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.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
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!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
NOM NOM NOM
So today I went to Fes with Lily. For the express purpose of getting a camel burger, finally. And we did.
And it was delicious.
We got smoothies with fresh fruit, and the burgers came with steak fries and salads, which included fresh, crunchy veggies. I almost died. They were so good. We wandered around the medina a little bit, went back to Lily's apartment and watched a little TV, and now I'm here trying to convince myself I want to do homework. But I don't. >>
Photos!
Ew. School.
This is my campus. This is what I walked to class in on the first day of school. It SNOWED. In AFRICA. Huzzah. The weather was nice for one or two days of orientation, and has been cold since. For most of the first week it snowed and/or rained off and on. The snow hasn't really stuck though, which is sad. It's been cold but not so bad since.
Classes so far don't seem so bad. My colloquial Arabic (aka Darija) started this past Tuesday, the week after classes started. Scheduling fail for the win. I'm not really a fan of having another 8am MWF, but the professor is funny so it makes up for it a little bit. I skipped a semester of Arabic and am taking Intermediate I now. It's not so bad, but I have more studying to do to catch up. My other classes are just kinda meh. Interesting in theory but so far not what I was expecting. But considering we've only had 2 weeks so far, there's time to improve. They didn't waste any time in assigning homework though. Have I mentioned I hate reading?
To procrastinate on this reading, I've been watching TV. =P I've become oddly obsessed with Glee and rewatched the 13 episodes at least twice each, some more than that. I've also been catching up on NCIS and The Big Bang Theory, and I've been watching The Mentalist in French. I couldn't find it in English, and I've not been doing anything to keep up my French so hay. Killed two birds with one stone and all that.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
I'm baaaaack.
While in the terminal in Madrid, I met three other people coming to AUI. Quality conversations were had. The stupid Ryanair plane was an interesting experience, to put it nicely. I hope not to fly with them again, but that will depend on what I do for spring break, I guess. Once we landed at the Fes "Airport" we had to wait an hour for another new student to come, then headed up Mount Doom. Longest ride of my life, I swear.
Once at AUI we got dinner, parted ways, unpacked, etc. I slept til 1pm. And spent the day studying Arabic. Got about two hours of sleep and went to go take the Arabic placement test. With success, might I add. I skipped Beginner II and am currently in Intermediate I. If I'd been more on the ball and started studying earlier in the break, I probably could have made it to Intermediate II, but oh well. All of the new international students were in orientation all day, so I spent the rest of the weekend doing pretty much nothing, to the point where I almost wished classes had already started so I'd have something to do. Who does that??
Once at AUI we got dinner, parted ways, unpacked, etc. I slept til 1pm. And spent the day studying Arabic. Got about two hours of sleep and went to go take the Arabic placement test. With success, might I add. I skipped Beginner II and am currently in Intermediate I. If I'd been more on the ball and started studying earlier in the break, I probably could have made it to Intermediate II, but oh well. All of the new international students were in orientation all day, so I spent the rest of the weekend doing pretty much nothing, to the point where I almost wished classes had already started so I'd have something to do. Who does that??
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Airports are dumb.
Ugggh. I think the worst part about epic long travel is not the epic longness of it, nor the lack of sleep involved, nor the epic boredom suffered, but the desperate need for a shower that develops about halfway through. I left home just about 24 hours ago now and I feel like I stink. I'm sure everyone wants to know this, right?
So it's 11:12 am local time in Madrid. I can't check my bag with Ryanair for another 3-ish hours, and then my plane leaves 2 hours after that. Hour and a half-ish flight to Fes, where I get to reclaim my bag and try to find the AUI van that's supposed to meet me and other students there. I kinda wish I'd asked for the phone number of the student who's supposed to be with the van, but that would have been too easy. Please excuse random typos; my dinosaur of a computer seems to be rebelling against me and doesn't always register when I've hit certain keys. Makes writing papers really fun. Anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to find the AUI people. Fes Saiss is a small airport, I think, and I'm sure if I look for a bunch of confused/lost-looking foreigners, they'll be AUI students.
The process of getting to Mardid was fun. And by fun I mean annoying and long. After leaving home at like 520 am on Tuesday, I had an 815 am flight to London. I had an aisle seat and no one sat next to me. Win. I slept most of the way, and pretty much only woke up when they came around with food. Turns out the girl in the window seat in my row was on my flight to Madrid as well. The one that left at 620 am Wednesday, when we arrived at like 7-something pm Tuesday. 11-hour layover for the LOSS. After playing “where's our terminal and how do we get there?!” we wound up in a little pub thing in the airport, then chilled in various hallways til 430 am. Found out via CNN that Massachusetts fails at being a blue state. :(
The thing I hate about traveling at length like this is that it takes so long to get to my destination that sometimes I forget where I'm going. I'm sure the lack of sleep doesn't help with this at all. But after sitting on planes for hours, sitting around in airports for hours, and really only focusing on what time it is now and what time I have to be at what gate or something, I don't know if I lose focus or what. Just sitting here talking about this I was like, “OH HAY I'm going back to Morocco now!” Obviously I know that's where I'm going, but I'm not thinking about actually being back and going to AUI and all of that stuff. The concept of “Morocco” just becomes “the last plane ride I take and the place where I have an hour-long car ride.” It will probably be more exciting once Friday afternoon hits, after the Arabic placement test and hopefully a substantial amount of sleep.
Why do airports fail at providing free wireless? I do not approve of this. I'm not paying 5 euro for 30 minutes of internets that I have to use all at once. La shukran. Especially when my battery lasts 2 hours max and I really don't want it to die while I'm using those precious internets. As a result I'm just sitting here rambling in a Word document and will transfer later.
There are a lot of college-age-looking people here. I wonder if any of them will be on my flight. Not that it will really make a difference because I plan on sleeping. Oh hay, some guy just came by and put a flier on my computer. I think it's a solicitation for money for some kind of sports federation thing? Translation fail, woo. Too tired to bother right now, and I didn't want to look at it for too long and make him think I was considering it. I don't have cash on me anyway, unless he wants Egyptian pounds. Speaking of translation fail, knowing random words in multiple languages is sometimes not a good thing. For some reason I was trying to think of a word in Arabic earlier, and I was coming up with it in Japanese instead. Er? Then trying to think of things in Spanish once I landed here, and got the French words instead. Oh, life. I've not had to deal with a lot of Spanish being spoken to me here, but the little that's been said I've understood. Woo. Do I look like I could be Spanish? Because no one has spoken to me in English yet. In France they seemed to use English by default, I think.
Speaking of language fail, there were two women speaking Arabic a few rows behind me on the flight to London. I couldn't pick up most of what was said; I don't know if that's because it was a different dialect, or just a whole lot of words I have yet to learn. Most of what I got was subject pronouns and the word “no” a whole lot. It's something though. Six months ago I probably couldn't even have identified it as Arabic. So I win a little bit.
Wave of tiredness just hit me. I'm going to stop staring at the computer now. Instead I'm going to stare at my Arabic book and hope the words just implant themselves in my brain. Wooot.
So it's 11:12 am local time in Madrid. I can't check my bag with Ryanair for another 3-ish hours, and then my plane leaves 2 hours after that. Hour and a half-ish flight to Fes, where I get to reclaim my bag and try to find the AUI van that's supposed to meet me and other students there. I kinda wish I'd asked for the phone number of the student who's supposed to be with the van, but that would have been too easy. Please excuse random typos; my dinosaur of a computer seems to be rebelling against me and doesn't always register when I've hit certain keys. Makes writing papers really fun. Anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to find the AUI people. Fes Saiss is a small airport, I think, and I'm sure if I look for a bunch of confused/lost-looking foreigners, they'll be AUI students.
The process of getting to Mardid was fun. And by fun I mean annoying and long. After leaving home at like 520 am on Tuesday, I had an 815 am flight to London. I had an aisle seat and no one sat next to me. Win. I slept most of the way, and pretty much only woke up when they came around with food. Turns out the girl in the window seat in my row was on my flight to Madrid as well. The one that left at 620 am Wednesday, when we arrived at like 7-something pm Tuesday. 11-hour layover for the LOSS. After playing “where's our terminal and how do we get there?!” we wound up in a little pub thing in the airport, then chilled in various hallways til 430 am. Found out via CNN that Massachusetts fails at being a blue state. :(
The thing I hate about traveling at length like this is that it takes so long to get to my destination that sometimes I forget where I'm going. I'm sure the lack of sleep doesn't help with this at all. But after sitting on planes for hours, sitting around in airports for hours, and really only focusing on what time it is now and what time I have to be at what gate or something, I don't know if I lose focus or what. Just sitting here talking about this I was like, “OH HAY I'm going back to Morocco now!” Obviously I know that's where I'm going, but I'm not thinking about actually being back and going to AUI and all of that stuff. The concept of “Morocco” just becomes “the last plane ride I take and the place where I have an hour-long car ride.” It will probably be more exciting once Friday afternoon hits, after the Arabic placement test and hopefully a substantial amount of sleep.
Why do airports fail at providing free wireless? I do not approve of this. I'm not paying 5 euro for 30 minutes of internets that I have to use all at once. La shukran. Especially when my battery lasts 2 hours max and I really don't want it to die while I'm using those precious internets. As a result I'm just sitting here rambling in a Word document and will transfer later.
There are a lot of college-age-looking people here. I wonder if any of them will be on my flight. Not that it will really make a difference because I plan on sleeping. Oh hay, some guy just came by and put a flier on my computer. I think it's a solicitation for money for some kind of sports federation thing? Translation fail, woo. Too tired to bother right now, and I didn't want to look at it for too long and make him think I was considering it. I don't have cash on me anyway, unless he wants Egyptian pounds. Speaking of translation fail, knowing random words in multiple languages is sometimes not a good thing. For some reason I was trying to think of a word in Arabic earlier, and I was coming up with it in Japanese instead. Er? Then trying to think of things in Spanish once I landed here, and got the French words instead. Oh, life. I've not had to deal with a lot of Spanish being spoken to me here, but the little that's been said I've understood. Woo. Do I look like I could be Spanish? Because no one has spoken to me in English yet. In France they seemed to use English by default, I think.
Speaking of language fail, there were two women speaking Arabic a few rows behind me on the flight to London. I couldn't pick up most of what was said; I don't know if that's because it was a different dialect, or just a whole lot of words I have yet to learn. Most of what I got was subject pronouns and the word “no” a whole lot. It's something though. Six months ago I probably couldn't even have identified it as Arabic. So I win a little bit.
Wave of tiredness just hit me. I'm going to stop staring at the computer now. Instead I'm going to stare at my Arabic book and hope the words just implant themselves in my brain. Wooot.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
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. =)
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. =)
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