Halloween and Africa

So, I apologize to all that I don't have many pictures of this weekend. It was raining a lot and was not quite conducive to picture taking.

So Halloween does exist in Spain. There are a decent amount of people that dressed up. But, unlike the US, teenagers dress somewhat conservatively, mainly as scary things. In fact, a lot of girls dressed up in the same costumes as their friends, so there were sometimes 3-4 people wearing the exact same costume. Scandalous!

Also, trick-or-treating. Kind of exists, but in a very different form. Either that or I encountered an exception. But anyways, it was about 11:oo pm and I was walking down the street, when from around the corner comes this mob of about 20 children between the ages of 6-10. Once they see me, they rush up around me and start screeching "Roberto! Roberto! Un caramelo! Un caramelo! Por favor! Un Caramelo!" I think this may be how they trick or treat, although I'm not sure how my name became Roberto...

So once they figured out that I didn't have any candy, they mobbed another guy about my age who was carrying a skateboard. But he was terrified of them, and rushed across 4 lanes of moving traffic to get away from them. When the mob left my sight, they were pounding on the windows of a bus at a stoplight, still screeching.

The next morning, I left for Tarifa, a city on the Spanish side of the Straights of Gibraltar. It's kind of a surf town, famous for its windsurfing. It's also kind of like every other Spanish city, in that it's old and has some old ruins:

An old fortress:

An old catapult:

A cool frog fountain:

The ferry to Morocco was a little more than a half hour over the Straits of Gibraltar. On the way we met some cool Canadians, who said they were just going to Africa for 3 weeks without any real plans. That seems to be a common attitude here in Europe.

Once we got off the ferry, about 10 people rushed into the crowd offering to be guides. They are very forceful, but after telling several of them no, we made it off the port. Tangiers (the city we went to) is a very market driven city, with lots of little shops filled with knick-knacks. It also has very specific shops. We passed one that sold nothing but thread, another that sold nothing but eggs. I guess it is the 5th largest city in Morocco. That's saying something! (?)

We meant to make it up to the Kasbah (an old famous fortress) but it was far away and we didn't want to get lost, so we stopped for some Moroccan tea instead (which was very good).

So, some pictures from Morocco (again, not many, because it rained the whole time):

The city of Tangiers:

A cool archway in the old town:

Chickens, and other meat beyond it:

Tea wares:

The tea place we stopped at:

This coming weekend: Brussels, Paris

Besos!