Fez, Morocco

We went to the Medina in Fez. It's kind of like a downtown but there's 9,000 streets and some are only 1 meter wide! It's huge and it was built in the 9th century so it's also OLD! These pictures are taken by my mom because I was focusing on not getting lost. The picture with the camel head was there because someone was selling camel meat and the head hangs there to prove that the meat is really camel meat. How you know if the meat is any good is if the tongue is sticking out then it's a sign that the meat is bad. The one picture is of guys in big round tub things of dye. They are men dying leather to make things out of leather. It smelled terrible and that's why I had the mint leaf to smell. It helped a little bit. Mint tea is crazy in Morocco. Everyone drinks mint tea... except for me. But you never know, I might try it. We were in a carpet store today and we all got mint tea but I didn't take one. My mom choked on a mint leaf and she was OK, it was kind of funny. All the signs are in Arabic writing and the other language spoken is French.

Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.

We went on the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. It's between Spain and Morocco. The boat ride was so much fun! There's this Australian couple named Jess and Pete who taught me how to "turtle" when you take a photo so that you don't get a double chin. We also dried our tongues out cuz it was soooo windy on the boat! Morocco is so beautiful. It's so hot though. I went swimming in our hotel pool and my hair turned green. 96% of the people in Morocco are muslim. Some people here are very poor. It's very sad. We have even seen people living in an abandoned shop.

Lisbon to Seville in Spain!

On the way from Portugal back to Spain, we stopped at a little town for lunch. We had a choice between..... octopus salad and french fries! I picked the french fries!!!!!!! I bought and ice cream and it was melting faster than I could eat it.

We went for dinner and saw a Flamenco dance show. I loved it! It was so amazing. They danced so fast and played the castanets.


We went to an archeological dig site where they are digging up a Roman empire that dates back to the year 53 so it's like 2,000 years old! It's huge and very amazing. The picture of me is in the gladiator arena where the gladiators would fight animals like ostriches and crocodiles and lions and tigers. It holds as many people as Taylor field but was built 2,000 yrs ago long before microphones and sound systems. It's amazing because one person could speak or snap their fingers and you could hear it very clearly.

The temperature here in Seville, Spain is between 38 and 40 degrees! The pool at our hotel is amazing, it's huge! It's outside and there are beds you can sit on. The shopping is pretty good. We saw three Starbucks. I bought a t-shirt and lots of flamenco fans. I am practicing castanetting.

In Portugal lots of the streets are cobblestone and ALL the sidewalks everywhere are made out of hand made squares of limestone bricks. Some of them are super pretty and designs! Every single sidewalk! So scootering is bad in Portugal because it's way too bumpy! These first three pictures are in Coimbra. We visited the university there. In the second picture this dog was just on the streets and Donna became friends with it.

We also spent some time in Fatima which is a very religious city and people go there on pilgrimages because a long time ago 3 kids thought that they saw Virgin Mary so now every year 100,000 people come to see if they can see her too. This lady is selling Jesus's and Mary's and even wax body parts if you want to pray to heal something.

These pictures are from Lisbon. We walked all over looking for the Hard Rock Cafe and after getting lost and ending up in the yard of the hospital, we finally found it. We had walked up hill for about an hour and were really supposed to walk down hill!!! It's very hot here and quite humid. Our hotel has a balcony so I like to watch everything going on from there. I usually watch these guys playing soccer. I love shopping in the markets! When I have ketchup, it usually tastes like apples but at the Hard Rock Cafe it was "normal" and I was very very happy!

Today we went on an optional excursion to the Atlantic Ocean. While we were at the beach a man came down and stripped naked and then put on his bathing suit. No one but us seemed to think it was unusual. The water was freezing cold but I still went in and got my shorts wet but it was so fun! I found lots of sea shells there! I loved taking pictures of these women selling scarves. Portugal produces 90% of all the cork in the world. We saw purses and things made out of cork. Today we went into a palace where all the past kings and queens lived in Portugal. It was very cool and very historical.

On our way to Portugal!

In Salamanca Spain we went to the University which is the oldest University in Spain! You can see it is ancient and still used as a university! Very cool.

This is the view from our hotel of Coimbra, Portugal.

Avila, Spain

Hi! This is pictures of us in Avila and Samalanca, Spain. There are a couple of pictures on here from when we got to Portugal today. Out hotel is really nice with a great view of the city we are in, Coimbra. Everyone on our tour is very friendly. Today we got to sit at the front of the bus. Every day we have to switch seats clockwise two seats. We stop every two hours to go to the bathroom. The last stop before we arrived to our hotel in Portugal, a man got stuck in the bathroom for about half and hour. They had to unscrew the door and take it off for him to get out. It was kinda funny! We are going on lots of mini tours around the cities and outside the cities we are in. Like one night we are going to see flamenco dancers! I am really excited about that. The End

The wall around Avila was 1,000 years old and had 88 turrets. The nest was up on the top of a church. It's baby storks. The gold room was beautiful. It was the room in a church that St. Theresa of Avila was born in in the 1600's. It is all very old here.