Author: Lauren (thebestpossibletime.com)

You are a Tourist // Morocco

Lauren (thebestpossibletime.com)1 Comment
Is this the “””””real””””” Morocco?

I recently read a list of tips for travel bloggers and some of them really stood out to me. I don’t mean tips like “take a lot of photos” (duh); I mean concepts like “don’t romanticize or idealize the culture you are visiting” and “remember that the city is not there for you.” I think it’s something a lot of us forget, that our vacation spots aren’t putting on a show for our benefit. We’re on vacation, but for most of the people we’re visiting, this is their daily life. At the same time, just because we’re viewing someone’s daily life doesn’t mean we are going to come back experts on whatever country we’ve visited. It’s definitely something I thought a lot about when I was writing my post on history in Germany and Prague, and it’s something I thought about more this past weekend, which I spent on a trip to Morocco.

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“What do Germans eat?” “Sausage and beer.”

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We didn’t ride the “bierbike” but it looked hilarious.

Previous Posts: Berlin, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic, Munich, Germany and Salzburg, Austria; History

Inside the Hofbräuhaus

This’ll be my last post about spring break (are you bored yet?), and hopefully it’s a fun one: food! Food is something I didn’t really think about when I decided to go to Germany and the Czech Republic for spring break, and maybe I should have. As it was, I asked some people a few days before I left what people eat in Germany and all of the answers were the same: meat. Googling “traditional German foods” gave me the same answer. Perhaps I should have given this a bit more thought. Spain isn’t exactly a vegetarian-friendly country either, but at least in the south fish is a main staple of the diet, so once I decided to go pescatarian for the semester (and I’m probably going to stay this way when I go home; I like fish a lot) I was doing just fine. However, although I’m sure that the Germans eat fish, most of what I found about German cuisine went something along the lines of sausage, sausage, beer, sausage. Luckily, throughout the week I was pleasantly surprised to find delicious food that I could eat. Here are a few of my favourite meals:

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Thoughts about History

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The former sight of the S.S. headquarters is now a museum

I decided to separate this post out from the city-specific posts because those were about having fun and this one has a more serious tone. Going to Berlin, Munich, and Prague was a fun experience, certainly, but it also was an educational one. Something that is different between Europe and America, or at least certain places in Europe, is that history is inescapable. Walking around Berlin, it seemed like every block had a memorial for some group of people persecuted or killed during the Third Reich, or a piece of the Berlin Wall still standing as a reminder of the Cold War. In Prague, even something as simple as a designer store in a certain area of town was significant (the Jewish quarter, now home to a fancy shopping district, had a Hugo Boss store; the designer apologized just a few years ago for having designed the Nazis’ uniforms).

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DobrĂ˝ Den* from Prague

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Yesterday: Berlin, Germany

View of Prague from Prague castle

*”Good Day” in Czech

Beautiful architecture in Prague Square

I didn’t know a lot about Prague before I visited. Most of my knowledge came from the multitudes of people who told me how beautiful it was, and the play Rock and Roll by Tom Stoppard, which I saw with my dad a few years ago. On Sunday evening, Stephanie and I took a train from Berlin through the German countryside (and past Dresden, which I enjoyed as I was reading a novel by Kurt Vonnegut at the time) and into the Czech Republic. As soon as we arrived, I understood why people think the city is so beautiful. Even at night, I could see so many different kinds of architecture, which I love. Also, like Germany, most people we encountered spoke some English which was good because, unlike Germany, I don’t know a single word of Czech. We met up with Liz and Rachelle, who were coming in from Sevilla, and Jovita, who had spent the weekend in Amsterdam, and had a quick dinner before turning in for the night.

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“Ich bin ein Berliner”*

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Alexanderplatz had some great outdoor markets

* Apparently, this does NOT actually mean “I am a jelly donut,” despite the urban legend that JFK messed up his grammar and compared himself to a pastry.

When most people think of spring break, they think of warm weather and sun, beaches and bathing suits. However, living in the south of Spain, where the temperature is almost always at least 20 degrees Celsius, we get plenty of warmth and sun. And beaches aren’t really my thing, at least not for an entire week, so when I was thinking about what to do during Semana Santa, there was no place to go but up. Up north, that is. Last Friday, my friend Stephanie and I flew to from Sevilla to Barcelona to Germany to begin our spring break trip in Berlin. If we were looking for a contrast to Sevilla’s warm and sunny weather, we found it; the weather in Berlin was cold and rainy two out of the three days we were there, and there was even some thunder and hail! But that didn’t stop us. We met up with Steph’s roommate from her university back home (she’s studying in Paris) and we were on our way.

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