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.