Maroc and Roll! Surf trip to Morocco.

Despite the fact that I had never met the person planning the trip, had my transfer report due shortly after the end of the trip, was busy pretty much the entire month of July, and probably had more reasons not to go than to go, when the opportunity arose to take a week-long surfing trip to Morocco with a bunch of my football teammates, it took all of 4 hours between when I heard about the trip and had booked my flights to Agadir. Thankfully it was TOTALLY worth it!!


Soupy and I left my house on Friday afternoon and went to London to stay at Bex's house before flying out the next day. Someone decided it would be a good idea to steal a cable from the train tracks around Reading and so our trains were either cancelled or delayed and while we were aiming to arrive at 7:30 or so, we would up getting to Bex's around 9. We were,however, in time for the amazing barbecue Bex cooked as well as the oh so unbelievable Rasberry Cheesecake she baked. We ate it for breakfast the next morning too....

On Saturday we made our way to the airport and met up with the rest of the group. The group was a complete mix of random people including Oxford footballers, Durham footballers, Durham cricketers, and people who grew up in Harlow where Becky is from. Basically the only connection we all had to each other was Bex. Despite this, the group hit it off really well and we all got along great.

We arrived in Agadir and waited in the longest Passport Control line ever. It was horrible! It took us over an hour and a half to get through passport control but thankfully by the time we got through, Aziz (the man in charge of the surfcamp we had booked the trip through) was waiting for us and took us back to the hotel/villa we were staying at in Tamraght. Waiting for us was an amazing dinner of Moroccan chicken cous-cous followed up by sweet Moroccan mint tea. With full stomachs we went to sleep excited about the prospect of surfing the next morning!

We got up early and loaded up the boards on the cars (I was amazed at their ability to transport boards. At one point we had 15 boards on top of a car the size of a Camry) and headed out to Devil's Rock, a break directly across the road from where we were staying. The surf was pretty small but since I was the only one with any real surfing experience, it worked out well. I jumped straight in the water while everyone else had a lesson on the sand before joining me in the water as well. Unfortunately, since it was the last Sunday before Ramadan began, everyone and their brother seemed to be at the beach before the holiday began and so it was really really crowded. Even the camels were out in full force. Ugh, I hate camels.



On Monday we moved to another beach further north called Tamri. The waves here were bigger and much better size for me, and it was also far less crowded. It felt so good to do nothing all day but eat, sleep, and surf! We spent a few hours surfing in the morning, would take a break for lunch, then surf a few more hours in the afternoon before heading back to the villa in the evenings. After dinner we would just hang out on the roof terrace all night until we went to sleep and got up to do it again the next morning.




On Wednesday Aziz arranged for a minibus to take us into Marakech for the day. We wanted to go before Ramadan started and so Wednesday seemed the best day to do so. It drive there was really long and we stopped along the way first to check out some goats chilling in trees (apparently Moroccan goats climb trees, who knew?) and then to pick up a woman and her two daughters whose car had broken down on the road. We finally made it to Marakech and met up with the guide Aziz had arranged as well.

First the guide took us to Bahia Palace, a Palace built by the Grand Vizier (ie Jafar) for the Sultan in the 1880s. The palace was adorned with ornate stucco decorations where they would carve into the walls of the palace before they dried and only really had one chance to get it right. After they finished work on the palace, the Grand Vizier made these artist live at the palace and refused to allow them to work anywhere else because he wanted the work they had done there to be unique to the palace and not available anywhere else. The Palace basically turned into a place for the Vizier to keep his harem of women and was eventually used by the imperial French government in Morocco.


After the palace we wandered through the marketplace, visiting a pharmacy that made medicines and lotions out of local herbs and plants, and seeing all the stalls and shops and wares to purchase. After lunch we returned to the marketplace to do some perusing and shopping and explored the city a bit more. Finally, after a long, very very very hot day (temperatures in the mid 40s which is over 100 Fahrenheit) we headed back to Tamraght.

Our dining set-up for breakfast and dinner

Thursday was probably the worst day for surf. There was a really really strong rip current that was impossible to avoid and it only got stronger as the day went on. I tried paddling out both in the morning and afternoon but I didn't last very long and was the only person who even attempted to surf at all on Friday. Instead we amused ourselves by playing beach football, beach cricket, and beach rounders.

Friday turned out to be the best day of surf of the week and it was a perfect way to end the surfing in Morocco. By that time, most people were really tired and only went out in the morning, which was nice for me because it meant that there were very few people out in the lineup by the afternoon. Aziz and Mo (the two guys who put up with our shenanigans all week) were out helping us catch the waves "in the green" and turn into the waves. It was nice to get the more one-on-one attention and it was fun to be out in the water with Jenny (from California) and Joe (from Egypt/Ireland/Saudi/wherever), a couple living in Dublin that booked the same surf camp and joined in with our group. I got my perfect "one more ride" and called it a day/week, ending my surfing on a very very high note.

Saturday morning we went back to the beach for a bit but there was no surf so we didn't even take the boards off the cars. We went to lunch at a beachfront restaurant in Taghazout before showering and heading back to the airport. Upon landing in London (at 12 midnight), Soupy and I just barely missed the direct bus to Oxford so we were stuck taking a bus into London and then from London back to Ox. We got home around 4 am and had to be up and at the Uni Club for a football game at 10:15. We managed to get up and ready on time and it turned out that the lack of sleep didn't hurt us too badly as we won the game and I had a hat-trick and an assist.

Highlights of the trip that don't really fit into my narrative:
-fighting and catching a scorpion using a cricket bat, a glass, and my engineering papers
-playing a boys vs girl football match on the beach with a bunch of Moroccan guys and totally owning them
-surfing in Morocco (duh!)
-Udds flooding the shower so that the water came out of her room and wound up dripping all the way down the stairs to the ground level
-the bus crash that happened right outside our hotel one night that created a huge bang and sent us all running to the railing of the roof terrace to figure out what happened
-Jij calling me "cute" like I was a 5 year old child
-meeting lots of awesome new people
-being buried to look like a mermaid that turned out to be unbelievable disproportional
-surfing in Morocco

2/3 of the Yadlins do England

For our first day in England we took a lovely drive through the Cotswolds. Quite close to Oxford, the Cotswolds are known for their quaint little towns and villages as well as some beautiful scenery. I loved the names of the towns which included Morton-in-Marsh, Stowe-on-the-Wold, and Chipping Camden. Each of the little towns had houses with thatched roofs, cottages with names (like in The Holiday), and intimate churches with lots of history and character. One of the highlights included a slight detour to try and find something that Mom found on the map called the “Four Shires Monument” which marked a spot where four counties came together. This amazing tourist attraction turned out to be a lovely rock column just off the road and slightly overgrown with trees. Mom was winning the “lets go find a random monument that turns out to be super lame” contest.
It was really hard to keep the different towns from running together in my head considering they were all so similar.

A highlight of the Cotswolds drive was a random tower, Broadway Tower, in the middle of the Cotswolds known as Capability Brown's Folly Tower because it was built for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Its just a big tower in the middle of nowhere. This was my choice to try and find it and we wondered if it would be as silly of a wild goose chase as the Four Shires was, but it turned out to be pretty cool. Mom still won the lame monument award.
Also a highlight, despite the fact that it got us a bit lost, was our visit to fields upon fields of lavender. They were absolutely stunning and the smell was really nice as well.

We ate dinner at Pizza Express once we got back to Oxford and then I went to Kirsten Morris's house to hang out a bunch of my football friends and teammates.


Day two consisted of Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath. Stonehenge is situated in the middle of nowhere on the Salisbury plains. I will admit that, had it not been for the season finale of Doctor Who this past year, I would have been less excited to see Stonehenge than I was post-Pandorica. If you don't know what I'm talking about, get with the program and watch Doctor Who already. Anyways, we got the audio guide tour and listened to the history of Stonehenge and the ideas about how and why it was built. The guide was really well done and I learned a lot. Sadly I've forgotten most of it... Stonehenge was really really crowded but because it is so big and spread out, you don't really notice that there are masses of people around. Unless someone steps on you foot while wearing stiletto heals. Ouch.... Didn't happen to me but to Mom.

From Stonehenge we drove to Salisbury and ate a picnic lunch outside the Cathedral. After eating we went into the Cathedral and looked around. Its quite a large Cathedral, and it houses the tallest spire in England. Also inside the Cathedral is the oldest working modern clock in the world which dates back to the 1300s. One aspect of the church that I liked was the social conscience that the parish exhibited. They had a area dedicated to Prisoners of Conscience and they highlighted several of those prisoners an their plight. There was also a little chapel sponsored by the mothers in the church that was dedicated to family. It seemed that even though it was a huge Cathedral, there was a real familial connection between the church and its members.


In the Chapter House of the Cathedral there is one of the few remaining copies of the Magna Carta. This one is arguably the most readable of the remaining copies. It was really cool to see such a critical document that not only influenced English history but American and world history as well.

Bath Cathedral

From Salisbury we headed on to Bath where we did a walking tour of the city. I had already been to Bath with Anson so I didn't see anything new but the family enjoyed seeing the sites of Bath. We started at the Roman Baths and the Bath Cathedral and then walked through the city towards the Royal Crescent and the King's Circus. Bath is a really interesting city in that it mixes the Pagan and the Roman and the Christian all together very seamlessly.

Royal Crescent in Bath

The next morning we got out early and began the very long drive to Dover. This drive, however, was more than worth it because Dover Castle was amazing! Its a stunning castle perched high above the White Cliffs of Dover. The sky was clear enough to see over to Calais and we spent hours at the castle, probably several more than we imagined we would. Dover Castle dates back far before the time of William the Conquerer and through most of its history was used to house troops. The church inside the castle is nestled up against a Roman lighthouse, one of the best preserved buildings from the Roman era in Britain. This church, which dates to the Saxon/Norman era, has been used by the military Chaplains for years. The castle really began to take shape during the time of Henry II as he built up an empire. His sons however (including Henry III, Richard the Lionheart and King John from Robin Hood and Magna Carta fame) fought over the Kingdom. The castle wasn't used too much until the Napoleonic Wars where it underwent a great renovation as a first line of defense for England. The same thing happened in the buildup to World War II, and secret tunnels were constructed underneath the castle that were used by the British military in the fight against the Germans. They recently opened these tunnels up for visitors and we got to tour them and follow the path of a British pilot who was taken into the tunnels, treated in the hospital, and who worked in the tunnels during his recovery. I really enjoyed this aspect, it was like the Churchill Cabinet War Rooms in London.

The best part about the castle visit was the fact that they had little reenactments from the time of King Henry II. We watched on in which the King presided over court and acted as the judge in matters between the citizens. Abba was picked as one of the citizens and had to take part in the show. The best part about it was that, rather than attempt to have the King and Prince say his real name, he just told him his name was Joe. Everyone was probably wondering why we were laughing so hard over something as simple as him saying his name.


After the Castle we drove to Canterbury to see the Cathedral but we got there after closing time so we didn't get to go inside. We did see the outside and the cloisters which was cool and wandered around the city a bit before eating dinner at Wagamamas and heading back to Oxford.


The next day we did Oxford. Pretty much all of it. Since Oxford is old news for me I'll just list off what we did and you can ask me about it if you want. Iffley Road Track where Roger Bannister first broke the 4 minute mile, Magdalen College and Deer Park, New College Chapel and Cloisters (where Mad-Eye turns Malfoy into a ferret), Bodlein quadrangle, Divinity School, Bridge of Sighs, lunch at The Turf, view from the top of the Sheldonian, Exeter College, and evensong service at Christchurch. Whirlwind day for sure.

In Christchurch Hall

Day 2 in Oxford consisted of what we had missed the day before. Went into the Duke Humphrey's Reading Room in the Bod, went into Christchurch and saw the Hall (the Great Hall in Harry Potter) and the Cathedral properly, Ashmoleon Museum to see the exhibit with the old musical instruments, walk in Port Meadow, and dinner at the Eagle and Child. All in all a great day in Oxford and a great way to end the trip.

Port Meadow

Eagle and Child

The next morning at 4 pm they were gone and my house was completely empty...... sad times...... All that was left for me to do was work on my transfer report and get excited for Morocco! Which you should be too because that blog is coming soon!

Switzerland: land of chocolate, knives, and cows

So, when I last left you, Youval and I had just arrived at the airport to head to Switzerland. We had to get up super super early to make it ontime and were waiting in the security line because we didn't have to check a bag. I took out our boarding passes and what did I see? Our flight from London Luton to Zurich. The only problem with this was..... we were at London Stansted. So basically I'm an idiot who took us to the wrong airport. We missed our flight and because the Easyjet lines were ENDLESS and we couldn't get to someone in the airport to talk to, I had to call Brian to get him to book us on a flight to Zurich later that day. Turns out later that day meant 7 pm. So we took a bus to Luton and sat there. And sat there. And ate lunch. And sat there. And sat some more. And got some dinner for the plane. Then sat there as our flight was delayed. Then sat some more. Finally we got on the plane, landed in Zurich around 10 pm, and still had a 2 hour drive to get from Zurich to Lauterbrunnen.

The next morning we woke up to a BEAUTIFUL day in the Swiss Alps. We started out by taking a cablecar up to the top of the Schilthorn, one of the mountains in the area and one on which James Bond On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed. The view on the way up was incredible and as we climbed we could see more and more.


We continued climbing (making several stops along the way) and eventually we got the cloud layer that was covering the mountain. For the majority of the time we were up on the top there was a thick layer of clouds completely surrounding us. It was a bummer to not get a complete view from the top but it was also pretty cool to be enclosed in the clouds.
The clouds eventually cleared up a bit and we were able to see the whole valley around us. There were lots of people parachuting and base jumping which was amazing to watch as well.



That evening we walked around Luaterbrunnen, which we think means "many fountains" or "loud fountains", so named for the many waterfalls around it. It was an adorable little Swiss alpine town and it was quiet and quaint.

The next day we opted to hike rather than ride cable cars. We started out on a 3 mile straight bit that took us along the mountain ridge. I decided to be silly and run it (don't know where that idea came from) but it was a nice little run and I got to cool off while waiting for the fam to catch up with me at the end.

After the straight bit we started to climb. We climbed quite a bit and made our way up to the town of Murren. It was a really really pretty climb, short and steep which is my opinion is better than long and gradual.


From Murren we started to make our way back down in a large loop. The way down was actually harder than the way up. It turned out to be really long and actually quite steep with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns. At one point we were litterally walking through a herd of cows. Thankfully the path had split into two at that point because they were completely blocking one side of the path and we had to go around them on the other. After about 4 hours of walking we were pretty exhausted but it was an amazing day and a beautiful walk.

In the evening, Mom, Abba, and I went to Trummelbach Falls, a series of 10 waterfalls cutting through the mountains. It was really cool to see the way that the water carved out caverns and crevices and the power of the water as it made its way down the falls was breathtaking.
I got a bit wet here...

Unfortunately, the next morning we had to head out of Luaterbrunnen back to Zurich, but it turned out to be ok because whereas the previous two days had been sunny and gorgeous, we woke up to a pretty heavy rainfall. Thankfully we were in the car most of the day so it wasn't too bad. On our way back to Zurich we stopped in Interlocken to see the city a bit. We got a nice view of the whole city from the top of the tallest building in Interlocken.


We continued to Zurich (stopping several times in an attempt to find me a Switzerland scarf to add to the collection of football scarves I have which we never wound up finding) through Luzern and arrived to more rain. The rain turned out to be a blessing though because to avoid being outside we spent time at the Rosengart Collection, a mostly privately donated art gallery that had tons of Picasso and Klee works. The crazy thing about it was that Mr Rosengart was a close friend of Picasso's and one of the few people that was allowed to see him work. Also included was a photo exhibition done by another friend of Picasso that showed the way he was as a father and a friend and a companion, not just as an artist. It was really really cool to see.
Finally we made it back to Zurich and were told that there was going to be a 3 hour delay on our flight. It turned out the delay was only an hour and a half or so which was nice but it still got us into London around 1, we caught a bus to Ox at 2:30 and were home and in bed around 4 or so. Up later that morning, however, to enjoy England. That post to come soon!!

Youval and Roni's English Adventure part 3

So I realize that this is terribly delayed and I waited too long to post this but oh well, here you go. So when I last left you, we were planning on going to Stratford. Well, we did. We missed our train by about a minute, so we had to wait for a little bit for the next one, but we arrived in Straford-upon-Avon (after having listened to the Reduced Shakespeare Company on the way) and headed for the Shakespeare Birthplace. They start you off with a sort of audio-visual show about Shakespeare's life and body of work and, we are both pretty sad to admit, we were most excited when they showed a clip of the Shakespeare Code episode of Doctor Who. Anyways, we went straight from the video show into the Birthplace, the house owned first by Shakespeare's father and then by Will himself. This is where Shakespeare was born and grew up. They have lots of period furniture and have redone the wallpaper in the way that it is believed it was during Shakespeare's life. Another cool aspect of the house was that there is a window in which people have scratched their names as they visited the house throughout history. There were some really famous visitors there including Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens.

After the Birthplace we went to Nash's House, where Shakespeare lived later in life and where his daughter lived. The Shakespeare Trust is currently conducting a dig and excavations at Nash's House (also known as New Place) and therefore you could see the work they were doing. It was pretty cool to see where they were digging.

As we walked from Nash's House to Hall's Croft, the skies opened up. To be fair, it didn't rain very hard, but since the forecast didn't say rain, we didn't have umbrellas. So, we got a bit wet, but we made it to Hall's Croft without melting. Hall's Croft was where Susanna, Shakespeare's daughter, lived with her husband, Dr John Hall, lived. This house was a really good example of an upper middle class house of the time and it was extremely well preserved/refurbished to show the furniture and layout and kitchen and bedrooms etc of houses at the time.

After Hall's Croft we went to the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity, where Shakespeare and the rest of his family are buried. On his grave, Shakespeare wanted the following quote displayed: "Blest be the man that spares then stones, but curs'd be he that moves my bones."


The next day, we decided to go back to London and see a bit more of the city. We started out at Covent Garden to buy some discount show tickets for that evening, and met Brian for some Indian food for lunch. Youval actually liked it which was a huge surprise! After lunch we headed south to the Imperial War Museum.
Housed in the old Bethlem Hospital, know as Bedlam for the similar sounding name and the fact that it used to house patients with mental illnesses, the Imperial War Museum is HUGE and has soooo much stuff.
We started in an exhibit that talked about the life of children in London during World War II and discussed the evacuation of the children, their lives out in the country, their experiences in the blitz, challenges of clothing and food rationing and many other aspects of life of children's life.

Are you my mummy? Seriously, this is like the exact outfit worn in that episode...

Following the Children's exhibit we went up to the Holocaust exhibit. I've been to the LA, Washington DC, and Israel versions of Holocaust museums but I was quite impressed with the London one. I always have a hard time explaining visits to Holocaust exhibits because they're never enjoyable, but I do quite like going to them. It was very well done and effectively evoked many emotions which I think is the purpose of most of those exhibits and museums.

Following the Imperial War Museum we headed north again to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. It is a total tourist trap that is completely kitchy and silly but we like Holmes too much to pass it up. We didn't stay too long there (because its pretty small) and afterwards we walked back toward Tottenham Court road, got some amazing pizza from by Brian's house, and then met Brian, Kristen, and some other Lakenheath/Mildenhall AF people for dinner at the Chipotle near the Dominion Theatre. Following dinner we headed over to the theatre for We Will Rock You. This show couldn't be more diametrically opposed to Les Miserables. Whereas Les Mis is the quintessential Broadway/West End show, We Will Rock You is really more of a rock concert. The singers were amazing, the story is great, and the songs are so incredible. We really enjoyed the show and then headed back to Oxford that night planning on going to Brighton the next morning.

Well, that didn't quite happen. Youval needed to get some laundry done and so we put in a load of laundry and set it to dry at the end of the cycle. Following the end of the cycle, the clothing wasn't quite dry so I reset the machine to just dry. When it finished, it was soaking wet and steaming hot! We couldn't figure out what had happened. I assumed I had just reset the machine wrong and so I tried again. IT HAPPENED AGAIN! Basically, the day became wasted with an epid battle with the drier that ended with us just taking the clothing wet, going down to Brighton, and hanging the clothing to dry on our hostel beds. We arrived in Brighton really late so we didn't get to see much in the evening but were planning on just spending the day at the beach the next day.

The next day was perfect for a day at the beach. We woke up early and headed down to the pier but because we were so early, the pier was not yet open. We sat on the water for a little while but since we don't really like rocky beaches, as soon as the pier opened we went up and wandered the pier. Its really really big and has an amusement park on it, similar to Santa Monica pier.

We took advantage of the free deck chairs they provide on the pier and just sat out in the sun, dozing off a bit.

In order to get inside out of the sun for a little while we went and visited the Royal Pavillion. Built by George IV when he was Prince Regent, this palace is modeled after China (even though nobody who designed it had ever been to China). The exterior looks more Indian but the inside (which you couldn't take pictures of) definitely had the Chinese feel to it with bamboo and dragons, etc.The Pavillion really was an extravagent pleasure palace and it made sense why Queen Victoria, who had a large family, decided that she didn't need the palace and decided to sell it. The City of Brighton bought it (a brilliant idea really) and now they own and operate the building. All of the furniture inside, however, is from the period and is on loan from Buckingham Palace with permission of the Queen.

We wandered around a bit more, seeing the Brighton War Memorial, and then went back to the Beach, got some chips for lunch, got some ice cream in the afternoon, and got the realization that we were very sunburt. We staying in the shade after that, just killing some time before heading back to the hostel to get our backs and then to the train station to take the train back to London where we would stay the night before heading off to Switzerland.

Brighton War Memorial

Old West Pier that was destroyed by fire

The plan was to get up early, get to the airport, and fly to Switzerland to meet our parents. The first part happened, the second part happened, and then it sort of fell apart..... More to come on that soon........