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.