Talkin' Fashion

Hijab /hijab/

Noun:

1) A head covering worn in public by some Muslim women

2) A religious code the governs the wearing of such clothing

My friend recently began to wear the Hijab. It was an extremely personal decision, one that she put much thought and prayer into. Talking to her about her choice, I was confronted with the many misconceptions people have about the veil. So on this lovely Friday afternoon, I will blog the following:

Myths about the Hijab:

It is forced upon women.

            Never, not once, have I met a hijabed women who said her parents/father forced her to wear the veil. I have talked to Kamal, the father of a nine-year-old girl. He stated he would never force his daughter to veil. He was much more concerned with her upbringing than with what she would wear on her head.

The only way to wear the veil is the “traditional” way.

            Here there is a girl here who wears not a scarf, but a beanie cap that she put all her hair into. It is her form of Hijab. My friend I mentioned earlier wears it with her bangs showing.

Wearing a Hijab doesn’t mean a woman is always conservative.

            Just as a girls purity ring doesn’t mean she will save sex until marriage, hijab doesn’t always equal “purity”. My roommate and I were discussing girls that wear Hijab, tight pants and cleavage-bearing tops. I have witnessed girls in Hijbas drinking in clubs.

A Hijab in not a Burka.

            The Hijab is simply the scarf. Although in Morocco you do see women fully covered, with only their eyes showing, that is not technically a hijab. It is much more common to see them with the scarf and conservative western-style clothes, or a scarf and a Jellba.

Ultimately to veil is a personal choice, and really gets far more attention than it deserves. People don't debate about a Christians right to wear a cross or rosemary around their neck. Why should the Hijab be different? For more myths and funny stuff you can watch this video. This girl is adorable and hilarious. 

(almost) Everything I love about America

Homemade Salsa, Ranch Dressing, Burts Bees Chapstick, Alka-Seltzer Cold Plus, The Clintons... 

Thank you to my family!!! I miss you all, and your support means the world to me. 

Lessons of Travel

“…But I must freely confess, that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds placed in opposite view in human corruptions, had so far opened mine eyes, and enlarged my understanding…”

            -Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift

Just like Gulliver, I have been on a journey. I have yet to encounter Yahoos, Laputa, or the people of Lilliput, but I have changed my perception of the world. Traveling has transformed how I think about life, and how I view myself. I have complied a (partial) list of things I’ve learned while traveling.

Accept kindness from strangers… With caution of course. In Rome, if it hadn’t been for that guy who claimed to work in “Hard film” I might never have found my hostel. If it hadn’t been for the old man in Sweden who loaned me his phone, I may have waited at the train station for hours. These little kindnesses are huge parts of my travels.

  

   Check your pockets. Make sure you have everything. Keep track of your stuff. This is obvious, but becomes more so when your only access to food, water, and shelter is contained on your person. Traveling gives you a new appreciation for your funds, even if sometimes you are living only on bread and cheese.

   

        Some of the best sites are not in any guidebook. My favorite place in Berlin? A café. My favorite place in Prague? A random street with a perfect view of the Prague Castle. I’ve found the importance of viewing the day-to-day life, and observing the everyday surroundings.  The way people dress, their language, their interactions with each other oftentimes fascinate me far more than “Lots of old stuff’.

       Budget. Then pad your budget. Had it not been for my “backup” funds, (thanks mom!) I would have been in several less-than-desirable situations. I did manage, for the most part, to keep within my budget however.

     

      Trying to learn some words, especially “please” and “thank you” is a good way to meet people,. It’s fun to be able to stay “Tack!” in Sweden or “Danke sehr” in Germany. The well-known “Pog Mo Thoin” (kiss my ass) in Ireland was slightly less useful, but good to know.

       It’s ok to enjoy your own company. In Europe I traveled both alone and with people. Both were great in their own ways, but I met far more people when I was alone. And if I got tired of those people, I had no obligation to hang around them.

I feel these adventures have given me a new appreciation for where I come from and the people around me. I’ve gained a better idea of who I am, and of human nature in general. That’s all for now... Check back soon for weekend photos! 

Friendship

If the phone rang, and you knew it was a good friend. And you knew that friend had done something very, very bad, let's say killed someone. Would you pick up the phone, knowing that it could potentially harm your life forever?
(DISCLAIMER: this is a hypothetical situation. No one is dead.)

I just had the most fabulous chat with a good friend. We made pasta and watched about 5 minutes of Grey's Anatomy (until someone got into a life-threating accident because there was a car-sized hole in the street. Seriously people?).  Then we just chatted. About life, about our friends, about politics, about religion. We laughed at stupid stuff, worried about things we can't change, and compared wardrobes. It was just a thursday night, nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. But as I walked back to my room through the snow, I realized it WAS something special.

Out of my "casual" friends back home, I feel I have lost many of them in the past few months. People who don't bother to check in, who didn't wish me a Happy Birthday. Living here, I've realized those people are not the ones that matter in my life. They've floated in and out and barely been missed.

But there are a few people who have stuck. Those are the people that, even though they life an ocean away, still matter to me. They leave me messages saying things like "Only the bottled water" and "Go on a safari!".  Those are people that I saw this winter and it was like nothing had changed. Those are people that I haven't seen in ages, and I know that it won't. They keep me updated on their lives, and I genuinely want to know how they are doing. Even though they cannot entirely relate to all the craziness that has gone on in my life in the last six months, they care about it. They care about me. Moving abroad showed me who those people are.

And then there are people I have met here: people from all over the world, people whose lives and backgrounds could not have been different from my own. An Air Force Cadet who is like a prettier version of GI jane, a hippy from Alaska, an All-American/All-Moroccan girl raised in Florida. A Boise State fan from Casablanca, my sweet, ambitious, belly-dancing roommate, my Italian girls who always made sure I told them I was ok. They have changed my life in the smallest ways, and opened my mind to completely new ways of thinking. Moving here showed me how much those people have to offer me, and how many of those people the world has to offer.

Friendship isn't about where you grow up, what color you are, or even what language you speak. It's about knowing who you would pick up that phone for. I've gotten a much better idea of who I would pick up that phone call for. And I would tell them that we will put the body in the pig-pen.

Goals for the new semester!

When I posted my goals for last semester, I was having a bit of a rough patch in my study abroad experience. Coming here has changed my perception of the world and fueled an immense amount of personal growth. However, those changes did not come easily. Many of my goals last semester were about simply adapting and adjusting myself to this completely new environment.

Now it is a new semester, and time to clear out those old goals to make way for new ones. A few of them are goals I didn't accomplish last semester, and some of them are a bit more personal than last semesters'. Here are the ones that are relevant to this blog:

- Ride a camel! Seems simple, but I feel that leaving this country without having been camel-trekking in the desert would be a fail on my part.

-Learn to cook a Tajine. I have several people who have requested a traditional Moroccan cooking experience when I get back. I cannot disappoint.

-Take a piano lesson or learn to play guitar. I'm headed to the guitar club meeting this week!

- Study Arabic at least 6 hours every week. Although I scraped a "B" last semester, I know with more disciplined practice I will be that much closer to communicating confidently with others in the language. 


-Volunteer at least 10 hours per month. Something I really missed last semester was volunteering, and I feel since I have had the opportunity to travel to this beautiful country, I need to give something back to the people who live here. There is a school organization that will help me with this.   

-Take advantage of the pool! If I'm going to try another triathlon this summer, I need to swim while I have this big, beautiful pool to practice in. I plan on swimming twice a week.

-Make arrangements for going home. This includes getting summer housing, applying for an RA position at RMC, and getting financial aid. On other levels, I need to prepare myself to re-intergrate to a culture I have been away from for almost ten months. I need to prepare myself for the reverse culture shock that will come from living where everything is available whenever you want it.

Yes.. It snows in Morocco

Fun Fact. The coldest temperature EVER recorded in Africa was a in 1935: -11 degrees Fahrenheit. The location of this record? Ifrane, Morocco. But hey, still warmer than Montana... 

The Best (and worst) of Europe

Travel articles (which I read frequently) are always rating things as “Best” and “Worst”. I figured since I spent 4 weeks in 8 different countries, I should be able to do the same. Therefore, here is my highly biased and incomplete Best and Worst of Europe.

Biggest Tourist Trap:

Prague, Czech

Everywhere you go that tourists frequent there will be people selling things, people dressed in costumes, and souvenir shops selling “I heart this city” T-shirts. It goes with this thing called “Sightseeing” that everyone feels like is the ultimate point of traveling (more on that later). But in Prague this crap was literally EVERYWHERE. The historic “Old Town” was full of crummy over-priced restaurants, street hawkers, and stores selling junk. The same at the Prague Castle. I felt there was simply not enough stuff there to justify the quantity of tourist crap. 

Best “Must See”:

            The Coliseum

This is defiantly biased on my part, because the Coliseum was the first real “Europe” sight I saw on my trip. When I woke up my first day in Rome, I had a map and simply thought, “Oh, that’ll be cool”. I wasn’t prepared to simply walk off the metro stop and BE THERE. There were tons of tourists and guides dressed in tacky gladiator costumes. I skipped all that and romped around solo, gazing at the shear size and splendor of a building over 2,000 years old.

Biggest Disappointment:

Eiffel Tower

Again, extremely biased on this one. When I arrived in Paris on the last day of the Euro trek, I was exhausted, grumpy, and due to a missed flight, had been traveling for about 30 hours. I went there because I felt obligated too, but I was still excited. I’ve always loved pictures of the Tower in movies and book, and there seemed to be a bit of Romance about it. But really, I got no feeling of splendor, only some annoying men who thought it was ok to harass me.

Best Meal:

????

Really, how do you choose something like this? I have discovered that eating out in a new city by yourself can be intimidating: things are either too touristy, too expensive, or un-authentic. Or sometimes all three. Therefore, almost all my “top meals” occurred with friends. Some that come to mind are Swedish Meatballs at Christmas, Snacking at the Berlin Christmas market, a Russian dish in Berlin, and homemade Apple Strudel in Austria. I also discovered an amazing all-organic restaurant in Dublin, which was so good I went there twice.

Easiest Place to Live:

Dublin

Hands down, I could move there in a heartbeat. People are super-friendly, the pubs are awesome, the public transportation system decent. At just over 1 million people, it is a busy city with a small town feel, and the beautiful countryside is easily accessible. Who wants to pay my grad school tuition to Trinity College? J 

Best Party:

Berlin

A bit unfair, since I was there on New Years. But there is just something in the culture there that encourages a wilder lifestyle. The trains never stop running at night, and open containers are not prohibited, but culturally encouraged. There is something about a place that was under such tight control and is now free that gives it the feeling of real freedom. However, I would need tattoos and several more facial piercings to fit in with the “mainstream” crowd.

Easiest Place to Ask for Directions:

Sweden

EVERYONE speaks English. Beautifully.

Best place to run from the law:

Prague, Czech

See my previous entry about my nefarious American expat acquaintance. You could easily get away with moving there illegally. Not that I recommend it.  

Best New Discovery:

            Free Tours!

A company called New Europe provides tours on a tips-only basis. I took one in Berlin, in Prague, and in Dublin and was never disappointed. It provides a great way to explore a city and find new places to go back later on your own. Most of the places I found that I loved (bookstores and cafes mostly) were because of the free tour.