Marrakesh

After a rather rough couple of weeks we decided that we just needed a change of scenery. So Saturday we decided to take a little day trip to Marrakesh, I mean if it's good enough for the hippies in the 60's, it's good enough for me! :)
We had a rather uneventful train trip there, but we were able to see a lot of the countryside which was nice. Sometimes though I felt like I was back in Eastern Washington, except for the houses! :)
We got there and were hungry so being the good American tourists that we were we headed for McDonalds! Just kidding, I mean we went there but it was more because it's Ramadan and we weren't sure of the restaurants that would be open but we figured that McDonalds would be a pretty safe bet! After lunch we decided to take a carriage ride around town, after some skillful bartering we were off. It was nice because the drivers would stop at certain points and let us get off and take pictures and stuff, and then when we were ready we could get back on and go. The end of our carriage ride was the famous Djmee Al-Fna. Never heard of that? It's the square in the middle of town where there's snake charmers, storytellers, henna designers, and just about anything else you could want. I have to say that it gives new meaning to the term tourist trap, since they will literally wrap a snake around you or put a monkey on you and then make you pay to get it taken off. I was expecting it to be crazy, and I did okay until a fight broke out and in the commotion a little dwarf guy tried to pick-pocket me and then when I turned around he winked at me. That was just a little much, and I needed to escape to the relatively calm world of haggling for souvenirs! :) After some great deals it was almost time for ftour, and that can get a little crazy so when in trouble look up right? Well, that's just what we did, and we grabbed a table at a little cafe that overlooked the square. It was a beautiful view and we got a lot of really great pictures. By the way, I have added some pictures to a new album on my picture link, if you want to check them out. After the call to prayer the whole square turned into a restaurant, which was cool, but unfortunately in the true Moroccan style, nothing got washed between people eating off of it. Consequently we opted for a different place to eat! We ended up at a fun little restaurant called Cafe Mabrouk! They had live music and it was just a fun atmosphere. After we were done eating, it was about time to head to the train station. So we fought our way through the injustice of the taxi drivers driving up the price by asking our server how much it should be to go to the train station and we demanded "the counter". After about 4 tries we all made it to the train station and were off! It was such a great trip and very much needed. There's just something about a roadtrip!