The hotel breakfast today included two different kind of bread; the same two kinds we get for breakfast at the homestay. At some point, all the Moroccans must have gotten together and decided that breakfast must include one flatbread, one rising bread, and nothing else.

After breakfast my plan had been to explore the old medina all day, but as soon as one man tried to guide us around for money, Fan got nervous, and so we ended up walking into the new city. Fan seems to have a very low tolerance for that sort of thing; I got the vibe that he doesn’t like this city.

We made our way to the Majorelle Gardens, where Yves Saint Laurent and his partner used to live, which looks exactly like you would expect the house of a very gay fashion designer to look like (a cubist design painted wall-to-wall in bright blue with yellow highlights) and a large garden of plants imported from all over the world. It was pretty sweet.

After that we went to a café and watched the Morocco/Iran world cup match. It was fun to be with a crowd, and I like that the word cup only breaks for commercial every twenty minutes or so, but Morocco lost 1-0 in overtime, which is why I don’t normally watch soccer. If you’re going to watch sports, let’s get some big numbers up there. Basketball has it figured out.

After that we headed back to the hotel for a bit, then got dinner at a nearby pizza stand. The cheese didn’t really taste like anything, but at this point, that was to be expected.

I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how to use Airbnb to book a tour of the national park for tomorrow. Some students who were here last weekend recommended it highly. Should be interesting. On a side note, there was also an “Instagram Tour” where some guy would take you around to the most photogenic places in the city so you can flex on your social media friends. Is this what we’ve come to?

Fan and I got up at 5:30 to catch the train to Marrakesh this morning. I couldn’t find the clothes I gave my host mom to clean yesterday, so I have one t-shirt and one sweater. Fan forgot the bag of snacks he bought for the train ride, so we didn’t eat until 3:30. Plus, my cd-drive wouldn’t play the DVD’s I got at the ALIF library yesterday. Packing is hard.

When we finally arrived, we went to a Chinese restaurant at Fan’s request. I was given a two-page French menu; Fan received a small novel of a menu in Chinese. The Chinese are hiding some of their foods from us. We need to get some white people on this immediately. I had Fan order for me off his menu and it was delicious.

The hotel is surprisingly nice for being hidden in an alleyway that you have to duck to walk through. I think we’re the only people staying here, so the woman at the front desk moved us to a bigger room which was cool. Also she made us tea. And we get breakfast tomorrow. For $26 a night.

That said, while we were drinking tea, a seagull took a shit on my one t-shirt. That wasn’t cool.

We waited for an hour after the fast was broken, and then wandered the streets in search of food. It took half an hour, but we eventually found a place with no menu or prices, where we were led to a table and given food. It was as delicious as it was sketchy, which is to say, very.

Last day of class before the four-day break. After class I went to the ALIF movie library and was shocked to find several movies I had been looking for at the Wauwatosa Public Library for months. I knew our professor oversaw the movie library and was a big film buff, but this was impressive. After that I went to the French Walmart to by some fruits and chocolates as an ‘Eid gift for our host family and to the train station to buy tickets. We leave at 6:30 in the morning, so that’s going to suck. After Iftar, we booked a hotel room ($26 a night!). Now only one problem remains: I gave my host mom all my dirty clothes (which was all of my clothes) to wash, but she hasn’t washed them yet and I can’t find them anywhere in the apartment. I may end up wearing what I have on right now for the next four days. Thank god I don’t know anyone in Marrakesh.

Another long day. Tuesdays, we have Morocco in context, which has been extended in length, meaning there are now five and a half hours of class. After that, there was no time to nap, because I had to head to the Riad for a workshop on Islamic geometry. Remember those compass and ruler transformations from middle school? It turns out they can get really intense. Dividing a circle into perfect fifths using just math and a compass is a pain in the ass. It looks pretty cool though. After that, I had no time to nap because we had Iftar, and after that I had no time to nap because it was Liz’s birthday so we all went to Café Clock (the site of the word’s first water clock, as well as some tasty cake). We got back home at 11:30, at which point I started on homework. Luckily the oral presentation got pushed back to Monday.

Also, I had been planning for weeks to celebrate ‘Eid al-Fitr with my host family, but I talked to my host mom and she said that since her kids are grown and live far away, her and her husband usually just go to the mosque all day during ‘Eid, and since non-Muslims aren’t allowed into the mosques in Fes, that won’t really work for me, so Fan and I decided to take a train to Marrakesh for a couple days. It’s an eight-hour ride, but we have a four-day weekend, so this is probably the best time to go. Now all we have to do is book a hotel on a day’s notice during the biggest holiday of the year…

Busy day today. We have to prepare an oral presentation on a famous person from our home countries for Wednesday and I picked John Coltrane, which was clearly a mistake, because I spent the rest of the afternoon listening to jazz records and telling myself it was research instead of doing my actual homework, which is why had to stay up late to finish everything, which is why I’m cutting this one short tonight. So much for Giant Steps…

I woke up late and went off on my own to find lunch today, and after a half-hour of wandering, I managed to find a restaurant that was open. I ordered a fish tajine (a tajine is a clay bowl with a conical covering used to cook food, and by extension, any dish cooked in a tajine is also referred to as a tajine. Since it’s made of clay, you can get the tajine really hot and still keep almost all of the moisture, so it makes delicious meat and vegetables) and upon receiving it, I discovered a cat at my feet, begging for food. I didn’t want to give it my tagine, but I tossed it an olive, since I was given a bowl full of them, and as hard as I try to enjoy them, they make my want to throw up, but the cat wouldn’t eat the olive. This bougie-ass cat only wanted fish tajine. He got none of it.

After lunch I wandered my way into the old Medina, which was beautiful. Every building was painted white with blue trim, and there were murals everywhere (apparently the city has a huge art festival every year where they paint over last year’s murals and fly in artists from across the world to create new ones). Plus, it was much smaller than Fes, so I could wander around without getting lost. I spent some time at the market looking for an ‘Eid gift for my host family, but than a man started giving me a tour, so I followed him. I understand that fake tours are super common in Morocco and knew that I would be charged money at the end, but the tour was interesting and I figured it couldn’t be that expensive, so I went along, and learned all sorts of cool things (Alisah has a palace made for a pirate king. That’s the dream). Then the tour ended, and I learned just how much it cost. Some mistakes you have to make for yourself.

I got up at seven this morning, so I could get to ALIF by eight to take a four-hour bus ride to Asilah, a coastal town near Tangier. The bus all my friends were on was full, so I got placed on the bus with the students from the Virginia Military Institute. It turns out that the Military Institute is one big frat, except that after graduation, instead of going to work for their dad’s company, we send them into active warzones. I listened to four hours of stories about exercising, getting drunk, and exercising while drunk.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I found that someone had decided not to go, and so there had been an empty seat on the other bus the entire time.

We went to the beach that afternoon, which normally I’m not a big fan of, but this beach was really nice and pretty much empty, since Moroccans don’t go to the beach during Ramadan. I learned that salt water tastes bad when it gets in your mouth, but other than that it was a good time. After showering back at the hotel, a group of us then wandered out into the city to find a restaurant for dinner. We found a Spanish place that served a delicious paella with fresh seafood; the plan had been to explore the city afterwards, but we ate so much that everyone decided to head back to the hotel and go to sleep instead. I slept wonderfully.

I felt better today, but class started at 8 instead of 9, which made me feel kind of sick again, but not in the way where I can miss class. There was a quiz, but I think it went well and I’m not really concerned. After the quiz I got some lunch, after which Fan and I headed back to the homestay to nap, because 8 is really early.

Dinner was fairly standard, and after dinner, we got both coffee and tea, which was cool. Moroccan tea is basically just warm honey with a tiny bit of water and some mint leaves, and Fan asked if we could learn how to make it (as best I can tell, the tea is his favorite part of living here), but our host mom ended up making it in the other room without telling us, so I guess it will remain forever a mystery.

Tomorrow some of us are heading to Asilah, a beach town in Morocco, and I’m not quite sure what to expect. I have been grouped in with the Virginia Military Institute Students, so this will be interesting.

 

I woke up sick again today, so there’s not a whole lot to report other than that I slept a lot. Sorry to disappoint.

I wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I ended up staying home. Whatever was going on with my stomach ended up being nothing and was gone by 12ish, but I say better safe than sorry because I’ve come really close to shitting my pants in class before and that’s a risk I want to avoid taking as much as possible.

I made a bunch of flashcards during the afternoon, but I’m slowly realizing that if I write down every new word, I will be adding words faster than I can learn them. Every day I commit to memory about ten new words and add about thirty to the pile. It’s like the myth of Sisyphus, but instead of a boulder it’s flashcards.

Iftar had the whole anchovies again and eating them was just as uncomfortable as the last time. After that I spent about two hours working with Fan through the homework. It shouldn’t really have taken that long, but I lent someone else my dvd player on Tuesday and since I wasn’t in class to get it back, I had to do the listening exercise on Fan’s computer, and he works much slower than I do.

The news isn’t exactly heartwarming lately, but this week I ran across the funniest story I’ve seen in a long time. The goalkeeper for Tunisia has repeatedly faked an injury at the same point in different games in order to stop the clock so that his teammates can break their fast. This is brilliant. It’s also the most wholesome cheating I’ve ever heard of. Props to that guy.