End of the Semester, OR Epic Travel Fail

So my first semester in Morocco ended pretty well. The first Saturday in December we went to Fes again and people finished up their souvenir shopping. Then we went to Kai Tai again, yum. At some point before I leave Morocco for good, I will acquire a camel burger and something with pigeon in it. Possibly rabbit as well, but you can get rabbit elsewhere so that's not too high on my list.

Following that weekend was the last week of classes. It was lame because everyone was working on papers or studying for exams or doing dumb clearly unimportant things related to school. Nothing major happened that week or the following week. Wednesday of finals week I decided to be awesome and pull an all-nighter when I had no real reason to. Sure, we were leaving for Egypt on Thursday and I hadn't finished packing yet, but hey. That night I did put the finishing touches on a paper I had to turn in before I left; finish a scholarship application; clean my room; put away laundry; and start packing. My roommate came back around 5am and went to bed, so I took my computer and went down to the lobby of my building and watched TV for two hours. Went back up, got ready, got breakfast, went to Lily's thesis defense at 9am. And by 9am I mean everyone was there except for one important guy so it started at like, 930? 940? Some ridiculously late time that we all half-expected, I'm sure, but you can't take the chance and show up late to something like that. Lily did well and graducated. Yay. So I went and finished packing. Got lunch. Was sad. Went to Casablanca to fly away. Woo.

For the semester I pulled 4 A's and a B. Am a little disappointed by the B, but the final exam was 35% of the final grade, so I'm guessing even though I think I did fairly well, it wasn't well enough because of the crazy weight of the exam. Oh well.

So about that Egypt trip. We left AUI half an hour later than we were supposed to. Took a 4-hour cab ride to Casablanca. Sat in the airport for 3.5 hours. Didn't sleep a whole lot. Got to Cairo at like 630am Cairo time/ 430am Morocco time. My debit card decided not to work in the airport at any of the three ATMs I tried. Two friends of Mia's friend picked us up. (I think. I was never clear on the relationship.) We drove around trying to find a cheap hostel to stay at because due to even more epic lack of communication, we found out Tuesday that we couldn't stay at the apartment we were supposed to stay at. (We left on Thursday.) Wound up going to a hotel that was $80 (yes, US dollars) per night and totally not worth half that, even though we'd passed other cheaper hotels. Found out my credit card wasn't working either (though neither was Mia's, so I think it was the hotel's card reader. Luckily we had cash to cover the hotel room). Drove around more and got food. Went back to the hotel, sorted out my bank things, and called Mom while the other two girls napped. I'd intended on sticking it out a week to see if it got any better, but while on the phone I decided I was just done with everything and was going to come home. Epic frustration from many directions and mounting tension just killed whatever enthusiasm I'd had for the trip. The only thing I regret about leaving (other than the epic pricetag) is the fact that I was in Egypt and didn't see anything worth nothing. I'm not worried because I'm quite sure I'll be back, whether as a tourist or for my job in the future. It's just lame knowing I went, but spent 22 of my 28 hours there in the airport.

'Bout that. There were two indirect flights leaving that evening that I wanted to try to get on, but I couldn't find the sales offices for the airlines in question in the crazy setup of the airport and it was too close to departure time to buy them online. Mom wound up booking me a flight that left at 10am the next day. I'd gotten to the airport around 130pm. Commence epic spending the night in the airport again. There was no hassle or anything, just a lot of boredom. 12-hour flight to JFK the next day. Get through customs with 2 hours til my flight to Boston, only to find out that every. single. flight. has been cancelled. But I'd been rebooked on a flight 26 hours later. Great, another night in another airport. I was okay with it, but I was talking to other people in the terminal and it seemed that everyone, no matter where they were going, was stuck until Tuesday or Wednesday at the very earliest. So naturally I started doubted whether or not I'd really be flying on Sunday. Called Amtrak; they were delayed but still running. Took a 45-minute ride on the NYC subway to Penn Station. Got a ticket on a train to Boston literally 5 minutes before it pulled in. (Thanks to the two people in front of me who let me cut them in the epic line.) Finally got to Boston at 130 am Sunday, having left Ifrane at 930am EST Thursday. Fail? Fail. (Turns out that flight from JFK did actually fly. But I was home by then so it was a moot point.)

I have mixed feelings about being home. I was really excited for Egypt initially, but as it got closer to go time it just got more and more frustrating as things started falling apart. So I'm disappointed about that not working out. Also disappointed because in retrospect I think I'd have been okay staying in Morocco alone. Or I could have talked to other people about it, because I know at least two other people didn't go home over break. It's not that I don't enjoy being home, but this wasn't the plan so I'm not really happy about it. I did realize that it's a good thing, though. I needed a break. Not so much a change of scenery, but a break from the people. At VCU I at least get to come home once a semester, either for Thanksgiving or spring break, and get away from everyone there. Not so much at AUI, where it's so small you see the same people pretty much every day, and of course I hung out with all the same people, and there's nowhere to escape up there because we're on the top of a mountain. Yeah.

So there's the end of my year. Hopefully this coming year includes just as many, if not more, epic happenings. But maybe fewer weird injuries. But now I'm 2 for 2 in getting hurt while studying abroad, so I almost feel like it will be a letdown if nothing happens this semester. We'll see. =)

In Which I Am Even More of a Nerd

O hai, tattoo. Sorry about the failure quality, but when I uploaded them any bigger Blogger freaked out and distorted them. Also it may look a little rough because I took them the day I got it. (June 19 woot woot)

This little piece of nerd-dom came out of my French lit book last fall at VCU. I don't remember what the context was but I remember looking at it and going, "Wow." I wrote it in my notebook and forgot about it, and then would randomly turn back to that page and be all "Oh hey, I like this!" Pretty soon it just stuck with me. And I felt nerdy for liking it, but I think it's true.

So I'd been contemplating a tattoo for a long time but never been able to figure out what I wanted or where, and I wasn't going to be one of those people who gets a butterfly or a heart or something girly for the sake of just having a tattoo. I was sitting in my room in France one day doing something entirely unrelated to anything (probably playing games on Facebook) when suddenly I thought of this and was like "YES." Thus plans were made with the BFF to go get myself permanently scarred. Obviously it worked out. The one hangup was that I originally wanted it on my left wrist instead of my ankle. That wrist happens to be the one I sprained and was bothering me at the time, so I decided against it in case I was going to have to wear a brace or do something that would have irritated or ruined the tattoo.

Literally, it means "To translate is to betray." Moroccans here have said "Translation is treason." While more poetic, this is technically not right because trahir and traduire are verbs. (Nerd much?) The latter phrase was in a book (in English) that Liz was reading by some Japanese guy, I think? And the French phrase itself is taken from Italian ("traduttore traditore").

I know it doesn't make sense to a lot of people. But I like it, even though it's hard to me to articulate why. For one thing it's ironic because to me it sounds awesome in French, but when you translate it in English it just sounds stupid and no one understands. Beyond that, translating things and really preserving their meaning can be hard. I don't claim to be super awesome at it, but I've translated two musicals into English for Meghan and on many occasions I hit a wall where I knew perfectly well what the meaning was in French but couldn't put it into coherent English to save my life. That is an extremely frustrating feeling. But because of this it reminds me I need to get better at French because if I have to translate something I can at least try to make it as close as possible. It also reminds me why I want to learn so many other languages: instead of relying on other people to tell me what's going on, I want to know for myself. And if a bad translation has to be made, I'd rather I do it on my own and have no one else to blame. I don't know if this makes sense anywhere outside of my own head, but this is the rationale. So this isn't just a stupid frivolous tattoo. It means something, if only to me. And I'm okay with that.

If you're still confused, I like this person's answer (in French) on Yahoo! Answers. Enjoy.

And Now for Something Completely Different

I've been thinking about this since I was in France last semester: being an Anglophone is made of a little bit of fail. On one hand, sure, it's great, because English is the new international language and everyone else wants to learn it. On the other hand, what reason is there then to learn other languages? Why should we bother? When I was at the Boren Convocation in June a girl who was going to China was telling us that on her flight to DC she was talking to the man sitting next to her and he pretty much asked the same question. Why did she want to learn Chinese? She already speaks English. It should be up to everyone else to learn English; it's not our problem to learn their language. Of course the rest of us were like, "Um, WUT."

Things like this make me sad. It also makes me sad that in the US we don't care about learning languages in schools. If you're lucky you take 2-3 years in high school, maybe a year or two in college depending on your high school grades, and that's it. You're done. And unless you're something special, 2-3 years of a language is just not worth it. You can't really communicate or do anything. I started French ten years ago but I wouldn't call myself fluent yet. (Granted it's pretty much on me to get there on my own now because there's not a whole lot left I can learn in classes, but still.) I'm not saying it takes that long to be proficient in any language, but if all you're doing is taking classes in school you're not going to get anywhere.

When I was in France there were a bunch of Europeans studying there as well. They all spoke their native language, obviously, as well as English and French to varying degrees. But they were learning two foreign languages, and they were practicing them both at the same time because we all spoke to each other in English. This is where I feel like it's a disadvantage to be an Anglophone. Everyone learns English so what is there left for us to learn?

There's also the fact that Americans are stereotyped as not knowing other languages and not travelling and whatever. Both in France and here I've had people ask me if I'm French because of the way I speak. When I say no, they go for British, probably because I'm white. When I say American, I've actually been told that no, I can't be American, because Americans don't speak French, don't go to other countries, don't study in other countries especially, etc. The study abroad coordinator guy at Savoie was British and when I said I was going to Morocco even he was like "Really? But Americans don't go to Morocco." Yeah, I got that. Thanks. And of course when I went to Turkey with Carolyn people flipped out that an American was speaking Turkish to them.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm wired differently and there's something weird about me. I mean, I know there is because I know I understand languages really well and all that, so I'm sure that influences the fact that I want to learn more. But I hate going to another country and not understanding what's going on. It's so frustrating to think that with more time and more pratice I could understand, but I don't really have the time. I wish I'd started learning languages earlier, or that at least when I was younger I would have actually used the teach-yourself-Spanish things I had. (But when you're 7 you don't really think about these things.) When I was younger I did decide that I wanted to be fluent in every language ever. I later dismissed that becuase it was stupid and would never happen. Now I'm thinking it's not as unrealistic as I thought it was. Of course I won't be fluent in every language, but I'd settle for proficiency in a handful of them. Mainly these ones:

*Arabic
*Spanish
*Japanese
*German
*Gaelic
*Hebrew
*Portuguese
*Russian
*something from Eastern Europe
*Mandarin

Not necessarily in that order, but something like it. Not that Gaelic is any kind of useful for anything and Hebrew is kind of limited, but yeah. One day I will be awesome and surprise the heck out of people I meet because I can speak multiple languages very well. إن شاء الله

Just kidding.

Due to lack of communication and a little miscommunication, we didn't actually go anywhere for this break. Awesome sauce. On the upside, I get to do all my homework. Oh wait, that's not really an upside is it? Meh. Time to make more coffee.

ETA: I found warm fuzzy slipper socks in my drawer. This is a fantastic development. I is a fuzzy kitty.

There Will Be Blood

Hopefully, anyway.

This coming weekend is Eid al-Adha, the biggest holiday of the year. [Educate yourselves.] We have Thursday-Monday off. Whee. I've been told that blood runs through the streets when they kill the sheep. However, when I asked my roommate about it she said she's never seen that, and that people usually do it on the roof of their house. I'm hoping that if we stay in a medina or something somewhere we'll get to see it.

The plan as of right now is to spend a night in Marrakech and then a few nights in Essaouira. Maybe Agadir as well? We should probably nail this down considering it's a huge holiday and whatever. Ah, well. We're in Morocco. We're polychronic. We'll figure it out.

In other news, have some photos of Ifrane. The first chunk is campus. The last 4 are at the souk, which is pretty much a huge market. That has everything. Yes, even the kitchen sink. The picture of the park is a playground just built by the National Initiative for Human Development. Hence the title about developing humans. We're punny.

Now that I've spent two hours writing three posts and uploading an obscene number of photos and completely ignoring my homework... it's bedtime! Whee!

24 days til Egypt. 24 days til everyone leaves. Sad kitten is sad.

Welcome to Morocco, Land of the Flying Fences.

Last Saturday (the 14th) was a World Cup qualifying match between Morocco and Cameroon. Guess who went? Oh yeah. Took a grand taxi to Fes with Andrew, Ben, Ally, and Annemarie Saturday morning to watch the game.

But first, we passed a Japanese tour bus in Ifrane. Ben was really excited.

We were let off in the centre ville and walked to the medina. It wound up being something like half an hour. Which is nothing when you hiked 9 hours in two days the previous weekend. But that's beside the point.

So not too long after we leave the taxi station and as we're walking through downtown, we're crossing a street. Which is dangerous in and of itself. I decide it's safer to walk on the sidewalk than in the street. Usually a good idea. Not a good idea when said sidewalk consists of wet cement.

I laughed about it the entire day.

I stepped up onto the sidewalk, sank into it a little, put my other foot down like a fool, screeched, and jumped back into the street. Ally and I laughed for like a block and a half. I wish now that I'd taken a photo of my shoe prints. :( And for the record, the sidewalk was not roped off and there was no warning about the cement. I guess they expect you to watch where you're walking or something. (Something Moroccans don't usually do either, but that's beside the point.)

So we found the medina, finally. After walking by a construction site and learning they're putting a Carrefour in Fes! But not til like 2011, so it's dead to me. I miss Carrefour though. But I digress. Medina. We almost got run over by a few donkeys, mopeds, and dirt trucks. Went to a restaurant. Talked to Ally's friends there. =P Waiter man decided Andrew and Annemarie were married and that he and I were siblings. I'd say it's just because we're white, but Ben was not included in the family affair. Maybe Ben was just giving off "Don't mess with me, I'm Canadian" vibes at this point. Ally was off making new friends in the restaurant. There were a bunch of guys from Cameroon there getting lunch before the game too.

Oh god, I just lost The Game.

Moving on. Party over here:

Annemarie, Me, Ben, Ally, Andrew

Post-lunch (mmm, tajine!) we went souvenir shopping in the medina. I has a scarf. Ally is amazing at bargaining. Of course, after she argued with the scarf guy and got us 50 Dh scarves, we passed a stall maybe 10 feet away selling the same scarves for 20 Dh. Oh, life. I mean, it's a different of $4, but still. Wandered a little. Took turns leading and getting us lost. More souvenir shopping. Failed attempts at getting Morocco jerseys. Suddenly realized we had like an hour and a half before the game started, so we booked it out of the medina and got cabs to the stadium.

Petit taxis only take a max of three people. We had five. Clearly we had to split up. Andrew and I were the designated French speakers.

Ally: I call Cat!
Ben: I call Andrew!

...Smartest decision ever. Let's send the two boys (and Annemarie) together and me and Ally alone. This didn't really occur to anyone until Ally and I were dropped off on the other side of the stadium from everyone else. And were pretty much the only girls in sight. However, cell phones are amazing and we eventually found the others. Found out the ticket window was closed. Oops. Also found the only guy in the country who doesn't speak French. That one threw me off. But yeah. We didn't have tickets because you can't buy anything in this country online. The stadium was pretty far out of the city, so we didn't go beforehand. We figured we could buy them right before we went in because we didn't think many people would be going. Even if Morocco won they weren't going to the World Cup. We could have bought scalped tickets, but while Ally and I were wandering a soldier warned the others against buying from a scalper.

So there were fences up to keep the crowd out. At some point not long after the game started, the crowd starts rushing the fences and then they break through. So people take off running. And then run back, because the soliders are beating them back. Literally. And the cycle repeats. And then Ben joins the crowd. And tells us, "If I get arrested, it's my own fault. Don't worry about me!"

And he was never heard from again.

Okay that's a lie. But sounds more epic. He made it through. And not long after that we all got through, because they just let everyone go. Which Ben's roommate had said they would probably do in order to fill the stadium.

The game itself was actually kind of lame. It went by really quickly though. And really made me miss playing. Aww. I can't remember what the score was. It was either 2-0 or 3-0 Cameroon. Morocco did get a goal though. Some random guy got on the field carrying his own soccer ball and ran from Morocco's goal line all the way down to Cameroon's. He stopped in front of the goal and punted the ball into the net, then fell to the ground dramatically. The players and the refs just stood there and watched it happen. Cameroon's goalie wasn't even in the net. After that, while everyone was cheering, the police dragged the guy off the field and beat him. Yeah.

During the later part of the second half we made some new friends too. And by made friends I mean a bunch of young boys came over and started talking to us. Mostly in Arabic. Hey guys, let's go talk to the white people in Arabic! I'm sure they'll understand! They had a great time when they asked Ally in Arabic, "Do you speak Arabic?" and she said "La." (No.)
Then, in Arabic, "Do you speak French?"
"La."
Again in Arabic, "Do you speak English?"
"Oui."

...Well played, Ally. So they amused themselves for a good five minutes repeating that exchange. I should probably mention that in addition to being teenagers, maybe younger, (which makes them obnoxious by default), and in addition to being boys (which not only makes them more obnoxious but also means they have no respect for women), they had been huffing wood glue or something from a plastic bag. So these kids rose very quickly on the list of people I want to hurt. They had a great time babbling at us in Arabic. At some point they realized I speak French and one of them invited me to his house for couscous. And then tried to steal my sunglasses. Off my face. This country is so special.

Suddenly, when there are probably fewer than five minutes left in the game, everyone runs up to the top of the stands. Except for the confused foreigners. A soldier comes by and has us move down about ten rows. We found out later, via Ben, that the charging was to avoid getting hit by flying chairs. Because people just tear them up and throw them. Awesome. We didn't see any of this. We did see three soldiers chase someone and start beating him like three rows behind us.

So we left. And there's minor chaos going on outside. People are yelling and throwing things and running around. And there are a lot of these fences lying around from when the crowd rushed them earlier.



And people are flinging them around? Ally and I are trying to navigate our way out of the chaos before she has an anxiety attack. Andrew and Annemarie are a few feet behind us. There is metallic scraping all around us as fences are being dragged, pushed, and flung.

And OH HAI, one hits me in the leg. It was on its side, and the part that hit me was the foot of it. Right in the back of the knee. Initially I was just like "Okay wut? I got hit by a fence?" And we kept walking. Ben materialized out of nowhere. And we walked back to centre ville. Traffic was crazy and there was absolutely no way we were getting a taxi, at least not from the stadium. At some point I stopped and looked at my leg and was like "Oh hey, big angry red spot!" It was maybe six o'clock at this point. We were in search of a Japanese/Thai restaurant that some other exchange students had told us about. The first guy I asked about it looked at me funny and said it was about 5km (3.1 miles) away and that we should take a taxi. Hah. Again, the taxis were few and far between, and those that we saw were all full. So we kept walking. A lot. I asked maybe four more people where it was just to make sure we were going the right way. Yay, French.

Finally got back to centre ville. Passed the infamous wet cement sidewalk, but we couldn't find my shoe prints. There were a lot of others though. Got taxis to the restaurant. Which happens to be a semi-fancy-ish place. And we're all sweaty and gross. And my shoes have cement on them. Whee.



But oh my god the food. There are no words for how awesome this food was. I got sweet & sour something or other and I died a little when I tried it. It was actually a little sad, I think, how excited we all were over it. God it was so good though. As we were getting ready to leave another group of exchange students came in. We laughed. And then came back to Ifrane. Went out for a few drinks. Came back and got sandwiches at the cafe. Pretty much had an awesome day.

And then I took this picture.


Hahaha. I feel like I should be angry that I was hit by a fence. Or... something. I swear to god all I've done is laugh about it since it happened. And probably annoy people to death by going, "Guess what color it is today!" Although I think Mom's reaction was the best. I called her, told her to get on Skype, and then said, "Want to see something awesome?" To which she replied, "I'm afraid." [She reminded me this is pretty much how I announced my sprained wrist last semester too. I need to change my approach if I get another epic injury.]

Lastly, this photo is my leg on Monday.

None of that discoloration is birthmark. It's all bruise. I LOL'D.

Since then it's just gotten progressively yellower. Now it's yellow with a little purple around the edges. You can see where the leg of the thing hit me too. I kinda hope it scars, but I don't think it's going to anymore. Sad face. I know I'm twisted, but come on. That's an epic story. "You see this scar? Yeah, that's from when a fence attacked me. That's right. A fence."

Slideshow!

One Does Not Simply WALK into Mordor...

...One hikes there.

So Friday night, November 6th, we left campus at midnight to drive 5 hours (ish) to Chefchaouen. "We" being, me, Andrew, Ben, another American, and 11 Moroccans. The Explorers Club organized the trip. And I should correct myself, we left at 1am. Piled into an AUI van. Rolled into Chaouen at like 530 am, before the sun was out. It was fantastic. And bumpy. We had breakfast at some little cafe/sandwich shop right by where the van parked. Spent the next 5 hours wandering around Chaouen. Took pictures like this:




Chefchaouen is known for being blue. Also known for its hash. But whatever. Which isn't to say we didn't get a bunch of guys asking us if we wanted any. One guy wanted us to go to his farm 35 km away. That would have ended well, I'm sure. Great story though.

So yeah, wandered til noon. I was with Andrew and Tom the whole time. We got lunch at like 11:15 because we were supposed to meet at noon to be on our way to make sure we'd have enough daylight for the hike. Then we found that everyone else was just sitting down to lunch. At noon. We finally left Chaouen at 2pm to hike up to the place we were staying that night.

Protip: When you need AT LEAST 4 hours of daylight, likely more, and the sun goes down around 6... you don't leave at 2. But hey.

The hike kind of killed me. It was really rough at the beginning but at some point it got better. Until my leg rebelled. Earlier in the week I'd tweaked the arch of my foot doing yoga, but it hadn't really bothered me since so I figured I'd be okay. Not so much. Then my knee started bothering me too because I was walking funny. It was great.

Still pretty near the beginning of the trek.

But dude. The views from the mountain were so epic. And then we went into the Shire and Mordor. It was crazy. But like, being that high up was one thing. To be able to see it all was amazing. And at multiple points we were in the clouds. In. The clouds. As in the clouds were rolling right by us. It was ridiculous. And everything was so green and the sky was crazy colors and looking out through the clouds was just... wow. And it's kinda sad because the photos don't really do it justice. The light kept changing and it's just crazy. I was walking with Andrew and Ben and Ben's roommate for the most part, and we kept making jokes about being in Mordor and such because it really looked like that at some points. We lost the game a couple times too. There were all kinds of silly things talked about and stupid jokes and things to remember forever.

Also there was a lot of this:
"Hey guys, let's cut up the mountain!" Because we were behind everyone else. So clearly it's faster to cut up the side than follow the path. Mmyepp. It wasn't so bad, except for the time I fell and high-fived a prickly plant. Above picture is Andrew and Ben. And Ben's Canadian coat.

By the time we reached the actual top of the mountain it was completely dark. Yay. We were under the impression that once we got up we were done. Nope, there was like another 1.5 hours to go down. But there were tire tracks or something weird that had created ruts, so we had to go pretty slowly or risk death. >> Also no one had flashlights. And cell phones didn't help a whole lot. In the end we were all rescued by a Land Rover owned by the people we were staying with. That was a special ride. There were like 9 people crammed into it. It was fun.

The place we were staying turned out to be the house of the people who owned the hostel thing that we were not in fact staying at. The Explorers' Club had been trying to arrange this trip for a long time but it wasn't working out so I guess finally they were like "Can we plz stay here?" And so we stayed there. IT WAS SO COLD. I mean, up in the mountains. No electricity. Coldness. But we had lots of mint tea, and harira (Moroccan soup), and chicken tajine. All of which was really good. And then it was bedtime.

The next morning, surprise, it was still cold. We had an amazing breakfast of bread, olives, tea, awesome coffee, something else?, and some kind of honey thing that was amazing. Again we wound up leaving like two hours later than planned, but whatever. We left just before 10:30am. It got significantly less cold as we kept hiking. Which was almost sad because I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt since the weather forecast had been all "OMG COLD AND HIGH CHANCE OF RAIN." This hike seemed a lot easier. We went up and down a lot, but we stayed in a group almost the whole time because we were walking along a path that was lined by prickly bushes and was barely wide enough for one person as it was. Also there were berries. Lots of berries. That everyone decided they needed to pick from the bushes and eat. And by pick, I mean stop dead in their tracks on this narrow path on pretty steep inclines. We were not amused. The berries weren't even that good. They were weird, actually. Kind of spiky but not? Idk.

Lots of walking and trees and mountains later, we got to the village of Akchour at the end of the trail. And there was much rejoicing. And a little bit of dying. And a half hour drive back to Chaouen, where we had a delicious dinner. Yay, tajine. And salad. Nom nom nom. And then a 5-hour drive back to campus, during which we stayed awake until the last hour. Fail.

And then we had class the next day. And I'm pretty sure we all died a little every time we had to move. It was such an epic weekend though. I feel like this post is way too short for the amount of fun that was had, but most of what happened was things that you had to be there for, either because stupid things were said or done and will always be inside jokes, or because there's really no way to describe the crazy views and they way it felt to be there. Either way, epic weekend was epic, and totally worth the cold and the pain we felt later. Yay, Morocco. <3

Peekchurs!

OH HAI.

Wow. So clearly I fail at this whole blogging thing. Nothing particularly blog-worthy has happened though. Midterms were a pain in the butt but I did fine on all of them. It's funny here because everyone freaks out over midterms. Mostly because they never do the homework and then have to cram everything come exams. But hey, whatever.

We've played Trivial Pursuit so often since that first day that we know the answers to at least a quarter of the questions. It's funny when someone reads a question and everyone is like "Aw, we've had this before." I'm going to own at this game next semester when the new group of exchange students comes in. Tee hee hee.

Also, I think Pictionary is my new favorite game. We just discovered it last week. So far I've won and lost a game. It was hilarious when we won because some of our pictures had nothing to do with anything. I was highly amused. It was highly amusing. Good times all around.

Now that there's only a month left in the semester, I'm starting to do fun things. I guess I kinda fail haha. But there's always next semester. It saddens me beyond words that in a month and two days everyone will disperse and I will likely never see most of these people again. I know the same is true for my friends at VCU; a bunch have already graduated and most will graduate this year. But it's still different. I haven't been at VCU since last December. Yes it will be weird to go back and not know a lot of people, but at this point I'll be expecting it. As far as AUI goes... having spent an entire semester with awesome people and then coming back after break not to see any of them is just wrong. It's just going to be made of fail all around. :(

Moving on from that super happy topic: I'm not coming home for Christmas. When I left home initially I wasn't planning on coming home. Then I figured I would, because it sounded like everyone else was going home and I wasn't going to stay in Morocco by myself. After talking to people I changed my mind again. And now plans have changed a lot, but mine have been finalized: I'm spending Christmas in Cairo. Mia has a friend who lives there but won't be there during break and is letting us stay in his apartment. She and I will spend a full month there before coming back to Morocco, and Ally will be with us for 3 weeks before she goes back to the States. I am super excited about this. We get to go see the Pyramids. In Egypt. Wut? There will of course be trips to see all the rest of the awesome awesome things, but dude. Egypt. How much win is this made of?

I would love to continue rambling, but sadly I have homework to do. Ew. There should hopefully be two more posts this week, though, because the past two weekends have been entirely epic. Consider yourselves warned. :)

Oh, College

This past weekend was the stuff college is supposed to be made of. Friday involved a lot of doing nothing, and then a lot of silly things. Twas fun.

Saturday... was made of epic. Left the building at 2 to go get lunch. It was chilly and cloudy, but not too cold. Started raining lightly as I was walking to the cafeteria. Got a sammich with Ally. It was disappointing, so we went to the restaurant for french fries. Ran into Andrew there. After lamenting the sad, soggy, cold state of the fries, Ally went back to her room and Andrew and I went to get coffee. The coffee was neither sad nor cold; it was quite the opposite. While we were partaking of delicious black gold, the sky opened up. It straight poured. So we opted to stay in the cafe...

...for 3.5 hours. Oh yeah.

During this time, a bunch of international kids came in and out. Andrew and I were there the entire time, joined at different points by Bernardo, Simone, Eric, Lily, Annemarie, Kai... fail, I forget who else. I think at one point there were at least seven of us together. We made a tower of at least 13 cups: 1 orange juice, a few hot chocolate, some cafe au lait, and a few espresso + hot water. And a box of orange juice and some food wrappers. There would have been more but some people threw out their trash when they left.

The original plan had been for Andrew to go to the library and do work after we finishecd our initial coffee, and I would go back to my room and do the same. Instead, we stayed in the cafe til 6, stood outside for a while (it had gotten a lot colder but was only misty at this point), collected more people outside got food from the restaurant somewhere between 630-7, and then came back to the lobby of my building. I played Trivial Pursuit with Lily, Andrew, and Eric. I cam super close to winning, and then failed. And in the process I learned that I can't count to save my life, and I can't speak French. Also, gerbils are Mongolian and guys in Georgia are named either Bubba or Lester. Who knew? [Not Lily.] Poor German Lily kept getting American history/culture questions. It was sad but hilarious.

Yesterday I woke up for breakfast with Laura, but we didn't go. Instead I did homework with Jon and Liz. We went to lunch Charlotte and Eric and Lily and played Trivial Pursuit again. We played in teams of two, but Lily had to leave before it was over. Thus I was a lonely kitty. But I/we ultimately won, which was epic. Huzzah. I did some homework, ate some dinner, got more coffee, and then watche Moulin Rouge with Lily. And quoted it way too often. It was sweet.

I think I kinda like Morocco. =D

Fes

Last weekend I went to Fes/Fez with a bunch of people. The name of this city will forever bother me. In Arabic it's spelled with an "s" sound, not a "z." But I've seen it as both "Fes" and "Fez" on signs. Make up your minds, guys. Thanks.

Anyway. Friday was extremely eventful. We left at 430, right after my last class got out. And it was pouring. Hard. We took taxis from school to the grand taxi station. (There are two kinds of taxis here. Petit taxis only run within city limits. Grand taxis run between cities.) Six of us crammed into one car for the hour-long ride down the mountain to Fes. Did I mention it was pouring? At one point you couldn't see the road and you could barely see the headlights of oncoming cars. And the windows kept fogging up. It was fun. But people here are used to it, so we kept driving. Oi.

Once we got to Fes we wandered around a little trying to find a hotel. Gave up and had dinner. The coffee here is so good. *-* (I would still kill for a Dunkins or Starbucks or some other to-go coffee place.) Found a hotel. Wandered around Fes. Met up with Jonathan and Richard who, due to miscommunication (or total lack thereof) wound up with no place to stay. We had two extra spaces, so they stayed with us. We got really disappointing ice cream and went to the medina to meet up with a bunch of other AUI students who were there. After wandering around in an unsuccessful attempt to find a particular café, a bunch of us wound up at this one restaurant and basically just sat there for a while. It was funnn. Before going back to the hotel, Lena, Ally, and I went to a restaurant to get food. At like 1 am. More fun.

Saturday morning we went to a different café in the medina and had coffee. Mmm. Wandered a little, went to a drum and pottery shop, went to a brass and jewelry store, wound up going back to the same café for more coffee and a crepe-like thing. They have something here that's half-Nutella, half-vanilla spread. It was SO GOOD. From there, more wandering. Went to a tannery. It smelled funny. I got a wallet that I overpaid for. It still smells funny. Wandered even more. Wound up at a cafe. Took a taxi ride back to the other side of the medina, almost hitting a rogue donkey on the way. That was fun. >> Spent two hours at a restaurant just sitting and doing nothing. I don't think the guy liked us very much, but we bought food, so there. And since it was Ramadan it's not like anyone else was waiting to eat there. Some of the most ridiculous conversations ever were born during that meal. It was great.

From there: chilled at a hotel room some of the guys were sharing. Went to yet another café, but we didn't get anything. I definitely need to go back, though, because they have camel burgers. I am dead serious about trying one. From there we went to another restaurant for a joint birthday party; one girl's birthday was Saturday, the other's Sunday. The group I was with didn't stay too long though, because we wanted to get back to Ifrane that night and we kept getting conflicting reports of when the grand taxis stop running. Needless to say, we got back in time. I fell asleep for most of the ride and woke up just in time to ask the driver to leave us at school instead of taking us all the way to the marché. Got some seriously un-tasty dinner at the cafeteria, came back, went to bed. Huzzah, fun trip to Fes. The end.

Morocco pictures!

Lazy Cat is Lazy.

I know, I fail at updating this thing. Sorreh. But pretty much all I've done for two weeks is go to class, so there's not a whole lot to say.

However. Going to Fes today and coming back tomorrow night. Huzzah, touristy things. There will be photos eventually, depending on how long it takes to upload them here.

You Mean I Have to Do HOMEWORK?

So France this is not. Last semester I had 13 classes that met once a week for two hours each. This semester, 5 classes 2-3 times a week for 50 or 80 minutes. The classes are actually interactive. And they assign homework and take attendance, as opposed to last semester where, if you were so inclined, all you had to do was show up to the exam. It's a little weird readjusting. Obviously I'm used to it, as this is what I've done all my life, but after having gotten accustomed to sitting around doing nothing of import all day and not worrying about skipping the occasional lecture, I'm kind of like, "Waaaiiit... what am I doing now?"

Arabic: MWF, 8 am. Not a fan. It's not as easy as I had anticipated, mainly because I forgot we have to learn the alphabet before we can move on to actual language things. The more letters we learn, the better it's getting, so while after the first class I was like "OMG what am I doing?" I'm feeling pretty good about it now. The hardest part is the sounds; you can transliterate it using our alphabet, but you have to remember that an "a" doesn't make our "a" sound. And you have to remember that sounds are written differently anyway. I hear what I think is an "e" and get confused because that letter doesn't exist in Arabic. But hey, it will come with time. We've only had three classes so far.

Contemporary World History: MWF. Not really a fan. It's history from 1500 on. I hate history, but this classes fulfills one of my gen ed requirements at VCU and nothing else that I needed would fit my schedule, so there we are. It shouldn't be too bad because I've already studied the Renaissance and the Reformation and Industrial Revolution and all that a million and one times. We'll probably focus more on this region than my previous courses have, but I'm not worried. My prof is less concerned with our memorizing names and dates than our being able to analyze and explain things.

Comparative Political Systems: MWF. Intro-level Poli Sci. There's me, an American grad student, a German grad student, and a bunch of Moroccan undergrads. This class is amusing. I do a lot of just sitting there and listening because when he asks questions about Moroccan politics I obviously can't answer. Have I mentioned this class is amusing? The students especially.

Economic Development in the Middle East and North Africa: TR. Not a whole lot to say about this one. It should count for my degree, which is really all I care about. With any luck it will surprise me and I'll like it.

Women and Economic Development: TR. See above. Not really a fan of the prof, but hey, what can you do?

Such is my life at the moment. I can say chicken, rice, and yes in darija (literally "dialect," but also the name of the Moroccan dialect. Clever.) Progress is progress, right?

This Post is Not Interesting.

I am really not a fan of the school's internet. And by really not, I mean I want to kill it. It's way too slow. I can't use Skype or Magic Jack to call anyone, which is fantastic. The call goes through, but the video lags and freezes, if there's video at all, and the audio constantly breaks up and makes people sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown. Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done about it, because this is just how the network is. Everyone is having trouble, and when I asked my roommate about it, she called a friend who said he never uses Skype here because the connection is so bad. Right now I'm thinking that maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll be able to try it this weekend since a lot of people are gone. Selwa, my roommate, said that a lot of people normally go home on weekends, moreso right now because it's Ramadan.

Anyway, backing up.

My luggage finally appeared last Friday! I had been expecting it, but didn't want to say anything in my last post and jinx it. I'd called the airport Thursday morning to check on my bags, and was told they were supposed to land in Fes that night and to call back Friday morning to make sure they were there. I had to argue with the woman in French, which was fun of course. People from the school's Office of International Programs were making a trip to the Fes airport that night to pick up a student around midnight and to pick up bags belonging to at least 8 people. They were all on the same flight from Casablanca to Fes and apparently someone decided the plane was too heavy so they took bags off at random. I gave them my claim ticket and whatever and they said I'd get a phone call when my stuff was dropped off at the dorm. I was awake for a while and there was no phone call. Every time I heard a car or a suitcase outside I'd get up and check, and I saw nothing. When I woke up in the morning I went downstairs and didn't see any luggage, so I wanted to kill something. There was also no one at the desk. When I came down 45 minutes later to leave for breakfast I discovered it was hiding on the other side of the desk. Huzzah. Turns out they never called anyone about it; a girl whose bags were in that group said she was walking back to the dorm around 12:30 and they were just unloading the suitcases at that point, and they must have just kept them chilling there all night. Needless to say, I was super happy to have clean clothes and shampoo and all that fun stuff.

Weekend consisted of more orientating. Most of it was actually a waste of time because things didn't go as planned, weren't ready on time, etc. Sunday I went to the marché (market) in town with Laura because we needed ID photos for our residency cards. I got a Moroccan SIM card there, but it's not working in my phone. I haven't had the chance to go back and switch it out or something, because things have crazy hours because of Ramadan. They close mid-afternoon and open back up some time after F'tor, the huge meal for breaking the fast. I'm going to try to go up tomorrow. If I can't get it to work I may just buy a pre-paid Moroccan phone because they're pretty cheap. We'll see how it goes.

First week of classes went pretty well. There were a few hiccups along the way. For one, my 8am Arabic class was changed to 9am, then changed back to 8am but no one told us. So all but one person missed the first class, because she didn't know it was changed in the first place.

URRRRGH.

28 hour trip = made of epic fail.

Tuesday, just after noon: After getting lost in the parking deck at Logan, we get into the terminal so I can check in. We took our time because, hey, my flight didn'tlleave for another two hours. We stand in line to check my bags and suddenly the woman is changing my flight to the one that's currently boarding and leaves in less than half an hour. This, of course, leaves me with all of five seconds to say goodbye to my parents as I run to security and then to the gate. In tears, mind you. I'm sure I looked pretty awesome. I was a wreck the entire flight to Newark.

The flight to Newark was scheduled to be 1 hour and 50 minutes. The flying itself took about 46, and the rest was spent chilling on the runway in Logan and circling above Newark. Jeez. The Newark airport is a gigantic pain in the butt, and it took the opportunity to let me know I had blisters from my sneakers. Awesome. Luckily I had my flip flops in my carryon and I was able to squish the sneakers in. The flight to Rome wasn't so awful. I watched Star Wars (even though I almost fell asleep by the end). [EDIT: Wow I'm dumb. I watched Star Trek, not Star Wars.] I didn't have anyone next to me. There was a guy I wanted to punch in the face because he threw a hissy fit over not getting to sit with his friends. By "guy" I mean he had to be at least 40 and by "hissy fit" I mean he was yelling and swearing at not only the flight attendants but also at other passengers. Yeah. Awesome. Oh, and the little kid in the row behind me kept throwing up.

The airport in Rome was also a huge pain in the butt. Getting through security was ridiculous. The airport itself was yucky. And I was one of those annoying people they have to page because the aircraft was almost done boarding. I'd been standing at the gate the whole time, but the woman had announced that business and first class passengers would board first, then economy class. So naturally I'm waiting for her to announce, "Okay, economy class now." There were still plenty of people sitting in the waiting area so I didn't think anything of it. Then she announced my name and two others. Whoops. And of course this is one of those crazy European airports where you have to take a bus from the gate to the acutual plane. But people still hadn't finished boarding by the time we got there, so it was okay. That doesn't mean I didn't feel like an idiot anyway. The plane was almost half empty, so I got my own row. I slept most of the flight. The food was awful. I think I got maybe 5 hours of sleep total between the two flights.

When I got to Casablanca, SURPRISE my luggage didn't get there. Not just mine, but half the people on the flight. They didn't explain why, just took a ridiculously long time to fill out claim forms. And they don't deliver luggage here like they do in other countries. I was ready to kill something because I did NOT want to make the 5 hour trip again (each way) to get my bags. But when I told the guy where I was going he said they'd send them to Fes, which is about an hour away from here.

As a result of my bags being lost, I had about three minutes to get to the train. I decided to forgo stopping at an ATM for cash because I didn't want to waste time. Oh surprise, they don't take credit cards. So by the time I went back through security, went back up to the ATM, and came back down, the train was gone. Which means I had to wait an hour for the next one and miss the connecting train I wanted, meaning I'd get into Fes an hour and a half after I was supposed to. Oops. Called the school to change my pickup time. And cried again out of sheer frustration. Because I am that awesome.

So there I am, silly white girl sitting on the floor in the middle of the train station, crying, on the phone. And then on the train. At no point was I ever sobbing or anything, not even leaving Boston, but I was sniffly and teary and obviously upset. An older woman and her adult son sat across from me and offered me a kleenex. Aww. We talked in French for a little while (why was I upset? Did my boyfriend leave me? [HA.] Was I crying just because I was in Morocco?). It was hard to understand the woman because the train was super loud and she had a bit of an accent. They were nice though, so I appreciated it.

That train ride was 35 minutes. They don't announce the stops like they to in the US and Europe, you just have to hope you can see the sign for the station from where you're sitting. I managed to get off at the right stop, though, and find my next train (4 hours!!). It was a little awkward at first because it was a train with compartments like in Harry Potter, and apparently you just go and sit in whatever compartment you can find space in. I stood in the hallway for a little, amazed by a sketchball who didn't understand that my pointedly ignoring him meant "go away plzkthx." One guy getting off the train was like "Hey you can sit in there where I was." So I did. And then even though I was pretty sure my stop was the last one of the train but I was afraid to fall asleep anyway. I wound up sleeping for like 10 minutes at a time before jolting awake thinking I'd missed something. Not fun.

Finally at Fes, I met up with the Student Ambassador who was picking me up, and happily ran into Laura, the other girl who's here on the Boren Scholarship, and a guy named Steve. Hour long ride from Fes to Ifrane. They drive CRAZY here. Not as bad as Turkey, I don't think, but still pretty bad. Or at least there are fewer cars on the road so it doesn't seem so bad. Got to campus. Laura and I are in the same building, yay! The rooms are HUGE, even for two people. We have a milion and a half drawers, and an actual closet, and our own bathroom! For the two people. I'm kind of excited, because I was expecting to share with a lot more. I guess we lucked out being in the newest dorm. I haven't met my roommate yet because continuing students haven't moved in, but I hope things work out. The longest I've had a roommate was 10 weeks, I think? But we had an entire apartment and Renée is pretty awesome anyway, so that was a leeetle bit different from being here for a year. Pictures will come soon, anyway.

So dinner yesterday was a little disappointing. We can't tell yet if the food is always like that or not because it's Ramadan so the vast majority of people on campus aren't actually eating when we are. Between last night and today I met so many people though. I can't remember names or anything, but hey. So far everyone has been really nice and awesome. Orientation today was boring, as orientations tend to be. Only three more days of it, yay! We get to register in the morning, huzzah. I need to try to change one of my classes. More on that later.

So the travelling here was miserable, but the being here so far is pretty awesome. Turning out different from my trip to France, but I'm totally okay with that. I broke six nails during my travels, and normally I wouldn't care except they're all broken at crazy angles and both my nail clipper and nail file are safely packed away in my suitcases. Typing is actually difficult as a result. Awesome.

No pictures yet. Maybe later. Maybe when I have clean clothes and don't think I smell funny when I go out in public.

No comprendo :(

Wahoo! Only a month after the fact, I'm finally posting about my trip to Barcelona. Better last than never, right? Right.

The trip started off swimmingly. Courtney, Tristan, and I went to the train station around noon to get a train to Geneva, from where our flight was leaving at... 6 something? [Can I say "from where" in English? It works in French.] We found out there was no train, only a series of buses making random stops because they were working on the tracks on that specific route. Three days out of the whole month they were working on it, and we picked one of those days. So we got on the bus, got to where it stopped (an hour from Geneva), and were told we had to wait something like an hour and a half for the next bus. Which would take us somewhere else, where we could get a new bus that would take us to Geneva... buuuut we wouldn't get there in time for our flight. Awesome! So after I talked to the train info lady, we wound up taking a cab. To Geneva. For a grand total of 100 euro. Aaaand Tristan lost her keys somewhere between Chambéry and wherever the heck we were. Culoz?

After the cab ride, we suddenly have plenty of time to spare at the airport. This involved wandering around doing a whole lot of nothing. Whee. The flight to Barcelona was uneventful. After a train ride from the airport and a few changes on the subway, we found our hostel. The directions on the website lied, of course, so we walked by it a few times before we found the right street. Went back to the main part of the city but couldn't find Cori. Nobody's French phone wanted to work in Spain. :( Thus mine was rendered useless as well; I could call and text, but it didn't do any good since no one could answer. Fail. Had really expensive tapas. I tried crocodile & cheese. It was actually pretty good.

I may be slightly crazy, but when the guy said crocodile I was like "Must. Try." If only to say that I have.

Best part of the night:
In a train station. I freaked out a little. It was awesome. Even though it was closed.

Sunday we went to see la Sagrada Familia. It's pretty much the most ridiculous church I've ever seen. They've been building it since the late 1800's and at this point the projected finish date is like 2030. Yeah. Not going to post any of the 200 photos I took because you can't see half of it in any of them. You can see them on my Photobucket.

From there we went to lunch, met Cori, and went up to this old castle-fort-thing. It was interesting. La Sagrada Familia stood out from the Barcelona skyline. It reminds me of a giant spider creature, like something you'd see in Harry Potter or LotR. Go figure. We wandered around Barcelona a bit, then went to dinner at a place called Les Quinze Nits. Super cheap, really awesome. Super long line always starts in Plaça Reial, but it's so worth it. Went back to the hostel that night, talked to one of the guys at the check in desk, watched part of Iron Man with him and an Egyptian guy at the hostel. Hostels are cool for meeting people. :)

Next day we did a walking tour of Barcelona (it was free! I love Europe). It rained a little. Sad face. Wandered down to the harbor but didn't go to the beach. Had dinner at a place called Travel Bar, which was just that; little hideaway place for tourists. The dinner was only a euro with the purchase of a drink; we split a pitcher of sangria four ways, which meant 4 euro dinner. Epic win? Yes indeed. Wandered a bit, went back to the hostel, went to a club. I was in a fantastic mood the entire time because my wrist had decided it hated me again.

Tuesday was our last day in Barcelona. Slept late, went to Park Guell, which is this ridiculous park that Antonio Gaudi designed; he's also responsible for a lot of the ridiculousness in la Sagrada Familia. Went to the beach for a little while (sunburn fail!). I didn't go in the water, but I'd been in the Mediterranean twice before so whatever. Cold water is cold. Went back to Travel Bar to meet up for a cooking class they offered at their sister bar near the waterfront. Cooking class was less "class" than "sit here and watch me explain how to make paella." Also learned how to make sangria. That went over well. Seafood paella was pretty good, though having to peel the heads and legs off the shrimp wasn't fun. From there we went with a couple people from the cooking class to a little shot bar called Espit Chupitos. Chupito means shot. How clever. This place has over 500 shots and it was pretty awesome. They don't tell you what's in them, but some of them are fun. Some of them were scary (like the one called "diarrhea." No thank you.). There was a Harry Potter one that sparkled (by lighting the bar on fire and throwing sugar in it). Bob Marley one was layered green, yellow, and red. Etc. They were pretty clever. Went back to the hostel after a little while, got packed, and went to sleeeeep. Got up super early the next day to get to the airport, flew back to Geneva, killed a few hours there before catching a train back to Chambéry.

Overall, Barcelona was probably my least favorite place. There wasn't a whole lot to do or see. The stupid church is its biggest draw, I think, except maybe for the beaches. I did really like the old city and the few Roman things we saw, but that was really it. The city also reeked of urine, which was less than pleasant.

When it comes down to it, I prefer historical things to big cities, I guess. Paris and London and Istanbul all worked because they've merged the old and the new. Maybe I'd have liked Barcelona if I'd had more time to spend in the old city, I don't know. If nothing else, I can say I've been to Spain woo.

Y helo thar.

So. This time next week I'll have been home for almost two days. If you define home as a general "that side of the Atlantic," since my flight doesn't land til around six-ish at night. I have a lot to blog about: grades, a two-day trip to Geneva, a four-day trip to Barcelona. General end-of-the-semester reflections. Unfortunately, you're probably going to have to wait til I get home to read all that. My internets are disappearing on Saturday and I'm not getting home til Tuesday night. Sad face. Blogger hates entries that are copy/pasted from Microsoft Word, too, so I may or may not type things up over the weekend and try to post them when I get home or something. We'll see. Beyond that, nothing interesting has happened in my life. I've watched three seasons of NCIS in less than a week. Good times. I'm going to pack now. Ta.

You Know You're a Nerd When...

Monday [May 18] was my last final and a big last hurrah dinner with 23 other international students. We're a crazy bunch, let me tell ya. More on that later. We got back around 1130, I think? And then Courtney and I were up til 2-something trying to plan travels. We settled for Barcelona, whee! I didn't get to sleep til after 3 that night, which wouldn't have been too bad...

...except I had a 6:10 am train to Geneva, and had to be up at 5. Ewwww. I managed, somehow. When I got to Geneva I met up with Carolyn (the one from Italy/Turkey) and our friend Catherine, who lived on my floor my freshman year [I lived in her old room my past three semesters. Hee.], then graduated and ran off to Geneva for grad school. We spent 3-3.5 hours sitting in Starbucks talking about VCU, the Honors College, wreaking havoc on the world when we're all FSOs, and... scholarships. Yes. So to complete the post title, you know you're a nerd when you meet up with friends halfway across the world to talk about school and scholarships and other nerd things. Clearly, we're a special bunch. And I'm all the more excited now to gain a functioning knowledge of a third language.

After we left Starbucks we walked to the old city to get some lunch at Chez ma cousine. It was delicious. They had potato wedges and chicken and yum. We passed a protest of some kind on the way but we couldn't really figure out what it was for. After lunch we went to Clavin's church, which was closed. It was pretty huge though. And there's a museum underneath but it cost lots of francs to get into. Oh wells. We wandered around Geneva a bit more before heading back to Catherine's apartment. At which point we may or may not have harassed the National Scholarship Coordinator in the Honors College via Skype chat. He said something to the effect of, "I can only imagine the trouble you three have gotten yourselves into." Great to know people back home have faith in us. =D

We talked more about taking over the world. We made dinner. We watched CSI: Miami. The next day we ate the leftovers from dinner, because 2.2 pounds of pasta is a LOT. Back in town we went to a little store that had all kinds of American products that you can't get in Europe: Kraft Mac & Cheese, Betty Crocker, root beer, Mountain Dew, Reese's... it was amazing. And it made us happy. Even though it was a little expensive, but hey. You do what you have to do. We walked to the lake and got ice cream. Met up with two of Carolyn's friends from RVA. Walked around the lake to the massive water jet they have there. Sat in Starbucks with Catherine for another hour and some change after Carolyn left.

Pretty awesome two days. Solidified the fact that I am a nerd and I love it. :) And I love my friends. (Awwwww.)

Lazy lazy lazy

Wooooot. Today is made of win because I'm not doing anything. For starters, I slept until 12:30 and it was glorious. Why? Because in the span of a week I had 10 exams, plus a paper.

The paper was 10 pages long, and a comparison of Camus' L'Etranger (The Stranger) and Balzac's Le Père Goriot. Lee, Veronica, and I wrote the paper together, but it was a pain in the butt to do. Père Goriot was 270 pages of text. Period. No chapters or anything, just continuous story. Ugh. The entire thing was an ordeal, but we got a 14/20, so no one's complaining. I know it looks bad, but it's a B.

The French grade on a scale of 1-20. 10 is average/passing. 18-20 are impossible to get. So 16-17 is A, 14-15 is B, 12-13 C, 10-11 D if you equate it to the American system. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get 16-17 too. So while the honors kid in me is frustrated over having gotten a B, the exchange student in me is glee-ing over having gotten a 14.

Oh, god. Completely unrelated, but I'm looking at Facebook where people are talking about unpacking all their dorm stuff and cleaning their rooms at home and I just realized I'm going to have to do that too. Oh, fail.

Anyway, yeah. 10 exams? Not fun. 6 between Tue-Thu of last week. Two each this past Monday and Tuesday. One I know I got a 15 on. That excites me because it was an oral exam too. Hee. Some of them I think I did well on, some I'm not so sure. I can find out my grades starting May 25, and I will defintely do so.

I have two more classes tomorrow and an exam Monday and then I am DONE. And then I will hopefully catch up on the traveling I never did this semester. D: For now, I'm settling for being lazy and cleaning my room. Kinda contradicting, I know, but my room is a mess and I didn't have time to clean it while I was having an aneurysm over all of my finals. So cleaning my room = less stress = me being more chill. Word.

BRB, MOROCCO

Holy god. I'm shaking right now. I could just die. But that would be counterproductive. Oh my god seriously though.

I'm going to Morocco next year. I'm studying at Al Akhawayn Univsersity in Ifrane.

And the US Government is paying for it.

Oh. My. GOD.

There are no words to describe how I feel right now. No. Words.

In January I applied for the NSEP/Boren undergraduate scholarship, which pays up to $20,000 for students to go somewhere and learn a language that is critical to national security. It was ridiculous and frustrating and I've been waiting since February to hear about it. I got an email at the beginning of April saying "Hey we're still considering your application!" and that they'd announce the winners in May 1st. So needless to say I didn't sleep a whole lot last night and I've been up since 9 am going absolutely nuts: refreshing my inbox, refreshing the page with last year's winners on it, refreshing my inbox again, having a heart attack when I got a new but unrelated email... it's been bad. Being 6 hours ahead is just painful.

So Mom Skyped me and we were talking about it and both just being "omg i can has email plz?" And then she was looking at my Turkey pictures and I refreshed my email and almost died. I stopped, stared at it, and went "YES!" and then froze again. And nearly bounced off my chair. It was ridiculous. I just kept laughing and almost crying. And shaking. There was lots of shaking. I can't believe it. I'm grinning like a fool but omg. There were 896 applications for this thing. I don't know how many they actually gave out but OH MY GOD.

This is absolutely ridiculous. So ridiculous. Ahhhh. I was trying so hard not to just assume that I would get it. So hard. I'd applied for two other things to do over this summer but didn't get either of them and if I didn't get this I would have died, I think. I'm still about to die, but in a good way.

This is very quickly going to dissolve into ramblings, so I'm just going to stop now. I'll post the link to the website once they update with this year's winners. MY NAME IS GOING TO BE ON IT. AHHHHH.

This post lacks a witty title.

If you're keeping up with this, you'll probably noticed I skipped a few days. I've done the shorter days in Turkey first for the sake of having something written. Be sure to check back later and scroll down, because eventually everything will be posted in chronological order. And if you scroll down a lot more, I finally posted about Avignon. There are no photos up in the posts themselves as of yet, but there are or will be links to my photobucket for each post.

I ran out of titles.

Saturday, 4.18.2009

We went out with Ahmet and his sister Nalan for some sightseeing in Ankara. First we went to Estergon Castle. It's a museum now but I think it used to be a castle?



It was kind of small for a castle though. It had all kinds of displays of cultural things. Then we played foozball. It was highly entertaining. Next we went to a restaurant right next to the castle. There was çay, of course, (I burned my tongue!) and lots of nuts. Which turned out to be rather embarrassing because I couldn't for the life of me peel the shells off the pistachios. Or any of the other nuts. So after I accidentally sent a few flying across the table, Nalan cracked a few and gave them to me. Oh yeah, I felt special. I forget what the things we ate were called, but then there was quasi-ice cream for dessert. It was like turkish delight, but cold. Very, very cold. It also melts very, very quickly.

From the castle we went across the city to Atakule Tower (I think?). It's a huge tower with an elevator that you can ride to the top for a 360-degree view of... everything. You could only take pictures from half of it (it's surrounded by glass and parts of the glass are blacked out) because parts of it look over government buildings and stuff they don't want you taking pictures of.

Carolyn, being awesome.

From the tower, we headed off to... the zoo. Yes, I went to the zoo in Turkey. Nalan was wearing a shirt with an elephant on it. Either I didn't understand what the shirt said or I didn't recognize the elephant... somehow this became "I've never seen an elephant before." So we went to the zoo in search of an elephant, only to find out later that it had died two years ago. Hah, oops. Regardless, there was zoo. It was fun. But they had dogs there, which made me sad. :( There was also a hippo chilling in his own house thing with a pool. And he farted. And everyone promptly ran away. Hi-lar-i-ous.

Way to fail at being creative, C.S. Lewis. :(

I think we spent the better part of two hours at the zoo. After that we went to a supermarket so Carolyn could buy food. =P Apparently they don't have Pringles and Lay's chips and a bunch of other things in Italy. Spent more time at Ahmet's house. Went to dinner with him and Nalan and their friend whose name I can't remember. Fail? And we had all kinds of Turkish things that I also can't remember. There was ayran, which is a drink of yogurt + salt + water. Emphasis on the salt. It counteracts the insane spices in food. The salt threw me off though. There was also köfte (meatballs); specifically, I think Içli köfte? I somehow lost the list Carolyn gave me, but wikipedia is helping me remember. We had stuffed eggplant (some kind of dolma?) as well. And lamb kebab something or other. It was all pretty good, but there were lots of crazy spices going on; it was pretty harsh compared to bland French food and all the spaghetti I've been eating.

After our ridiculous dinner, we headed straight to the bus station for a fantastic trip back to Istanbul and lame old Europe.

peeeekchurrrs

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

Friday, 4.17.2009

Not too much to say about this one. Got up, ate breakfast, almost missed the shuttle from the hostel thing back up to the top of the mountain. Played with a kitty who had just had kittens while we waited for the minibus back to Antalya. Got lunch at the bus station. I don't even know what I got. Doner kebab I think? Discovered that I'm not really a fan of Turkish yogurt. It's not bad, I just don't like it. (As opposed to European yogurt, which is just yucky.) Commence 8-hour bus ride from Antalya to Anakara. What movie did they play on the bus?

The Patriot.

Yeah. So we're on a bus full of Turks, watching a movie about the American Revolutionary War. Awesome. There was something wrong with it the first time, so they just gave up. They restarted it after our half hour stop and this time it worked. I think Carolyn and I were the only ones watching it. I don't even know if I count since it was dubbed in Turkish and I obviously had no clue what was going on. I'd never seen the movie before. Oh well. But yeah. Most of the bus was asleep while the movie was on. It was fun stuff.

We pulled into Ankara under the most threatening-looking clouds ever, but it didn't rain too hard at all. We stopped at a bakery to get a birthday cake for Carolyn's friend Ahmet, at whose house we were spending the night. The music in the bakery? "As Long As You Love Me." By the Backstreet Boys. I laughed. A lot. This song is 10 or 11 years old. I know this because I sang it in the talent show in 5th grade. (shudder) Moving on. Got to Ahmet's house. He spent some time studying at VCU. [I thought he and Carolyn went to the same uni in Ankara, but I was wrong. Surprise.] Everyone in his family spoke English except his dad. That made it just a little awkward for me, but hey. We ate some Turkish food with the family and it was good even though I have no idea what it was. Walked around the city for a little bit, hunting down some of Carolyn's friends. Went back to Ahmet's house and passed out. Fun stuff. For some reason, being on a bus for hours is really exhausting. =/

A few pics

I am a nerd.

Thursday, 4.16.2009

First order of business: delicious breakfast. Bread, tomatoes, cheese. Yum. The fact that I hate eggs came back to bite me, though, because the main part of the meal was an omelette. Ooops. Oh well. Also, it goes without saying that çay is part of every meal we had, ever. Nom nom nom.

Hiked on the other side of the river today. I'm really glad we did it in this order, because today was definitely the harder part and yesterday we hadn't slept well or any of that. So yeah. Oh god, it was epic though.

City wall

Carolyn, conquerer of ancient cities.

Mosaics! *-*

This was EPIC. It's the portal to a Roman temple. But it's pretty much the only part left. But it was HUGE. Incredible. Absolutely... wow.

One day, I will learn Greek. I know the alphabet, but that doesn't help very much.

We spent part of the climb trying to remember what acropolis meant. It was pretty lame in the best of geeky ways.

When we got up to the acropolis there was a family there trying to set the timer on their camera to take a group photo. Carolyn took it instead. And we found out that, of all the place in the world, they were from Virginia. I forget where, but they said halfway between Richmond and Fredricksburg. For real? We go all the way to Turkey and we meet Virginians? Give me a break. We talked with them for a little while, took our own pictures, and scrambled down to the bottom again. We lay on the beach but it was too cold to go in, really.

This picture makes me so happy. It's currently my desktop picture. It's just so pretty. It was gorgeous. Just sitting up there and looking out at the sea and listening to it and looking around at the mountains and the ruins... it was so peaceful and amazing.

That light rectangle in the middle? That's the portal to the temple. That's how epic it was.

On the way back to the hostel thing, we stopped and got potato gözleme. Delicious. We also found a store that took credit cards. Yay! We hadn't known on the way down that the hostel only took cash for payment, so that cut into our resources. We also had to make sure we had enough cash for the bus rides back to Antalya. And of course there were no ATMs to speak of at the bottom of the mountain. We lucked out, simply put. But then to find a place that takes credit cards? Eee! We walked back with cookies, snacks, soda, and ice cream. Oh yeah.

Dinner was pretty much the same thing. Instead of hanging out outside, we went back to our room and both tried to get some reading done. Stoopid homework.

Pictures, of course.

Home, sweet... wait, no.

Sunday, 4.19.2009

Not a whole lot to be said about this one. Overnight bus from Anakara to Istanbul. Got to the airport around 4. We had to go through security to even get into the airport. Then we checked in and chilled for almost two hours before our 6:40 flight. Wound up watching NASCAR, of all things, in the food court for a while. Got on our flight and we both passed out for the 2 and a half hours til Munich. When we got there, Carolyn got on her flight to Milan almost immediately. I, however, was fortunate enough to have to wait until 3:10 for my flight to Lyon. And it was only 8:30ish. Awesome sauce.

So really, there's not a whole lot to do in the Munich airport. I liked Frankfort a lot better. Munich had a bunch of overpriced sit-down restaurants, but that was it. No fast food. No sandwiches under 7 Euro. Free coffee courtesy of Lufthansa though, which I definitely indulged in. I lounged, listened to music, read part of a French book I'm supposed to be writing a paper on this week, stared off into space, and fought off sleep. Flight to Lyon was full and landed late, surprise. I spent the entire flight and the wait for my bag worrying about missing my train back to Chambéry. I had more than enough time though. On the train, we were ready to go and the doors had shut... unfortunately there was an old guy on the train who wasn't supposed to be on it still. His grandson (I assume) was traveling alone, I guess, and the guy was helping his find his seat and stow his bag and whatever. He went back to the door just after it had shut and then he flipped out when he couldn't open it. He kept banging on it and yelling "I have to get off! I have to get off! Let me off!" Then he pulled the emergency lever. Some TGV guys came down and were definitely not pleased. So then the train left late. And I spent the hour long ride sitting across the aisle from an Italian family on their way to Milan from Paris (7 hours, yeesh!); the youngest girl was probably 6 and kept crying. Fun stuff.

I finally got back to good ol' Chambéry around 630. Dropped off my stuff. Went back out to get dinner because I really didn't feel like cooking. Where did I go? To a Turkish kebab place. Wound up getting a cheeseburger though. Yeah, I'm lame. Came back. Talked to Lee in the kitchen for a while. Checked my email. And then promptly passed out. That was a good night. (And then I had class at 8am the next day. Whee!)

All in all? Epic spring break was epic. Forget Miami and Cancun and whatever. Turkey ftw!

Pictures of Munich from the plane.