Morocco 8

Yesterday we traveled from marrakech to essaouira morocco. The trip was through a desert like region surrounded by low mountains and then suddenly there was the ocean. The second I stepped foot off the bus my hair was tugged from the wind and I could feel myself being moved, the sun was brilliant, the temperature 30 degrees cooler than marrakech, and it smelled of the ocean, which you could also hear in the distance. We were right outside the walled in Madina where a game of soccer took place and right away I know that I had found the perfect place. To get to the hotel we walked through many narrow cobble stone streets meant for only walking or biking in. We passed many nice street vendors with many wonderful things being sold and then reached the hotel. From the outside it looks like an average white building, like all others in the city. But from the inside it is the most beautiful Moroccan themed building I have ever witnessed. I lucked out also by getting the best hotel room available, it's the biggest with the best things in it including a view of the city on one side, the ocean on the other with large cutout rock and waves washing over them. We also have a fire place, unlike other rooms, and the best bathtub too. Also, we have a room close to the ground floor and can jump out the window to walk around the outside of the building on the ocean side so we can get down onto the rocks, which are unreachable from any other point. Needless to say many people have come through our room to get down to the rocks. For meals, we go to the roof of the hotel. Part of the top floor is indoors for eating and the other side is outside and overlooks the ocean with a lounge area. When getting to this hotel and seeing everything here, I got tears in my eyes from the beauty surrounding me.

School is inside the salon of the hotel on the ground floor, I've never had class in such a nice place, it's distracting sometimes. For lunch today we went to a crape place and had a nice lunch and then went shopping. The vendors are all nice and are willing to lower prices, I can successfully get them to lower the prices in Arabic now, which is exciting. Many of them will lower their prices a lot and joke around, I've been called Berber many times now because I never pay a high price for things. Later on sometimes I'll see vendors I know walking down the street and even if I didn't buy from them, they'll stop and chat happily with me. The clothing is beautiful and very hippyish here, there is a lot of wooden boxes, pottery, boots, and bags as well as good fruit and bread. You can get a huge warm loaf of bread for 10 us cents on the street here, and the bread is amazing! The first day in the madina some of us walked to the beach, it was cold and super windy but still very beautiful and worth it. Tomorrow morning we are going to do sunrise yoga on the beach with me teaching and after school are going to ride camels on the beach and go kite surfing. Wish me luck!