Since I forgot to introduce myself on my first post, I'll go ahead and do that now. My name is Samantha Steichen, I'm from Connecticut, and I'm a marketing major. Living in London has been one of the best experiences of my life and I never want it to end! We just got back from mini break and I can honestly say it was one of the most eye-opening trips of my life.
Our first stop was Madrid, Spain. The second we got out of the airport and we realized it was warm and sunny outside, we all got about 1000 times happier. Not that the sun never shines in London, but it is rather rare. Spain is probably one of my favorite places I've ever been to. Everybody is so happy and it's very family-oriented. We stayed in a smaller city outside of Spain called Alcala, which I liked even more than Madrid. It definitely helped that Laura Beth was on our trip and knew the city quite well since she has spent her past 3 summers working there. On Saturday night we walked around the town square and we were surrounded by families that were visibly so happy to be together.
On Sunday we went back to Madrid and spent a majority of our day laying down in the parks, soaking in the sun. At one point in the day I saw a huge dog that I just needed to pet, so a group of 4 of us went up to the dog's owner and asked in somewhat broken Spanish if we could pet his dog. We ended up having about a 15 minute long conversation with Miguel. We could tell it meant a lot to him that we were at least trying to communicate and it meant a lot to us that he was willing to listen and help us out with our Spanish. Overall, Spain was the most accepted I've felt while traveling during this entire trip. It was obviously easy to tell we were tourists once we began speaking but nobody put us down or treated us badly because of it.
One of the best parts of the trip by far was meeting Laura Beth's host grandpa. We went to his restaurant for lunch on the last day we were there and on the way out LB asked if we wanted to meet him. We all (mostly Taylor King and I) started freaking out because we were so excited. He was so sweet and tried to use some of the english he knew.
After we left Alcala we had an interesting time getting to the airport. We accidentally got on the wrong train and basically thought we weren't going to make it to our next stop on the trip, Marrakech, Morocco. After running through the airport we ended up making it to our gate with plenty of time to spare. Getting to Marrakech at midnight was probably not our smartest decision. While our taxi was taking us to our hostel I was overcome with fear when I looked out the window. The streets were different than in any city I had ever been in and it was quite dark because, again, Marrakech is not like a European city. I had never been in a third world country before and really didn't know what to expect. Although for me the trip started off on not such a great note, the rest of the trip was incredible.
The first full day we were there, Eric, Laura Beth, and I went camel riding. I will honestly never forget that day. We went far outside of the city and it was beautiful. The camels were so much fun to ride and it was the experience of a lifetime. Halfway through, we got off the camels, had water, mint tea, and pancakes that were made for us. I ended up spilling syrup everywhere, including all over LB's knee. Once we got back on the camels, the camel behind Laura Beth was tried to bite her knee because it smelled the syrup. Once we got back to the hostel, we met a girl named Liz who was from Estonia. She travelled to Marrakech alone, so we ended up going to lunch with her. She was extremely interesting and we had a lot of great conversations.
The people in Morocco are some of the nicest people I have ever met. They are willing to help you when you get lost and they want to make sure your experience is as enjoyable as possible. We had a really great conversation with the manager of our hostel. She wanted to make it clear that the people of Morocco are good, peaceful people which most of the world has difficulty understanding. After being in Marrakech for only one day, we could already see that what she was saying was true.
The last day we were there, we spent a majority of the day in square bargaining. Eric and I made a great team and we soon learned that if you hold the amount you want to pay in front of the vendor, they will take it.
Overall, going to Marrakech was a really great experience. Although I was a little scared at first, I think it showed me that keeping an open mind when it comes to different cultures and countries is really important. I'm glad my initial fear didn't get in the way of my time there because it was truly amazing!
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