23/5/18: Man cannot live by bread alone, but if you get a couple different kinds of bread together, you’ve got a nice Moroccan breakfast.

More Darija classes today. I learned just enough to fully realize how difficult it will be to be conversational. The Moroccan dialect is often considered the hardest Arabic dialect to learn because of the sheer number of external languages that influence it (French, Tamazigh [Berber], etc.).

We had a three hour break between classes, so Fan, Jake, and I went to the mall to pick up some things we had forgotten to pack. We went to French Walmart and I got a towel, which is good, because air-drying after showering wasn’t really working out. I also bought snacks. Being here during Ramadan is a great cultural experience, but not for your stomach; all the good restaurants are closed until night. Today we had a very exotic and culturally-enlightening lunch at al-Burger King. Also, the mall here has a chandelier store, which actually clears up quite a bit. Over the past week, one of the running jokes among the American students is that anytime you walk into a room, regardless of where, there is at least one chandelier. There’s also probably a cat.

After lunch, a professor fron the university came in to speak to us about linguistics, and the history of the Arabic language. Depending on how you count, the are 3-4 different forms of Arabic each with their own distinct use (Classical for religious text, Modern Standard for transregional commhnication, Colloquial for everyday life, and Educated Spoken as a newly emerging alternative). If linguistics interest you, the talk was fascinating. If not, plenty of students were struggling to stay awake.

After linguistics, we went to Mcdonalds for the Wifi/ice cream. There was a mom cat with three kittens chilling in the outside seating area, and they were the healthiest looking cats I’d seen all week, which is proof that McDonalds is good for cats.

Another big Iftar (fast-breaking meal) at home, this time there were peaches. And radishes. The peaches were good.

After Iftar, we headed down to the ALIF Riad. A riad is a house with a large, open-air courtyard. The ALIF program owns a riad in the medina that is just for ALIF students. It’s pretty cool. I wrote this there. Now we’re at the present.