Waffles and Chocolate

Oops I forgot to title the last entry. I always write the whole entry, then decide what the most appropriate title is. Sometimes I get a little overzealous about posting and forget the title.

On a more important note, I am now in Portugal at the Oasis youth hostel. And yes, I have free internet. Score.

They actually had no record of any reservation from the Sevilla Oasis, which was an exceptionally good result, because I knew that if they couldn't find my reservation and I told them that I actually did not need a room since I am taking the bus tonight, I really only need a place to leave my things, etc. , that they would tell me I could hang out for free. That is exactly what happened, with free internet, free waffles and chocolate spread, and clean bathrooms. They even have a really nice living room with lots of couches. Who needs a room anyway?

I did not sleep at all on the overnight bus from Sevilla because even the two seats that I was occupying did not afford me enough space to stretch out comfortably. Luckily, I met two other backpackers traveling alone that don't speak Portuguese, and we all got to hang out together at the Portugal bus station at 5am. We left at midnight and it was supposed to be a 7 hour or 7 and a half hour trip, but there is a one hour time change and it was only a six hour trip. So we hung out and tried to sleep at the bus station until the metro opened at 6:30 and then we headed into town in search of a hostel. I did my usual good job of planning and didn't bother to check and see if the Oasis in Portugal was in the guidebook, but rather assumed that it was since the ones in Granada and Sevilla both were. This one wasn't, of course. So I had no contact information and no idea where it was. All I knew is that it existed. That's okay, the two guys that I was with didn't even have a guidebook, let alone a reservation. And I thought I was bad. Say it with me people.......LONELY PLANET. Invest.

Anyway, we found our way to some breakfast and then hung out outside a tourist office until it opened at 9. The other two found a place to stay and they gave me directions to Oasis, where I am currently hanging out for free. I am seriously considering spending my day in Portugal sleeping and maybe sitting by the water. Any more walking around is out of the question, especially with the blisters and lack of sleep.

I am leaving at 6 or 7 anyway to go catch a bus to Madrid, so I think nap time on one of those couches is sounding reallly good........

Okay, well there is no one waiting for the internet so this entry will be a little longer maybe. Katie has correctly informed me that Oasis is the best youth hostel of all time, and I have enjoyed the rooftop swimming pool, chocolate spread for breakfast, clean beds, and a tapas tour with a free flamenco show last night. I highly recommend it. They even made a reservation for me at the Lisbon Oasis by means of IM. You know you are in a youth hostel when reservations are made by college students using IM. When the guy told me it was all set and I said, "score", he was extremely amused...and promptly typed that to the person he was IMing. I laughed. I have no idea where he was from.

Oh yeah. Sevilla. I love Sevilla. The tapas are incredible. The weather was great, if a bit hot, and the city is like one postcard after another. I touristed all day and saw all the major landmarks, most importantly the Alcaza and the Cathedral. I took a bunch of pictures of the place in the Cathedral that Christopher Colombus is supposedly buried. I did a little shopping and bought one clean sundress so that I don't have to wear dirty travelling clothes to see my friends in London. They have all been in civilization for a while now so I don't want to embarass myself too much. I figure clean clothes will do. I doubt the cleanliness will get much beyond that, as I have an overnight bus both tonight and tomorrow. So much for sleeping and showering. Sorry guys.

I am getting quite excited to get home, to the point that I don't even care that much about Portugal. I have to spend the day somehow, though, so I may as well make use of it and do some sightseeing. Then I hop a bus to Madrid tomorrow night at nine, I get into Madrid on Sunday morning, and I am going to chill out at the airport all day. I considered taking a day trip on Sunday to El Escorial or to Toledo, but I don't have a lot of money and I don't want to risk missing my flight. Besides, hanging out at airports and bus stations for hours on end is ridiculous amounts of fun.

Thai, anyone?

Yeah, so the blogger page is for some unknown reason in Thai. I had to guess from memory which buttons to click to do this entry. I am in Sevilla right now, on my way after Granada and Cordoba. In Granada I spent the whole morning at the Alhambra, because, well duh, it's the Alhambra. I did some other sightseeing in the afternoon and then took an evening bus to Cordoba, where I got quite frustrated trying to find a hotel. What's that? I should have planned better and booked ahead? Nonsense. All those damn people should have stayed somewhere else. Anyway, I ended up having to pay 30 Euros for a double room with a private bath...the actual price was 38 but apparently bargaining works here too.....after I took my bubbke bath I decided it was worth every Euro!

I decided to just pay for two hours at the internet cafe since there was no way to finish the blog and read all my emails in one. Now I have twenty minutes left, so I am going to write my last Morocco entry, the top ten things I will miss and the top ten things I will not miss.

THE TOP TEN THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT MOROCCO:

10. Ca va, la gazelle? Hell nooooooooooo. ca va pas. You are driving me crazy, and besides...I am not a bird.
9. Not being able to walk around by myself at night.
8. Dressing for winter in the middle of summer in Africa. There is a limit to my modesty, and this is well beyond it!
7. Living next to Hash corner, and trying.....unsuccessfully.......to avoid stepping on the hash.
6. Lugging three months worth of luggage across two continents by myself.
5. Bus stations, taxis, and hotels, oh my!
4. Disrespectful guys. I know, this is the second time this has made the list. It deserves at least that for the amount we put up with.
3. Getting yelled at for inviting Pete over to study. After I had permission.
2. HRUBESSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
1. People wondering what you are up to if you walk, talk, or basically have any contact whatsoever with a guy.


THE TOP TEN THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT MOROCCO:

10. Saying En shallah...God Willing.... for everything, as though my decision to eat chicken tonight is truly dependent on God willing it to happen.
9. Sleeping on the terrace of hotels.
8. Teaching country music to the students, and the excitement when I copied CDs for them.
7. Watermelon for dessert.
6. 3 o clock at Hash corner. Everytime 3 o clock rolls around now I wonder why I am not shopping and running random errands with the girls.
5. Doing impressions of Saad. I might do them anyway.
4. The kasbah in Rabat. Even though we were not always the most responsible visitors.
3. The souqs. Where other than Marrakesh can you buy handmade lamps, a variety of colored potions, and handpainted pottery for 10 or 15 dollars?
2. The hospitality. Walking into a store and getting invited for tea even after I have bought something, or even if I don't buy anything. Getting offered meals, rides, and places to sleep from perfect strangers.
1. Everyone I have met, especially the other TPA interns and students, randoms, and all the English students. I can't wait to see everyone again soon, en shallah.

There is no such thing as free lunch...LIES

He promptly offered to take me by the bus station and check with me. I was like, is this guy for real? So I told him it was much too kind and I did not want to take him out of his way. He said no problem, and I shrugged. If he was gonna kill me with a chainsaw, it was too late now.

Not 15 minutes later there we were at the bus station getting all the info. Afterward, he asked if I was hungry...I was starving.........and bought me a really nice lunch and soda at the bus station. I was still trying to figure out what was going on when he took me to take photos from a viewpoint over the medina. He finally dropped me off right on the main plaza near my hotel, but not before giving me 100dH for my ticket tomorrow. I tried to refuse, but he insisted. I left bewildered. He told me he does it for everyone when he is on vacation and the only thing I could come up with is that he was so grateful to have a decent job in Belgium that he truly enjoys sharing the wealth when he comes back. He did not try to flirt with me, bother me, or sell me anything. We were perfect strangers, and he basically accomplished my afternoon agenda, walking to bus, taking bus to Meknes, going toMeknes bus station, getting lunch, and returning to hotel, in the matter of an hour or so. And paid me to do it. He told me he wanted me to leave Morocco with a good impression of Meknes. Well, it worked!! I am 12 dollars richer and in very good spirits.

I met a much sketchier guy who invited me to his house this afternoon, but his insistence that I relax and make myself at home, along with the fact that he kept telling me how he wanted to get to know me, caused me to all of a sudden have a lot of studying to do.

So that's it. I am caught up. Tomorrow morning I take the bus to Tanger, right on the border of Spain, and Tuesday morning I am taking the ferry into Spain. I am probably going to go to Granada, Sevilla, Leon, and then Portugal, before flying to London next Sunday. That is the plan anyway. So far I have not exactly stuck to much of a plan. Or maybe I just didn't have one. Whatever.

Hitch hiking

So last night my evening was consumed by trying to find my way from the bus station to my hotel on foot with all my stuff because I am too cheap to pay for a taxi. I did get a nice tour of the city on the way though. The hotel was expensive by Morocco standards, but they are letting me sleep on the terrace for 50dH. After I put my stuff down and headed out in search of internet and dinner, I ran into random solo traveler from Barcelona who was also in my hotel, and in search of internet and dinner. He didn't speak any French or Arabic, so I took the liberty of finding us an internet cafe, and then he pretty much paid for dinner except for like a dollar. All in all, quite successful. We ate in the main plaza that overlooks these huge mosaic doors to the ancien medina.

This morning I set out early to take a day trip to Moulay Idriss and Volubilis. Moulay Idriss is like a minor pilgrimage and according to Lonely Planet five pilgrimages to MI are equivalent to one to Mecca. So I saw the Mausoleum and the town and decided to walk from there to the Roman ruins at Volubilis. It was 4 or 5 km, so it took me a little less than an hour. I saw the ruins, held off pesky faux guides, and got someone to take a picture of me. Came, saw conquered. Then I decided to be on my way because I had to walk all the way back to Moulay Idriss and I didnt know what time the last bus left from Moulay Idriss back to Meknes. I was en route when a relatively pesky older gentleman told me that there were buses that came by to Meknes and I could get a ride from the corner. By the way, was I married? Because we could get married and own the Coke stand together and live happily ever after.

I did not wait at the corner for the bus.

About 5 minutes into my trip back a well dressed man in a van pulled over and asked me where I was walking. I told him Moulay Idriss, and he told me to hop in. I am not in the habit of hitch hiking, but I figured, what the hell? I have already slept at two strangers houses this week. Why not? And he told me that he was actually on his way to Meknes but did not mind dropping me off in Moulay Idriss, since its on the way. I was like, wait........did you say Meknes? Actually..............

So there I was in the car with random strange man to Meknes. He told me that he actually works in Belgium now and is just back in Morocco for vacation. A pretty believable story considering the nice clothes, car, etc. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was on my way to the bus station to see what time I could get a bus to Tanger tomm.

Lessons in Arabic

Yeah so anyway the next day..Friday, I met Driss and Radouane in the morning and went with them and a friend to the nearby village of Ifrane to see the monkeys. I lov e monkeys. All I had to pay for was gas, and I got free lunch because apparently Driss had worked with the firefighters there before or something. Who cares........all I know is I was hungry and chicken and soda magically appeared. However it got there is irrelevant. Anyway we spent the day touristing, which is in fact a word no matter what Webster says, and got back to Azrou in time for tea with Radouane's family. They let me take a shower there, and seriously, this bathroom was incredible.........I mean,,, toilet paper, hot water, mirror, towel, .......so many toys I didn't know where to look or what to do!! There was even soap for washing my hands! I kind of wanted to dawdle and hang out by myself in the bathroom for a while, but that would have been a little weird. It was a fantastic shower though.

The house was soooo nice. His dad works in France so if you can imagine a French salary paying for the cost of living in Morocco....think chandeliers, wood and leather, the whole nine yards. I took pictures, dont worry. So we had tea there and then I cant even remember what we did in the evening LOL! I dunno........but I spent the night at Driss's house, which turned out to be a very unsketchy freebie as his brother, his brother's wife, and their baby all live there. I got dinner there and Driss somehow got the idea that we would be better off communicating in Arabic than in Spanish . Foolish. So foolish. But I learned some more words in Arabic and entertained him with my pathetic pronciation so it was fine.

Where am I? Oh yea, Saturday. So Friday I had gotten a text from Zoe saying that they were going to be in Azrou for the weekend. It was such an incredible coincidence that I decided that I had to stay until they got there on Saturday afternoon to say hi. Besides, I had free lodging, so it would have been stupid to leave. So we went and saw Zoe, Charlie, Sarah, and the new Japanese girl that I had not met before. Sometime before that I got lunch with Radouane and his mom kept speaking to me in Arabic. I don't know if she realized how little I was understanding because I just kept smiling and repeating the same two or three phrases. I imagine the conversation was something like this:

Mom: It is a pleasure to have you over. Welcome to our house.
Diane: Thank you so much.
Mom: Where are you from?
D: Thank you so much. I am a student.
M: Are you traveling alone?
D: Yes, Morocco is beautiful. Thank you.
M: When do you return home?
D: Yes, beautiful. Thank you. I am 23.
M: Will you remember everyone you met in Morocco?
D: Oh yes. Morocco. Yes. Beautiful.

The only time I actually answered her question was when she asked me if I was married because I had to learn the phrase "I'm married" to minimize harassment. Then she asked me if I was going to marry Radouane. I was like, ummmmmmmmmm....I should probably wait till I hav e known him 24 hours. I hear that works out better. Okay, okay I did not say that. I didn't know how to say that I am too young to get married so I said, "I am 23. I am 28, I am married." I think she understood.

Anyway, I got distracted. I left Azrou on Saturday evening for Meknes.

To be continued

Okay, I am gonna cut this one short because my new Spanish "friend" is waiting for me, but I will finish the rest about Azrou in the next blog. Whewwwww. Almost caught up!

"Gift"

Wednesday for the most part does not merit mention, because we were on the sweltering bus through the middle of nowhere from 5am until early afternoon. We arrived in possibly the worst city in Morocco , because the entire city is fillled with faux guides that want to drive you to Merzouga, which is right next to this Aladdin esque chain of sand dunes. We avoided the faux guides and got to Merzouga as fast as we could on our own. We managed to find a hotel where we could sleep on the terrace for 30dh, or about 3.75 dollars. It was even better than a room because the rooooms were quite stuffy. We took a little excursion to the nearby "town"..... read........there were a few sand builldings and dirt roads........and bought food. We mainly just relaxed by the swimming po ol, but we did excur to the dunes for some picture taking and wandering. At night the hotel staff pu t on an incredible show of Berber music and dancing, and then we all went out to the dunes and the music continued in a repeat of Sunday n ight.

It was so nice and such a great plave to stay that I seriously considered staying another day, but I decided I needed to get on my way. The girls decided to stay, so I left for Rissani on my own on Thursday morning. I spent all day on the bus on T hursday, and f inally arrived in Azrou around 5ish. I actually had to take another bus to get to Meknes, my final destination, but I was hot and exhausted and a cool, peaceful mountain town sounded like a good place to spend the night. With the help of a few friendly people, I found my way into town and got a cheap hotel. I set off in search of an interney cafe, and when I asked for one the guy did not speak anything other than Arabic and directed me to someone else, who spoke a minimal amount of Spanish. Luckily, "internet" is pretty universal. He took me to one, and then asked if he could take me out to a cafe after ......I know I know, sketchy freebies. it seemes pretty harmless, though, and I was eager to meet someone in the area that could help me out with bus schedules, etc, so I said okay. Driss ......minimal Spanish speaker. .....and his best friend Radouane......very good French speaker.......hung out for a wh ile. It must have sounded ridiculous, the two of them speaking Arabic, Driss and I speaking Spanish, Radouane and i speaking French.....

So Driss decided that he wanted to give me a "gift" and have a friend of his do henna for me. Now we all know how I feel about having ink all over m y hands, even in pretty patterns, but at the same time I could tell they really wanted to do it for me, so I said fine. 2 hours later, I had flowers and vines all over my hands and ankles. They definitley willl not be gone for the time s chool starts. Oh well, it made for good pictures and maybe with some extra scrubbing I can get it off soon.

Poor life decisions......

You know how you are not supposed to get in the car with a stranger? Well, this DEFINITELY means you should not sleep at a stranger's house. Yes, you can already see where this one is going. I know, I know, I am a moron .

So one of the staff from the hotel that I had been chatting with in the afternoon offered to let the three of us stay at his house on Tues night and have dinner there if we wanted. Obviously, this is a very bad ideaa. You do have to realize, though, that I have gotten a ton of random invitations for meals, sleeping at people's houses, my sister sleeping at peoples houses, etc, and they have all been perfectly legit. So I was thinking........three of us, how sketchy can it be? I was really convinced that it was a good idea after he sent us with a shopping list for dinner, then cooked us an amazing tajine meal. He bought the soda and fruit and made us beds on the terrace. ........and then proceeded to lay down next to me. Let me tell y ou, I have never gotten less sleep in my life. Anytime he inched too close I jabbed Rachel and woke her up and he would inck back. Inch closer, jab, inch back. Thankfully, we didn't go to bed until 1am and we had to be up at 4 to make the bus so I only had to endure three hours of the inching game. Anyway, there you have it. The reason not to accept sketchy freebies.

Bus tickets

At that point I decided it was time to go to the bus station to buy tickets. Rachel, Emily, and I had decided that it was best to send one person since the taxi would be cheaper, and my French and haggling skills got me elected. I left about 4. Now, in most countries, you would show up at the bus station, give them money, and come away with tickets. But don't forget....this is Morocco. I showed up, and shook hands with everyone I had met the previous day when we had inquired, and then they asked how I was. . ..Kushi bikhir? Mezzyan? And I assured them that my family, friends, sister, brother, parents, and fourth cousin twice remo ved were all well. I love the hospitality here.......but this time I truly just wanted to buy bus tickets. And when we had established that everyone from there to Ti mbouktu .......only 52 miles away, if you believe the local signs.......was doing well, they......well......invited me to have tea. Right. We had not e ve n broached the subject of tickets yet. So we waited and after about a half an hour the tea arrived and we went through the ritual of pouring it out, pouring it back in, mixing sugar, etc. I have a great picture of the bus station owner stretched out o n the floor of the station p reparing ttea. I was like,,,,,, yea, this happpens alllllll the time at Grey hoound. Right. Anyway, at around 5:40 the guy with tickets finally arrived and looked at me like I lost it when I said I wanted to buy tickets then for the bus tomorrow. I was like, dude, I have been chilling out drinking tea in a dirty bus statioon for almost two hours. Damn right I want to buy tickets.

By the time I got back to the hotel at 6h20 Emily and Rachel were about to send out a searvh party.

Towing with Turbans

I actually slept really decently on a mattress under the stars because it was just too hot to stay in the tent. The next morning we packed up and rode the camels back to our car drop off. The guides were n ice enough to let me hitch a ride with the girls back to Zagora, so I got out of paying for a bus ticket. The girls had invited me to travel with them for a couple days since we were on the same route and I was really glad to have some company. We had an awesome time gett ing out of the desert because Omar got a call on his cell phone from a couple of supremely cleveer French Moroccan tourists who had geniously decided to drive their completely inadequate car into the desert and .........shockingly.............got it stuck in the sand. So we got to go and tow them out, which normally owuld have been really frustrating and boring.......buttttt... they towed with their turbans! Yeah, you knkow, the cloth things you wear on your head. The entertainment was well worth the heat and delay. The pictures are pr iceless. Even better, the guides got paid for doing it and they bought us sodas on the way out odf the desert..........let me tell you, if you have never had a cold Coke after spending the night in the Sahara..........you cannot appreciate how much I would have pa id for it at that point. Free was even better, though.

Anyway, we got a ride back to Zagora, which is on the edge of the Sahara. We were not really planning on spending a lot of time there, but this was Monday afternoon and the next bus to where we wanted to go, Rissani, was not until Wednesday. After brainstorming possible ways to tack together taxi and other transportation we decided that it was best just to wait until Wednesday. We found a hotel that let us sleeeep on the terrace next to the sw imming pool for 40dH, so that was amazing. Plus the added benefit of sunbathing during the hottest hours of the day. Let me tell you, I did not move from the pool all day Tuesday until the sun went down a little around 4

Camels II

Good. Okay yeah so I told the guides that I did not want to stay with them and I took my stuff to the campsite. I met Rachel and Emily, two really fun English girls who are traveling on vacaation from university...imagine that. They later told me that it was really funny seeing me walk up because I was caaarrying ALL my stuff, including this really big pink leather handbag that I bought in Fes. Add that to the fact that by a lucky coincidence I happened to arrive by a private 4 by 4 ride, and they thought I was super rich or som ething. LOL . Anyway so I arrived too late to do a sunset camel tour, but one of the guides took me out on a camel in the near complete darkness. It was really neat......so peaceful. you really f orget that you are not the only one in the world. The n ight in the desert was also really cool, as the Berber guides prepared an amazing meal for us a la the Inca Trail. The three of us asked them to come eat with us, and they seemed really surprised. It makes me so mad that there are so many arrogant tourists that come through that don't want them to be around........I am embarassed for them. Anyway, we were more than repayed for our "kindness" because the guides took a liking to us and invited us into their tent for some music and then wee all headed out to the dunes until about 2am. they played drums and attempted to teach us enough Arabic to sing al ong. Afterward we sang the river soooong because it was the only one that we all knew the words to.

Just checking....

Okay let me make sure this works before I go getting work deleted again......

Are you kiddddddddddddddddding? I just typed a half hour entry and it got deleted...........QRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG I hate computers.

camelssss

So after a day and a half of shopping in Marrakesh, I left yesterday morning on a super early bus to Ouarzazate. There was a super nice guy at the bus station who helped me find the right ticket window and haggle for a price in Arabic. I felt really bad for thinking that he might be creepy when all he did afterward was take me to the public bus stop, warn me to watch my stuff, and help me catch the right bus into town. There was also a really nice lady on the bus next to me who is originally Morrocan but lives in France now. She kept me entertained, negotiated baggage prices, and made sure I got off at the right stop. When I did get off in Ouarzazate I dropped my things at a hotel and went to the camel trek agency. In a really great coincidence, there was a guide headed back to the city that I needed to go to so for the price of a public bus ticket I got private transport to my destination, free lunch, and afternoon tea with his family. I did have to endure a small amount of harassment, but all in all it was a good deal. I was never too concerned since there were three of us in the car.

The two guides offered to let me stay wit h them for a few days for free after my camel trek but I declined. There is a limit to accepting sketchy freebies and I think that would hav e crossed it.

More later........

And by Essaouira, I meant Marrakesh.

So my plan for my trip after my placement was over was to go today to Essaouira, by way of Marrakesh. After more than four hours of sweating on an overbooked train with crying babies climbing all over me, I arrived in Marrakesh with very little patience. Diane, impatient....imagine that. I was not able to reach most of the hotels in Essaouira, and those that I could reach were all full. I was envisioning arriving and wandering for hours around the city and ultimately paying a fortune for a mediocre hotel if I was lucky. I had just convinced myself to go anyway since I had already bought the 9 dollar bus ticket when the guy in charge of luggage told me I had to pay to check luggage. That was the last straw. I didn't even care if it was 25 cents. It had all of a sudden become quite obvious that I should not bother going all the way to Essaouira, only to return tomorrow to Marrakesh...the bus ticket is a sunk cost, but there is no point in going there, paying for a more expensive hotel, paying the return ticket, etc etc all for the sake of saying I went there. There is no particular attraction other than being a nice beach town, and I have seen plenty of those. So.........here I am in Marrakesh.

I did a little souking today and bought a mystery gift. One shopkeeper who had the sad misfortune to think that he could flirt his way into a sale dressed me up in Berber clothing. I got a picture. He got my thanks.

I called to investigate for my camel trek on Monday and I think it is going to work. Very excited. I also am ridiculously excited about seeing people in London in 2 weeks to catch up. I miss everyone so much already and I can't wait to recap the summer over a few cold.....uh......Lemon Fantas.

70 Euros

Grrrrrrrrr so I think I mentioned on one of my first blogs that I had lost my bank card right before I came here, right? Right. So my sister brought me 350 Euros this week for my trip to Spain after I leave Morocco. I counted them when she gave them to me, and I put them in my purse. I had them in my purse for a few days, and my purse was never out of my sight. On Thursday or Friday last week, I decided that I really should not be carrying around so much money because it can be kind of dangerous. I left the money under my pillow when we went to Chefchaouen. When I took it out yesterday, it had been moved to inside my pillow and there were 70 Euros missing.

I hate to even begin making assumptions about what might have happened to the money. I did mention it to my host family in a very non-accusatory tone and they got extremely defensive, as I would in their position. The fact of the matter is that it is almost impossible that the money fell out of my purse because I am missing a 50 Euro bill and a 20 Euro bill. The 50s and 20s were not next to each other. If some random person had reached into my purse, he or she would have stolen all the money. Stealing one 50 bill and one 20 bill, particularly when I had several 50s and several 20s, makes it seem careful. Anyway, it is very upsetting for two reasons: I no longer believe that I can trust the people in my house, and it is a LOT of money. I will still be able to take my trip, but I will not be able to visit all the cities that I wanted. When I think of how hard I have personally worked cleaning tables, folding menus, cleaning bathrooms, etc etc for very little money, it kills me that someone can just take it like that. Go figure.

Chefchaouen

I am gonna make this one pretty short because it is after eleven here and I have to work tomorrow morning. We just got back from Chefchaouen a couple of hours ago. I wasn't actually planning on going until I found out that Ouarzazate and Essaouira were out of the question, but I am so glad that I did because everyone else went so it ended up being a really fun group trip. We got there about 4 yesterday and went to the Kasbah, then we went out for tea and dinner at the place that Alex and Pat had recommended to us. We did some shopping and serious haggling at night.....I spent like 20 minutes or more trying to get this one scarf for 70 Dh instead of 80. It is kind of ridiculous when you think about the fact that you are negotiating between 8.75 dollars and 10 dollars, but the haggling is part of the fun. And just in case you were wondering, I did pay 70.

I also bought necklaces and a sash...a rather excessive amount of shopping, but it is my last week so I think it can kind of be justified.

Today we had a "five" hour bus ride back, which is to say that we got on the bus at quarter to 1 and did not get off until 8, save a short lunch break. It was hot and boring, but the good news is I was actually productive and spent about 6 of the 7 hours studying. Janice is my hero and had the spray bottle to keep us cool.

So I have officially gotten permission to invite Janice over on the terrace tomorrow, which is quite a feat. There will definitely be some serious sunbathing and shopping this week. It is gonna go by soooo fast because I have the classes in the morning and at night on Monday and Wednesday, Tuesday is quiz night, Wednesday is our going away dinner for me and Janice, and then last minute shopping, seeing the sis off, etc...gift shopping for host family, yeah I better just go to bed and think about this tomorrow!!

Hammam Part II

So yea, anyway.....

It is just really weird how you think you are so eager to get home or do certain things and then when you are just about to leave you realize that you could actually spend more time in a place and still be happy. That has never really happened to me before because usually my eagerness to return to home soil outweighs any desire I have to stay in a country. I think that having spent so much time with the other PA interns has really influenced that feeling because I have always felt like I have been surrounded by a network of close friends and you normally don't have that when you travel. It is such a great feeling to be able to have an unusual and crazy experience, but still have a lot of people that are in the same situation. So you can call someone up and be like.....Yea I just have to go to the plate store, drink some mint tea, and then let's meet at hash corner, and no one else thinks you are crazy.


Today was a very good day for my Moroccan culture, as I had mint tea on two different occasions, went to the kasbah, ate couscous with my sis and host family for lunch, and....yes, you guessed it....went to the hammam! So the end result was quited good because I am ridiculously clean...the process was pretty crazy though because we went in and there were just topless women walking around all over the place! So we were given buckets and towels and we wandered into the steam rooms and found our way back to the hot water spout to fill up the buckets. We got scrubbed down by almost entirely naked women......modesty is out of the question. The lady that scrubbed me down looked at me like I had lost it when I tried to suggest that I might leave at least one article of clothing on...she shooed me along in the clothes removal process and continued to clean me like a mother might clean a 5 year old child. At the end I did finally get used to the idea that everyone being partially or entirely naked is not at all awkward for them, so it is really just part of getting clean. I am really glad I ended up going, although it definitely requires a certain attitude going in...

Last week

So this is my last full week and I am starting top think about all the things that I will miss about being here. It is kind of strange how so much drives you crazy until you are leaving and then you realize how much you will miss it. I will miss the other PA interns a LOTTTTTTT and my students sooo much. This weekend when I went to pick Katie up in Casa one of my students met us there and invited us to spend the whole weekend with his family. We ate several meals there, slept there, and went to the beach and into the city with him. It was such a nice and incredibly considerate, unexpected invitation that I didnt know how to react. I wish I had known ahead of time so I could have been prepared with a gift.

I will really, really miss all the students because I feel like a few more months would give me so much more time to impropve their English. There are some students that didnt even speak a word when they got here...I just need more time. We have made so much progress....today we did questions in the past, and their grammar just got like 1506 percent better by doing that.

I was gonna write a bunch of other stuff too but Amandine is waiting for me so Ill do it later.

Sissssssssssss

Yes, that's right!! Just one more day until the sis arrives. Very exciting. I am going to go pick her up in Casablanca tomorrow, although I told a couple of my students that I am actually going today to pick her up so that I could get out of a lunch invitation. The same (male) student has invited me several times and it is starting to get creepy. He always asks me if I am his favorite student and I tell him that all my students are my favorites. So now I just need one more excuse for next week.......I feel really bad but his lunch invitations always turn into afternoon invitations and I just don't want to feel uncomfortable all afternoon. Is that selfish?

So I finally got everyone to play Mafia yesterday, which made me ridiculously happy. It was just like camping with the Outing Club, minus the bonfire. I also went to the post office in the afternoon, which would not be worthy of mention at home, but it was actually quite an ordeal here. I received a slip in the mail saying that I can come pick up a package until 18 45 Monday through Friday, so I went with my friends at about 5 20 yesterday. After about 45 minutes of arguing with the Postal worker I was informed that I actually have to come before 16 00, because that is the time when the customs workers are there. I told them that I thought it was ridiculous to send a note with the incorrect hours and he told me that I needed to come before 16 00 because that was then the customs workers are there. I said that I understood that, but that I would have appreciated the message slip being sent with the correct time so that I did not have to make two trips. I told me that I needed to come before 16 00 because that is when the customs workers are there. I was so tempted to say...wait, what? I should come before 1600? I am confused. But I did not think he would appreciate my humor, at least not in French. He just kept repeating it over and over like a slowly dying tape recorder. Needless to say, I am still not in possession of the package.

Well, that is just about all. I am going to see what the odds are of acquiring lunch at this early hour of 2:10, and then I am going hotel shopping for sis and back to the post office. Before 16:00. I hear that's when the customs workers are there.

So Confused

I think I am just getting more and more confused about Morocco the longer I spend here. Like, yesterday in my evening English class, one of the boys told me that if a girl were raped her family would not want anyone to find out because it shames the girl and the family. I was like.....uh........sorry, can you explain that to me? A guy commits a crime, violates the girl, breaks the law, and the girl and her family are shamed? Did I miss something? He told me that the shame on the family is because they allowed her to get into a situation where she could be raped and the shame on the girl is because virginity is everything in this culture. All of my students agreed in that situation that the girl's family would approach the guy's family seeking his hand in marriage. WHATTTTTT??!?!?!?!? You WANT your daughter to marry the rapist?!?!!? Yes. Less shameful. Hmmmmmmm. I don't think my opinion can be put in politically correct and blog appropriate terminology so I will just say that I respectfully disagree.

I also learned on Friday and again yesterday that if a woman's husband dies then she must wear all white for 4 months and 10 days so that everyone will know whether or not she is pregnant with a child from her first husband. I guess I can see that, although I think that DNA testing pretty much eliminates any confusion as far as that is concerned. I don't know how I feel about a woman having to advertise her very personal affairs to the entire world for months though. Particularly since it does not work the other way around.

Yes, yesterday was a very educational class. I knew abortion was illegal but was surprised when my students talked about the frequency with which it occurs in private. We also talked about sex before marriage, and I gave them the statistic that 9 out of 10 Americans have sex before they get married. They asked me how I felt about it and I tried to think of a PC way to say I really don't see a huge problem with it, as long as both people consent. I think my wording was something like...."I respect the fact that people make decisions based on cultural norms, and cultural norms in the US are quite different than cultural norms in Morocco." I know, such BS. I felt like I was writing a paper for junior high English or something.

Yesterday, Ceri, Eddy, and Pete all left....which completely sucks because they were really some of the people that I had been the closest to here. I just feel like everyone is leaving before me!! Which makes Rabat totally hard to handle alone. I am so glad that Janice and Phillipa are still here. Amandine just changed her flight to go back next week so I really will be the last one in Morocco, other than the people that have just arrived.

Alright well I really need to go shower because the weather is ridiculously humid. We went out last night just to get out of the house because even at 11 at night the humidity in the home was really awful. We didnt stay out long though because Amandine was not feeling well and it was La Fete du Throne, which basically just means that is was a national holiday celebrating the day that Mohamed VI became king.

Do anything you want... just don't have fun

Yeah... so the rules have changed in my host family's house...I invited Pete over on Monday to go on the terrace so we could hang out, chat, and study for the GRE. According to my understanding of the rules, it was okay for me to invite anyone that I want over, just as long as I let someone know ahead of time and it was not a boy being invited into my bedroom. So...I told Siham, my host sister, that I wanted to invite a friend on the terrace and she said to go ahead. So Pete and I are on the terrace, mind you, we are like, ten feet or more apart, the door to the terrace is wide open, and I invited Laura up there with us......but half an hour later Siham yells up from the living room that we have to come down because the grandma does not want me on the terrace with a boy. I'm like, okay, fine...I thought it was already agreed to but whatever.....then we go downstairs and the grandma starts yelling at me in Arabic...I understand a very small percentage, but the gist is that apparently I just cannot invite a boy into my house. Right.

So the next morning at breakfast I told Siham that I just wanted to clarify the rules so that no one is getting upset. I say that I think I just cannot have boys over, and if I am going to invite a girl I should let someone know ahead of time...right? Wrong!! Apparently the grandma thinks that there are too many Americans in the house as is, and she is worried about what the neighbors might think if there is a steady stream of friends arriving. So I am just not supposed to invite anyone over....or go out late...or drink...so I'm thinking my options for stress relief and fun have been greatly reduced. GRRRRRRRRRRRR. Anyway, all the other PA interns have been really awesome about inviting me over to their homes, where there does not appear to be quite as strong of a fun vacuum.

On a lighter note, we went to Fez this weekend and I bought a really nice, really pink leather bag. I have no plan as to how I will fit it in my suitcase, but there is no way I could buy anything like it at home for the price I got it here so I will find a way!! We had some good fun as usual on the hotel terrace with a few beverages and some playing cards created by using the back of my GRE flashcards. It was soo hot though, by Sunday afternoon we were just ready to get home. I am already missing the freedom of going anywhere I want and hanging out with girls AND boys. I feel like I'm in kindergarten or something...

Anyway, I have to go because I have to teach a class from 6-9 tonight, and I want to talk about the Beatles. As we all know, my pop culture knowledge leaves something to be desired, and so I think I better do my homework before I attempt to explain who the Beatles were and why they were important.

Before He Cheats

So I just went to lyrics.com to print a copy of the lyrics to "Before He Cheats", since I have the music with me and it is a good activity for class. I was reading through and I am seriously doubting whether or not teaching the song is a good idea......"beach blond tramp" "gonna get lucky" " prolly getting frisky" and "shoot whiskey" just don't exactly seem like the cultural expressions that I want to teach. On the other hand, the vast majority of all American music has either blatant or subtle sexual references, so I am somewhat limited. In addition, I don't know that it is entirely bad for me to give an accurate picture of music in the US. It is not like there are not a million and a half other influences from the Western world. Besides, I am not prepared to buy the 100 percent pious, honest image. With one of the other interns living in a house to which prostitutes are regular visitors, I just do not feel that bad about teaching the phrase " get lucky". Oh, the dilemma.................

We have a little rendezvous with everyone's favorite PA Morocco Director today in a couple hours. I can hardly wait. Actually, I am really excited about it because it is an excuse to hang out with the other interns. There is such a nice group of people here and it is always weird how you feel like you have known people forever after such a short period of time.

Lessons in Culture

This week I have been learning about what is normal for Moroccan women. I had not realized until now that the Moroccan girls really don't wear makeup... I guess it's just not something that I pay attention to all that much. Amandine, the French girl who is staying with the same host family as me, told me that you are not supposed to wear makeup at all when you go out, because you do not want to appear attractive to other men. In fact, unmarried Muslims do not have the right to wear makeup at all. I guess that makes sense if you think about the logic of covering your face and hair and just generally not trying to be sexy. I guess I understand in a way, but then it just seems like there is such disparity in the treatment of sexes. I mean, if the concern is that one sex should not appear tempting to the other sex because that encourages unfaithful behavior, shouldn't men have to cover up as well? Or is it just assumed that men are less physically beautiful and will not be tempting? Or just that women will be more able to resist temptation? I really, really have a hard time accepting the treatment of women as normal, because it is so counterintuitive for me to think of being attractive or sexy as a bad thing. Can you imagine living your whole life without ever getting dressed up and doing your hair or makeup to go out to dinner? It is just so hard to picture.

I also learned that Moroccan girls, and I think just Muslim girls in general, do not have the right to bring a boyfriend to their home. Rather, he comes with his family only when he is prepared to ask for her hand in marriage. One of my students explained this to me and I tried to explain that in my culture it would be considered rude not to invite a boyfriend home within a reasonable amount of time after you have been dating. He looked at me as though I had just told him that World War III had broken out. Not that I really expected dating customs to translate, but I thought I would check it out.

I found out this week that my students actually have to pay to be in my class, even though I am not getting paid. I was not really pleased about that, although I suppose someone has to pay for the electricity and the building and all those minor details. Still.... I decided that in order to give my students more of a chance to speak English with me and NOT pay, I am going to hold "office hours" two days a week in a cafe close to my house. That means that I will not have to pay another taxi trip to the school and back, but it also means that I will be able to really sit down and talk with just a few of the best students. I am trying to think about all the things that I like and dislike about learning languages and take all that into consideration when I teach. I got to talking about the Civil War, Declaration of Independence, and National Anthem the other day, and I would really like to bring those things in to talk about what they mean in American history, but I am not sure where the line is for not discussing politics in class and that is definitely NOT something I want to mess with.

Hash Street

Okay, so no one knosw street names around here, not even the Moroccans. Luckily, we have come up with an alternative naming system. We just give every street a name that we think makes sense. So for example, the street that always smells like fish and has all the fish markets on it= fish street. Simple. So there is main street, souq street, etc. Well, I live on hash street. No, seriously. The corner of my street appears to be weed headquarters for the medina. There are super creepy guys hanging around there all the time, and exchanging money for small plastic bags. In my utter naivete, I did not realize what was going on until someone pointed it out to me the other day. I guess I just thought it was normal for five or more creepy guys to stand on the street corner and make discreet purchases. I know, I know, its sad....

On another note, I have discovered that trying to teach makes you a much better student. Like, I have a new appreciation for the frustration of trying to teach a language class where some students are fluent, some understand nothing, and everyone else is somewhere in between. I know that whatever I try to teach is below some peoples level and above others. And I get so frustrated when I spend so much time preparing for a class and no one bothers to study their notes. It drives me nuts!! I think this summer will make me a much more understanding and appreciative student! On the other hand, there is so much satisfaction when you explain something well and everyone gets it. Today, I took a while to explain ponytails...as in, pony+tail....when everyone finally got it I was so excited!

Last night was Drews last night, so we went to the Kasbah and took pictures. On Saturday we had a little fiesta on the terrace of Helen and Sawsen's house, which was a lot of fun. Overall, it was a really good weekend and a great way to say goodbye to the people leaving.

Everyone is Leaving

So as of Monday, three out of the six TPA interns that were here when I got here have left, and the other three leave next week. Its gonna be really weird to have so many people gone! I feel like half my friends are moving away! Luckily, there are a bunch more people that have come since then so it will not be too empty...the only remotely good thing about it is that I got the girls' leftover bath and beauty products, which, believe me, is realllly exciting! My hair smells ridiculously good right now!

I think I am gonna go see what everyone is up to, and maybe do some studying.

Somewhat Alarmed

Okay, so our whole day has revolved around talking about these supposedly imminent terrorist threats. They are searching backpacks at the entrance to our neighborhood and we have been advised to stay off the main streets, not to travel, and basically not to do anything that could be considered remotely normal. I usually think that people are overreacting to situations like this and continue doing what I was doing. The number of police around town is really scary though...

Shellah, Kasbah, and Souqs

Yesterday was my day off teaching so in the morning I went on a a shopping mission to the souqs in search of a ceramic plate. I know, it will break in the suitcase. I know, it takes up a lot of room. I know, I should wait to buy souvenirs. Don't worry, I did not buy one yet. But I have every intention of doing so because you can buy these amazing hand carved or painted plates for about five dollars. Ayt home I am pretty sure you would pay at least 70 or 80 dollars for the same thing. At 11, Helen, Laura (Laura that lives in my house, not the one with Projects Abroad-she left already) and I went to these Roman ruins called Shellah. It was really beautiful and we took some amazing pictures. The walls and architecture are so intricate...


After lunch, Helen, Sawsen, and I went to the Kasbah to get a drink and see the gardens. Helen helped me study for the GRE because she is ridiculously good at coming up with silly ways to remember weird words. Fortitude= fort (strong) plus attitude =bravery. We stayed there for a while and Sawsen and I attempted to figure out how to get down to the beach from where we were but we kind of just wandered into peoples houses. Oops. There were probably about 3872 adorable little kittens that looked like thy needed to be pampered just lying in the Kasbah gardens. I do not know if they were abandoned or what, but they were way too small to be out on their own. I know my mom would have scooped them all up and turned them into spoiled little princesses, but I did not think that my host family would have appreciated an addition to the dinner table. Alas.

Afterward we wandered around in the souqs, or craft markets, for a while. I didn't buy anything because I am going to buy most of my souvenirs at the end of the trip. I love window shopping though. We eventually went back to Helen and Sawsen's house and Pete came over. After a little internet we headed out to check out a calligraphy shop with Sawsen and look at a few dresses. I realized that "Obvious Statement Syndrome" (the tendency to make overly obvious statements when you are speaking a foreign language for lack of better vocabulary) does NOT actually shut off by itself. When we got to a suitcase store to look at suitcases for Helen, I brilliantly declared, "Oh, here is the suitcase store." I would have been really proud of that statement in French or Spanish or something, but it just doesn't have quite the same effect in English. Pete was not impressed by my ingenious observation.

Anyway, I accidently left my house key at the girls' house, so we are in search of it. I wanted to add more about my classes but I have to run right now because I teach in a bit and I am not done typing up my stuff for class. Okay, I will post more later!!! Bye!!

So I was about to go to bed last night and I was sorting through my things (I don't have a dresser so I just stack stuff on couches) when two very large, very ugly cockroaches came crawling out of my papers. As anyone who has had the pleasure of me freaking out at the sight of a spider can imagine, I was less than thrilled. In fact, it was the third time that I have had cockroaches in my bedroom....but the other times I had just one and it was on the floor. I managed to convince myself that it was without accompaniment both times. Finding two was a bit more disconcerting because I am starting to think there may be a whole family. Or city. Not good.

I decided to accept my student's invitation to have lunch with his family, so after class this morning we tried to get a taxi to his house. Three taxis declined us and I was starting to wonder what was going on when Hafid told me that it was the hour to pray and everyone was going to the mosque. Okay, seriously, that was crazy. Work stops to go pray?? Does that work for doctors too? Like, you are in the middle of a heart surgery and you have to break to go pray? The more I try to understand the more confused I get.

Anyway, Helen and Hafid and I finally got a taxi and arrived at his house, only to discover that this was a huge and formal event. We were welcomed at the door and ushered into the living room. Various members of the family came in and out with trays of pastries, chickens, tea, everything you can imagine. Before we even started eating they brought what looked like a silver teapot with a huge silver urn underneath and brought the handwashing process to us. I could not believe the extent to which the family went to make sure that we were not inconvenienced in any way but rather sat and enjoyed the hospitality. I thought this had to be an exception but they assured me that this type of hospitality is normal with any lunch invitation. I just can't get over the incredible hospitality here...I have not met someone unkind yet. I have never been so spoiled in my life. I am going to have to get someone to help me write a thank you note in Arabic; because the mom doesnt speak French.

I figured it out!!!!

What's that? Am I posting a blog with question marks, commas, capitals, and apostrophes, all from the confort of my host family's house? I think so!!

So my big accomplishment of the day was trying to explain the difference between who and whom to non-native English speakers. I was thinking...jeez, no native speakers even use these correctly... so I spent like 20 minutes talking about direct and indirect objects, subjects, etc... only to conclude by saying that who is generally accepted in place of whom. Oh well. I am destroying the English language little by little.

So yesterday I had-you guessed it- mint tea. With a shopkeeper that I had just met. In some countries, that might be weird. So I spent a few minutes trying to figure out which of the three S words he wanted (sex, sale, or steal) only to discover that he was just a nice guy. He talked about his wife, did not try to sell me anything, and said I should come back for tea again sometime and meet his wife. I was baffled, but in a good way.

So one of my students invited me to have lunch on Friday. Is it inappropriate to accept? I'm not sure about that one. Muslim Friday is like the Christian Sunday, so I definitely don't want to get caught in an awkward situation. At the same time, it is a very nice invitation and one that I think has only good intentions. I am going to sleep on that one.

Okay well I am exhausted but I just wanted to blog about my success on the French keyboard!!!

Mint Tea and Directions across town

So the computer at my host familys house does not let me post blogs...so I am just going to keep a journal and post everythiong once a week.

This weekend I went to Marrakesh with the other interns in the Projects Abroad program. It was very touristy but really an amazing city of markets, snake charmers, palace ruins, mosques, and orange juice stands where you can get TRULY fresh squeezed juice for less than 50 cents. The funniest part of the weekend was when I went with two of the other interns, Pete and Tom, to one of the gardens that was a decent walk from the town center, Djemma el Fna. We wanted to make sure we were going the right way so I asked a police officer in French if we should just keep going straight to get there. The police officer smiled at me and proceeded to explain the directions to Pete in French...apparently women are not capable of understanding complicated things like that....funny thing is, Pete has not taken as much French as I have, so the diirections kind of got lost in translation...

I have been so impressed by the difference in the workload between the men and the women here. The men work all day and come home to relax. The women work all day and come home to , well, work. My host mom gets up, makes breakfast for the three international students and family, cleans, and goes to work. She comes home to help with lunch and then doesnt get back from work until 7 or so at night. She cleans, does laundry, cooks, and helps us with language work until 11 or midnight, and then goes to bed in time to do it all over again a few short hours later.

You know how inviting someone out for coffee or a drink at home is kind of a personal/social invitation? Like, the mailman probably wouldnt invite you out for coffee? Thats not really the case here. Once youve met someone, they are likely to invite you for mint tea at some point. I have been invited by several people...young and old, women and men...within 5 or 10 minutes of meeting them. Its just so friendly....and the tea is amazing. Speaking of friendly, when you shake someones hand here it is polite to touch your heart afterward as a gesture of caring or kindness. I want to do it too but I just feel so silly....

There are actually not too many hardships living in Morocco compared with other places....I have consistently hot water, a nice classroom, lots of good food with enough Coke and french fries thrown in not to miss home, and a washing machine to boot. The only thing I would kill for right now is a couple of good dry erase markers. The ones here dont work well at all so writing vocab words on the board is pretty tricky. Today I resorted to notebook paper and a blue highlmighter. Other than that I lovvvvvvvvveeee my English class. It is really my favorite age and level...like 16-25 year olds who have mostly had a year or two of English. No time gets wasted trying to keep control of the class, everyone knows enough to conduct the class in English, but everyone has a basic enough level that you can make obvious improvements in a short time. I get picked up and dropped off at my taxi stop, and I have a computer for making copies.

The dinner schedule is so crazy for me though, because it does not occur at any hour that could possible be considered normal at home. 10pm dinner would be super early...usually it is more like 11 or so. Its okay though, since there is food around at other times. I would never be able to wait that long without eating in the afternoon.

OH I did acquire a free souvenir in Marrakesh. The store owner of this little jewelry/pottery shop gave me his nuber and my choice of free necklace. I kept the necklace. He told me he wanted to marry me.....I was actually a little insulted that I only got a free nacklace along with the proposal. A friend of mine here got offered 35,000 camels. I mean, seriously...A necklace versus 35,000 camels? Oh well...at least I actually got the necklace without accepting the proposal....

So bathing. As scooping warm water over yourself from a large bucket does not necessarily promote an extraordinarily clean and fresh feeling, a lot of people here go to hammams, or public bath houses. You bring this strange black scrub stuff made from olive oil and you pay a woman to scrub you super clean in a sauna like atmosphere. At least I think thats how it goes. I have not gone yet, for two reasons. One, black globs to not generally make me feel clean. Two, a naked woman scrubbing me clean does not sound like a particularly appealing way to rid myself of grime. The girls here that have gone have raved about it, but I still dont know if I will be making an appearance. I think I might stick to my buckets of water.

What else? I think that was the most important stuff that I have been thinking about. The other Projects Abroad interns are a lot of fun...Tom, Pete, Soussan and Janice are English, Laura is Canadian, Amandine is French, and Drew, Helen, and I are from the US. A few people are leaving Morocco soon, but I think there are a bunch more arriving as well. We played a version of Kings on the terrace of our hotel overlooking the main plaza on Saturday night and indulged in a night -actually a weekend- of English speaking.

Okay well that is it for now-thanks for all the emails/posts/messages...hope everyone else is having a great summer as well!

PS Did you see? I have questions and exclamations in this post!!! I am getting good at this!

Correction

Okay, according to my mom the numer should be 011 212 75624762 for my cell phone here. There is a six hour time difference so maybe calling no later than 5 or 6 pm there would be ideal.

continuation

okay, same post but i might get kicked out of my internet cafe so i wanted to get at least that much posted. anyway, yesterday afternoon i had off so i was very productive and studied my gre words...baccanalian , anyone3 ablution3 okay yeah i dont care either. then i read about 50 pages of my summer reading, which was actually really interesting because it was a theory on why colonization in the Us resulted in prosperity whereas in lqtin america it resulted in poverty...and then i studied about 10 words in arabic. thats actually really time consuming because you have to learn the meaning, the pronunciation, and the writing. i miss spanish. but i have discovered my french is not as bad as i thought, because only siham and the other american speak english, so french is the language of choice. khalid asked me if i was french, and somone else asked me if i learned french or english first, so i started feeling really good right until i said je me suis desperte in a french slash spanish version of i woke up. yeah i know. ridiculous. anyway, i cant seem to open wlu email here, so if anyone has emailed me, you should either send it to my hotmail address, put it on facebook, on my blog, or call my cell phone here, 212 75624762. you might need to dial 00 first.

Ana Fee medina Rabat

Yea that is the extent of my amazing Arabic skills. I think the title says I am in the city of Rabat. That part should be in quotqtions but I cant figure out how to do quotes or apostrophes on this keyboard. The keys are also in different places...so if you see a Q out of place just mentally put an A there.

so now when I try to do a capital s it keeps rebooting...just dont mind the grammar until i get a better hang of this. Here is what I wrote on sunday after I arrived at about minight the night before...

well, touristing came to an abrupt end today when i got off the plane in casablanca and i wasnt sure what to say to the customs officer when i handed him my passport. hello, since im from the Us and english is kind of universal for traveling3 fyi three is going to mean question mark for now or hola, since i had just come from spain3 or bonsoir, since they speak a lot of french here3 or just say nothing3 i decided an attempt at arabic was out of the question.

saad, the projects abroad director, picked me up at the airport and we weeded our way through a mess of people waiting for other passengrs with signs in a variety of languages. i was immediately impressed by saads understanding of a travelers needs. he offered ne water; grabbed one of my packs and we headed to meet the driver.

it was too dark to see much on the ride from casablanca to rabat, so i just took advantage of the time to ask saad 1001 questions. what are the names of the host family3 how far a walk is the school3 is it safe to talk to people on the street3 are short sleeves ever okay3

i immediately felt like a helpless puppy dog once we met my host mom and brother and people started to jabber away in arabic. we followed them back from our meeting point to their house, a short series of twisting narrow alleys. i didnt even try to look like i knew what i was doing. the hiking pack made that kind of impossible.

so now i know where the bathroom is; how to work the shower, which cushions to use to block light into my windows, and how to say good night in arabic. all in all, not bad for my first day. with that ...laila saeeda.




okay back to the present. so my host family is like, completely amazing. they actually have two kids my age, sahim ..shes 25...and khalid..hes 24...plus two other international students my age..amandine from france...20...and laura from the Us ...20..so its perfect. the mom is ridiculously cool, and the whole family thinks that twe should eat nonstop...i have to asure them that i doooo like the food but it is not normal to consume 45671867 lbs of bread in one sitting. on sunday we had couscous with all these colorfum cooked vegetables..it wasnt the food that was funny though, it was the fact that it got tossed in one gigantic serving bowl and laid out on the coffe table. we all sat down on the kitchen benches and i was just about to ask hohw one goes about consuming it when the grandma just reached her hand straight into the middle, wiggled out a piece of meat, and flung it towrd my side of the bowl. i was too amused to be disgusted. then amandine said ...allez cest parti and everyone just started reaching in...hahaha. i can just imagine that in the dhall...one big bowl of frozen yogurt...grab a spoon and dig n, right3 after all, it gets less stuff dirty.

so yesterday i went to introduce myself to my english class and was ridiculously impressed by their english. i was expecting 10 year olds who could barely say thei names and instead i got 20 somethings who , in general, speak quite well. we set up a teaching schedule and they all seemed really eager to protect me and help me find my way...i think its a morrocan guy thing, because there is only yone girl in my class. they all offered to meet me at the taxi stop and walk me to the class so that i was not walking through a bad area by myself. im really excited about starting the class tomorrow, but i am not quite sure what i want to teach uyet...ill have to do that tonight.

With Katie in Madrid

Okay, so I am officially in Madrid with the dear sister. We had a ridiculously fun night on Wednesday when I got in. After dropping off my stuff, we decided that the appropriate introduction to the city was a night out in Sol, so we met up with Carla from Australia, Ryann, Alex, and a girl from the Netherlands. Thanks to Ryan´s shameless flirting and marriage proposals to Argentinian bartenders, we all got about $40-50 worth of free drinks wandering around the streets of downtown Madrid. We were having so much fun that we decided we should not take the last metro at 1:30am, but rather wait for the metro to reopen at 6am. It was a great idea until about 4, when the salsa dancing, drinking, and walking were all starting to make bed sound like a great idea. Luckily, the Chocolateria de San Gines caters to the drunk, tired people waiting for the metro by offering chocolate con churros for 3.50 €. Delicious.

Yesterday, we touristed straight from about 1pm until 9 or so, and saw pretty much all the main landmarks. Palacio Real is probably the only one that is really famous in the US. I think there are actually more well known things in other Spanish cities. We did enjoy a bottle of Lemon Fanta, which I really dont think we have at home. In the Plaza de Santa Ana, we stopped to admire the Spanish Theatre and decided to go to the Bruja de Salem (Salem Witch Trials) show tonight. Today our attempted visit to the Spanish Armada display at the Naval Museum was thwarted by our failure to bring passports. Yes, it is ridiculous that you need a passport to get in. No, the security officer did not care that I have my number memorized.

In a very strange but extremely cool coincidence, we ran into Christina Leaton and Maggie Puryear eating lunch downtown. What are the odds?? We did not even realize that we were all in Madrid. So not only were we all here, we happened to be on the same street at the same time. W and L is everywhere, I guess. Okay, well, Katie and I are going to go do some more touristing, but I fly into Casablanca tomorrow so I will write from there.

Okay, I'm back. So yeah, this has been pretty crazy. I saw all the touristy stuff in London, and I also got to hang out with the "locals" at my youth hostel...these people that live there full time. What's that? You th hostels are supposed to be for travellers? Au contraire... these guys had suits hanging from beds, towels drying, etc etc. It was pretty funny, except for the stench of unwashed socks wafting from beneath the beds. I actually lost a couple things under one of the beds (I think) but I decided my nose would rather that I just buy a new one...

So I think I have come to a scientific and unisputable conclusion about the best landmark in London. BIG BEN. The thing is, my cell phone was not working, so I never knew what time it was. I got to feeling a bit silly stopping people every half hour or so to find out the time. Big Ben solves this in a great way. It also has the added benefit of being a tall landmark, so I always knew where I was (more or less) when I saw it. That works pretty well with the London Eye, but the London Eye doesn't tell you the time. So...the ability to answer the questions of "Where am I?" and "What time is it?" all in one fell swoop (Get it...London? Shakespeare...?) makes Big Ben the best landmark in London.

Yeah, so I took a little excursion to Leed's Castle and then on to Canterbury on Monday, and then yesterday I visited Oxford. Oxford is so amazing, and it actually reminds me of Lexington in a weird way. It's such a historic, removed, amazing campus that feels so strangely different from the rest of the town. I climbed all the way of the chapl tower to see the whole city...let me tell you, that was a lot of steps. I counted them on the way down...126? Or was it 162? Iforget. But that was the best thing I did all day.

Today I have been packing and traveling. I can't wait to meet up with Katie, settle in, and SHOWER. Carrying two backpacks around England on a hot summer day is just gross!!

London

Wow, I can't believe that I am already leaving London. The last few days have been a complete blur. I played super tourist on Saturday and Sunday, rushing around to see London Bridge, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, and all the other stuff you have to see in London. My youth hostel has been a total adventure. I am really questioning the amount of bathing that goes on here...!

I am actually leaving for the airport to go to Madrid, so in the interests of not missing my flight, I will finish this entry later!!

Crisis Averted

So, hypothetically, if you were going to think of the worst way to spend the day before leaving on a 3 month international trip...you would a) lose you Interational Student ID card b) lose your bank card, or c) both...?

Yeah, I'll take c) for $100 Alex. Actually $180, the total amount of money in my possession when I realized that I had lost the two most important documents I had with me, save my passport. I started doing the math...$65 for the taxi to the airport, $15-20/day for food, at least 15-20/day for a youth hostel....transportation...etc etc etc...not good. Luckily, I discovered that there are still some good samaritans left in the world when a lady picked up the cards I lost, called my bank and canceled them, and called my parents to leave her contact info so I could get my cards back. Apparently, the Honor System works in DC, too.

So the end result, thanks to my parents, one kind lady, and Western Union, is that I have all my cards back and enough money to get me to Morocco, where my parents can send me a new bank card that has not been deactivated. Yeah, I know...an impressive display of responsibility, care, and ingenuity. You'd think I'd have this stuff down by now.

My technology skills= amazing!!

Yeah... I am not actually in Morocco yet. I am sitting in Kristen's apartment in DC, feeling extraordinarily proud of my successful blog. I mean, let's be honest. This has been a pretty amazing week for my catching up with "modern civilization", as my dear sister so kindly put it. First I got a facebook account and proceeded to waste about ten hours of my life stalking people. You know you have spent too much time on facebook when your email display is Campus Notices, Daily Spam Digest, and then 26 messages from facebook. I wish I was kidding.

Add that to the successful creation of a blog for my summer journal and you can understand why I am thinking about applying to teach Tech Literacy 201. For now, though, I'm just going to worry about graduating college. Luckily, I have the entire summer to ponder that. I don't really know if I am prepared or not. I have read about Morocco, studied my Lonely Planet, and packed what I'm hoping is appropriate. Projects Abroad advised me not to wear skirts above the knee, short sleeved shirts, or tight clothing. I studied my closet, sighed, and went shopping.

I am actually going to London on Friday for a few days, then Madrid, then Casablanca. It was cheaper to fly that route than directly, and there is the added bonus of extra passport stamps. Plus, the previously mentioned dear sister is in Madrid, so we will have a few days to terrorize Spain together. I'm hoping that she has already scoped out the best clubs, restaurants, and stores. I just swoop in and take advantage of all her "research". That's my job.