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.