beautiful secenery. Despite having been here many times before, at least 6 times since moving to Australia I find my impressions change as I get older. The weekend I arrived was a busy one. My cousin Karl and his wife Marta, despite only being 29 years old were celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. This involved throwing a party for over 80 people to be held on their enormous lawn at their house in the forest. The whole family was in full swing preparing. Mu uncle and aunts jobs were to bake baguettes and make potato salad with the added task of looking after 4 year old Ellie and a two year old Emma-Lisa. My other cousin Anna and her husband Johan are also down visiting from northern Sweden with their little 18 month old Karl-Oscar so there were lots of kids running around!! Meanwhile my nanna was at her place baking at least 20 different kinds of baked goods.The party went well, there was a BBQ dinner, all the beer wine and spirits you could drink and all the cakes and cookies you could eat too. After dinner there was a speech and some group singing! I didn't know many people and left with Anna around 1am. Others, including my dad and uncle partied on until 8am! I spent Sunday night at another aunties place, Jacqui, my mums younger sister. The next day my cousin Rebecca and I went into town with my Grandma for lunch followed by a bit of shopping. Being a bit sick of the clothes I had been wearing for the last three months and there being a huge sale on I did go a bit overboard!! 
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Marrakech, Morocco

Morocco is a very interesting place. It's a little bit African, a little bit European and a little bit Arabian. The fist time an Arab looking man in a djellaba and turban addressed me with 'Bonjour mademoiselle' I did a bit of a double take... I hadn't expected Morroco to be a French speaking country and it felt a little odd. Berber is the indigenous language, they were then invaded by arabic people from Yemen, then colonised by France and Spain at various times. I found people to be very friendly and inviting, a lttle pushy at times but generally nice. I was also expecting Morocco to be a very conservative Islamic country but was surprised to find it quite modern.We left Chigaga at 5am in the morning as we had a long drive to Agadir, a popular sea resort which claims to have 340 days of sunshine a year. With this in mind we were very unlucky to arrive on a cool and overcast afternoon! Apart form the beautiful beach there didn't seem to be much else to do in Agadir so we wandered aimlessly along the seafront. This was out first experience in a city an Agadir is very new and modern having been rebuilt after being destroyed by an earthquake 20 years earlier. Lizzie and I were stopped on numerous occassions by Morrocan boys who wanted our number, email addresses, to invite us to drink tea, have dinner, drive us up to the mountains etc etc. It was amusing at first but got old quickly and we found we had to be quite forceful to get rid of them. We had dinner in a restaurant with the rest of teh group. I ordered the camel couscous. It tasted a lot like lamb but I didn't get a lot of meat (supposedly one can only eat the legs) and (I wouldn't order it again) Agadir is known for it's nightlife and Marwan wanted to take us out. We agreed but weren't expecting him to take us to a 'British pub' with karaoke. After sampling some Morrocan beer I headed home.In the morning we had a couple of hours to ourselves. Had a look around the markets and the main street before heading off to our next destination, Essaouira which is a couple of hundred kilometers up the coast. Our first stop along the way was at a pharmacy type place where they made argane oil. It's made from a nut that grows on trees which resembles an almond. The oil is supposed to be healthy for cooking with and good for the skin so they make a lot of cosmetic products with it. I had heard that goats really like to eat the argane but it didn't really cross my mind that the goats would have to actually climb the trees to get access to them. We stopped alongside the road at an argane plantations and there was goats... lot's of them... climbing trees!!! We reached Essaouira late afternoon in the rain..... this another seaside town but with an old city with narrow winding atreets built inside high walls it had a bit more cvharacter and charm than Agadir. Marwan gave us a bit of a tour of the city which included a woodwork place where they make amazing furntiure and jewellery boxes and all sorts. We had to cut the tour short and find refuge inside a nice warm dry restaurant. We went back to the hotel via a bottle shop and spent the night in the hotel room playing drinking games which was quite hilarious.After a couple of hours exploring the little streets of Essouira in the morning we drove back to Marrakech only to be greeted by even more rain! Boo.. and it was cold!!  We went out to the main square, Djemaa el Fna Square which normally would be full of all sorts of buskers, snake charmers, story tellers, tarot readers, henna ladies etc. but on this day it was quite dead. We ate at one of the stalls in the middle which would have been really nice had I been able to feel my toes!Saturday morning Lizzie and I were the only ones left! Everyone else had set off for the airport early in the morning. After breakfast in the hotel (breakfasts in Morroco left a lot to be desired, I was so sick of bread rolls and jam!!!)  we checked out and got a petite taxi to the centre of town to find a hostel that had been recommended to us. It was impossible to get to teh hostel by taxi as it was down a series of tiny winding streets. It was worthit though, it was a gorgous place, really quite with couches and cushions in open communal areas set around a central courtyard. It was still raining so we weren't in the best of spirits especially as all our shoes were soaked through and we had no dry clothes left. We decided top go to a hamman, a traditional Morrocan bath/spa. When we got there we were shown in to a little round room where we could sit and drink mint tea while w waited as there are designated times for men and women and we had come a little early. When it was our turn we were given a big basket for our things and instructed to strip down to our underpants. We were then lead through a series of rooms where we had water thrown on us, oil rubbed on us and our skin scrubbed to within an inch of its life. At times we were directed to sit in a hot steam room with our skin covered in a spicy smelling mud. It was a very surreal experience. When it was over we were given robes and led into a semi dark room, splashed with rose water and allowed to lie and realx for about 20 minutes. We then reloicated again and had a 30 minute massage. Two and a half hours later we emerged from the hamman refreshed and not caring somuch about the rain anymore.In the evening we went out looking for a restaurant, as we were walking down the street we got talking to two Morrocan guys. Whilst this experience wasn't new for us it was somehow different this time, these guys weren't pushy, they didn't seemto want anything form us and they were educated, they spoke good english and they were interesting. They recommended a library/reastaurant down s small side street. The food was amazing and we sat and talked to them for over 3 hours. We also got talking to a Canadian couple sat beside us an we all decided we should meet up an ddo the same thing the following night.Sunday was our last day and the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky! We set off to explore the city. We walked south to an area called the kasbah where we saw an exhibiton of art and handicrafts, vsiited a herbologist who told us about the uses and benefits of all his spices and his cosmetic products whilst feeding us with berber tea which he then added menthol to for a bit of a kick. We wandered around the big palace and got yelled at by the guards any time we came too near a wall or entrance. We got incredibly lost in the small winding streets on of the medina (old town) and kept reaching dead ends. We sat watching a local soccer game and fed almonds to little Morrocan kids like they were monkeys. We also visited the old palace and sat in a peaceful palm covered court yard just soaking up the rays. At 7pm we headed off to meet our Morrocan friends along with another Australian guy we had befriended at breakfast in the hostel. We met at the same restaurant where we sat on the gorgeous rooftop terrace. Khalid and Simo had met two Swiss gilrs who they brought along so we were quite a crowd. We had some mint tea and listened to the Morrocan live music before we relocated to another restaurant across the road. We had a lovely dinner and then headed into the new town to a bar called Africa-chic. There was a crazy guy singing on stage, we drank some beer, had a dance and then went home about 1am. I was not ready to go home Monday morning but am looking forward to seeing everyone when I get back to Adelaide on Friday!!!
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