October 24-

In about a week my program is scheduled to have us visit Granada and Cordoba, Spain to see the Islamic influence in the southern part of Spain.  We are scheduled to leave early in the morning on Saturday October 31^st and drive to Tangier.  At Tangier, we will take a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar.  The port that the ferry will dock at in southern Spain is called El Jaziras.  From there we will drive to Granada.  Granada actually used to be part of many Arab kingdoms (along with the rest of the southern part of Spain).  The next day we are having a day trip to Cordoba.  While we are in Cordoba, we will have a tour of Medinat Al-Zahra and take a tour of the Converted Mosque, Mezkita.  After, we will head back to Granada.  The next, and final day, we will be going to Alhambra.  Alhambra is a palace and fortress in Granada.  Alhambra was built for noblemen and high-ranking officials in the Arab dynasties in Spain.  I am looking forward to this because there are great European influences throughout Morocco (French in the central and southern parts and Spanish in the northern parts).  However, I am greatly interested in observing and comparing the Arabic influences in the southern part of Spain since Arabic dynasties have extended all the way to the southern part of Spain.

October 1-3-

This weekend we went to Chefchaouen, Tangier, and Asilah.  These three cities are main northern Moroccan cities.  The first stop was in Chefchaouen, which was about a three-hour car ride from Rabat.  Chefchaouen is, so far at least, my favorite city in Morocco.  Most if not all of the houses and buildings located in Chefchaouen were painted blue and white.  This is because Chefchaouen used to be a large Jewish settlement.  We arrived at Chefchaouen by traveling over a large hill that overlooks Chefchaouen and you were able to see where the heart of the city is located.  The city is very crowded with buildings at a certain point and then the crowdedness of the buildings decreased as the city expanded from the center.  Chefchaouen is also a very clean city (compared to other Moroccan cities that I have visited).  There is actually a phrase written on a wall on the outskirts of the medina that says something like ‘do your part and clean up’.  I personally thought that this was a great message to see because this shows that the people care about this city that they are living in and do not want it to be littered with garbage.

The next day we went to Tangier, which was about an hour and a half away from Chefchaouen.  Tangier is a much larger city than Chefchaouen is and has much taller buildings as well.  Tangier is the northern most city in Morocco, it is located on the Straight of Gibraltar.  You can actually see the coast of Spain from Tangier.  While in Tangier, we were also able to see the meeting point of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea.  We learned that the Mediterranean Sea would be a “dead sea” if it weren’t for the Atlantic Ocean continuously cycling water into the Mediterranean Sea.  I honestly did not like Tangier as much as I though I would because it appeared to be very built up and it seemed to lose the traditional Moroccan feel that other cities here seem to still have, such as Meknes and Fes.

The last stop (the next day) was Asilah.  Asilah is about an hour and a half drive from Tangier.  Asilah is a small beach city on the Atlantic Ocean.  It seemed as if Asilah is a ‘season’ city, where it is very crowded at a certain time of the year, like summer; unfortunately this would be its ‘off season’.  I say this because the city at the moment seemed a bit sleepy and quite.  In the medina of Asilah, there were blue and white buildings, almost identical to the buildings in Chefchaouen.  The medina in Asilah is located behind fortress walls and we were able to see where the ocean met the walls (since the walls ended on an edge of a cliff) and it looked like a treacherous drop.  Asliah was a nice, beautiful city, but it did not surpass Chefchaouen in my opinion.