Too lazy for a title

By some miracle of god I managed to complete a semester of Spanish college. Finals are done and needless to say, I’m fresh out of motivation. So forgive me if my next few blog posts are few and far between. Here’s my best attempt to rehash the last two weeks, written at 2:30 pm in a robe looking fresh as ever because I just woke up…..

Feria! That was fun! Ok, in short Feria is a week-long raging fest celebrated solely in Sevilla. People travel internationally to see this festival of lights, dancing, and belligerence. It’s such a big deal that Sevilla has a giant plot of land, large enough to potentially house about 10 major apartment complexes, reserved solely for the Feria which lasts for one week each year. There is a massive entrance which is lit up on midnight of Sunday, signifying the start of Feria and all the commotion that goes with it. Feria has two parts: casetas and the fair. Casetas are little, ornate temporary tents. They are owned privately by families and businesses and you must be invited to enter. There are occasional public casetas but these don’t have half the booming party environment as a private one. I was fortunate enough to have been invited into a private caseta via the friend of a friend of a friend’s hook up buddy.

Inside the caseta there are three things to do. 1.) Drink rebujito: you don’t really have a choice in this. Unless you’re 5 years old, you sure as hell better have a rebujito in your hand. Rebujito: 2 parts manzanilla whiskey, 1 part sprite or 7-up, 1 part “shit-how-did-I-get-drunk-so-fast”. 2.) Eat tapas: deep fried green peppers, tortilla de españa, fried fish, blahblahblah I’m SO sick of spanish food!! 3.) Dance SEVILLANAS: this is undoubtedly the most popular activity at feria. Sevillanas is Sevilla’s own take on flamenco dancing except it’s slower and more graceful. The locals dance the sevillanas like it’s going out of style. No matter what hour I came to the feria, morning, noon, or night there were always thousands of people dancing Sevillanas.

If you don’t belong to a private caseta, the caseta area can get quite boring real fast. In the day you can feast your eyes on caballeros (cowboys) in traditional garb, riding their horses double down the streets of feria. There is a 24/7 fashion show at feria too: it’s called every single local woman dressed in a full flamenco ensemble. Ruffles, flowers and hair pieces, shawls, espadrilles, the whole nine yards. But when your done taking a million and one creeper shots of Spaniards you don’t know, you can go blow your wallet at the actual Feria, which literally means fair. Fair rides run at a steep 3.50 EURO but it’s totally “vale la pena” for a 5 min thrill on a ride uniquely known to Spain. Take for instance, la noria/the ferris wheel, which makes its rounds at a sheer 50 mph….well not really but it was the fastest ferris wheel I’ve ever been on.

After four solid doses of Feria, I was ready for a little relax time. So I made two day trips to Cádiz and Córdoba. In Cádiz, I did minimal exploration and maximum beach bumming time. Córdoba was a bit more active and interactive….two of my study abroad friends and I attempted to drive from Sevilla to Córdoba and only managed to tack on an extra hour of driving time while getting lost in circles in Sevilla. Honestly, driving through the Spanish country side, windows down, American top-40 a-blastin’ was the hi-light of the trip. But the mezquita and alcázar de Córdoba were really beautiful too.

Now I’m alone in my host home (Rachel took off for the states last night) and procrastinating the daunting task ahead of me: packing up 3.5 months worth of clothes and the thousands more articles of clothing I’ve accumulated on irrational shopping sprees abroad. But once I complete the task I have a GIANT reward waiting for me, my sista!! Maya comes this Sunday!!! If my exclamations haven’t given you the hint yet, I’m really excited! I get to show her my blistering hot city of Sevilla which has now taken on a regular temp of 90 thanks to the quick coming summer. Then it’s Barcelona, Prague, and London on the sister-sister euro trip agenda. Let the wild rumpus begin!

Continuation

Next on the agenda for semana santa: the Amalfi Coast of Italy. Doesn’t the name just sound alluring? Amalfi Coast. Truth be told, I only picked the destination because it sounded cool and the google images looked beautiful. After booking the trip, a little more researching informed me that Positano, the small city we would be staying in, was a prime honeymooners destination. Great, looked like Kim and I would be enjoying four romantic days in southern Italy, mistaken as lesbian honeymooners…this is when having more than five boys in your study abroad program could come in real handy.

As stated in previous blog, our all-nighter-led-to-red-eye-flight from Amsterdam to Naples was a blur. It wasn’t until we hit the asphalt of Naples and were awoken with the ripe stench of shit, that we became fully conscious. Naples, home of the mafia and margarita pizza might I mention, was having a trash strike. This already disquieting city (queue Italian mopedist pick-pocketing innocent Asian tourist) was now covered in a thick layer of trash and stench. We hopped on the first train south. It was packed and we stood for the entire two hour journey; also queue next theme of trip: standing on public transportation. Luckily the ride wasn’t too boring as a four string quartet hopped on board circa the stop for Pompeii and regaled us with the acoustic version of  “We No Speak Americano”.

We stopped in Sorrento and took a quick look around the touristy but cute city and indulged in our first Italian meal. Spaghetti puttanesca and margarita pizza never tasted so good and I was instantly convinced there is nothing in this world so consistently delicious and comforting as authentic Italian food.

Two hours later of standing on a windy bus ride and we arrived in Positano. Google images did not lie. This city was breathtaking. It was literally (thank you Wikipedia) a city built into the cliffs with winding stairs leading to you the quaintest of cafes and B&Bs and two beautiful black sand beaches. Aka a great place to recover from raging in Amsterdam. Besides the 369 (we counted) stairs it took to get to the beach, we had no physical exertion in our time in Italy. Unless you consider gorging on gnocchi, lasagna, eggplant parm, pizzas, gelato, vino, and sunbathing tough?

Our second day we shared a boat with a few tourist eager to see the island of Capri made famous by Greek mythology. The boat took us to see the Faraglioni Rocks, the green grotto, the blue grotto, and then I lost track. It was all very grogeous minus the overboard barfing of one shipmate. Of course, with my great luck, I got to lie feet-to-feet with this gentleman when we transfered into rowboats to explore the blue grotto…talk about a fun footsie partner.

The blue grotto was a once in a lifetime experience I would highly recommend. The pandemonium of screaming boatsmen all trying to cram as many tourists possible on their miniscule rowboats felt more like a scene out of a crowded Asian harbor than Italy. There was a lot of laughter, yelping, and out-of-synch Italian opera being sung. Most of the hysteria is due to the fact the entrance is a mere three feet tall and your guide has to pull you in on a line and lay on top of you in order to enter. (Thankfully our guide was an Italian hottie and not sporting any vomit.) Once inside, the cave is pitch dark minus the blindingly luminescent blue color the water reflects, thus giving its name, the Blue Grotto. Somewhere between fear of capsizing and seeing one of the seven natural wonders of the world, I managed to have an adrenaline rush larger than any roller-coaster could ever supply.

This adrenaline would soon be matched– two days after more sunshine, enamoring for the Italian coast, and pasta– when I returned to Sevilla. I barely had a wink of time to catch up on the sleep that I had been deprived of by 29 hours in transit, and I was off to the corrida de toros/ bullfight!! Dressed to the nines in sun dresses, floppy hats, and fans, the American study abroad students took on the Spanish bullfighting scene with swag and class. And then some of us lost it…well just a little. I had expected gore and blood out of a bull fight, but the true reality of it, from four rows away, is much much worse. It may be an art, and it may be a cultural, but I can not respect the drawn out butchering of a bull that ends often with a matador stabbing the animal in the face. Of course, for me, the real tear jerker is when the picador rides in on his blindfolded horse, unable to see he is about to be rammed in the (blanketed) ribs by bull horns. As a 6 year old, my favorite bed time story was of an innocent, unprovokable bull named Ferdinand who ‘hated to fight and would rather sit and smell  the flowers in the ladies hats.’ Fourteen years later, and I couldn’t help but shed a tear for my little Spanish Ferdinand, now butchered in front of me.

Puur Applesap

Semana Santa, or “Holy Week”, is a crowded, clusterfuck of marching KKK’s under the incinerating skyline of southern Spain. In reality, the processioners dressed similar to KKK are called Nazarenos and represent Catholic brotherhoods. The cone-shaped hats symbolize a rising towards the heaven, not discriminatory lynchings. Even with this differentiation in my conscious, I found it difficult to calmly watch hoards of over 3,000 Nazarenos inundate Sevilla. Add in some gorily realistic Jesus crucifixion replicas and some 85°F weather, and you got yourself one tourist who stayed inside for a few days.

My break soon changed from holy and mellow to fast-paced and sinful. A mere 10-hour layover in Liverpool, said “whatsup” to the home of the Beatles, hopped on flight #2, and landed in a metropolis of drugs and prostitution. Welkom in Amsterdam!! My travel buddy, Kim, and I went immediately to check into our hostel (as numerous conspicuously aged men warned us of the drug trafficking dangers we WOULD experience when walking the city streets after sundown– I only got sucked into one crack deal, luckily.)

The Flying Pig Hostel Uptown was like a mélange of my time at Bonnaroo and various fraternity parties. The reception desk doubled as a bar and the downstairs lounge was smothered in a thick cloud of marijuana smoke. Contrary to the questionable description, I would highly recommend The Flying Pig to any budget-savvy Amsterdam travelers. It was sterile, comfortable, and attracted a menagerie of unforgettable guests. The most notable guests to share our humble 8-person, mixed room was the death metal, Metallica-tee toting, Raleigh, NC-native honeymooners. Nothing screams romance like spending the formative days of your lifelong marriage in a youth hostel in Amsterdam!

We had two jam-packed days in Amsterdam to see the city often referred to as a cornucopia of weed and whores (kidding, but it’s a passable description.) First stop, Vondelpark: the Central Park of Amsterdam, great for a stroll around koi ponds and weeping willows while viewing visitors ‘tripping’ on shrooms. After a brisk morning jaunt, we found our hostel’s complimentary breakfast toast with nutella had digested and it was time to nom on something of substance: frites! We wandered into ‘Chipsy King’, a teeny chain restaurant vending solely frites, and were sucked into a fortress of never ending frite cravings. Whether you choose the classic fritessaus (essentially mayonnaise) topping or cheesesauce (my personal fave) or go for the daring spicy peanut sauce, you are in for a real Dutch treat. Gorged on frites, we went on to explore the seemingly endless canals of Amsterdam (via canal cruise), visited the Anne Frank museum, innocently popped our heads into a few coffeshops (most notably: Dampkring, featured in Ocean’s 12), and took a gander at the scantily clad prostitutes struttin’ their stuff in the Red Light district.

On day two Kim and I took a day trip out of the city to the famed Keukenhof. Often referred to as the ‘Garden of Europe’, Keukenhof spreads over 79 acres containing 7 million bulbs worth of magnificent, breath taking flower displays. Keukenhof was flower heaven and it got me thinking, “is Disney World really the happiest place on earth?” After a few hours of the best time I’ll ever have around flowers, I met up with my former CofC equestrian team member and dear friend, Rachel.

Galavanting around Amsterdam with Rachel was surreal and exhilarating. Rachel was partaking in ‘couch surfing’ and brought along her native Dutch host for a night on the town. This guy knew all the hot spots and we started our night at a chill bar where I drank a delicious glass of Belgium cider-beer. This could only be described as a precursor to the incredible events that lay ahead. Unknown-named Dutchman (that seems to be a reoccurring theme of my Euro travels) then took our eager American crew to a fraternity party in the heart of Amsterdam. Yes my friends, I can now call myself a continental fraternity party attendee! I can’t say the Dutch throw down like any FIJI soirée I’ve ever attended. This party was more like a scene out of ‘Animal House’: sloshed fraternity brothers banging their beer mugs to the rhythm of flipcup as a photo montage of previous ragers projected on the wall. Unfortunately, our time among the strikingly handsome ‘brothers’ was short-lived as the Dutchman whisked us away to our next locale. The remaining night that followed was a blur of 10 for €10 shots, an essential pitstop at Chipsy King, dancing our asses off at a converted church-turned-nightclub named Paradiso, and miraculously showing up at the Amsterdam airport at 5am for our flight to Italy. Second blog post to follow….

EXTREME-adura and some sexual tendencies

This past weekend my study abroad group, API, arranged an excursion to Extremadura, Spain- the region just north of Sevilla. Extremadura is mountainous countryside with minimalist cities and a landscape bearing striking resemblance to New England. Our first pit stop in Extremadura was the capital, Mérida- home to many non-titillating Roman Ruins. Next we ventured to Trujillo, the city where CofC offers a study abroad program and where I almost spent my semester. Well, Halle-frickin-lujah that didn’t work out! While this city and its population of 9,860 did have a certain charm, it was far too removed and lacking liveliness to spend a semester in. However, we did arrive on the day of a renaissance fair in the town square. Nothing screams “fun!” like a Spanish medieval festival! But actually, it was a pretty good time. Had a stellar kebab (latest culinary obsession), watched a pathetic jousting reenactment, and smoked hookah in great company.

Being that I tend to surround myself with bro-types at home, typically of the FIJI persuasion, I’ve been feeling rather nostalgic for bro-time: a time of grotesque gestures and the crudest of conversations; in other words, bonding. Finding myself with two eligible young men at the renaissance fair of Trujillo, I divulged in my need for bro-time. No surprise, they had little qualms with this and I found myself smoking hookah til sunset, talking about all things inappropriate.

The next morning we ventured from our 4-star Trujillan hotel to sleep at a reconstructed monastery in Guadalupe (another small town of Extremadura.) Oh and by “ventured”, I mean that we hiked there: town-to-town, 16 km/ 10 miles, door-to-door, until I sat on the steps of a 900-year-old monastery. Dripping in sweat, muscles throbbing, and feeling very ‘Sound of Music’ for trekking over mountaintops to find the next city, I was filled with a sense of accomplishment. 10 miles (or so our tour guide claims/ I think it was longer) is no easy feat!

If you’ve made any attempt to stay in touch with me while abroad, there’s no doubt I’ve mentioned in my anecdotal tails of life en España, my Wednesdays at ‘Cien Montaditos.’ Wednesdays are my days to hang out with my INCREDIBLE Spanish friends- no, but really, they are some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Wednesdays are also “Euromania” at Cien Montaditos- a fast foodish, but incredible, chain restaurant around Spain. “Euromania” is just what it sounds like- everything on the menu for one EURO! We go crazy feasting on montaditos (mini sandwiches), American-style (yayy) salads, and pints of tinto de verano. Makes for a satiated day, to say the least. The majority of our lunch conversations include swapping colloquial phrases from our respective languages. Without fail, every Wednesday, there’s a tendency for “colloquial phrase swapping” to turn into “sexual phrase sharing.”  Today was no exception.

Innocent (pshh, more like naive and American) Emma asks her Spanish friend if “corrido de toros” is the colloquial way of saying “bullfight.” Not quite! Corrido is Spanish slang for ejaculation. This really set off a new series of topics, so to say. Next, I learned that it was perfectly acceptable, totally normal, even used by mothers, to greet a fellow spaniard with the exclamatory remark: “I could just eat your p**sy!” Us Americans didn’t hesitate for a moment to inform our friends, while this was all culturally fascinating, do NOT ever use this term in America!

That’s all for now folks! Future adventures include: a possible haircut, trip to the beach, oh and Easter break in Amsterdam and the Amalfi Coast of Italy!

Portugal- LC: Life Changing

My parents arrived in Sevilla on Monday. In typical Gunst/Rudolph fashion, we got right down to business: eating! I partook in my first tapas crawl, if you will. We ordered one or two- who we are kidding? more like four or six- tapas at each restaurant and then went on to the next. When each dish is accompanied by a tinto or two, tapas crawl starts to turn into bar crawl. Turns out Kath and John actually do know how to party. By the end of the night I was bursting with grilled octopus, chorizo, lupini beans, and tinto, obvi.

After a grueling day of midterms on Thursday, my parents took me to one of the most renowned tapas bars in Sevilla: Casablanca. No chairs, just standing outside under the newly blossomed orange trees and the spring sunshine, and eating the best steak of my life….until we got to Portugal and my standards were once again exceeded.

The drive to Portugal went surprisingly successful, considering we were sans mapquest or GPS. The only tricky part in navigating the Portuguese highway are the rotaries every other miles. Portuguese countryside is really gorgeous and strikingly similar to Martha’s Vineyard.

We spent the first night in a charming, old town called Tavira, just off the border of Spain (one of the only places you can pass through without passport/check point). We stayed in the “Mosaic suite”, ornate with Moroccan tiles and a balcony that overlooked all the ancient rooftops of Tavira. It was very surreal and had some serious potential to be an ANTM photoshoot setting. Waking up to a breakfast basket full of gourmet, organic, and whole grain treats was the most surreal surprise of all. After two months of waking up to my madre’s acclaimed wet, cold toast (she has the recipe down to an art!), this was like Christmas, or Hanukkah, morning for me. Not to mention, breakfast was outside with a view of the port of Tavira.

Dinner in Tavira was the real “LC”, life changer- it’s kind of an inside joke. Portugal has an unofficial reputation for great steak, so that’s what we ordered. The steak was a huge, juicy sirloin- raw! It was served on a burning slab of cement, with a side of flavored butter and you actually got to cook and season the steak yourself at your table! It was one of those steaks that I’ll later find myself willing to do anything for when the craving strikes. As a non-beef eater the past few years, it completely reaffirmed my love for meat. Plus it came with a side of smashed “corn” which was exactly like grits and made me feel just slightly closer to Charleston.

One and a half hours more of road tripping and we arrived to Lagos. I thought we had possibly just missed a massive terrorist attack or evacuation because there was literally no one in sight. We were the only guests at our hotel and there were never more than two couples in a restaurant. Turns out, off-season in Portugal is DEAD and the party doesn’t start until late April. The quiet atmosphere of the city inspired us to have a veryyy low key weekend. We rested for hours in the most amazingly decorated hotel rooms I’ve ever seen (and this coming from a girl who worked for an interior designer all summer). We read by the pool but that was a fail when 5 mins later, I fell asleep book in hand. We walked down the cliffs to the beach and then I feel asleep on a boulder. I think I spent more time in Lagos asleep than awake.

Some other LC, life changing, experiences in Lagos were: trying the BEST sangria of my life: fresh fruit drowned in a pitcher of white, sparkling wine; discovering 20 years later that I do, in fact, like kiwi; Portugal’s famous chicken ‘piri piri’ (super spicy grilled chix, yummm); garlic clams straight off the coast; and traditional Portuguese crème caramel. Of course the most LC of all was having a super fun bonding weekend with my loving parents and finding out all the long withheld secrets of their college years! How’s that for the corniest blog ending yet? Thanks mum and dad, I had a blast!

Bienvenidos a la Primavera

Last night was a success: went out dancing and mojito drinking with eight of the most attractive, lovely Spanish men. Too bad they were all dating each other!!! Much to my disappointment, I’ve recently learned that the greater portion of Sevillan men are not “on my team”. Good thing these men are at least charming, handsome, and amazing dancers.

Some other new insight from last night: apparently public drinking is not “technically” legal in Spain. Who woulda thunk! Every Thursday you are guaranteed to see the river-side mobbed by belligerent day-to-evening drinkers. And now that spring has sprung, people are even rowdier than before. Well apparently, when the botteloners (that’s my Spanglish for “pre-gamers”) come in smaller, more manageable masses, the cops will interfere. After a Spanish friend of mine told me she had once been arrested for changing her shoes in public, I had no interest in seeing the consequence that public drinking might warrant.

“My Spanish friend”…when did that happen? My school, Universidad de Sevilla, has a program where an English speaking person is set up with a Spaniard so both parties can improve on their language skill. You are one another’s “intercambio” (“inter-change”). I was a little hesitant to sign up for this program when a bunch of my friends had been blindly set up with creepy, old Spanish men whose intentions were probably not to improve their English. Luckily, I received the sweetest, well-intentioned 21-year-old female intercambio. Hanging out with Maria Jose not only tops being stuck with an old creeper but she comes as a package deal. She has graciously introduced me to all of her friends and taken in my American friends as her own. This past Wednesday we had a picnic on the school lawn and exchanged inappropriate sayings in our respective languages. Soon enough 5 hours had breezed by and I had myself 5 new Spanish friends.

Other happenings this weekend included a 10 AM whiskey tasting in a small city named Jerez. That was, well, nauseating. From Jerez, our Saturday day-trip, took us to the beach in Cádiz. The playa was beautiful but we were dropped off outside of “true” Cádiz and I didn’t get to see much of the city. Hopefully returning for a more thorough visit soon! Also, in upcoming travel plans: I have a nine day break in April and trying decide what to do. The tentative plan is 3 days in Amsterdam and 3 more on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. But then I heard about SpringFest in Munich, Germany which sounded like one of those once in a lifetime experiences, even for a non-beer drinker. Feel free to leave suggestions on my Facebook! Also, what are people’s experiences with couch surfing?

Sorry this wasn’t the most enthralling blog post but I’m busy preparing for the week ahead. My first two Spanish midterms (FML!) and my parents arrive tomorrow!! Hoping for good weather and some kind of over-night miracle allowing me to understand 100 years of Spanish political history….

Morocco

Marrakech, Morocco, Africa was like no place I have ever seen in my life. It’s a city full of vibrant colors, pungent smells, bustling roadways, and lots of tea. Marrakech’s unique landscape is unlike any in the world. Red clay ground stains the whole city a deep crimson. There’s something unprecedented about the juxtapose scenery of desert terrain and the snow peaked Atlas mountains. Sensory overload is the expression that most comes to mind in describing Morocco.

Enough overly-flourished imagery; did you really think I was going to write a whole blog post sans sarcasm? Impossible, when my stories include camel rides, aggressive bartering, a Moroccan rendition of 50 cent, African hail storms, and almost becoming a Marrakech dowry bride.

The city of Marrakech is essentially built around the souks- outdoor markets full to the brim with vendors of Moroccan crafts and delicacies. The souk is exactly how one would imagine a stereotypical, crowded African market- all it was missing were some over-sized jungle animals roaming through the crowd. I never decided whether it was best to keep my eyes up or down at the market. Look up and you might walk into puddles of contaminated water, trip in a pot hole, or make eye contact with a man- (frowned upon in the traditional Arabic culture.) Look down and you might miss the fast pace of Marrakech: winding alleys the size of most sidewalks; motorized bikes carrying entire families, donkeys pulling carts, horse and buggies, and a few thousand pedestrians all somehow managing to fit in miniscule passageways, at the same time.

Marrakech is a city of dynamic and penetrating odors, to put it politely. There is an underlying waft of sewer and contaminated water in most areas. The majority of toilets are no more than a hole in the ground, if this gives any indication to the plumbing situation. Mint is the second to most oppressive smell. Mint tea is so popular in Morocco they’ve cleverly dubbed it “whiskey”. Vendors sell solely fresh mint by the masses, laid out fresh, or in big bags- all reminiscent of bundles of marijuana. The food in Morocco smells…it smells damn good. Couscous buried under squash, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, lamb, chicken, and olives is one of Morocco’s biggest food staples. The other popular dish being ‘tajine’: a stew of kebab-sized chicken and potatoes, cannellini beans, and dried fruits. Suffice to say, I could’ve nommed on the Moroccan cuisine for a lot longer than four days.

As many of you may know, my mom’s side of the family, the Gunst’s, have a reputation of being very successful, tactful hagglers/bargainers. I feel very fortunate to have been passed on this gene. The Moroccan souks (markets) are a bargainers playground and boy, did I play! The vendors actually want you to bargain- there are no set prices nor price tags. The majority of vendors are quadra-lingual in order to cater to a diverse demographic of shoppers. The three most prevalent languages spoken are Arabic, French, and English. The lack of language barrier made for some very successful bartering. I wont go into detail on my bargaining techniques but, in short, you basically just have to be a giant bitch and you’ll get the price you want. Unfortunately, my hostile attitude did not keep me or my friends safe of creepers who requested many of us as their wives. Another vendor would only barter kisses with me. This later proved to be child’s play as the next vendor offered his shop to my guy friend in exchange for me. We still haven’t determined if my Moroccan dowry of a scarf shop is flattering or just straight up degrading…

Other Moroccan accomplishments included the realization that I had out-grown my childhood allergy to camels. A two hour camel ride left me with only a sore crotch to whine about, and thankfully no hives in sight. Our group was fortunate enough to have our camels lead by the most entertaining of Moroccans- a man who spoke no English but proceeded to recite 50 Cents “In Da Club” word-for-word.

Additionally, I survived walking through a Moroccan hail storm, avoiding food/water poisoning, and not falling off the Atlas mountains on our group “hike”. The term hike is used lightly as our trek through the exquisite Atlas mountains was more like an actual rock climb. There was a lot of crawling on the hands and knees, some minor panic attacks, and some unforgettable panoramic views.

Morocco was easily my favorite four days abroad, thus far. There is something both beautiful and terrifying about immersing yourself in such a foreign culture and what better place to do it than AFRICA!