Carbonara and Camel

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

How does one spend the such an American holiday in Africa? With camel burgers of course! My weekend went as follows:

Friday, we rented an apartment in Ifrane so we could have a mixed-gender cooking secession with... wait for it... BACON! Our wonderful friend Felix from Germany went home last weekend and brought back a suitcase full of "haram" or forbidden substances, including bacon and "Quality Bavarian Beer". -According to him the only good beer comes from Bavaria... I told him I'd have to taste more to confirm this rumor. My lovely and talented Italian friends Alice and Sophia whipped us up an AMAZING carbonara, and showed me how to make it. It was exquisite.

The entrance to the labyrinth that is the Fez Medina- Parts of this city are over 1,000 years old.

 Awhile ago our Moroccan friend Nour heard about our camel burger experience and was highly disappointed in our selection of resturant. "That isn't how you really eat camel in Morocco, that is where the tourists eat" -In his defense, our former selection of camel-burger restaurant WAS owned by a British guy, and there wasn't a single Moroccan in sight. I stand by how tasty that first burger was though. Saturday morning we headed out to Fez for some real Camel. The place turned out to be not far past the gates of the medina, not hard to spot if you looked for the right sign (see photo-yes that is a real camel head). Next to the sign was a little stall serving only camel meat- to make a sandwich you had to get the bread from across the road.

 Twenty dirhams later I was eating an authentic camel sandwich.  It was made of ground pieces of meat and larger chunks mixed together with some sort of ketchup-like sauce. I wouldn't say I'd like a steady diet of it, but it wasn't too shabby. I washed it down with some mint tea and these weird berry things. They were tart like a raspberry but kind of crunchy on the outside and sweet on the inside.. When I asked our friend what they were, he said he didn't think they had a name in English.. Oh well, they were tasty! 

We also did some shopping, where I managed to buy five scarves, various cheap but pretty pieces of jewelry, and a couple of christmas presents for the guys in Sweden. We spent most of our time trying to complete our Spice Girls Halloween costumes, but with sadly no success. -The costume total would have been about $50 for each of us, and none of us were willing to spend that. On the way home we did some serious brainstorming and all managed to come up with something- As the new owner of five beautiful scarves, I took the obvious route of gypsy, the ultimate last minute Halloween costume. We played apples to apples (why do the non-native speakers always win!?!?) and chilled until the club opened at midnight. Our group danced the night away and woke up extremely late the next morning. Not a bad Halloween weekend all in all.
Tonight is the big night for goblins and ghouls, and there are a couple of parties going on. But sadly, I am dressing up as someone who has a serious head cold and has been laying in bed all day. Damn you Halloween cold! I'll be drinking lots of fluids and watching Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride to finish the day off... And Facebook stalking everyone's Halloween costumes from back home. :D
When you live abroad it's funny how holidays that were such a big deal at home don't matter where you are. No trick-or-treating, no reeses peanut butter cups... (sad face). Wait, then I remind myself that instead of having reeses and the RMC costume ball, I'm having camel burger and mysterious berries. I really am having a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Next week I'll be in the desert, riding camels through the sand dunes and watching the goings-on of Eid al-Adha celebrations in Merrkesh. It is a strange, strange life. More later!

On my mind....

A book I'm reading about Egypt mentioned the song "Fabulous Places" from Dr. Dolittle (from the '60s- the original and the BEST!) I loved this movie as a kid, and haven't thought about it in years. I wish I could find the film clip, but you'll just have to watch the movie to get the full effect... I'm going to try to stream it tomorrow for nostalgic reasons. For now I'm going to post the song and hope some of you are inspired. Love it! 

Rain Rain Rain!

So this is the view out my window.. and it has been pretty much the same since Sunday. Doesn't exactly make me want to go outside and go to class.... 

An Odyssey in Assilah

    Well, in the great blog catch up, I had to leave myself a large block of time to talk about what is possibly my most epic adventure to date. In a bout of post-midterm stress, a large group of us decided that a trip to the beach was just what we needed to relax- with the beach only a four hour, fifteen dollar train trip away, this seemed like quite the plan.
      We left the pouring rain of Ifrane at 4:30pm on Friday to catch the train in the nearby town of Meknes, and we arrived in Meknes just in time to see the train pull out of the station. With the next train not until nearly 11am the next day, we weighed our options- and found that options are much better weighed while drinking fresh squeezed OJ.

Yum- and costs about $1

    We decided taking the bus to Tangier, a large city 1 hour from the beach we wanted to go, to was the best option. The bus was scheduled to leave at 10pm, but in typical Moroccan fashion left around midnight.   We arrived to Tangier at around 5am, without sleep and still 1 hour from our destination. With no place open and nowhere to go, we killed some time on the beach of Tangier- rough, I know. We watched the sunrise, an amazing lighting storm in the far distance, and swam in the ocean. So, my Saturday morning started something like this:

  We left the beach for the breakfast, and has happens frequently in Morocco, found a friend to take us to a cafe. -Side note on this- I have made a point to travel with at least one person fluent in Arabic, and therefore always seem to find a random native willing to help. Welcome to Moroccan hospitality. Our friend found us an excellent cafe with tasty omelet sandwiches- additional side note- if it seems like I talk about the food here a lot, its 'cause its awesome. During breakfast, we made friends with this little guy:

and, as a bit of a downer, saw a homeless man drama play out across the street. (A man sleeping in the street had his things stolen by another man- chaos ensued, while men in suits drove by in BMWs). Stray cats and homeless men, surrounded by natural beauty and 1st world wealth- what a country. 

  By then our four hour journey was pushing 15 hours, and we still had not arrived. Turns out our new friend had a friend.. and after a bit of bargaining, we found a ride to Assilah- via fruit delivery truck! Ready for the adventure, the eight of us piled in- after two of our boys helped them finish their deliveries.. and pictures were taken. 

The Crew!

Are we surrrrre about this???

Ride in fruit delivery car- crossed off the bucket list. All in all, what started out as a short train ride turned into an adventure. We finally arrived in Assilah, and by talking to another "friend" managed to find an apartment for the night. Cockroaches and used diapers in the kitchen aside, it only cost about 42 dirhams, or six dollars for each of us. We met up with the half of the group that HAD made the train, and booked our ride to the beach. True to the theme of unusual modes of travel, we found the following to get us to the beach: 

Giddy-up!

They took us to a place called Paradise beach and the name did not let us down. Not only was it beautiful, I counted five other people the whole time we were there. I also got to ride one of the carriage horses bareback.. and may have showed off my "Montana" by galloping around like a wild woman, laughing like a idiot, and giving my friends some unsolicited equitation tips. :D 

I feel captions would be inadequate for the above pictures. We left the beach at sundown, took another wild carriage ride- this one involving a near-hit with cars on the road. Luckily the car managed to squeal the breaks and go into the ditch. The night was spent with a rather chill enjoyment of the group, the consumption of low-quality wine and beer, and a wonderful sing-along to Old Crow Medicine Show's Wagon Wheel. To me, and apparently to several other of the Americans in the group, nothing says a bit of home like some Old Crow. Hellva night. 

We managed to explore parts of the medina in the morning, and catch our 11am train. Sadly, no fruit cars or carriages were to be found, only trains and grand taxis back to our "real" life. 

The mural on the wall actually has Arabic poetry on it- Amazing!

The beach lookout- nearby there was a man with a monkey, and woman in a traditional jellaba, and a sweets seller

This trip was one of the most amazing I'd ever been on- the places, the people, the shenanigans. Future trips on the docket include camels in the desert, possibly a Bob Dylan concert in London, and my winter break Eurotrek. Check back soon for more details! 

Time to catch up!

      So blogging hasn't happened in awhile for a couple reasons: 1) a broken computer, which was the source of MUCH panic-turns out there isn't a single place in North Africa that fixes macs. Lucky I have smart friends. and 2) midterms. Turns out that the STUDY part of "studying abroad" is an actual thing. Who knew? But I still have two major adventures to talk about, and some minor details. Are we ready? If you're still reading I'll take that as a yes.

    Two weeks ago my Moroccan friend Nour invited a group of us to his home in Casablanca. He let the six of us stay in his house (which was beautiful!) and his mother cooked two of the best meals I have eaten in Morocco. Both of them were eaten Moroccan style, where a large plate is placed in the center and everyone eats from it.

I didn't get a picture of the DELICIOUS couscous, but it was also Nour's mother's birthday, and this was her cake

 Typical Moroccan houses and cool for two reasons: couches are an essential piece of furniture no matter where you go. They line the walls of all living areas, making it easy just lounge around. They also are built vertically: each successive staircase led to a larger room, with the kitchen on the ground floor and the living room/balcony on the top. As I learned in Islamic Architecture class, they are "inward looking" usually surrounded by high walls that block the view of anyone standing on the street. It was so great to stay in a real house and eat a real home cooked meal, two things that dorm life sorely lacks.
    Casablanca itself was pretty great as well, we went to the Hassan II mosque, the largest in the world, and the only mosque in Morocco open to non-muslims. The sheer size was overwhelming, the decorations elaborate, and since I'm taking the aformentioned Islamic Architecture class, it was interesting to see what I had been learning about in real life. We also go to shop eat "real stores" (aka European stores with fixed prices and name brands) and eat Sushi for lunch, two things that are hard to get in Morocco.

Me and the worlds tallest minaret

      It was also interesting to see the city that I spent my first night in Morocco in. My first day here was just so overstimulating, I could now take a step back and not be so overwhelmed. I'd call that points for cultural adaptation.

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Early on in this adventure I wrote about my desire to be the “Foreign Kid”.  Coming to Morocco, I feel I have more than accomplished that goal, so here are 10 Things I learned being a foreigner:

10.) Toilet paper is a privilege, not a right. Consider this when traveling.

9.) Simple things, such as placing an order in a foreign tongue can feel like huge accomplishments.

8.) Laugher is an excellent cure for almost all of your accidental faux pas.

7.) People will stare. And catcall. And generally be annoying. Refuse to look at them or acknowledge them in any way.

6.) Eating weird food makes for great stories. (See previous entries about the snails, cow brains, and various "Fear Factor" consumptions)

5.) Don’t be afraid to travel alone (unless you’re a woman traveling in places where that is outlawed-but then you have a whole different set of issues).

4.) Don’t be afraid to ask people for help. 99% of the time they are happy to help you. Even if they don’t speak your language.

3.) Moving somewhere doesn’t equal instantly becoming fluent in the native language. There is someone who has lived here for 15 years and still speaks very little Arabic. You only learn if you are willing to work at it. However, see number 9.

2.) You will miss home. Even if you think you are immune to homesickness. (Many of you have heard my progression through the "culture shock curve"). But you will eventually realize how lucky you are that you have the chance to miss those things, and that they are worth missing.

1.) Enjoy it. Time is already flying by. 

Thought I'd share this....

STUDY BREAK! I've been going steady on the studying for quite some time, so I thought I'd post a photo... Remember the story about the monkeys in Merrakech?? 

That look on my face really means... OMG THERE ARE MONKEYS ON ME GET THEM OFFFFFF!!!!

The Blue City

Imagine taking a long drive though unfamiliar territory, only to arrive at your destination to find yourself dropped directly into Dr. Seuss book.

The town was blue

From end to end

The walls, the streets

Azul was the trend

The buildings were tilted

Steep on their side

Since it was built

Where Mountains Collide

The people seemed happy

Children played in the square

Men lounged around

Watching football in their chairs

Dr. Suess land it was

Of that I am sure

Because it doesn’t seem real

This great Moroccan tour

Alright- enough of my poor attempts at poetry- the point is that Chefchaouen was amazing in a way that is unreal. We spent most of Saturday hiking to the waterfall and Sunday exploring the medina. It was great that I got to hike two weekends in a row- another reminder of how much the outdoors makes me happy. In the city the colors were so vivid, and the atmosphere kind of slow and laid back. These last to weekends of exploration have been unreal. Here it is in photo form! 

More Photos!

This weekend I went to Chefchaouen- the blue city. But more on that later, for now I'll just put up more pictures from Jebel Toubkal- Thank you Felix Lechner for taking them! 

My Summit Photo!

Our Sherpas- :D

Refuge Toubkal