So I didn´t actually go to Morocco this weekend, but I will still come away with the knowledge that I have been closer to Africa than I ever had in my life! That´s still somewhat satisfying. Friday morning I woke up at 5 am to shower, left the house by 545 and made an almost hour long trek through the still dark city with my luggage and two of my friends to the river(the city bus I need to take wasn´t running yet). Several times I felt like stopping and napping right there on the sidewalk with my backpack as a pillow, but I resisted. (the sidewalk was a little dirty) We boarded our charter bus by the river where I immediately fell into a time warp of dozing and drooling untill we arrived (I don´t know... 2 or 3 hours/days later?) at the ferry station in Algeciers. Here we waited as ferry after ferry was cancelled (never cancelled more than 5 minutes before scheduled departure) due to inclement weather. We forraged our way through incredible wind to wine in dine in a local hotel, and then returned to await a charter bus from Sevilla to come pick us up. All in all, it was about an 8 and half hour ordeal of sitting in the ferry station, not including our time warp trip to and from Sevilla, but spirits were high and there were pleanty of incredibly hyper and attention starved children in the ferry station to keep things entertaining. Would have been the perfect day to learn how to play RISK. Somewhere around hour 7 I decided that we had been in the ferry station long enough that we could begin a microeconomy, bargaining with other foreigners, this jacket for that candy, that really cute baby for this novel. However, we were forced to leave our new home before the economy was ever really launched into anything. And so, the little country inside the ferry station that could have been never was. And I spent the rest of the weekend in Sevilla.

Saturday morning I awoke at 8 to a yellow sky. It was such a strange color that I couldn´t help but imagine a tornado suddenly dropping down our of the sky, ripping all of the unripe oranges off the trees and all of the clothes off the lines, and bending all of the television antenas in our lovely little neighborhood (so maybe I imagined a pretty tame tornado?), but thankfully it didn´t happen. It just spit rain and blew things around. However, at lunch I was watching the news and saw that 2 boats had tried to leave Algeciers (the port I know so well) and ended up wrecking, so I was happy we didn´t try again for Morocco on this day. The news was filled with floods and rain, and there was another ship that got blown up agaist a cliff and spilled oil in Cádiz. Needless to say, I spent the morning safely reading and resting, and then ventured out to shop once it was nice.

Sunday, I met up with some friends for dinner and a movie, and happened upon a parade of the Virgin Mary of Pilar (to whom I owe thanks for not having class the following day). We saw flags hanging in the neighborhood and asked our host mother what they were for. She told us they were to celebrate the Virgin Mary of Pilar, of whom they would parade a statue of that evening, and so we scoped out church in which she resides and waited for her to appear. We waited with a crowd of people outside of the church, and finally different brotherhoods within the church paraded out. The first was a band playing beautifully haunting music and then people carrying large candle sticks and finally an incredibly large float of the virgin covered in flowers and candles.

I saw Mama Mía with some friends. My favorite part of the entire ordeal was hearing my room mate guffaw from 3 seats down in sheer enjoyment, and my next favortie thing was Pierce Brosnan´s fatal attempt to sing. All in all it was an incredibly silly movie, and once I got past the initial shock, it was really enjoyable.

Afterwards, after having been through terrible withdrawl symptoms from lack of Indian food, I fueled my addiction by eating at a restaurant with the most exquisit smells and tastes I could have asked for. There were spicy, salty, sweet, and hot flavors all in the same meal, which was a pleasant change from the fairly mild flavors of Spanish cuisine. Every once in awhile i just need a good torch to the mouth and a kick in the gut, and that is exactly what I got at this now beloved little Indian restaurant. (needless to say, I´m returing soon)