More PKTs dropping by

It was a really hectic week at work so I'm a little late with this, but last weekend I had some more visitors crashing at the apartment. Ryan King, Dan Paik (and his brother) and Logan Daum coordinated their separate trip to all meet up in Amsterdam at the same time - Dan and Logan were on a multiple week backpacking trip through Europe, and Ryan was on a separate weeklong backpacking trip through France, the Alps and ending in Amsterdam.

The weekend got off to a slightly rocky start as my flight back from Hamburg was delayed for 3 hours and I missed the time that I was supposed to meet Dan and Logan at my place. They had to stand around for a few hours, which I'm sure was a blast, but we eventually got in touch via my landlord and all was well. On Friday I had to work and let Dan and Logan wander on their own, but then Friday night Ryan got in and the weekend had begun. We basically spent the weekend doing the typical tourist thing - lots of walking around, seeing the sights, eating and drinking. One of the things we went to was the World Press Photo exhibit, which started it's 2011 tour in Amsterdam. It was held in the Oude Kerk, what I think is the oldest church in Amsterdam, which made for a cool setting, and the photography was pretty great.

By Sunday I think they had all gotten a good feel for the city, and they were all scheduled to leave in the morning. It was a fun, but tiring weekend. Unfortunately I seem to have lost my small camera, so I don't have any photos from the weekend, but maybe Dan Paik will send me some of his when he gets a chance (hint hint, Dan).

Marrakech

After a rescheduled trip 3 weeks ago and some finagling with my work schedule I finally made it to Marrakech, Morocco. There's only one direct flight from Amsterdam, which is not terribly convenient, and the majority of connections cause obscene amounts of travel time, so I'm glad I was eventually able to work it out.

Marrakech was a really interesting place, and was unlike any of the other cities I've been traveling to within Europe. It's actually very small, just a dot on the map in the middle of the desert and the entire city is within walking distance pretty much, but it's still the 4th largest city in Morocco. Instead of the big boulevards, churches and government buildings that usually define the European cities, Morocco was more defined by markets that cover the city's squares and narrow winding walkways. The city did have it's share of mosques, but they didn't really stand out the way churches seem to in most of the cities I've visited. The traffic was quite an experience as well - it seemed like the majority of people were travelling on bike/scooter/motorcycle rather than by car, and you would see people zipping through crowds and through narrow alleyways filled with shops and people. Horse carriages, camels and carts pulled by donkeys also were not a rare sight. And of course, the dress of the people was quite different. I saw local-looking people wearing anything from normal Western-looking clothes to the long robe-like items that men wear to the super traditional garments that cover everything but the eyes (for women).

Camels

Probably the most striking thing, for better or for worse... actually it's definitely for worse, was the amount of badgering and scamming that the locals impose on the tourists. Whenever you walk through the square are through a market all the owners/performers/random people yell at you to come to their shop, buy their stuff, or just to walk in their direction. At first it's unique and seems kinda neat, but after a while it really gets irritating. At first I thought it was probably just in the main Jamaa El Fna square, but it seemed to be there everywhere I went, and I walked through pretty much the whole city. The funniest thing was when a sketchy guy would approach you, ask if you needed directions/wanted to buy something/whatever and then when you kept walking by he would invariably ask "Hashish?" to see if I want some drugs, as if that's what would win my trust - and this happened with probably about 50% of the people that approached me.

But... frustrating streetfolk aside, Marrakech was really cool. When I got in on Friday I went straight to the Jamaa El Fna square and it was a mad house. I guess I didn't have any expectations going in, but when I arrived it was quite a chaotic scene - it's packed with people and there are no overhead lights lighting the square, so it's basically dark except for these beacons of light that are street performers surrounded by an audience (and of course, they accost you for money even if you just stand for a second to look) and then a sea of lights at the other side of the square that is about a hundred OJ stands, fruit/nut stands and cafes/restaurants/food stalls. A combination of the smoke coming from the cooking and the lights, makes it look quite crazy, and the sounds of all the different musical performers makes is sound equally crazy. It was late and I was starving, so I stopped in at one of the food stalls to have some rather tasty meat, bread and tea. The tea they serve was a cinnamon-ginger tea that I had never seen before but was really good.

View from the room

Jamaa El Fna square

The food stalls / restaurants 

Where I had my first meal

The fruit, nut and OJ stands

It had been a rough week at work, so after checking out the scene and getting some food I headed back to the hotel to crash. The next day I headed back to the square to catch it in the daylight. Not nearly as hectic, but still some interesting performers around... (props to my dad's telephoto lens for allowing me to take these pics from a distance so I wasn't accosted for money to get them)

Snake charmer... that's a snake on the ground in front of him, and under that blue pot is a king cobra

Dude with his monkey. 

And some colorful musicians

I then headed off to the south of the city towards the Royal Palace. On the way a man told me that I was going in the wrong direction away from the Medina. This was of course a little strange because he had no clue where I wanted to go, but he told me if I took a left it would take me to the "tannery district" where all of the leather manufacturers are (I use the term "manufacturers" loosely here) and, of course, he could show me the way. I was fairly certain he would want some money for this, but you have to have someone show you through the tanneries anyways because there aren't any organized tours, so I decided to go for it. After walking with the guy for a while (and the crowdedness of the streets getting lower and lower) I started to get a little concerned, but we finally made it to the door where an older man showed me through the 3 tannery buildings. It was amazing to see how it's all handmade and done in extremely non-scientific fashion. He was describing to me the process of making the different leathers and it basically went like "we put it in this lime bath over here for 2-3 days, then put it in the water bath for a day, then we scrape it, then put it in the finishing  bath for a week...". They obviously knew what they were doing as the product came out well, but it was striking to see how "third world" the process was.

The field of baths that they process the leather in... and tons of leather in various states of progress lying around

Workers dunking the leather in the pools

Some of the brown leather drying

A worker laying the leather out to dry

After the "factory tour" the guide led me to the guy who finishes the leather into products... and sells the products to customers. This ended up essentially being a selling pitch (where I guess he has some deal with the first guide to lead customers there), but it was actually kinda nice as he sat me down in the shop, told me a little about how he makes the stuff, gave me some mint tea and then negotiated with me a bit on the price of a wallet. After leaving there the first guide then said he could take me to a space shop, no doubt another place he has a deal with, but I told him I would be on my way. Of course, he asked for some money for his troubles, which I thought was fair since I was looking to do a tannery tour anyways... so I gave him about half the price he was asking for. What I didn't like was when I was walking back towards the square the guy that originally brought me to the tannery joined up with me again. He asked if I was going to the square I said yes, and then he started "leading" me even though I knew the way. This is apparently pretty common as I saw quite a few tourists getting in disputes with the locals about have to pay for being "led" somewhere they were already going. After a while I just turned around and went towards the palace that I had been meaning to visit earlier, and when he chased me down and asked where I was going I told him. He then asked for 100 MAD (that's the common theme here if you haven't noticed yet...). I told him I'd give him 10 because that's all I had in my pocket, though I did have more in my wallet (that's about $1.27 - he did originally lead me to the tannery after all). He wasn't too happy about that, but I wasn't to happy with him and his friends at this point either.

So after that adventure, I did some more exploring. I found a palace that I toured, just walked around the streets a bit, saw the Koutoubia Mosque in daylight this time and checked out the adjacent gardens. Then I headed back to the hotel to relax and explore a different gardens that was close by.

Spice shop

Typical Marrakesh street

El Bahia Palace

more El Bahia

Koutoubia Mosque

At night I went towards Jamaa El Fna again to grab some food and tea, mill around and check out the souks - the small shops that surround the square. I was pretty exhausted from the day in the sun though, so after some time in the square I headed back to the hotel to rest for my last day.

On Sunday I decided to find a photography museum that I heard was good and also go through the souks in more depth as they are one of the more famous parts of the city and I hadn't spent much time there yet. The photography museum was a bit difficult to find - I actually went in another museum first thinking it was the photo one before finding out my mistake - but once there it was pretty cool. There were lots of historic photos of Morocco showing Marrakech from back in the day, but the coolest part of the rooftop terrace where they had a little cafe and a nice view of the city.

Marrakech skyline. Not too many skyscrapers.

They also love satellite TV there apparently

Then after that I planned to walk back through the maze of souks, maybe buy some souvenirs and then go back to the hotel to check out. Now, I pride myself on my sense of direction and usually have no problem finding my way even in foreign cities, but as a testament to the chaos that is the maze of souks even though I intended to walk straight through to end up at Jamaa El Fna on the other side I eventually came out at exactly the same point that I entered. I still have no clue how that happened, but after one more attempt I was able to make it through and get back to the hotel.

Overall it was an exhausting by fun few days. I found the city to be quite hectic in a variety of ways, but as a result also very lively and interesting. Despite my whining about the aggressiveness of the merchants there, I really enjoyed my trip and thought my first trip to Africa was a good one.

Parents in Town

Both this weekend and Sunday of last weekend my parents were in town. Unfortunately I had to be in Hamburg Monday through Wednesday for work, but it worked out well as they just made a trip to Ghent and Bruges while I was gone. It was a good couple weekends and I got to see a lot of those things that I've been telling myself I'll do sooner or later but never get around to doing because they seem so close by.

Last Sunday we didn't do too much as I think my parents were pretty wiped out from the jet lag. I showed them around a few different parts of the city and we grabbed a drink in a cafe and then dinner at a place on Utrechtsestraat. They then headed off to Ghent and Bruges, where they seemed to have a really good time, and met back up Wednesday evening for dinner.

On Thursday we hit up a bunch of museums among other things - the Rijksmuseum (and the Iamsterdam sign), the Albert Cuypstraat market, the Amsterdam Historical Museum, and the Anne Frank House. I hadn't been to any of those museums, so it was good to finally get a chance to see them. We also had pretty perfect sunny weather, so it made for good walking-around-the-city weather.

On Friday I had to go to work, but first we had to see the Aalsmeer Flower Auction. It's a HUGE building (second largest building by square footage in the world!) by the airport where every day millions of flowers are flown in, auctioned off and flown out to their destination. There's a good chance the last time you bought flowers they went through that building. But, since speed is key to get the flowers to their destination before they start to wilt the auction occurs very early - every morning starting at 6:30am - so that the flowers can be on the first wave of flights out. Because of that, we got up really early, headed out to Aalsmeer, and even made it back in time for me to be not too late to work.

The building was pretty amazing - it was just huge, had colorful flowers all over the place, and had people zipping around on carts every which way. The auctions themselves were also really cool. All the buyers sit in one of 12 auction rooms, which look essentially like an auditorium with computer screens in the seats and two large projectors on the wall. On the projectors flowers are constantly being auctioned off and the actual flowers are brought along the front of the room for people to see. However, the auction doesn't work like you would assume - instead of multiple people bidding up the price the price starts high, then is lowered and lowered until someone makes a bid, and the first person to bid gets the flowers. Essentially like a game of chicken seeing how long you can wait before someone else takes what you want. It's not quite as dramatic as it sounds because whenever someone bids and gets some flowers there's usually more of the same that can be bid on right after, but still a very interesting process. After someone successfully bids on the flowers, they are zipped around the warehouse to the buyers cart, then the full cart is zipped of to a plane, train or truck to start the journey to their destination.

Flowers

...flowers

FLOWERS!

Flowers moving all over the place

Buyers in the auction room

The auction board and flowers being brought through

So, after flower spotting early in the morning it was a day of work (while my parents went to some sights I had already seen) and then a casual dinner with the parents. On Saturday, it was back to sightseeing in full force as we did a little people watching in Leidseplein, went on a canal boat tour, went to the World Press Photo exhibit in Oude Kerk and did some more people watching on a cafe in Spui.

Canal tour

You can see 7 bridges through here

Beach volleyball tournament in Dam Square

Chillin'

We called it an early night on Saturday, so we could get up early Sunday and go on a bike ride before it was forecast to rain at noon. Unfortunately it started much earlier and was already raining when we got going, but since it never rains too hard here and my parents really wanted to see the countryside we went anyways. It ended up being very cool despite the rain and I think my parents really enjoyed it. I took them on a route I've biked a couple times before - out of the city and up the Amstel river. Mom and I ended up going all the way to Uithoorn, which is about 20km away, so not a bad ride. The scenery is really cool and pastoral out there, and you get to see a lot of cool houses, boats, windmills and little towns. I also think it's amazing how the river is at a higher elevation than the surrounding land - the river is just supported by dikes on both sides so that the land can be solid enough to building and farm on (I still haven't quite figured out how the river flows out to the sea when Amsterdam and a good portion of the country is below sea-level though, so if any of you does let me know).

After that the weather was still a little gloomy and we were all pretty tired, so we just hung out, ate some lunch and watched the French Open final. All in all a busy and fun couple of weekends. It was good to see the parents for the first time since Christmas and I'm glad I got to show them around my hometown of the last 7 months. They had a lot of the pictures from this weekend so I'll have to get them and put them up here as well.