To Africa and Back by way of the UK

As I sit in bed writing this, immune system significantly depressed from too much public transportation, I am still in awe of the experiences I had over the last two weeks. Thanks to my friend Jourdan having friends all over the place, we were able to have free places to stay in some pretty cool cities.

Easter break spanned from a Wednesday to a Tuesday, so of course I extended it to a solid two weeks. The first week was spent in the Scotland and London. I will never again take for granted the comfort of seeing a sign in English. Edinburgh was beautiful with a rustic Royal Mile. Filled with kilt makers, pubs, and Starbucks; my yearning for a long cup of coffee was satisfied. I was surprised to find such delicious food; haggis (made from sheep but I prefer not to know the details), neeps (turnips), and tatties (potatoes) has become a favorite, not to mention the sticky toffee pudding, all washed down with a Magners. While walking around the town we stumbled across a hill completely covered in daffodils that looked out over the main part of the city, just begging to be the setting for an impromptu photo shoot.

After a few days in Edinburgh we took a bus to Glasgow for a night of tasteful mayhem. We went to a place that literally looked like your 4^th birthday and a dance club had a baby. When giant Twister, two dance rooms and bars, face painting and a bouncy castle are in one giant warehouse it is a dream come true. Needless to say, Glasgow did not lend itself to much sleep, but plenty of fun was had by all. After Glasgow we took an overnight bus to London, for one pound it was worth the 3 hours of sleep against a strange Glaswegian’s shoulder.

Being the week before the Royal Wedding and St. George’s Day (English 4^th of July, minus the fighting for independence part), London was packed! While wandering around the city one night I turned to look back at Big Ben and the House of Parliament, it was the precise scene shown at the beginning of Mary Poppins and kept me singing “A Spoonful of Sugar” the rest of the evening. I should have been a street performer like Dick van Dyke’s character. 

Abbey Road

London was lovely, but extremely expensive and made going to a developing country much easier on the wallet. We were flying into Fez, Morocco and realized that we had been circling for quite some time. The captain came over the speaker and notified us that there was a very bad storm over Fez so we were being diverted to Casablanca, about 6 hours from our actual destination of Meknes. While the rest of the plane broke out in panic and frustration, Jourdan and I laughed hysterically because this is how all of our travel has gone, never smoothly. We owe an apology to all the people on that flight, because it was probably our fault that something went wrong. We landed in time to get a train to Meknes and thanks to the kindness and hospitality of Moroccans we were able to find our stop at 3 o’clock in the morning. Despite the small detour, Morocco was amazing! A couple of the girls we were staying with took us to a hammam, a no frills bath house. You sit in this steam room, faucets lining the walls with a bucket, mat, and soap. After you put henna all over and let it sit, a big Moroccan woman comes over and lays you out like a child scrubbing your body like you’re covered in four inches of dirt and sin. It’s not the most comfortable, or modest, experience but at the end of it all it’s the cleanest I’ve ever felt. Women used to spend hours and hours at the hammam because it was one of the only places they were allowed to go; it was their social time. When in Morocco! 

Assilah, Morocco

It was a humbling experience to be in an Islamic country. It was strange to be the only girls in a crowded café, hearing the call to prayer, and buying alcohol is a whole other story: blacked out windows, separate entrance, opaque black bag that might as well be a scarlet letter on your chest. Despite being cultural polar opposites, the people could not have been nicer and friendlier. Sometimes the men were overly friendly and wanted to be your tour guide for the day, like one Moroccan at the beach who found us a horse buggy to take to a deserted beach and proceeded to stay all day showing off for Jourdan. I had to let him down later with what I remember from high school Spanish, thanks Senora Benzenhofer. 

The noble steed that took us to Paradise Beach.

Morocco came and went quickly and it was off to our final destination, Rome. Little did I know that I would be experiencing history. We arrived on a Saturday and it was packed, not uncommon for Rome, however it was packed with nuns and priests. Come to find out, it was the beatification, the first stage of sainthood, of Pope John Paul II. We spent all day Saturday seeing the major sights that everyone must see in their lifetime because Sunday the city would be practically shut down. We woke up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to go to the beatification mass at the Vatican. Despite arriving 2 ½ hours before mass, the Vatican was so packed that most of the bridges were already closed off by police. We tried one last round about way and successfully got onto the street leading up to the Vatican with millions of other people. Thanks to Jourdan’s keen crowd dodging skills we got a prime position to see a big screen for the nearly 3 hour mass and squeeze through to receive communion. Never in my life did I expect to experience a historical mass and receive communion at the Vatican, I think this alone took care of my church quota for the extent of my time abroad. 

Does not do the crowd justice.

This post does not do justice to the amount of things I saw and experienced during this trip. I owe so much to Jourdan and all the girls we stayed with: Jenni, Rona, and Mary Elizabeth. In two weeks I was able to see seven cities, four countries, and two continents. This was the spring break of a lifetime.