Ceuta Spain

We woke early, anticipating a long travel day. We decided spur of the moment to go to Ceuta, Spain! Although this city is on northern tip of Morocco, it is a part of Spain with a long and interesting history.

We arrived within 45 minutes to the border crossing and were delighted to realize we had greatly overestimated the distance! We did the border crossing by foot and experienced one of the most relaxed and nonchalant border crossings ever! The guards were jovial and joking with us and we didn't even get an entrance stamp to Spain! Within 100 meters the world had transformed! We were in Spain there was no doubt! Well dressed, older caucasians were everywhere. They were smoking cigars, looking elegant and walking their dogs. This is the scene that dominated our view and was such a stark contrast to the Moroccans who are conservatively dressed, don't smoke or drink, have no dogs due to their faith! We were awe struck at the gorgeous mediterranean sea and architecture of the city and quickly realized we were unexpectedly in reverse culture shock! That said, within five mintues we quickly recovered and spent the next three days loafing around on the beach, hanging out at this massive ocean sized pool in the heart of the city, going for long walks around the cities peninsula and shopping for spanish style clothing. It was really relaxing a miny vacation from our vacation.

It's just so nice not to be hassled or to have to barter. In fact we were the opposite of hassled: we were completely ignored. In a city of only Spanish residents and Spanish tourists, no one spoke a word of English! We were ill prepared for Spain as we weren't anticipating going there and without even a phrasebook on hand we really struggled with the language and annoyed the locals! Funny that when you don't speak English in most countries people try to accommodate you with English printed menus or just hand gestures but in France and Spain they just get mad that you dare enter their country without knowing the language. It's quite comedic and leaves me exasperated at not being bi or tri lingual. Good old Western, English speaking Canada enabling my language ignorance! Definitely not common this day in age around the world.

We returned to the Morocco refreshed, relaxed, tanned and broke! We crossed the border with more ease than we thought possible and embarked back to Morocco, eager for a lack of pretension and a nice pot of Moroccan tea!