beach or bust

Assilahhhh! passing some murals for the art festival, on our way back from shopping beachy town of Assilah kait and me on the beach, being classy as usual. there were a bunch of murals all around because the annual art festival was going on, so i took this one of feet. me and akbar, known as "awk-daddy" for his awkwardness. guess why. one hand of my cool henna. and this is why i thought the fountain was cool. losers. fountain!!!!! mmmmm fresh prawns. beautiful sunset kait, elisabeth, and a few random children chilling on the beach.

heyyyy long time no write, i guess. classes have been keeping me super busy, especially since this is our last week and i have a presentation due in about an hour and then final exams all friday. but then i'm done! with school, at least. the depaul group leaves for the Sahara on sunday and gets back on the 4th i think, and then my friends and i are heading to Casablanca on the 5th :) also last wednesday i got an incredibly high fever and couldn't move for about 24 hours, but then it disappeared and i have a bit of a cough left over. no idea what that was about. i got intense couch suppressant from the pharmacy and it smells like beer and whiskey and tastes like poop, but it works.

this past weekend was very spur of the moment but it worked out well. a group of us was debating going to Tangiers, which is about a 5 hour train ride from Fes. while we were sitting around after morning class, i had the ingenious idea to say "hey, we should probably like call a hotel or something since we're leaving in about 3 hours, no?" then kait, elisabeth and i sat around in the heat and waited while the 5 guys accompanying us tried to call different hotels and find available rooms. we even tried to rent out a house or apartment like we did in Ifrane, but no luck. good thing i said something, or we would've been sleeping on the beach (which could've been really fun, actually).

anyways, eventually we got our act together and decided to switch from Tangiers to Assilah, which is a tiny little beach town about 4 and a half hours away. a massive group of students from ALIF had already left for Assilah early that morning, but none of us really wanted to tag along with that group, so we opted out until it was our only option. we got on the train at 5, arrived around 10, and then carried our stuff along the beach and the boardwalk of tourists. Assilah's boardwalk reminded me of Coney Island, even though i've never been there in my life, but there were a bunch of random tables above the beach and mini shops and there was even a shady looking carnival going on that no one wanted to go to except me and my friend Yan, and we were practically peeing our pants with excitement about the rides (the carnival never happened, by the way, but i'll live).

anyways, we met up with Remington, who was in charge of the other group and had found them a big riad for all twenty-something of them and was kind enough to find a smaller one for the 7 of us. this place was swanky as hell, and somehow only $10 a night per person. there were 3 bedrooms, 3 full fancy showers, a kitchen, a big sitting room, tiny little patio, and a fountain! (which no one else was really as excited about besides me, also). we got dinner and i had the best calamari i've ever had in my life, and then we went back to the riad and drank and danced. and then Kait and i put our bathing suits on and sat in the biggest shower (which was it's own room equivalent to a spa shower, basically) just because we could and because we missed hot showers and needed to talk about boys.

the next morning we woke up, headed to the beach, and stayed there until about 4. the beach was nice, but crowded, and very windy so sand got EVERYWHERE. i've never been so sandy in my life. the water was freezing cold but felt nice, and the only bad part was that you had to wade through about 10 yards of thick soupy seaweed gunk until it finally disappeared around waste level. it was gross. kait and i stayed in the water and played in the really big waves for at least 2 hours before we crawled back to the beach and i passed out, then woke up in my own personal sand dune from all the wind. later i took the longest shower known to man, most of which was spent searching for seaweed in places that seaweed should not be.

after showers we all crashed for a few hours, then kait and elisabeth and i went shopping and got cheap henna tattoos on our hands. kait accidentally smudged hers immediately after it happened, and it just kept spreading, including onto her face, so we ran back through the streets with our hands in the air, laughing our butts off and trying to get to the riad before her face was stained. we ended up having to use the cheap $5 vodka-brand Vodka and our friend Akbar to scrub her face, but it worked out, and our henna looks pretty cool.

that night was basically the same thing as before. we got dinner, where we got ripped off and elisabeth threw a fit, then went back to the riad and danced and drank. i figured out how to re-wire stuff so i got the fountain to work, and again, was the only one impressed with myself and the fountain. then we took a walk along the beach, and Yan and Adam and i ended up in the ocean, them in their boxers and me in my jeans and bra. classy. i also had a coffee cup full of cheap white wine, if that helps build the image.

the next morning we mulled about all day, shopped, cleaned, and then walked back to the train station and finally got our train at 7pm. this thing was PACKED. i'm pretty sure the entire population of cleveland was shoved into this train, and we were first class! i'm usually a pretty calm, patient person, but i got a chance to work on my raging arguing skills as well as my shoving abilities, and ended up threatening to smash a man's sandwich in his face if he didn't get out of my seat. mom, you'd be proud. we finally got to our assigned seats, but they train overbooked i guess, so we ended up sharing a 6 person car with 11 people and a child. it was ok because the child was cute and was entertaining (we still don't know if it was a boy or girl though), and the only real problem arose when the other guests in our car had to leave and the stop before us, and while crammed into the hallway, some jerk of a lady shoved by everyone. the mother of mystery gendered child shoved her back, yelled, and a fight broke out. and moroccan women can FIGHT. it was like a lesson in every bad word in arabic in about 5 minutes. men were threatening to hit her, people were spitting all around us, and the words "your mother is a donkey" were overused. also, i'm pretty sure i saw one of the women put a gypsy curse on the other, which involved scary hand gestures and hissing and clicking. after the police pulled everyone apart, we turned the lights off in our now calm car and listed to Muhammad tell Pakistani ghost stories until we reached Fez.

all in all, it was a good weekend, and i'm glad we were able to pull it all together. this week is difficult to get to because of all the work and the anticipation of school being over, plus the only place in ALLLLLL of northern africa that's been hotter than Fez these last few days is this town smack dab in the middle of the Sahara. i heard that and thought, well, isn't that just fantastic? i'm living in the runner-up of melty hot places, and in about 4 days i'm going to be heading closer to the champion place, where i'll spend 3 days. and ride on a camel. for 4 hours each way. i'm seriously going to melt into a puddly blob and absorb into the hump of whichever poor camel has to carry my sweaty butt across the dunes.

Rabat is rad.

view from my hotel room in Rabat. walking down the bike path in the city. the depaul gentleman (minus Akbar) in all their glory chillin. part of the Chellah ruins random stairway in the garden. Hassan Tower/unfinished mosque big tower Kait and Elisabeth sitting on the unfinished columns drinking some water sup. little shop in the blue-walled medina beach!!!! Last weekend a bunch of people left Fez. some went to party in Marakesh, I think a few went to Rabat, and a large group of people went to this town in the mountains called Chefchouan. I needed a relaxing weekend, so Aaron, Adam, Akbar and I stayed in Fez. We got a cheap hotel room (with air conditioning!!!!!) and hung out there, and then visited the Jewish part of the old Medina called the Mellah, which was nice. Not very exciting, but necessary.

This past weekend the DePaul group travelled to Rabat. We left Friday at 3 and went by train, which took a little over 3 hours. Rabat is beautifulllll. it has more of a european influence, so the buildings reminded me a little of Madrid, but more dirty, like the rest of Morocco. We got dinner together with our teacher, Alex, and then walked around to see if there were any bars or clubs. that was a bust, but we went out on the terrace of our hotel and drank and played a drinking game called Tourettes, which is when you put flip over a card and whichever letter the number or face card starts with, you and the person you're playing have to race to come up with another word that starts with that letter. pretty simple, but it's hilarious to see what flies out of people's mouth. Especially Aaron, who had the most ridiculous answers and made up words like "tazzmatic" but said them with such certainty that it was even funnier.

anyways, the next day we had free, so we woke up and walked around for a while looking for shops, but ended up heading to the beach, which was gorgeous. i didn't have my bathing suit on me, but we sat out for a while and people watched and Elisabeth and i waded through the tide pools before we discovered there was an abundance of creepy crabs and sea urchins in them, so we ran.

that night we got dinner at Pizza Hut (we needed america), where we asked people about the club scene. we got a list of them, and one called Amnesia was close to our hotel, so we walked around looking for that but it was super hard to find for some reason. we found it, but it wasn't open until 12:30 and was a about a $20 cover, so we decided to take cabs to this other place called 5th Avenue. that wasn't open yet either, but there was a dive bar next to it so we had a few drinks there and then paid the $10 cover for that place. it was empty. i mean the place was nice, but the only other people there were the bartenders and this one couple, and then the DJ and his girlfriend, who were macking it in the dj booth the entire time. it was fun though and we danced our butts off, but then we decided to relocate to Amnesia. everyone else went back to the hotel except for me, Aaron, Adam, Elisabeth and Kait.

Amnesia was NUTS. i didn't want to pay $20 just to get into a room, but then i figured i'd never really go out to a club again, let alone one in Rabat, so i sucked it up. plus the cover included a free drink, so that was incentive enough. anyways, Amnesia was bumpin'. there were swanky chandeliers that were strobe lights and it was all decked out in modern club furniture and zebra stripes and a big dance floor. oh, and stripper poles for us to dance on. very interesting. i didn't drink anything besides the included rum and coke i got because BEERS WERE TEN DOLLARS. not cool, Rabat. but we stayed and got our dance on until about 3:30 and then made it back to the hotel. it was good times.

the next day we woke up bright and early and were traveling by 9 with our teacher to the Chellah, which i'm still confused about what it was exactly but was really pretty and had beautiful ancient ruins and an abundant garden. then we went to Hassan Tower, which was an enormous mosque project taken up by some dude but wasn't finished, so there are still pillars and this one big tower. i'm not really sure how you could start building one of the biggest mosques of your time and get nearly finished and then 4 years later just say "eh, nevermind. i'm done. just leave it there i guess", but it was still really beautiful.

then we walked around Rabat's medina, got lunch, and headed back to Fez. the ride back was long and all of us were exhausted, and when we got back to Fez it was about 20 degrees hotter. sarah and i headed home and relaxed, and tried to get mentally ready for school.

today is hotttttttttt. last night was just as bad, it had to be at least 98 degrees at the coolest part of the night, and my room is on the roof. i have a fan, but at that point it's just blowing hot air on me. no thanks. right now we're in an airconditioned diner, waiting for our Chwarma and Coke.

Learn Arabic! Pictures= صور (suur)

kait and elisabeth cruisin' on a paddle boat. girls being pulled by a little donkey. paddle boats!!! picturesque donkeys. little kids trotting around on a donkey at the lake. the beautiful lake. awesome countryside. me on a horse, wishing i could canter. just chilling with some monkey. me and a big ol' beetle. monkeys. one of the many beautiful fountains/parks in Ifrane. i took this flower picture for grandma foote to paint. tiny little park/stream in Ifrane. we almost took cheesy prom-style photos in the gazebo, but opted not to. plus it started raining the biggest raindrops i've ever seen.

quick update

so yesterday started off badly but ended really well. after our last class our new homestay father, Driss, met us at ALIF and took us to our new home. this place is BALLERRRRR. Driss and his wife, Amina, are probably in their mid to late 60's, and have a 4 story house in the Talha Kabira part of the old Medina. the first floor is one room, a kitchen and bathroom, where we all eat and where they sleep. the next floor is a main sitting room with 2 on the sides, then another floor with Sarah's bedroom (yes, we get our own and yes, they have actual beds) and an AIR CONDITIONED tv room (where Amina sometimes sleeps). The next floor is my room and the roof terrace, which we cross in order to get to the bathroom with a lovely western toilet and snazzy shower.

the place is incredibly gaudy. it looks like grandma's apartment, only moroccan style, and spread over 4 floors. fake flowers and tacky metallic paintings and weird stuffed animals are everywhere, and the furniture is bright yellow and hot pink and black. it's clear that Driss and Amina, who make us call them Pops and Mama, have a lot of money. they've also been hosting students for over 12 years, and showed us a book of great review written by the students, as well as pictures from all their travels all over the U.S. i even found a photo book of cincinnati? they don't speak english well at all, but are the sweetest little old couple, and i'm actually grateful for bed bugs at this point. except i'm still itchy.

don't let the bed bugs bite

so, i just went from the best weekend to a very long and not so awesome day, and it's only 2pm. sometime around wednesday last week i discovered a bunch of bug bites, mainly on my arms. sarah and i assumed it was mosquito bites because i had gotten a late coffee with aaron the night before and we walked home late, plus they looked like mosquito bites and i reacted the way i usually do with them.

they kept getting more itchy, and i kept getting more, but i just figured that's africa and i unfortunately taste yummy. this weekend at the riad and in ifrane people kept noticing and commenting on my arms, and i just said i must've walked through a cluster or something.

this morning right before class started, sarah said she had a few small dots on her arm, too, but she usually doesn't react at all to mosquito bites so we thought that was weird. our classmate nicki said they looked like mite bites, and our teacher told us to go to the doctor. we told the ALIF people, called the doctor, and went there at 11.

Leila Tazi, the doctor, was super nice. she looked at sarah and said she should be fine and gave her a cream to help the itching. then she looked at my arms, back, and stomach and said it was bad, i'm infected, and gave me a prescription for steroids and then some other medication that i have to take for a month. she also called our homestay father to tell him for us in Arabic, and surprisingly, he responded horribly. mohammed started getting mad, telling her his house was fine and this is our fault, and that i went to Ifrane and brought the bugs into his house. she tried to tell him no, that i have had the bites for almost a week, and that Sarah got 4 bites last night and didn't even go to Ifrane. he didn't want to hear it.

back at ALIF, we talked to the person in charge of the homestays, and he informed us that and he informed us that it is ALIF policy that if students get bedbugs, we have to change families. he called the family, told them, got the same angry response from our father, and then set us up with a new family. apparently this family has been working with ALIF for 7 years and people say they're great, so maybe everything will be ok. they live near the same neighborhood in the Medina, but apparently they have a western toilet, which is fantastic.

at noon, we had to walk home because taxi's were sparse, and the homestay guy at ALIF came with us to help. we got there, he argued again with the family, and i did my best to say there's no way i got bitten this weekend because i had them last thursday, and everyone at the party on friday kept commenting on my bitten up arms. we also tried to say that we would like to stay, that we weren't mad and we love their family, but that it's our school's policy. i'm not sure how much got across, even though the ALIF guy (Torik, i think?) was talking to them in arabic. it was a matter of pride for them, and they refuse to admit that there could be anything wrong with their house or that there are bugs in it, even though i've had to kill 4 cockroaches in the past week.

we got our stuff, said our awkward goodbyes, and dragged our luggage back to the Ville Nouvelle. we have to wash all of our clothes with hot water before 6, when our new family is coming here to pick us up. i am sweaty. i just spent 3 hours walking to, quickly packing, and lugging suitcases through a dusty town in 100 degree weather. i'm itchy, and the steroids are making my stomach upset, especially because i haven't had a chance to eat anything yet.

on the plus side, i'm not contagious, which means it's not the Lice fiasco of 4th grade, we're going to stay with a family who has hosted a lot of other students and is apparently awesome and understanding, i'm going to get my clothes washed and dried, and i'm going to have an actual toilet. i need a drink, a hug, and a shower, but the hotel bars don't open til 6, and it's too hot to hug, so i'm going to go to my teacher's house to shower. things are looking up now, but today has not been fun. i guess it's good that i'm still having a great time here, even if i'm a walking chew toy.

shuma!!!!

This week was a lot of fun. The school days seem to last forever, especially now that we have to meet with a tutor at 9 am on tuesdays and thursdays, and then have 4 hours of class. our tutor is super nice though, and is patient with me and sarah since we're the only one's in the session with him and he won't let us speak any english, just like all our other teachers.

before coming to fez, our "teacher" Sharon Nagy told us that if we were ever getting too harassed, we could turn to the person and say "Shuma". it basically means "shame on you", but is supposedly way more harsh, so we've all been timid to use Shuma, even with the extra annoying harassment. anyways, earlier this week sarah and i were almost to our house and a pack of 8 and 9 year old boys came up and wanted to say hi and shake our hands. we smiled and sarah kept walking, but this one boy wouldn't let go of my hand, so i turned around to sarah to say something and out of the corner of my eye i saw him behind me grab my hip and do very naughty gestures to my bum. i threw his hand back at him and yelled no, and then we quickly walked away.

on thursday we were on the same lane and a group of girls came by and started talking to us. they were super cute so we chatted for a bit, except i'm not sure how because this one girl Rita only spoke french and i somehow translated most of it and responded in a mixture of horrible french/arabic. anyways, they walked away and then a group of boys came by. we shook their hands, but one pulled sarah in to try and to the traditional moroccan hello, where you kiss both cheeks. sarah just shook her head at him, and then he tried to do the same with me, but i told him no. he passed by my other side, jumped up, and kissed my cheek, but i responded while he was mid air and went into defensive soccer mode, put out my arm, and he rebounded a foot back into the stone wall. at the same time, 3 of the other boys leaped onto my back, so i swung around and flung one off and the others all stumbled back while i yelled "NO!!! SHUMAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"

sarah was trying to shuma them to, but ended up stuttering into a laughing fit as they quickly ran and we turned and walked away. we were home 30 seconds later and told our housemother, who proceeded to crack up with us and then tell us she'd let her husband know about the boys. now when we pass them they look at me, i glare, and they don't move and let us pass. i think i shuma'd the crap out of those little punks.

there's a boy in our class named Remington who is clearly from a crazy wealthy family, but is also really nice. Remy had the idea to rent a big villa for a bunch of us for the night, so this friday he put everything together. The total came to about $10 a person, and it was one of the nicest villas i've seen. about 15 of us slept over, but a bunch of people came and hung out all night on the roof with us. it was so much fun, and i think we're going to do it again.

the next morning we woke up and headed out of the Medina and to the Ville Nouvelle, where we grabbed some coffee, and then 11 of us headed to Ifrane, which is a small town a little over an hour away from Fez. We took 2 grand taxis, which are vintage mercedes benzs, with 6 in one and 5 in the other. the cost each was 25 Dirhem, which is a little less than $3 a person. we didn't have any plans for Ifrane, so first we walked through the town, which doesn't look Moroccan AT ALL. it's mainly a tourist retreat, super small, with nothing to do, and it felt exactly like the random suburb towns i stayed in Germany and Switzerland, and it looked like it too. The group was me, Aaron, Adam, Akbar, Toufik (their house brother), other Toufik (1st Toufik's friend), Mohammed (a new friend i met in class) Kait, Elisabeth, and then Jess and Goska but they only stayed until around 6. We found a 3 bedroom/2 bath air conditioned apartment to rent for the night, and for 9 people it was $12 a person. we got a late lunch, walked around some more, and then some people took naps and showers while Aaron and Adam went and bought snacks and alcohol. they came back with 20 beers (the cheap kind here is called Speciale, and is usually about $1 a beer and is actually drinkable), a bottle of lemon vodka, and bags of chips and cookies. it wasn't until they were back that we realized the 2 Toufiks and Akbar and Mohammed wouldn't be drinking (muslim), and kait and elizabeth had a leftover bottle of absolut from the night before.

everyone else was still sleeping except me, aaron, adam, and Toufik 2, so we decided to start without them. we played flip cup with dinky plastic cups, Toufik with coke instead of beer, until everyone woke up about and hour later. then we all just kind of sat and talked and hung out until about 1. it was a looootttt of fun.

we woke up at 8, were out by 9, and then got breakfast and took grand taxis to some place about 20 minutes from Ifrane where there are a bunch of monkeys and we could horse back ride. i was expecting monkeys like in a zoo, but they were just right there. monkeys. just the way dogs would be walking around. we fed them peanuts (one jumped up on my thigh and snatched the bag out of my hand) and watched them for a little bit, then elisabeth and i went horseback riding. it was pretty lame. basically we got up on the horses and walked through the woods with the trainer guys walking next to us going "zeet zeet zeet" for 15 minutes. the most exciting part was when i was crossing a stream downhill and my horse decided to trot for 1 minute. oh and Toufik 1 was being a punk and started picking up these massive black beetles, then pretended to put them on kait and elisabeth. they screamed. he tried with me but i saw it coming and asked to hold the beetles instead. it was creepy.

we left that place around 1 and headed back to fez, but stopped near a lake where we all paddle boated around beneath the mountains for about an hour. i wanted to nap on the way home, but the countryside was too beautiful to pass up, so i listened to my ipod and stared out the window and took in the view. needless to say, this was one of the most amazing weekends of my life. i hope all of you had a great 4th of july weekend too!

Lovely Jubbly

Week One's passed and I finally feel used to being here. School is definitely getting more difficult, but my teachers are absolutely amazing. My weekday schedule is: wake up at 7:00, get dressed, eat breakfast and have mint or vervain tea with the family 8:00- walk 10 minutes through the Medina and catch a Petit Taxi at the Bat'ha Fountain. It's about a 5-10 minute cab ride to Centre American (ALIF), so we get there around 9:20 and have coffee with Elisabeth and Kait. 10:00-12:00 Arabic 1 with Bouchra After that we either go home for lunch, which takes a while because taxis are hard to get at that time of day, or we stay in the Ville Nouvelle and eat at a cafe near campus. 4:00-6:00- Arabic 2 with Mustafa 6:00-9:00- we either go to the Riad ALIF, which is this gorgeous riad in the Medina for ALIF students, or we go to a cafe and chill and do homework. The family eats dinner at 10, and then we shower, hang out, and go to bed. This weekend we met up with Kait and Elisabeth and went shopping for a bit through the medina. I got a pair of earrings, well 2 actually because this one guy gave me a pair for free, and this really interesting ring/bracelet thing. I paid "too much" for the one pair of earrings because I didn't try and barter, mainly because this adorable little 9 year old sold me them, but they were still only $1.50, and the ring/bracelet cost less than $1. This place is ridiculously cheap. Everything is going well. I haven't gotten sick from the water and staying hydrated hasn't been a problem. The only thing that's getting really annoying is being a girl here. Everyone is friendly, but I'm getting sick of being stared at, and it bothers me that we always have to be alert. On the short walk from where we get cabs to our house, we get cat-called like crazy, and it's usually harmless but it's still annoying. we try to just keep laughing at it, especially the ones that don't make sense like "you is spice girls, yet?" or "i like your arm" or "very nice, lovely jubbly". most of the guys just do it because it's part of their culture and they're not even thinking about it, but some are lingerers and will follow us down a street. the problem is that if we glare at them or say go away in arabic, they don't care what we said, only that it was in arabic, and then they get even more provoked. on the plus side, the streets are usually crowded enough that if we ever needed to, we could go to an older person and point at the stalkers and they'd get embarrassed and yelled at. it's even worse at night, but we call our homestay father and he meets us at the gate to the Medina and walks with us, and usually we only get stares instead of "oh my gawd, you is so beautiful, yes".

Zeytuna

Day 2 of classes, and I haven't flunked out yet :) I'm actually surprised at how much I'm able to understand and speak in class, but so far all we're doing is some review, so it's really not that impressive. My friend Jared has been studying here for a few weeks and he said it gets A LOT harder, but he's in the level below me, so Sarah and I think it's going to get even worse for us. We'll see, I guess.

Last night we all went to the Riad Alif, which is a riad in the Medina reserved for ALIF students and is absolutely beautiful. We stayed until around 8:30 and then headed home, which is about a 10 to 15 minute walk.

When we got home, our house mother's sister and her 2 young daughters were there to visit. The aunt studied English at a university in Fez, so we could talk to her very easily to her and she helped us translate to our mother. I think they may be the funniest women I've ever met in my life. They're loud, hilarious, and sarcastic, and are also the sweetest people in the world. They invited us to their nephew's wedding in July and said we could borrow they're traditional dresses. They also went on and on about how beautiful I am, and started marketing Islam to us and said we could have any of the young men in their family. Apparently they have a nephew who's 21 and part Italian, and they want me to dance with him at the wedding.

It was nice to talk to them about Islam. Sarah's parents are Lutheran Ministers, and she's majoring in Islamic studies at DePaul, so she knows more than me and they usually talk to her about it. The mom asked us what Americans think of Muslims and Arabs, and we said there are a lot of issues on the image of Muslims to Americans, but those that know true Islam and talk to regular Muslims see the beauty of the religion. We told them how we admire the goal of the religion, which is to just lead a peaceful life based around family and community and to have a strong relationship between each person and Allah. The aunt stressed the peacefulness of the religion, which is my favorite aspect, and how the Muslims that Americans think of, the violent ones, are not in any way true Muslims.

The 2 young cousins were 5 and 7 years old and are absolutely beautiful. They didn't speak any English and were very shy at first, but the youngest one kept smiling and staring at me, and finally she went to Iman, my house sister, and started talking to me through Iman's translation. She kept saying I was pretty and that she liked me and kept kissing me on the cheek, then we played Hide and Go Seek and messed around with the PhotoBooth application on my computer, which got A LOT of laughs with the kids and the moms. When they asked me if I have an Arabic name (Sarah is Arabic, so everyone recognizes that name, but Kirby is weird internationally) I joked and said we made nicknames for each other and my group named me Zeytuna, which is the feminine word for "olive" because I'm quickly getting an addiction to them, and now the little girls call me Olive and then giggle.

The people of Morocco are the nicest people I've met in all my travels. Their main goal is to be peaceful, friendly, and hospitable to everyone they meet. Sarah and I got a little sidetracked on our way home and everyone pointed us in the right direction, and when we meet people they say how happy they are to meet us and have us in their city. I wasn't expecting them to be mean, but this level of kindness surprised me and is nice to see. Their way of life here is so refreshing, especially their views on family time. The whole family is close, and spends all free time (which is quite a bit, since they have a big break in the day and don't necessarily work often throughout all Morocco, at least not like in America) together in one main room of the house, talking and watching TV or reading. They even sleep in the same rooms together, and it seems like Iman is always cuddling and kissing her parents. When I asked her about her friends, she said her best friends were her mom and dad, which is nice to hear from a pre-teen.

Day 3- Medina. Don't eat the sauce.

On Sunday we took an hour long bus ride outside of Fez to visit the ancient ruins of Volubilis, which was a Roman city built in the 4th century (i think). It was really interesting, especially because it was so old and yet they had things like running water figured out. There were also a lot of mosaics that were still in tact and in bright colors, which was amazing. We also visited a town that's built around Moulay Idriss Mosque and climbed to the top of their Medina. The view was great and I took a bunch of pictures so I'm hoping they'll load. (I'm at a cafe right now and the wireless is ok, but who knows).

Yesterday we went to campus and to meet our families. Our dad, Mohammed, was there to greet us and took us to a cafe to meet his friend/neighbor, Mourad. Mourad lives right around the corner from us and is also a music teacher at our school who has 2 boy students from Virginia staying with him. Mohammed had to go back to work, so Mourad sat with us and then drove us to our gate at the Medina. Our house is about a ten minute walk through the maze of the Medina, but we don't have to walk through the market streets if we don't want to, so it's less crowded.

Mohammed's house is amazing. It's a dar, which means it doesn't have an open garden courtyard in the center, but it's about 4 floors high and has a roof terrace where we can sit/hang our laundry. It's hard to describe it because their houses here are so different from ours, but I'm going to take a video of me walking around through it because I don't think pictures could do it justice.

We met Mohammed's wife, Nahima, who doesn't speak much English but is very sweet, and she seems to run the house and Mohammed, who is more soft spoken and quiet. They have a daughter, Iman, who is 11 and knows a lot of English, which is great because otherwise Sarah and I would be lost. They're Muslim, but not strictly traditional, so they were wearing modern but modest clothing and no head covers, and Iman knows all about Hannah Montana and Avril Lavigne and was singing us their songs.

Nahima made us lunch, which in Morocco is the biggest meal of the day, and I made Iman laugh really hard because I started eating some red mixture with my fork, and apparently it's sauce for bread. Oops. The food is delicious though, even if i did just eat plain sauce.

Our house has bathroom, which is only a tiny little square room with places to put your feet while you squat. not fun. It's actually not so bad, except that the door ends higher than the ground, and the room faces the main rooms of the house, so I feel like while everyone's eating dinner they can see me. Sarah and I are going to make the bathrooms in the Ville Nouvelle our friends. Mohammed said they could install a toilet for us, but they already had to fix the shower heater (which doesn't work at all) so we said we'd be fine.

by the way, our shower is more interesting than the 'bathroom'. It's on the second floor, through this room that I think is an extra food storage place/laundry room. It's a very long, narrow, short space that's walled in tile and ceramic mosaics, with the faucet in the back and a heavy plain block of wood that serves as a door, but doesn't close unless you move the propane tanks that you light to heat up the shower. The room ends up smelling a little like musty gas and is oddly lit, so I feel like I'm in a gas chamber while I'm taking an ice cold shower. Not the best, but it still felt good to rinse off.

Classes started this morning and so far so good. Our teacher speaks mostly Arabic in class, but she goes slowly and is really nice, so I'm not worried and I think I'm going to learn A LOT. we're heading back to our house for lunch/visit with the family (since it's like dinner time to them), then I have an afternoon class. There's a Riad in the Medina where we can study, so we're going there after, and I'm really hoping I'll have time to add pictures.

Fez, day 1

i am absolutely in love with this place.

after we got coffee and danishes and strolled through another park in madrid, aaron and mike and i took the Metro to the airport, where we met up with Jess and Goska and boarded Ryan Air to Fez. We got in around 7:30 at night (after a pretty rough landing), and the first thing we saw was the mountains and the airport, which was about the size of my house. We met Driss, the man who was sent to pick us up and didn't speak a word of English or Arabic, but knew some French and a lot of Berber.

It was a pretty short ride from the airport to where our group is staying for 3 nights, Hotel Mounnia, which is located in Fez's 'Ville Nouvelle', which is the more european/modern section of the city. The hotel is a lot nicer than i'd expected, with a lobby covered wall to wall in mosaic tiles and a fun bar/lounge.

We met up with everyone in the group and our chaperone, Sharon Nagy, and went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. I guess Nagy wanted to show us where we could go if wanted to find Americanized food. After that we came back to our hotel and got drinks in the bar. Everyone else went to bed, but Aaron and Goska and I stayed up and waited for the last member of our group, Kait, to arrive from Casablanca. She was supposed to get in at midnight, but her connecting flight was delayed so she missed her flight to Fez, and ended up getting to the hotel around 2:30am, so it was just us chilling in the dark lobby with the security guard. Oh, and their form of security is putting this big sword through the door handles.

This morning we woke up early and left around 9 to head to the Medina, which is the traditional muslim section of Fez. There's absolutely no plan to how the city was built, so the streets are winding and narrow, and only donkeys and bicycles are allowed. There are unending store shops of food, clothes, and every type of good you could think of. We got a lot of attention while walking around, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, although 3 girls got their bums grabbed and Sarah had her hair tugged by an ornery old lady. and i got proposed to, just like you said i would, mom. he was about 60 years old and not really my type, so i said no thanks.

fez has the second largest mosque in morocco, but non-muslims aren't allowed in mosques, so we could only take a few pictures from the entrance. we were allowed to enter one of the original mosques, which may be the prettiest place i've ever been in. it was small, but covered in insanely intricate mosaic tiles that all have symbolic meaning for Islam and Fez. It's a great example of how Fez looks kind of bustling and run down from the outside, but once you enter a building it's beautiful, open, and peaceful. I can't wait to see where in the Medina i'll be living and to meet my family, especially because the kids here are probably the cutest things i've ever seen.

We went into a few places where they make scarves out of wool, cotton, and silk made from vegetables (which i didn't know was possible). our tour guide, Ali, pulled me up front and used me as a model for how to wrap a hijab, and then he wrapped everyone up in different styles. we all bought scarves to be nice since the men let us interrupt their work, and i got a nice teal one that was about $4.

We got a tour of the Medina and the tanneries, which Fez is famous for, and smelled pretty nasty. the tannery we went to is one of the only original ones left, and they gave us mint leaves to hold in front of our faces while we toured. after a few minutes i didn't notice the smell anymore, but most of the people in the group were anxious to leave.

after our tour we got lunch, which consists of tomato and cucumber salad, some sort of eggplant mixture, cinnamon carrots, lamb with prunes, fresh fruit, and mint tea. then a few of us headed to Marjane, which is basically the Costco of Morocco, so that we could get shampoo and that stuff. It was about 15 minutes from our hotel, and a taxi ride for 3 people cost us 11 Dh, which is equivalent to between $1 to $2.

now we're all chilling in the hotel lobby, soaking up the free wifi. we have dinner at our chaperone's apartment in about an hour and a half, and then we'll probably end up in the hotel bar again tonight. Tomorrow we take a daytrip to Anubulis, which is a city of ruins outside of Fez.

i have amazing pictures from today, but the internet is too slow right now and won't load them. i'll try to add them to this post later tonight or something.