Spring Break: Moroccan Edition

Went on a school-organized trip to the Sahara. Awesome, right? Yeahhhh, not so much.

We left Saturday around 12:30-1am. There were two different trips, each going to different places in the desert. I was on the first; there were 96 people total on our trip. Yeesh. So we drove for an hour and a half, then stopped at 230... for food? Spent an hour whereever we were, with our bus parked right next to a grill, to the point that it got really smoky inside. Awesome. Drove more. Stopped in Errachidia for breakfast around 730? Drove more. Stopped in a gorge for lunch around 1130?

There was salad. With real vegetables. There are no words to express how awesome real, fresh vegetables are. Salad was followed by tasty meatball tagine, and oranges for desert. Left around 130 I think. Got to Ouarzazate and checked into our hotel around 7. It was a pretty fancy hotel. More spiffy vegetables.

Being a tool in the hotel lobby.

Sunday we left almost two hours behind schedule. I know nothing in Morocco operates on time, but really, two hours? We were on the buses for a good 45 minutes just waiting for two guys to come sauntering out of the hotel. I love Moroccans. Drove more. Stopped in Zagora for lunch. Stopped in some place that's famous for rose soaps and stuff? Most of the Moroccan students bought all kinds of stuff, while the 8 exchange students just wandered. Get to M'hammed something-or-other. Pile into SUVs for a 2-hour drive into the desert. The sun set as we were driving. It was pretty lame because it was cloudy/foggy/something-y out. :( I totally hung out the window of the SUV for a good portion of the trip. Like sat on the door and held on to the handles inside. It was awesome sauce.

Sunset

Once we got there it was dark. Very dark. Had mint tea. Had couscous for dinner. Apparently the couscous had crickets in it? That's what another table said. Either ours didn't or I didn't notice. Wandered in the desert with Clemens, Aino, Robyn, Anna-Claire, and Patti to check out the stars. We're pretty sure we found Mars. Realized that if I were lost somewhere and had to rely on stars to find my way, I would probably be lost forever. Yay, city girl. I couldn't even find the Big Dipper on my own. Wandered back. I am awesome and decided to roll down the side of a dune. Apparently came close to bashing my head on one or more rocks? And got sand in every pocket of everything I was wearing.

Robyn and our camp.

Monday morning we woke up at like 530 to go watch the sunrise. Again, cloudy/foggy, so no pretty colors. Breakfast. SUV ride back. We literally spent 13 hours max at the camp itself. 13 hours in the desert, including sleeping. Someone remind me why I paid $150 for this trip? There was no camel riding, no playing in the sand, no nothing. Get there, sleep, leave. On one hand I'm glad I can say I was in the Sahara, but for real, it was a waste of time and money.

My name in Arabic. (Just the sounds. Not the actual word for "cat.")

Guys in the desert with their camels.

So SUVs back to M'hammed. Bus from there. We were supposed to stop in Zagora for lunch, but they apparently decided not to stop since we were already behind schedule. Instead we kept driving to Ourzazate and had lunch at 3:20. So like, 8 hours after breakfast? Awesome. To say we were all cranky is an understatement. It didn't help that they were like "We are leaving at 4:20 be back then!!1!1!!" and the drivers didn't show up to even open the buses til 4:35. Kept driving. Stopped somewhere on the side of a mountain around 8-something? Kept driving. Got to Marrakech at 11pm. Pretty sure we were supposed to have been there at 7? Walked for like half an hour into the city, since we were out in the middle of nowhere. Wound up going to KFC because it was a 24-hour establishment and it was after midnight by the time we got there.

Wound up going to bed around 2 because we obviously got back to the hotel late and there were 5 of us in the room. This hotel was special. Tuesday morning we headed to the Place (Square) Jemaa el-Fna (Jemaa el-Fna being a mosque nearby). Got breakfast. Got orange juice, because there are like 50 carts there that sell fresh-squeezed orange juice for 3 Dhs.

Wandered for an hour. Got henna.

Got lunch. Wanted to get pigeon pastilla, but couldn't find anywhere that had it. :(

The square, from the balcony of the restaurant.

I made a new friend. This cost me 6 Dhs. The guy wanted 100 and I laughed at him. :)

Went back to the hotel only to leave well after we were supposed to. Bus went to Casablanca and Rabat to drop people at the train stations there. In Rabat, after a ridiculously long time sitting on the side of the road, they decided to consolidate the buses. Finally got back to AUI around 1am.

So all in all, it was a waste. We spent most of the four days on the bus. It was totally ridiculous. Totally and completely ridiculous. And the being in the desert part didn't redeem it because we hardly spent any time in the desert and didn't do anything while we were there. It's just super frustrating. Most of the exchange students last semester went to the desert on their own, but I didn't think about joining the group because hey, AUI was organizing one this semester and it would probably be better because they'd done it before. PFFT. Also I could have gone elsewhere this week, but no. Ah well. What's done is done and I can say I've been to (and slept in) the Sahara desert now, right?

Henna. Woot.

Peek-churs!

In Which I Realize I Don't Like Museums

Saturday: Much less exciting than Friday. But still pretty awesome.

I've seen a lot of Paris, but most of it was from a tour bus in high school. Figured I'd take a 3.5 hour walking tour of the city. It's free, but the tour guides work for tips. I thought it would be a good way to see things and explore the city more. A tour group left my hostel at 10am. What they neglected to say was that that group would be meeting up with the larger tour group where the tour was actually scheduled to start at 11. So after waiting forever in a metro station while the girl helped everyone buy metro tickets, we got to the Latin Quarter and chilled. (Literally. It was cold out.) By 11:45 we'd only made it to Notre Dame, which was about three blocks away. So I peaced out. I'd have wandered around more if I'd had time to kill, but there were other things I wanted to do. If I go back to Paris again I'll try to schedule a day just for exploring. If.

From there I went to the Louvre. I'd gone in high school but we only had like an hour and a half there? So basically we ran to find the Mona Lisa and one or two other things that people knew they wanted to see, and then we took pictures of the ugly glass pyramid, and then we peaced out. So this time I figured I'd wander around and take my time and look at everything. I think I wound up spending two hours there before I get really bored and peaced out. >_> Whoops. I'm not really an art fan, but I thought I'd be interested. Guess not.

Left the Louvre. Walked past the Musée d'Orsay. Never realized how close all these things were to each other since we didn't really walk anywhere in high school. Realized I could've walked to the Louvre from Notre Dame instead of taking a really long roundabout metro trip, but ah well. Passed the Place de la Concorde. Walked all the way down the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. Stopped for a crèpe along the way. It had Nutella, but the guy was out of bananas. :( He laughed when I said that was sad. Mmm, crèpe. Went up to the top of the Arc as well. Pretty cool view. Probably better at night, but hey.

Found a Starbucks on the Champs-Elysées. Stood in line for like ten minutes. It was crazy. But I got coffee and it was beautiful. Went back to the hostel. Had dinner there. Planned on going to bed ridiculously early because I was getting up at like 5. On a whim, I checked an email account I don't use very often. I'd used it for my Critical Language Scholarship Application, and they said we'd hear the results by late March. Late March. Even though it was the first weekend of March and I didn't think I'd hear from them on a Saturday, I totally did. And nearly had a heart attack in the hostel's internet cafe. I won't know where I'm going til April-ish, because we all have to do language assessments so they can place us appropriately. I could wind up in one of 3 places: Tunis, Cairo, or Amman. Anywhere is fine with me. It's not AUI, so it'll be fine. =D

Went to bed. Woke up at 5. Jumped on the metro at 5:30 to take the train back to the bus station to go to the airport. Travelling is such a hassle sometimes. Stood out in the cold (it was around 25 Farenheit) for an hour because I was so early and you can only get on the bus the corresponds to your flight. Killed time in that airport. Killed 4 hours in Madrid. Was back at AUI by 6-630pm on Sunday. I was in such a good mood, even though I was coming back. I'm still in a good mood most of the time, actually. I guess I really needed to get out of here. And I can't believe it was only a week ago that I was in Paris and saw Roméo et Juliette. Ahhh it was great. Definitely had to be one of the best weekends of my life.

Pictures of randomness

Epic French Musical is EPIC.

Ad for the show in a metro station.

Okay so background had already been covered. I'm a nerd and fell in love with this thing in 2004 and it's the entire reason for my trip to Paris. And the reason I broke out into a stupid grin whenever I saw an ad for it in a metro station or randomly thought about it while I was walking around yesterday. I swear to god yesterday was so long and I thought it would never be time for me to go. But I went. Early, in fact, because I had to pick up my ticket since they don't ship them internationally.

Bought a program because I'm a super nerd. :) And sat in my seat, 8 rows from the stage, slightly to the right side, and freaked out for the next 40 minutes. I was literally shaking the whole time and couldn't stop grinning like a fool. I mean, I was excited to see Les Mis in London. I was super excited to see RENT over the summer with two of the original cast members. There are no words to express how excited I was about seeing this show. It was a teeny bit weird because it's the first one I've gone to alone, but holy god did I enjoy it.

The one thing that threw me off was that they'd tweaked the show a little to update it and such. Nothing major, and I knew they'd added a few songs, but they'd changed some of them slightly or moved them around a little so I, being the obsessed fool that I am got confused because I know all of the songs and all of the dialogue and would be like "omg that's not right!" It was still really good though.

Romeo and Tybalt were the same guys as in the original. I feel like there was someone else too? One of the more minor characters? Never mind, there can't be. I'm just crazy, don't mind me.

I died a little inside when my favorite songs came on. Just sitting there and being like "Oh hey, I'm experiencing this LIVE!" was incredible. Absolutely incredible.

One of the best parts was after the show. I went and hung out at the stage door (with a bunch of French people) and watched all the actors and dancers come out. And the principal cast? They were all super nice! I got autographs from like, 8 of them I think? Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio, Tybalt, the Prince, Frère Laurent, Juliette... I feel like there was someone else but I can't remember right now. Oh well. And I got my picture taken with the first four. EEEEEE. I know, I'm a huge nerd but whatever. I look super awkward in the photos but whatever haha. I wound up like, thrusting my camera at the nearest person each time and being like "Hey take my picture k? K." But everyone else had friends there taking their pictures so I did what I had to do. =P I kept wondering if it was okay though. Like if it was real. But they were all so nice and were like "Yeah sure pictures are cool!" And I waited til someone else had done it first each time just to make sure. It was weird because when we got autographs after RENT, everyone just lined up and held out their programs, and each of the cast members came out with their own sharpies in hand, went down the line mechanically, and peaced out. And there weren't even a lot of people there. Here there were significantly fewer people, sure, but there were no security people watching us, and the cast just came out, said hi to everyone, talked to everyone (like actual conversations, not just "oh hey"), took photos with people, joked with people, stayed until they'd signed whatever everyone wanted.

You can't really see the autographs in the photo. Wish I'd had one of my nifty silver sharpies.

Romeo

Benvolio

Tybalt

Mercutio

It was really awesome. Really. Really. Awesome. The entire experience was just surreal and crazy and I loved it. I love my life. =D

I will probably update this post later, or make a new post entirely, about the new version vs the old version, just because I'm that much of a loser. But I bought the stupid really expensive CD set, so the first few times I listen to it I'm sure the differences will bother me and I'll want to talk about them all anyway. =D I know only one person will care (if that), but I'm gonna do it anyway, so there. Nyeh. =P

Gargoyles, Museums, and Dead People, Oh My!

Took this guy with me. Siggy the Frog is my Chapter's mascot. I definitely got looked at funny for wandering around taking pictures of a stuffed frog, but it was fun.

Ignore the lameness of the title. Kthx.

So Friday. Left the hostel around 10 to go do fun touristy things. I finally, finally went up Notre Dame. Except I failed a little. The very, very top (as in all the way up one of the towers) is closed between 11:30 and 2:30 for security reasons. My guess is glare from the sun? But yeah. You go up one tower and across, and then you can go to the very top of the other tower. This fact eluded me, so by the time I realized you could go up the other tower it was 11:28 and they weren't letting anyone else up. Whoops. I could have gone back later (and paid another 5 euro to go up again), but the guard there said it was the same view, just that you could see all around because, dur, it's all the way at the top. So I decided against it. There's nothing super distinctive about the Paris skyline except that monstrosity of a skyscraper. I got up the cathedral and saw one of the bells and that's okay with me. Considering that's the one thing I hadn't been able to do the last two times I was here, I think I'm okay with never coming back to Paris again unless someone wants to pay me/pay for me to do so. (Or unless the other musical I like decides to come back again, but that's a longshot.)

Hey, it worked twice so far, right?

After the cathedral itself, I went to the crypt underneath. I had always thought a crypt was a place for dead people, which this wasn't. But I just looked it up on dictionary.com and found "a subterranean chamber or vault, esp. one beneath the main floor of a church, used as a burial place, a location for secret meetings, etc." You learn something new every day. Anyway, the crypt was just like, "oh hey look at this old stuff that used to be in this spot." Because every new generation of Paris was built on the older ones. So there're remains of Roman houses and baths or something, and of a road that used to run from the cathedral until someone decided to widen it, and there are stairs and walls of houses that used to be there. It was pretty cool. I knew France had Roman and other ancient-people things in it back in the day, but I guess somehow I never thought of Paris as being that old? Or something like that. Turns out there was an ancient city called Lutece. Cool beans. You can't really see any of it anymore obviously. Cool just the same.

From there I walked down the river to the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute). The only reason I went was that we were supposed to have an Arabic test on Friday (which we wasn't scheduled for that day when I bought my tickets) and when I told my prof I'd be missing it he was like "Okay so go to this place and go talk to people and give us a presentation on it." And then on Wednesday he changed the date again. Awesome. The place was pretty cool but it was basically just the museum, a bookstore, and a reading room/library thing. None of the employees there were of Arab background so there was no one for me to talk to or anything. I don't know if he'd been there before or was just assuming that I could talk to people there. So I have nothing to talk about on Monday. This is going to be fun.

From there I wandered. Got quasi-lost, in that I didn't know where I was but I really didn't care. Stopped and got a kebab for lunch. Oh god, I'd missed those. Listened to people speaking Arabic, but I couldn't make out a whole lot and I have no idea what dialect it was. Partly because I was listening to all the conversations at once and because the radio was up loud. At least I recognized it as Arabic though. Whee. Wandered more. Picked a direction and walked. Because I am that awesome. Found a metro station.

And went to the catacombs. Spooooky. The stupid building wasn't marked though, so I stood on the corner looking around for a minute or two. Had been eyeing this one building thinking that had to be it. Then an old French man came up and asked if I was lost. I said not really, just looking for the catacombs. When he pointed at the building I'd been thinking about, I was like "Of course!" And he laughed and went away. Yay for cute old French men. He was probably just wondering why I was chewing on my sunglasses. So yeah. Catacombs. Woooo.

Tunnel to get to the catacombs. Two guys walking behind me were humming the Indiana Jones theme.

Not gonna lie, I was a little creeped out. And by a little I mean... pretty creeped out initially. They're all made up of skulls and tibias, it looked like. I couldn't see any other bones. I was confused. I don't have too many quality photos though, because you can't use your flash down there and obviously it was pretty dark. It smelled funny too. Gee, I wonder why. I also had the wrong idea about them though. I'd somehow been under the impression that like, someone had one day gone underground and was like "OMGWTFBBQ there are bodies down here!" But no. They just moved all the people out of various cemeteries. Less epic story, but it was still pretty cool. Though if I stood and looked at one section long enough (like more than a few seconds) I would get creeped out and have to move on. There were all kinds of inscriptions down there. Most were in French, but some were in Latin and I was really bummed when I couldn't read them. Sad face. They were all about death and whatever though. (Duh. As opposed to what, sunshine and rainbows and unicorns?) When I left the catacombs I was a ways a way from where I started, so I played the "let's wander til we find something" game. And I wound up finding my way back where I'd started. I win.

Came back to hostel. Got food. Changed and peaced out to go see Roméo et Juliette!! That will get its own post because I am that much of a nerd. For srs.

Peek-churs

BREAKING NEWS

I'm not coming home for the summer. =D I just got an email telling me that I got a Critical Language Scholarship!! I don't know where I'll be yet, but I'm going. I still need to take a placement test before they decide the location. I want to say chances are I'll wind up in Morocco because of my experience there already, but we'll find out later.

This is definitely the best weekend of my life. Oh my god. I don't really use the email address I applied with, but checked it on a whim today even though I didn't expect them to send the email on a Saturday. So glad I did. So glad.

I'm going to do a happy dance now. Maybe.

Happy Birthday to Me~

I'm currently finishing enjoying the most expensive birthday present ever. One which I've given myself. I'm in Paris! Whee!

Junior year of high school my French teacher made us listen to a CD of a musical version of Romeo and Juliet that she'd bought. Most people were less than enthused, but I, being the nerd that I am, fell in love with it. To the point that I downloaded all of the music, copied the DVDs that my teacher had of it, and then translated the entire thing for my best friend so someone could watch/enjoy it with me. (I learned a lot of new vocabulary that way. Super nerd!) Fast forward six years: while playing around on YouTube when I was in France last spring, I discovered a new song from the show. Why? Because they'd updated it as it was almost ten years old. And I also discovered that it was going to be back in Paris this spring for the 10th anniversary. Fast forward again to like three weeks ago: I'm killing time in the computer lab between classes and on a whim I check the website for it. I have no idea what made me think of it, but I'm so glad I did. Oh hey, it's playing in Paris from 2 Feb to 4 April. Bam, I'm there.

I left Ifrane on Wednesday right after my class got out at noon. Spent the night in the Madrid airport. Flew out late that afternoon and got to Paris Thursday night. Spent yesterday wandering around, saw the show last night, spent today wandering a bit, and am peacing out early tomorrow morning. (But not getting back to Ifrane til like 8pm because discount airlines' schedules are made of epic fail.)

This has definitely been one of the most epic weekends ever. I swear I've been in a good mood since my plane landed. I don't think I've stopped smiling. This is the first time I've really traveled anywhere by myself and I LOVE it. And I think I really needed to get out of Morocco. Or at least away from AUI. It's hard to get away from there for an extended period of time because it's up in the middle of nowhere and there's a curfew and whatnot. And yeah, so I skipped two days of classes. Whatever. (I would have come over the long weekend but I thought I would be in Marrakech so I decided against it. Oh well.)

This has really been an awesome, awesome time though. I don't know why, but I feel at home here. I could never live in Paris because I don't really like it that much, but I feel totally comfortable here and nothing has bothered me at all. Sure it helps that I speak the language, but even still. I have been totally fine wandering aimlessly, jumping on and off the metro, and just doing whatever. Logic probably says I should be uncomfortable wandering around in a gigantic city like this by myself with no one I know in the country, let alone the city, but I'm totally okay with it. It' so awesome. I'm going to stop now because otherwise I'll just keep repeating myself. Posts to come later about my wanderings and about the epicness that was Roméo et Juliette. (SO EPIC.) Photos will be added once I get back to Morocco. God I'm such a nerd.

Birthday Shenanigans

Wooo. Birthday number two in a foreign country. Last weekend happened to be a 4-day weekend. I was supposed to go to Marrakech with Laura but that didn't work out, so I stayed on campus. Again. But it was okay. I got a lot of homework done. Not only caught up on homework, but got ahead. This was important for reasons to come later. =D

So on Friday of the long weekend, I went horseback riding with Lily! The horses are a lot smaller than the horses in the States. They didn't smell so funny either. I approved. My horse did not approve though. It didn't want to do anything at all. It would run like 50 feet when the guy riding with us yelled at it and whacked it, but then it would stop. It didn't respond to anything I said or did, and when I tried whacking it with a stick they guy had given me, it hit me back with its tail. Lame sauce. But it was okay, because I am totally not a horse riding person. Like, it was fun and all but I probably won't go back. Ah well.



On my actual birthday, Lily had a small party at her apartment. One of our other study abroad friends who was here last semester had his birthday that day too. We just hung out and made sad attempts at improvising Pictionary and charades. And sadly, even though the actual holiday was Saturday, no one was selling alcohol on Sunday. :( I'd have been much more annoyed if it had been my 21st birthday though. It was fantastic though; all weekend the weather had been gorgeous after like 16 days of rain and wind and COLD. Thursday-Saturday were sunny. Sunday, however, did not live up to its name. It was absolutely miserable. Rain, wind, cold, sad faces all around. When we went to get dinner I was freezing because my jeans and hoodie had gotten soaked four hours earlier when I walked to Lily's (taxis are never around when I want one) and hadn't fully dried. But I survived. Woo.



More info in the next post. >)

Horsies!