Contact: Sharon Fisher
May 30, 2008

Locals get a taste of Spain and Morocco

“We crossed over the border into Morocco. There were street vendors all around us... anything from raw fish to Moroccan Robes. Then we enjoyed a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Arabic lunch with fresh vegetable soup, beef shish kabob, and couscous (chicken, vegetables, and a wheat rice like food)...it was YUMMY! Morocco, it's a culture shock unlike any other.”

This message was sent last week to the website of Mountain Empire Community College by MECC student Natasha Rutherford.

MECC’s annual trek abroad took Natasha and 46 fellow travelers to Spain and then into Africa to Morocco. An added adventure this year was being able to blog daily, send pictures and keep up with friends and family through the college’s website.

On May 23, Natasha simply blogs, “Alhambra, snow-capped Sierra Nevada, Mediterranean Sea, Costa del Sol, Rock of Gibraltar... no words to describe.”

These scenes brought to life the studies of the thirteen MECC students who had taken history professor Mike Strouth’s spring semester class, Topics in European History: Spain. Each of these students received a $1,000 scholarship to help with the expense of the trip.

Strouth organizes the popular trips each year to a different area of Europe. Along with Strouth and student services director Lisa Butcher were 21 community members and 24 students taking the ten-day excursion.

The final blog entry came at 11:11 pm on May 28 by Butcher. “We are home! We had a 2:30 am wakeup call in Madrid, a 2 hour plane ride to Munich, a 9 hour flight to Charlotte, and our bus pulled into MECC at 9:40 pm tonight. It was a wonderful trip.”

To view all of the blog entries and pictures of the Spain/Morocco trip, go to www.mecc.edu.

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