International Tangier. Zaid Bousdar 1ºBac B

I have no words to describe how interesting was our visit to Tangier some weeks ago. During our trip to Tangier I learned a lot of new things about the city. I have to admit that I never knew that Tangier was the destiny of famous writers like Paul Bowles and the Beat generation.

Our trip started like any other, the boring journey to Tangier and then we finally arrived. The first thing I liked was the Hotel Minzah. It was big and famous. I was excited to enter the American Legation but it took to us some time. I thought that the American Legation was a huge building in the Medina, not in the walled medina. When we entered I felt like I was in a palace of a rich family. I am still annoyed because we couldn’t take any photo. I have to say that the explanation was a little bit boring but the man who was talking was fluent in English and that impressed me. The other thing I liked in the American Legation were the paintings, some of them were masterpieces for me. There were a lot but I liked the portrait of that women. I remember that there was a room full with pictures of a lot of things, that room was really hot. I didn’t like the dinner room, it was big but the table wasn’t so. Also there were a lot of pictures and I don’t like walls filled with pictures and those decorations.

 I was disappointed because the ceiling was cracked. Since it is an old building it is normal to find cracks in the walls, the roof and the floor but I think that they could fix it up. I was scared because the building could fall down in any time. The backyard was cool, also I saw that there were other rooms that we didn’t visited.The other thing that impressed me was that there was a room dedicated to Paul Bowles and in that room we saw a lot of his pictures and his works and his books. The explanation about Paul Bowles was boring too and I didn’t remember anything about it. I think it was because we were tired of standing the whole time and things like that. In the Paul Bowles room we could take photos and I liked that. I liked an old typewriter because I always wanted to have one.

 After our visit to the American Legation we went and had a walk in the Medina, I liked to see those backstreets and looking at children playing, people doing the shopping, old vehicles…

After a long way we reached the Hotel Continental. The views were spectacular, we could see the sea and a part of the city. The problem was the sun, it was so hot that I felt like I was fried. I entered with some of my friends to the covered area. Inside, it was cooler. I drank an orange juice and I felt good. After our visit to the impressive Hotel Continental we visited the perfume shop Madini. It smelled good inside that shop. After that we walked a lot to return to our starting point. I was so tired that I started sitting to recover some energy. 

And finally we reached the restaurant La Gelateria, the thing I didn’t like is that a lot of pizzas took too long to be served, like mine but I enjoyed it. The thing I liked more was the chocolate ice cream. It tasted so good that I wanted another one but I couldn’t buy anything more because I was running out of money. After that we visited a Christian church. We saw the graveyard and the graves of Christian people who died in Tangier and were buried there. I took some photos but I deleted them because I had a bad feeling. I wanted to photograph a spirit but there wasn’t anyone in the pictures. I liked some of the tombs, but the other ones were a little bit simple. I don’t know what happened but we couldn’t enter the church I still don’t know why but I don’t want to know.  

Finally we went to the place of the meeting with the bus. We waited a long time and we spent it talking about the marks of the second term. The bus finally arrived and we returned to Tetuan.

I liked this incredible trip and I learned a lot of things about Tangier, Paul Bowles and the Beat Generation. I loved and hated the American Legation and I was tired during the whole trip. During this trip I discovered another face of Tangier. In this trip I learned that I still have to discover the hidden places of this beautiful country and its people.

When I got back home I felt like I learned new things about Tangier. I hate Tangier but this trip made me to love it forever. That’s all I’ve got to say about that incredible trip and the day we passed in Tangier.

Day Trip To Tangier

DAY TRIP TO TANGIER

Yasmine Targuisti

On the 26^th march in order to complete our project we decided to visit the city of Tangier to know more about its international history, because we all know that it has deep American roots.

We started the day assisting the first class, that took place from 7:45-8:40 am; but no one was concentrated because we were all excited about that day. The bus arrived at 8:40 am from our high school “Nuestra Senora del Pilar”  to take us to the Spanish high school of Tangier “Severo Ochoa”. Unfortunately the fact that we didn’t have the chance to meet with our colleges of Tangier was a little bit sad.

We started the tour right in front of the school.

We walked through the old Medina visiting places like the Cafe de Paris, a place that used to be visited by a lot of famous people like international writers, actors and actresses… or the Hotel Minzah, where we had the pleasure to stop and to check it with our own eyes: It is a traditional Moroccan hotel which has an amazing collection of every famous person that has been there: most of them very popular actors and actresses.

After that, we continued walking until we arrived to the walled medina, which is the old medina of Tangier. There we saw traditional shops of clothes like “shrabel or jlaleb” or workshops that work with the clay to  do some fantastic plots.

Then the American Legation invited us to tell us more about the American history of Tangier.

The Tangier that was described to us was so different from the  Tangier of nowadays.

One thing to highlight is the incredible showroom that there is in honor of Paul Bowles, American citizen, composer, writer and translator. He became associated with Tangier city in 1947 when he settled there with his wife.  He was an important figure of American expatriates in this city. Besides he lived in Tangier until his death, 52 years later.

Next thing in our route was to visit St. Andrews Church, and Anglican religious place. Unfortunately we couldn’t visit the inside because it was occupied, but we saw Anglican tombs there and some of them were of famous people.

After that we visited the museum foundation Lorin, where a guide that worked there gave us a short speech about the history of the museum, and all the celebrities and politicians that where there.

It was time for a break so we decided to go to the Continental coffee shop, where we had a small snack to recover energy.

To finish the journey we visited the Café Colon, to see where people like Paul Bowles and others used to spend the nights having fun.

We didn’t had the chance to try the drinks that the coffee offered to us, because we were running out of time.

It was an extremely interesting day, where we had a lot of fun, and we somehow introduced our selfes a little bit more to the amazing American history that our country has.