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.

Day 3

Yesterday was amazing. I met up with Aaron and Mike at the hotel (which they ended up crashing at) and then we walked around for a while, but Mike went to meet up with some of the friends he met at his hostel a few nights before, so Aaron and I explored the city together from about 3 in the afternoon til 1 in the morning, and we had a great time. We ended up getting dinner (meat and seafood paella with a pitcher of sangria...sooooo good) and then we seriously just walked around for the next 12 hours. Madrid is full of little squares and twisted alleyways, all full of tiny cafes and bars and little shops and 12 hours wasn't nearly enough time to absorb it all. we were trying to meet up with Mike again, but without phones, it was kind of difficult, so instead we just got a few drinks and eventually wandered to the other side of the city where the more historic buildings and museums are. this was at like 11 at night, so most things were closed, but we still walked around and stumbled into this amazing park, where we sat on some monument and had cheap wine and picked a massive weird looking flower from this big tree, then played on a playground outside some palace. it was so fun. when we came back to the room around 1, mike was on the floor asleep, but we all started talking and were so over tired that we couldn't sleep, so we stayed up until like 2:30 chatting and finally all passed out. mike is still on the floor, but Aaron and I are going to run to Starbuck's and then maybe go see the big park we found the night before so we can see what it looks like in the daylight. we're all taking the Metro to the airport at 1 and then flying Ryan Air to Fez at 4! talk to you in Morocco!

bienvenidos a madrid!

hola muchachos. i'm in madrid! i left cleveland for toronto on the 16th at 6pm. the plane was super tiny and there was a lot of fun turbulence, and we got to toronto around 7:30. i ran into another girl from my group, Jess, while boarding the plane to Madrid, and she ended up having the seat directly behind me. the plane ride was fine, except i'm a little sore from sleeping in contortionist mode. we got to Madrid around 11:30, got our bags, and then ran into another girl from our group, Goscka, who is staying in the hotel near the airport with Jess and Aaron. after we figured out how to get them to an ATM and then to the hotel shuttle (using my excellent 8th grade spanish skills), i said i'd see them tomorrow and hopped in a taxi for the city. this hotel is ridiculously snazzy and right in the middle of downtown. i'm going to shower and then explore. i'll take lots of pictures and post them later. adios.

1 more day!!

My flight leaves tomorrow at 6pm! I fly to Toronto first, then connect there and fly to Madrid. I'm scheduled to arrive in Madrid at 11 in the morning, which I think is around 4 in the morning our time. I'm planning on taking the Metro downtown, dropping my bags off at my hotel, and then wandering around the city. we used my mom's travel points for the hotel, so I get a night of fanciness before my stay in Fez's old town. here's my snazzy Madrid hotel: http://www.westinpalacemadrid.com/es/gallery/

ok, still experimenting with the website to see how i'll upload pictures and all that. in the meantime, here are some pictures from morocco travel blogs :)

cheesy Road to Morocco video/website tutorial

yeah, i had to post this. 6 days until i leave!! website tutorial (for my mom/confused computer people) i'll copy and paste the website addresses that i post directly onto the blog, so you can either highlight them, copy, and then paste them into your url search: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_w3UG6C_Mo