HOLIDAY!

Here is my holiday in pictures, as promised. Prepare yourself, these pictures are pretty amazing, if I do say so myself!

My sister and I started in Barcelona where we saw Gaudi's cathedral, ate at a tapas bar, and strolled La Rambla--a pedestrian walkway with vendors and street performers.

We then traveled to Algecerias, Spain, where we took a ferry to Tangier, Morocco. This was Marian's first time on a real ship...basically anything larger than a canoe. See Marian on the ferry:

From Tangier we wanted to take a ferry to Gibralter, but no ferries were leaving that day, so instead we spent the day in Tangier, which is not a tourist destination. We walked and walked through the town against the mightiest wind I have ever encountered, accompanied by lots of sand. See Marian and her sister attacked by a sand storm:

Eventually we found the train station where we could exchange money, for the Moroccans used dirham (10dh=1€). The only ATM wasn't working, so a security guard gave the cash to the information girls who took us into the bathroon to exchange the money. I'm not even joking. It was like we were buying crack.

Once we had the goods, I mean the dirhum, we bought train tickets to go to Marrakech. Moroccans lined up a half hour before the train was supposed to leave so that they could make a mad dash for it when they opened the doors. They attacked the ticket guys, waving their tickets at them and shouting in French. My sister and I, along with the rest of the tourists, waited patiently and incredulously. Due to the madness we had to be boarded 2 or 3 at a time and be shown to our respective sleeper cabins. I slept great.

In Marrakech my sister and I walked around the entire city, once getting quite lost in the part of the city that was designed to get invaders lost so that they couldn't find the royal palaces. It worked! We ate in a pretty touristy place that served spaghetti and pizza, but we also tried a version of a local dish called pastilla--chicken with honey and chopped almonds in a phyllo dough shell (usually made with pigeon). It was good, but not as good as the amazing fresh-squeezed orange juice that you could get at a million different street vendors that looked like this:

From Marrakech we re-traced our steps back to Algecerias where we were held up by passport control for 1 1/2 hours, causing us to miss our train to Madrid. The scene at passport control is better expressed with a picture. The only additional commentary I'll give is that I almost passed out, and I've never had my bum touched by so many children.

After escaping with our lives and our luggage, we visited the train station and the bus station to determine our best course of action to making it to Madrid to get the rest of our luggage (stored in a locker) and get on with our trip. We decided to take the night train out of Algecerias and then try to find a bus on the Lisbon, Portugal.

In Lisbon we stayed in the nicest hostel ever (Easy hostel, check it out) for a night, enjoying a lovely shower (we hadn't showered in 3 days) before heading on to Lagos for a couple days at the beach! We pretty much laid out on the beach, ate, slept, and shopped a little, and spent more time at the beach in this position:

From Lagos we went back to Lisbon, stayed at the hostel again, then went to Fatima the next day. After Fatima, we spent a day in Madrid visiting royal palaces, lovely parks, and art museums before enjoying a lovely dinner with a couple glasses of sangria (ok, it was a pitcher). Another night train took us to Barcelona where we intended to perhaps sightsee a bit before catching our flights out. Before that could happen, tragedy struck. While I was away at the restroom brushing my teeth and my sister was distracted by a man asking a question, a thief made off with my purse! Gone was my wallet with all my cash (€ and £) and credit cards, driver's license, passport, digital camera, sunglasses, and my peanut M&Ms. Thankfully the policia at the train station were very helpful in filing the report and directing me to the US consulate where I got a temporary passport. My sister was kind enough to lend me the € to pay for the passport. I made it safely back to Northern Ireland and am now in the excellent care of a Corrymeela host family.

The trip, minus the ending, was fabulous and I loved seeing my sister and catching up on family news that just doesn't fit in emails. I feel a bit more cultured, and perhaps a bit wiser now, too.

Wish me luck/keep me in your prayers as this weekend I meet my housemates with whom I will spend the next year! I'm as anxious as a college freshman waiting to meet her roomates!