The Weekly Market

Every Saturday morning, vendors from all over Montpellier set up shop under the town's ancient aqueducts for town market. The market is home to the run of the mill market goods such as fruits, veggies and cheeses,

but also whole chickens roasts over open fires, cooking potato halves in its dripping juices, giant pans of fresh paella, and cans of foie gras.

While the market closes at 2, one can easily spend days going from vendor to vendor, eating samples of fresh cheese,

smelling huge assortments of spices,

and drinking freshly made green tea from a strange little man with a mandolin.

The market is crowded with locals, getting their fix of everything they need for the week ahead.

While I was there, I bought a delicious still warm baguette, goat cheese topped with rosemary and bursting with flavor, sweet and salty green olive tapenade and an ear of corn. It was delicious.

I would have gotten more things, but my arms can only carry so much and saying "Je vodrais..." and then mimicking the way you eat food you'd like doesn't get you very far. Being in France, I have also realized how much Spanish I actually know. And also that French is not Spanish. But sometimes it doesn't matter if you can tell a "droit" from a "droites," meandered on home, my fresh baguette sticking out of the top of my bag I felt very French anyway.

Marrakesh Express

Just arrived safely back in Madrid from my whirlwind tour of Marrakesh, with the taste of saffron and fear still lingering in my mouth.

Morocco is equal parts dirty, smelly, exciting, amazing and terrifying. The entire city smells like curry and exhaust, and everything is viewed through a haze of dust and a crowd of burka-clad women.

Not exactly Gorillas in the Mist.

The trip got off to a bumpy start, we were missing a roommate, and quickly realized that we had no idea where we were, what to do or how to communicate. Luckily, more people speak English in Morocco than in America.

"To the medina, 20 durham." we said to a "cab" driver in a rickety yellow car. "20 durham, for all you? No 40 durham. 40 durham."
One of my favorite parts were those cab rides. Apparently rules do not apply to anyone in Morocco. The drives include flying down flat roads and unbelievable speeds, swerving from lane to lane and dodging the hordes of people on bicycles and entire families on a single moped.

We got to the Medina and began our exploration.

The Medina is a cornucopia of small dark alleys snaking off in hundreds of different directions.
Each stall is busting with jewelry, clothes, teapots, bags, boxes, anything you could ever dream of.
You enter the Medina with no idea what is happening, it sucks you in and all of a sudden the trail of breadcrumbs you had left behind have been devoured by a stray cat, and you find yourself holding multiple bags of goods. You exit the Medina hours later, covered in a layer of dust and feeling like you haven't seen sunlight in an eternity.

Shopping in the Mednia is a rewarding experience, you have to avoid the hoards of people yelling at you in different languages until you acknowledge one. Once you find something you like, its a tactical game of cat and mouse to get the price to what you want. I haggled my way through Marrakesh and came out victorious on the other side.

In the depths of the Medina, something strange happened. I was walking through the dim maze, and I was struck with this odd sense of familiarity, something I was not expecting to feel in Africa.
I found myself walking past the small stalls thinking, "Hey, wait a second, that rug looks...and that mirror over there, I swear I've seen that before. Oh, and those necklaces! They're huge! And that box...and that plate!...Are all the furnishings in my entire house from the medina!?"
Morocco felt like home, because it looked like home.

The last evening, we had a huge, traditional Moroccan Feast. We wandered around the main square looking for a place that was authentic enough. We were reeled in by a Moroccan on the street, "Follow me," he said, "My family restaurant, very good, very good." So, against our better judgement, we followed him up a dark, winding staircase and were elated when we came to the top to find a beautiful, bustling circus tent like restaurant, instead of a bathtub full of ice and three empty jars labeled "Kidneys".

The aromatic meal consisted upon course after course of grilled veg tables, traditional soup (delicious HARIRA!) and vegetable cous cos tangine. It was topped off by a giant plate of fruits and sweet mint tea. It was exactly the traditional meal we were looking for.

Morocco: very cool.