Mo-Rock the Casbah!

Top 12 things we did in Morocco (our own rough adaptation of the LP's top 10 list)
1.  Enjoyed a huge serving of couscous washed down with mint tea.

2.  Getting lost in any medina (the old city centers).

3.  Riding a camel into the sunset.

4.  Was hypnotized by the spectacle and color of the Djemma el-Fna in Marrakesh.

5.  Haggled for carpets.  No pics, but we definitely did haggle.  And we are now both proud owners of a magic carpet.
6. Rocked the Casbah.

7.  Sweating the stress away in a hammam.
8.  Lounge elegantly in a trendy riad.

9.  Watch the sunset in the Atlas mountains.

10.  Road trip Marrakesh to Ouarzazate.

 11.  Dust off the cobwebs and destress at the windy beach town of Essaouria.

12.  See the largest Mosque in Morocco.

Venice: The Land of Vino, Gelato, and Pizza!

I don't know why, but it has been one of my lifelong dreams to go to Venice.  Maybe it's because of the similarity between a city surrounded by water where one gets along by gondola and the pirogues in the bayous of Dulac.











...Or maybe not...

 Traveling to Venice was the first time I was officially traveling alone, so I was a little nervous.  That, on top of Venice being one of the most confusing cities to find your way around ever.   I didn't know it, but Venice is an island, actually like 177 little islands with canals dug through them.  There are no cars on it at all and you get around by boat or walking.  The public transportation is called the Vaporetti and it is literally a water bus.  If arriving by plane, you have to take a bus to the closest place that vehicles can go, the Piazzle Roma and then get on a Vaporetti.  

Here's the Vaporetti coming down the canal.

Then, it stops in front of you and you just hop on (well, for 6 euro or 32 euro for a 3 day pass)


Vendors all over were selling the Carnival masks.  They reminded me of the ones I see in new orleans except way creepier.  

My first day, I went on a boat trip to the three other neighboring islands near Venice:  Murano, Burano, and Torcello (you can see where they're at on this map).
The Island of Murano is known for its blown glass.  Back in the day, the glass blowers were exiled from Venice and put on this little island because the glass blowing would cause fires in the crowded city of Venice.  On Murano, we saw a glass-blowing exhibition:



After Murano, we went to the oldest island, Torcello, which is basically now just a quiet, nice park-like serene island with one of the oldest churches in Italy and some sweet old
 statues.

  After Torcello, it was another 15 minutes to get to Burano, my favorite of the three.  Burano is known for its colorful fisherman's houses along the canals as well as its' tapestries.  We went to a tapestry demonstration.  It takes this little old lady 10 days (!) to make one of these.  They were gorgeous, though.

All of Italy, and especially Burano had pasta of every single color combination possible.  I'll be the Jersey Shore cast would have gone crazy!  Especially on the little Italian flag colored bow-tie noodles. 

The hostel I stayed in was quite a unique experience and worthy of a blog in and of itself.  It was in an old museum building, the owner got arrested one night, I woke up to techno at 9am every morning, the people were amazing (especially my 2 aussie relocated in London who I tagged along with), and we made homemade authentic Italian pasta every night.  I loved it and hated it at the same time. 

The next day, I was so excited to meet up with Claire.  She's another Wash U law student who is studying abroad in Trento, Italy (I know, it's a hard life for us study abroad students).  She and I had an awesome day gallivanting around the streets of Italy stopping off for Spritz, Gelato, Pizza, Vin Brule (hot red wine with Cinnamon- sounds gross but is delicious), walking across bridges, taking a million pictures, getting comedically harassed by gondola men, and venting to each other about our experiences with the European law school system.  It was a great day and overall an amazing trip to Italy.
Some more random pics;  I could not get enough of it.

Halfsies done!

Thanks everyone for the well wishes for the half-marathon yesterday!  After 9 weeks of training, running along my river every day, one time in hail, a few times in rain,  and often times to quite interesting sitings, our hard work paid off as Margaret (my running buddy) and I crossed the finish line right in front the Monastery Jeronimos.  

Here, you can see the 25 de Abril bridge where we started and the track along the river where I did my training. 

It was a gorgeous day for running- 65 and really sunny- I have the horrible tan lines to prove it.   You really couldn't have asked for better running weather.  The crowds were cheering us on and there was live music along the route motivating us with their Portuguese accented American rock songs.    I distinctly remember hearing "I'm Walking (Running) on Sunshine" and getting a little extra boost in my step. 

Some differences from races I've run in the US: 
First, the race started at 10:30am- awesome!  I've been to races at home where I had to line up before the run was even up.  No one likes running 13 miles at that time, right?  Who does that?  It was quite nice to get a full 8 hours of sleep, wake up at a normal time and have breakfast before having to make it to the race start. 

Second, I think there were more people in this race than any races I've run in the US, probably for a few reasons.  First, there is a meia maratona (what I ran, a half-marathon, 13.1 miles) and then, there is a mini maratona (half of a half marathon, so about 6.6 miles), which about 80% of the people did.  It seemed like a big family event.  Old and young were out walking it.  A group of what I assume is similar to our girl scouts was pushing people in wheelchairs.  The prime minister if Portugal always runs the race too.  It's the largest half-marathon in the country and this was the 20th anniversary.  It seemed to bring out half of Lisbon and people from all over the world.  I even ran into 2 girls from St. Louis!  They saw my race shirt from the half-marathon in St. Louis and had actually run the same race there.  It's a small world, after all! 

Third, they didn't start us off staggered.  Usually in races, you line up according to how quickly you will be running.  Doing so allows the race to run smoothly without you having to dodge people who are going too slow or be in the way of those people who are going faster.  Well, they didn't do that here and it lead to an annoying walk run pace for the first 10 minutes when we were going over the bridge. 

Here, you can see how crowded it was trying to go over the bridge:

Oh, and one really cool thing.  Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea smashed the World record in the Half Marathon on Sunday, clocking 58:23 at the EDP Lisbon Half Marathon.  He ran it in less than an hour!  That means he ran less than 5 minute miles for 13 miles.   That blow me away and I think it's pretty cool that I was running in the same race as the guy when he broke the world record.  Maybe some of this racing karma spread to me :)

One thing you will only see in Portugal.  You can't really carry anything when you're running, so you are limited to a little band that holds your keys, money, and other necessities.  For one girl on our train, that was a pack of cigarettes.  All donned in her race gear and ready to run, she was sure to have her pack of cigarettes for the run.  13 miles can be stressful, you know. 

Thanks again to everyone for the motivation and support.  Also, to Margaret for being an awesome running buddy.  I see you other marathon trainers.  You can do it!

Porto!

On Monday, February 15, AJ and I woke up before the sun to get on a bus to an airport outside of Paris to catch a plane to Porto, Portugal.  Porto is often called the second capital of Portugal.  At one point it was the capital, but now is the second-largest city in Portugal.  It is located about 3 hours north of Lisbon.    It is a really old feeling city.  It is also one of the cheapest in Europe.   It wasn’t uncommon to see shoes for 12 Euro and we bought a large bottle of water for only 60 cents.

This was quite a world apart from Paris where we almost had to pay $11 for toothpaste.  The warmer weather and cheaper prices were a nice welcome to the city.  For a third of the price of our Paris hotel, we had a  2 room suite in Porto with a large balcony and huge bathroom. 
When we arrived in Porto, we weren’t sure where to go.  One of the interesting things I’ve found here is that when you ask someone where something is at, they will often walk you right to the door.  I was shocked in Lisbon when I asked a woman where a shop was and she literally closed her shop for a second and walked me the 10 minutes to the place I was looking for.  The same happened here in Porto; we asked a nice man at the train station help desk where our hotel was and he just walked us to the doors of the hotel- a good 10 minute walk.  The whole time he was trying to teach AJ and I how to pronounce the name of our street, which I still cannot pronounce. 
The first thing we did was make our way to Villa Nova de Guia, the village across the bridge where the Port wine cellars are located.Porto is known above anything for the only place in the world where Port wine is made.  Port wine is wine fortified with Brandy.

 The grapes are grown east of Porto, in the mountains of the Duoro River Valley.  To plant the vines, they have to use dynamite to get into the ground.  Then, the age the wine, they have to take the grapes to the cooler cellars of Oporto.  This is still done today by boat. 

When they first started doing shipping the wine,they found that it would go bad, so they fortified it with Branda and voila, Port wine was created.  And it is amazing.  It is 20 percent alcohol, so you don’t need a lot. It has a thick, smooth texture and can sometimes be really sweet.  The white port is more dry and drunk as an aperitif and the reds are usually a dessert wine.  Personally, I can drink Port at any time, it all tastes quite delicious to me. We found it pretty reasonable pricewise and AJ and I took home a vintage bottle to hold onto for a few years.

On our second day in Porto, we just strolled around the city , stopping in some of the most gorgeous churches we’ve seen in Europe and admiring the azulejos (typical Portuguese tiles on the buildings).  We also tried some typical Porto dishes which tend to be really heavy.  This one is called a Franchiesa?  It consists of a piece of bread, slice of ham, beef steak, bacon, another piece of bread and is all covered in melted cheese, a sauce and then topped off with a fried egg!

We really loved Porto.  It was a world apart from Paris and I think seeing such contrasting cities back to back really brought out the best of both of them.