SHARK ATTACK

So we have continued surfing, in the last week. The second time we went, the waves at the local beach were small so they bussed us out to a nearby beach. There were 12 of us in the van and it was about a 20 minute ride out to this other beach. It was a gorgeous sunset while we surfed, and I accidentally grabbed a jellyfish while I was paddling out to the waves. In the bus, there were 3 little kids (8-9 years old) that were trying to talk to us. They were talking to us about America and for whatever reason whenever someone finds out that we are American the first thing they say is OBAMA. So of course this little kid was saying Obama and asking us a bunch of random questions. He then left us all speechless when he said "Could you please ask the king of America to stop sending soldiers to Afghanistan to kill Muslims?" Awkward.

While we were surfing, Chelsea got hit by some kids surfboard, therefore resulting in a black eye. We decided we were going to tell the other kids some crazy story about a shark attack, not thinking that they would actually believe it. Christina and Chelsea came up with a story, and later that night I got an email saying that Nate and Karina had bought the story no questions asked and that we were all to go along with it.

This was the story: chelsea was surfing and christina looked over and saw a big dark shape under the water. so she tried to yell and warn chelsea but this scared chelsea and she fell off the board onto the black shape which happened to be a shark. the shark got scared and got tangled in chelseas surfboard leash and dragged her under. conveniently there happened to be a reef where she got dragged under and so she tied the leash to the reef therefore tying the shark onto the reef and then she swam back to safety.

Karina and Nate still believe this ridiculous story.

The next time we went surfing it was at the local beach and there were very small waves so we just spent the time messing around in the water. These waves were so small that we literally had to run (in the water) after the wave, pushing our boards and throw ourselves onto them to get enough speed to stand up. It was still fun, and we have one more lesson left, and then we are going to try to get a free lesson out of throwing a goodbye party.

CASABLANCA!

So since we are in Morocco and the only thing anyone knows about Morocco is Casablanca, we had to make a trip to the famous city. We had a scheduled trip with the school to go to the beach on Sat the 24th so we decided Friday night was a prime time to make a trip to go clubbing. We got out of school and headed to the train station around 5:30 on Friday the 23rd. Aya, Lauren and I all got on the train in one station in Rabat while Gabrielle and Alix got on at the other station. We arrive in Casa and the two groups reunite to figure out our plan for the night.

We decide to head to our hotel (which we had only reserved one room for because we just wanted to leave our stuff their while we were at the club). It took us a while to find the hotel since no one seemed to know where it was or WHAT it was. Finally we found it, checked in, dropped off our bags in one of the nicer hotels we had been in so far and headed off to find some dinner.

We picked a cute little cafe and ate dinner while people watching. We decided to go see the mosque, (Hassan II) the largest mosque in

Morocco and the 5th largest Mosque in the world. So after dinner we found taxis to take us to the Mosque. We passed

Ricks Cafe on the way

, sadly we didn't get to go in. It was only about a 15 minute drive to the mosque and it was absolutely breathtaking. We spent a few hours walking around and taking picture

s. It was such a calming experience, you could tell that everyone there was in complete bliss. There were families sitting everywhere and kids playing on the grass. People were praying everywhere on the steps and in the building. We couldn't go in but the doors were open and the inside was

BEAUTIFUL. It is the highest religious building in the world, the minaret is 200 meters high I believe and it can house 105,000 worshipers at any one time. Half of the surface of the mosque lays over the Atlantic, and you can see it through a glass floor. Unfortunately we didn't get to see this since we couldn't go inside.

After we got our fill of the Mosque, we headed back to the hotel to get ready and drink

before going out. We changed, did our makeup and hair and Lauren, Alix and I drank

some before we left. The man at the front desk of the hotel walked us out to the main road and hailed taxi's for us, telling them where to take us and we drove to the main road with

all the clubs. It is a straight road with probably 50 clubs in a row across from the ocean.

We had been told that cover for each club would be about 100 dH each. We ended up getting into 4 clubs for free. Each club told us that we had to buy tickets, to which we replied no, nevermind and turned around to walk away. The guys then ran after us and let us in for free. Every time. It pays to be pretty American girls who are not prostitutes. We

then figured out why they wanted girls, there were NO girls in most of the clubs, those that were were

completely covered and sitting on the sides, we were the only girls that danced in any club. There was a lot of hookah and chill music, definitely different from American bars and clubs.

We finally found a club that we really enjoyed, except it was extremely hot since it was

underground. We decided to go get waters at which point we could tell there was something wrong with Gabrielle. She apparently had started feeling nauseous in the club and was really hot and we just wanted to get her back to the hotel and find a way home. We had planned to take the 5 am train home, but that was still 3 hours away. We decided to just go sleep at the hotel for a little and try to rehydrate her until the train came.

At 4:30, we got cabs to the train station and were back in Rabat by 6:45.

We had to be up at 8 to be at school to leave for the beach at 9, so of course all of us were exhausted.

We took a bus to Tamara beach which is about 15 minutes away from Rabat. We got there

and all of us passed out on the sand for a few hours. We then spent the remaining time relaxing, building sand castles and playing in the waves. We had originally planned to head to Marrakesh for the remainder of the weekend, but we all decided that we were too exhausted for that and it would be a better idea to spend the weekend in Rabat relaxing.

We left the beach and spent the rest of the day in AMIDEAST doing homework and using their internet. We headed back home around 9 and all of us passed out early. The next day Kajari, Alix and I decided to try surfing with Christina and Chelsea. We headed out early the next morning to the surf club and bought 2 lessons. They took us down to the beach and we essentially had two hours of doing whatever we wanted. I headed back home after this, ate some of aya's breakfast and then we passed out again until 3. The only reason we woke up was because they woke us up to show us the food on the table. We spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep and doing homework.

Swimming around the top of Africa in one day

This weekend was CRAZY.

So Friday we get out of class at 3 and our train is at 4:42. We run last minute errands, exchanging money, getting waters and snacks. Our teacher decides to pick this time to talk to each of us individually about our homework. At 4:15 we tell him we really need to go. Since we are running late and had planned to walk to the train station this results in us sprinting down the streets of Rabat, with our backpacks, waters

, snacks, bags and guide books in hand. S

printing through cafes, a

round people, across streets, the entire time laughing at how ridiculous we look. We finally get to the train station, dripping

in sweat and collapse on the train. It is a three hour ride which was awesome since we were told it would be 4-6 hours depending on the stops. We get off in Assilah and I legit s

creamed

BEACH. It was gorgeouss! AND there are camels ALL over the beach! The train s

tation is just a tiny strip of concrete that goes off into a dirt path next to the road and the beach so we start walking down it. We have the option of wading through the water or walking about 10 miles down the road away

from the beach to get to downtown Assilah. We choose to wade through the water so all of us start trekking through the ocean up to our thighs in our clothes still carrying all our stuff while a bunch of Moroccans who were to scared to do it cheered us on. We get to the boardwalk area of Assilah, get directions to our hotel and head that way. Its a block away from the beach and we check in. The guy who checks us in

immediately shows his attraction for Gabrielle, the only one of us who can speak spanish fluently. He takes us upstairs to show us our rooms and make sure we approve, and then offers to show Gabrielle the terrace on the roof. While they are up there he proposes to her.

she said no. Then he offers to show us a good place to eat,

he proceeds to take us do

wn a dark random al

ley to this little cafe. At this point we are trying to get rid of him and find our own restaurant. We eventually get him to leave and settle on this cute little cafe with a view of the ocean and the walls surrounding the medina. We have an awesome seafood dinner here and then decide to walk around the beach, but by this time it had cooled off a lot and we were all freezing (yeah who thought cold would have been a problem in africa?) . We decide to just quickly walk through the Medina and then head back to the hotel. We take a bottle of wine up to the roof and lay on the roof talking and looking at the stars for a while. Meanwhile, Gabrielles Moroccan lover comes up to the roof to flirt with her and ends up spending 3 hours talking to her. In this time he offers her a 1000 camel dowry, promises to move to the US and get a bunch of jobs so

he could give her everything she wants...anything to make her

agree to marry him. Again she declines. We go to sleep around 1:30.

Saturday we get up early and go get our tickets to Tangier. Then we grab b

reakfast, which take

s forever like all meals do here. We head to the beach around 10:30 and spend a few hours playing in the waves, running around and taking pictures. Two of the girls had never been to the

beach and absolutely loved it. They now understand my obsession. Once again Gabrielle attracts a spanish speaking moroccan, this time it happens to be the lifeguard. He warns us about dangerous currents and then proceeds to ask us if we want to go swim with him and wear his flippers. We say no and end up leaving shortly after this. Since

everyone had an amazing time at the beach we decided we were going to swim in the Atlantic, Strait of Gibraltar and Mediterranean in one day. We head to the train station not wanting to miss our train to Tangier. It ends up being an hour late and we are all complainin

g about the unreliable trains... little did we know this would be the least of our problems this weekend.

We get to Tangier after an hour train ride and decide to take a taxi to the CTM (bus) station to buy our tickets for Tetouan later in the day. The second we get out of the taxi a mob of Moroccan taxi men jump on us yelling about taking

us places, and how we cant get tickets to Tetouan from here, we cant leave now, they can take us to the other bus station, the taxi drove us to the wrong place, etc. We finally sort things out and make them go away. The men end up being right and we cant buy the tickets here, the taxi had taken us to the CTM office, not the bus station. We figure out the only bus isn't until 8 anyway, which is later than we planned on but it had to do.

We grabbed lunch and then headed to the beach to swim in the Strait of Gibralter. The water was gorgeous and green and absolutely freezing. We swam pretty far out and

played with a soccer ball and some little Moroccan boys and the lifeguard in a kayak. we took a ton of pictures at the beach and then decided to head out to see the cave of Hercules. We find a taxi to take us out there, its about a 45 minute ride and he drops us off in the most tourist targeted area we had seen yet. They had souvenir shops, camels to sit

on and take pictures on in the middle of the parking lot, and tons of cafes. We took a tour of the caves which ended up being a lot smaller than we expected but still gorgeous. We took a bunch of pictures inside and looked around at everything they sold there. They had traditional Northern Moroccan dress for everyone to try on and the kids trying them on were ADORABLE.

We had told the taxi driver to come back at 6 for us so in the meantime we walked around and took pictures of the surrounding ocean and area around the cave. We got ice creams and explored until we decided we wanted to leave. Since the taxi wasn't there yet we decided to just walk up the hill to where all the taxis waited and grab one back. A guy agrees to take us back for 90dh and he seems really cool. He is playing music for us and hes young and we are having fun, everything seems like its going great. We get to Tetouan however and we tell him we want to go to the bus station. Not the CTM office like we had gone to that morning, but the Bus station that has a bunch of different buses and is also the taxi station. For whatever reason he is not seeming to understand us and the only word he is understanding is Bus. He tries to take us to the CTM office and again we are like NO not this one, the BIG bus station. He apparently doesnt speak Arabic, darija (morccan arabic), french, spanish or english. (How does a taxi driver not know where the taxi station is). He keeps stopping asking randomly for directions, at one point stopping the car in the middle of the road and getting out, running down the street while all the cars around us are honking at us to move. He finally gets directions from someone and we get to the bus station, he drops us off and tears away from the curb. We buy our tickets to tetouan, grab some coffee at the station and then wait for the bus.The bus ride is an hour long and we get to Tetouan around 9:30. On the bus we decided where we wanted to stay the night since we still wanted to go to the Mediterranean. We had reservations in Chefchaouen (an hour drive from Tetouan) but we decide that staying in Martil (the coast town on the Mediterranean) might be easiest. We take the 20 minute taxi ride to Martil and he drops us off at the hotel we found in the guide book. The hotel is booked but we figure no problem, we saw a ton of hotels on the way in there has to be one with rooms. So we decide to keep looking. While we are walking a man stopped us and tells us that Martil is a huge tourist town and all the hotels will be booked during summer. He offers us a flat for 800 dh for the night which isnt really a lot at all but we refused. We weren't sure if he was telling the truth or if he was just trying to get us to rent his flat instead. He ended up being right and after looking for a little while longer we couldn't find any hotels. At this time its around 11 and we decide to look for 10 more minutes and if not go take the pictures in the Mediterranean and head to Chefchaouen where we may or may not still have hotel rooms. As we are walking Alix sees a sign for a hotel. The only thing is its at the beginning of a deserted alley and points back saying Hotel Mon

afiona 100m. We debate safety issues but at this time we are desperate and decide that a hotel off the beaten path will probably have rooms. We run down the alley and into this hotel which is completely deserted except for a man his daughter and an old woman watching tv in the back of the room. He ends up having rooms for a reasonable price and we are all thrilled we found a place.

He asks us for our passports and begins going through them and drilling us with questions like what airport did you come into, what plane were you on, who were you with, what day did you get here, sorting our passports by the town

we came into and repeating these questions to us for about 20 minutes. We are all getting restless and wondering when we are going to actually get our rooms. He then asks us what countries we are all from, and asks for our addresses. Since they are not on the passports, he wants us to write them all down. He keeps saying that its hotel policy to ask all these questions so we are obliging even though none of the other papers we've had to fill out at hotels have asked so many questions in depth. Lauren finally asks when we are going to get our rooms and if we can take

our passports back. All of a sudden we here ABSOLUTLY NOT in french and Alix grabs our passports and they are like LETS GO. The man had been planning on keeping our passports and addresses which we were not about to do. We run outside hand out the passports and rip up our addresses, meanwhile the man is standing in the doorway smiling and watching us. SKETCH. We run back down the alley, and just run to the beach wanting to get out of the town as fast as possible.

We take the pictures at the beach, even though its pitch black and I wish we could have seen more of it in the daytime, and then head out to find a taxi. Its 1 am by the time we get a taxi to take us to Chefchaouen and we all pass out in the car. We get into the city at 2:30 and give the driver the name of the hotel. He asks di

rections but of course we can't find it. He ended up driving around and asking hotels if they had rooms until he found one for us. The hotel ended up being gorgeous. We had originally had plans to drink wine again, but some of us decided to just go to sleep since we were getting up early and hiking the next day. I think only one other girl besides myself went to sleep and the rest stayed up to drink. At 5 am I was woken up by Lauren calling my name. She was puking off the end of our bed and freaking out bc she didnt know why. I had to take care of her for a while and tell her that its because we didnt eat dinner so it didnt really matter that she didnt have a lot to drink. We finally get back to sleep for the night but by this time we only get a few hours sleep.

Sunday we wake up early, check out and try to grab a quick breakfast since our plan was to take the 3:30 bus back to Rabat. Breakfast takes forever, and the waiter cannot remember anything we asked for. We had to ask for one girls omlet 5 times and everytime we asked he'd say "I have to make an omlet?" then Aya ordered Bread and Jam and the guy brought her bread and honey twice, she corrected him and then finally he told us they dont have Jam. Eventually we were so fed up with him we gave up on trying and just tried to pay the bill. It took several times of asking, 30 minutes and 3 messed up bills before we paid. Of course when we stood up to leave Kajari accidentally knocked over a glass which shattered everywhere. way to make an exit.

We walk around the city for a while and then decide to go hike up to God's Bridge. We take a taxi the hour to the trail and he lets us keep all our stuff in his car while he waits for us to complete the hike. An obnoxious guide basically decides hes going to take us through the trail, which ended up being ok since he carried all of our stuff. When we start walking we get a call from the kids who were in Chefchaouen all week

end saying the 3:30 bus was full and the last bus to Rabat was leaving now. Great. The guide ended up telling us he thought there was a bus at 6 to Rabat which was later than we planned but we had no choice. We did the hike which was absolutely amazing.. it ended up being a lot more intense than we expected, we were basically rock climbing over the river at some points, walking over logs, climbing up boulders and charging through the river. When we got to the top it was gorgeous!!! We took lots of pictures with the bridge and then went swimming for a while. We had originally told the taxi driver we'd be back at 1:30 but we didnt end up getting back til 2:30 so we were freaking out that the taxi driver would have left and taken all of our stuff. Thankfully we got back and he was still there, he let us get into his taxi soaked and dirty and drove us back to the bus station in Chefchaouen. He waited for us while we checked tickets, there were none left from Chefchaouen. We decided to go to Tetouan, it is a bigger city so there had to be some sort of transportation left that night right? The taxi driver bought us ice creams and then said he would take us to Tetouan, but he had to stop by his house first. He changed and came back out with a bag of fruit which he gave to us to eat on the way. In Tetouan he took us to the bus stop, there were no buses, and then the train station.. no trains. This whole time we were on the phone with Doha, the program director trying to find a way back to Rabat. She told us there was a 6:00 bus from Tangier.. and hour away and it was 5:05. the driver said he could take us and make it there by 6 so we took off. We got there at 5:55 and there were no seats left. At this point the driver dropped us off, we tipped him a lot extra because he had essentially been our personal driver since 11 AM and found out that our only option to get home was a 9:30 train. We decided to go get dinner and relax so we ate at a cafe on the beach and then headed to the train at 9. the train didnt end up leaving til almost 10:45. We finally headed back to Rabat, met these nice people on the train, they got into our car when hundreds of Moroccan teenagers got on the train from Assilah because they wanted to tell us to stay in the car until the guys got off bc they were dangerous. We ended up finding out later that the woman had cancer and was dying, which was really sad they were really friendly and nice to us. We got back to Rabat at 3:50 and then walked back to our homes. After washing my feet, face and brushing my teeth I changed and passed out.

Yesterday morning/day was hell for all of us considering no one got more than 3 hours of sleep. Sorry this was so ridiculously long

Its FINALLY Friday!!!

The weeks here go by so slowly because of how strenuous the classes are. Monday and Tuesday were just normal days at school, nothing much happened. Tuesday we reviewed for our first exam. Aya and I were up until about 12 studying for the exams before we ended up passing out.

Wednesday we had our first exams. We had a 5 part Vocabulary exam first, I ended up getting an 86 on it (thank god) and then we had our moroccan dialect spoken exam next. It wasn't as hard as I was expecting it to be, but still super nerve wrecking! Wednesdays are our cultural day so after our quizzes we had singing. We learned a couple Moroccan and Egyptian songs and we learned old McDonald had a farm in Arabic. Except it's Old Mohammed had a farm here. They showed us a bunch of youtube clips of different types of music that they make and listen to all over Morocco. It was really neat. Since it was a half day, after class we all headed over to the market (souq) and hung out for a while. I got a bunch of souvenirs for people, a back pack for the weekend trips and some sunglasses. Everything is so cheap, even before you bargain!

Thursday was classes all day and then after class me and three of the other girls headed over to the cafe right next to school for some coffee and pastries. It's a super cute little French cafe with the most amazing pastries you will ever have and they are all around 2-3 $! We went and bought our train tickets for this weekend and then were all off to our respective houses.

For whatever reason our host family doesn't eat with us. We aren't sure if its because they feel like we need space or if they just don't want us to eat with them. They put a little table in our room and bring our meals to us on trays. Normally the family doesn't eat while we are home but the other day they brought us our meal and then the entire family went and ate in another room! The daughters are really nice though and are always joking with us. The father still won't show his face, anytime he is talking to someone and we walk in the room, he leaves or moves out of our sight and keeps talking. We're not sure why...

Anyway... this weekend we are going to Asilah, Tetouan, and Chefchauoen. Asilah is a little fishing port town and we are planning to spend the night there tonight and spend the morning at the beach tomorrow. Then we are taking the bus to Tetouan and exploring for the afternoon/ evening, then spending the night in Chefchaouen and all of Sunday exploring around their. They are supposed to have a beautiful city with all blue buildings from when it was a Jewish city.

There are a bunch of beautiful caves nearby that we want to check out and this thing called the Bridge of God. It should be a fun weekend! And I will make sure to take plenty of pictures!!!

This is some of our group. From the left there is me, then Lauren- an only child who just finished her freshman year at Princeton and shes from Delaware.

Then Alex, She goes to Mary Washington and lived in Singapore pretty much her entire life through highschool except a few years.

Nate is the only guy in our program, he was one of the ones who were here last 5 weeks he goes to Drew and he is going to be here for i think the next year.

Gabrielle goes to UIC in Chicago.. something with Illinois in it?

Aya is the girl that lives with me in the same host family, she's Muslim and was born in/lived in Saudi Arabia for a while. She moved to Fairfax VA and now goes to Penn

Kajari is Indian she has lived in Sambia her entire life and moved to Ohio? maybe to go to Grinnell College.

First weeekkk Sorry its so long!

July 3.
The trip here was definitely hectic. The day started early yesterday. I was up at 8 to finish last minute preparations and on the way to the airport by 10. We got to the airport, checked bags, and Mom, Bernie and I went up to the Delta club room. My flight boarded and took off on time around 12:10. I got to Atlanta a little over an hour later, found my gate with no problem and grabbed some lunch. The plane was delayed at first for an hour, which in turn made me miss my connecting flight from Paris. My 3:25 plane ended up leaving at almost 8. I arrived in Paris about 10- 10:30 the next morning with no clue what my next connecting flight was or if I even had one since for all I knew the other Morocco flights were booked full. I ended up getting to the next gate with no problem, but they had no guarantee that my luggage would get there the same day. The flight from Paris to Rabat was delayed about 30 minutes, but 3 hours later I was safely landed in Rabat. Customs was easy, I met two other girls in my program in line and it took us about 20 minutes to get through. They got their luggage, mine wasn’t there yet and we headed to AMIDEAST with the driver that was there to pick us up.
The people drive CRAZY here. The traffic laws are more like suggestions IF that. The speed limits don’t apply, the dividing lines don’t apply, everyone is flying around each other into oncoming traffic and through red lights. We got to Amideast and our host families picked us up and brought us home. We got to the house and I met the two sons and three daughters and the host Mom. There was also another girl named Aya from the program who is living with us. We had dinner, then Aya, the oldest brother and I walked around Rabat. He took us to the beach , the medina and a bunch of other random places around the city and we walked for about 3 hours. We almost got robbed in the Medina but I saw the guy trying to unzip Aya’s bag.


July 4
Today was the first day of the program. We had our orientation which started at 9 am and I got to meet the other people in the group. There are only 10 of us, 9 girls and 1 guy. Three of them were here the 5 week session before this one so they know the drill already. They basically went over safety concerns (our biggest safety issues are the water, then the traffic, then harassment from men), rules of the program, schedules and then we took our placement tests and had our interviews. They took us out to lunch at a restaurant down the road so we could all bond and talk and then they told us our placements. I got put in Arabic 201 which is the first intermediate Arabic and then Moroccan dialect 102. After the orientation we went home, went to an internet café for a while and then chilled at the house. Our host mom feeds us probably about 10 times a day. HUGE portions. So of course I never finish it because I never eat that much and now she’s convinced I don’t like her cooking.


July 5
Today was the first day of classes. Class begins at 9. We have vocabulary from 9-10, a 10 minute tea break, grammar from 10:10 to 11, another 10 minute tea break, speaking and reading from 11:10-12:50. Then we have lunch from 12:50-2 and Moroccan dialect from 2-2:50. We were late to class because we decided to try the bus instead of taking a taxi. Apparently we missed the bus since they don’t have set times so by the time we decided to look for a taxi they were all gone and it took us about an hour to find one. After class they have a supervised study period from 3-5 which is optional but we all ended up staying. We left around 6 and did homework for literally another 5 hours.


July 7th
Yesterday we were late to class again. We decided to get out to the bus by 8 so we would guarantee making it to class on time. Lauren, Aya and I were walking to the bus stop when it passed us but we caught another bus at 8:20. We would have made it to class, except we didn’t know which bus stop we were supposed to get off on. We ended up outside the city walking back to our school which was about 20 minutes away walking. We ended up getting a taxi and finally made it. Class went smoothly; we had tons of homework again afterwards and an uneventful night. Today we had a half day because Wednesday’s schedule is quiz in the morning and then a cultural class until lunch. We had vocab and grammar instead of a quiz since it was the first week and then watched an Arabic movie. After class and finishing homework, Lauren and I went to a Hammam which is a bath house. Its basically three huge rooms which are differing levels of heat. We got masseuses since we didn’t know what to do and they put brown soap all over your body and scrub away the dead skin. You feel so clean afterwards. We went and watched the world cup game later at a café with most of the kids from school.


July 12th
Thursday was uneventful, we did nothing but class and homework.

Friday we had class and then at 4 we left for the train station to head to Fes for our weekend trip. We got to Fes around 7:30, checked into the hotel and decided to go eat. We walked around for a while and then found a little café to eat dinner at. We all got typical Moroccan dishes like couscous which came with vegetables and beef to put on top, chicken tagine which is basically roasted chicken in a stew with either lemons and vegetables or nuts and veggies and harira which is a tomato based soup with chick peas and vegetables and little tiny noodles in it. The food was delicious and we met this American kid from Seattle who was traveling through spain france and morocco by himself without knowing any of the languages. He sat and talked with us for a while and then we left and went to the grocery store. We got water and bananas and peanut butter for the morning and then all of us went to sleep.

Saturday: we woke up at 7 and met our tour guide at the train station at 8. She took us to the old Medina in Fes and gave us an amazing tour. She took us to a tannery where the guy showed us where they dye the skins and talked us through the process of turning a skin into leather merchandise. It was extremely interesting and cool to watch and then we were allowed to shop. A couple of the girls got awesome leather jackets and then wallets and belts and other miscellaneous leather items. We also got tours of the traditional garb places, a cloth shop and several other stores. She helped us bargain and pretty much reduced all the prices over 50 percent for us. She took us to eat lunch in an amazing little restaurant where you paid 100 Dh per two people and it included sample appetizers of about 15 dishes, a main course and dessert and tea. She got us a van back to the hotel and then the train station by asking this random guy walking by to take us for 50 dH. We got on a 2:30 train to Meknes where we met up with a taxi driver that the guy in our group had previously used. He and his friend drove us to Volubilis, ruins of an ancient roman city. It was about a 45 minute drive and he stopped a bunch of places along the way so we could take pictures. We spent about 2 hours walking around volubilis and the drivers waited for us. Then we went to Moulay Idriss which is the holiest city in Morocco. Apparently if you travel here 5 times it equals a pilgrimage to Mecca. We spent a little while walking around and then we headed back to Fes. We had planned to go out and club in Fes but we were all so exhausted when we got back that we just grabbed dinner and went to sleep.


Sunday: We had originally planned to go to Ifrane but we didn’t know what time the buses left from Meknes. We got up and caught an 8:50 train to Meknes where we found out the only bus was at 12:30. After a lot of debate over a two hour breakfast about whether to go spend a few hours in Ifrane or to just go back to Rabat we decided to make the most of it and go see what we could in Ifrane. We got to Ifrane after an insane bus ride (the driver was crazy and we had a few near death experiences passing cars) and met up with the two girls who had spent the weekend in Ifrane. They took us to a gorgeous park where we were just hanging out and exploring. A man with a horse walked up and was selling rides so of course we decided to do it. All of us rode for a little for only 30 dH (about 4 dollars). Then we went and found a waterfall that all the locals were swimming in and climbing so we hung out there. We decided to go back into the main part of town because three of the kids were leaving to go watch the world cup in Meknes and while we were waiting for the taxi these two little kids let us ride their donkeys. We got back to the city, the three of them left and the rest of us walked around for a while more. We got dinner at a local café and then headed back to take a taxi back to Meknes. In morocco they have two options for taxis. A petite taxi which takes 3 passengers and you pay by meter or a grand taxi. A grand taxi has 6 seats and it fills every seat with random people or you can buy the entire taxi out for a fixed price. We had 6 people so we took one of those back to Meknes. It was almost an hour drive and he charged us 150 dH. SO CHEAP. We watched a little bit of the world cup in Meknes with the others then took the train back to Rabat at 9:30. We got back to Rabat around 11:50 and came home, showered and passed out.