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.