Volubilis / Hammam Visit

            Wow. Sorry to all my blog followers. I have been severely lacking in keeping you updated on a normal basis. It’s not because of lack of love for you all, because I am really honored that there are even some people who follow it.  The experiences I am having have already surpassed any of my expectations for this trip and will do my best to continue to share them with you all.

           

            Last weekend we took a trip to Volubilis. This is an old Roman city just outside of the city I’m living in. The structures we were able to see, touch, sit on, and really have free reign on are over 2000 years old.  It was an awesome site. According to my roommates, if you’ve seen one Roman ruins site, you’ve seen them all. But being that I am a Roman ruins site virgin, this was an awesome experience. So much history packed into such a small place. It was just really cool. You can check all the pictures out on my Facebook if you haven’t yet.

            

            The following day we took a trip way out into the middle of nowhere in a traditional Berber city. We arrived at our guide Zorgan’s house at around 9 in the morning.  This was after a quick stop in Ifrane on the way. Ifrane was seriously the weirdest looking city ever, only because it was located in North Africa. It looks almost identical to a European city, especially a Swedish city, from the architecture to the attitude of the people and the quality of everything. Anyways, Zorgan’s house/farm was so cool. They served us a traditional Berber breakfast (bread, jam, butter, corn bread type stuff, green tea, and honey). The most incredible thing was that EVERYTHING was homemade, from the bread, to the honey, to the butter. They made everything on their farm with their own farm animals. So good.

            

            We then started our hike up to on of the highest points in the Atlas Mountains. If the truth be told, I hate hiking, and still do after this trip, but it was well worth it. Half way through our hike we came across guys with beautiful horses who were giving out rides for 20 Dirhams…or D’s as we call them (about $2.50 American). A bunch of people tried it had a blast, especially my Columbian roommate Juan. He just hopped up on the horse and, like it was nothing, took off leaving the owner standing there in the dust. It was quite the scene. We then continued on the hike and came across a huge group of monkeys. As you can see in my pictures, we were able to get really close to the monkeys and feed them bread and stuff. It was a really cool scene.

           

            Finally, we arrived at the peak of our hike, the panoramic view of a lifetime. It was just this cliff with an amazing view of everything below. We were about 2000 meters up at this point. A few of us were being daredevils (or idiots, you can be the judge) but we were climbing out as far as we could try to get good profile pictures for Facebook haha. I posted these pictures as well, but bottom line; it was an incredible time and view.

            

            Last week as far as school goes was pretty basic. Finally got into a routine and situated with most of my professors. One professor I have to talk about is my professor for two classes, Arab and Western Media and Peace and Conflict Resolution. His name is Hajjii and he is SUPER liberal, that’s not even doing it justice. He essentially is a Marxist/Socialist. He’s an awesome teacher and a really really good guy. We just never see eye to eye when it comes to politics.  And somehow, the first day of class, he called me out as a Reagan loving, Fox News watching, American patriot. Literally, you can ask my classmates, he walked up to my desk about an hour into class and just called me out. Since I’ve confirmed, he has been on my case non-stop. To the point where my roommates/classmates can’t believe I’m not mad or upset with him. I have two 3-hour classes with him on Wednesdays, and each class he spends at least 10 minutes calling me out about the conservative stereotypes.  Luckily for me, I’m far from a push over, and give him a run for his money every time he calls me out. He doesn’t mean any harm by it, and compliments me on my defensive remarks, but it still is a constant thing keeping me on my toes.

            

            For example, we were all sitting around during a break having tea, and he accused me of hating black people, poor people, and Arabs. Stating it just like that. There were about 10 of us American students sitting around a table, and every single person like dropped their cups and instantly went silent. This of course because many of them are more liberal and that is quite a HUGE accusation. I kind of laughed and responded with, “Hajjii, that’s a pretty big accusation. That’s like me saying that since you’re an Arab, then you must be a terrorist who wants to kill every American you meet, and we both know that’s not the case. So, no I do not hate black people, or poor people, and definitely not Arabs. I mean I am a conservative who came over here to educate myself, what else do you want from me?” He then, trying to keep his pride, commended me on my response, somewhat apologized for assuming, and walked away. He really meant no harm by it, and there were no hard feelings either way, it was just a great educating experience for the both of us. He will definitely keep me on my “debating toes” all semester though.

            

            As far as this weekend goes. I had a very eventful weekend here in Meknes. We had our first Hammam trip (public bath). This was a crazy but incredible experience. I’ll give you a quick synopsis of how it works for the men. You go in just your underwear, to a huge locker room looking sauna. You have a bucket, soap, and shampoo. You then choose your spot, around the entire perimeter are spigots for hot and cold water. Each person gets one of each for there area. You then fill your bucket up and clean the area in front of your spigots. Then you lie down and let your self sweat for like 20 minutes. After this an old Moroccan hammam worker comes and drags you out away from your bucket. He then proceeds to “man-handle” you. I was legitimately nervous after watching the first few of my roommates get “cleaned”. He attempts to loosen you up and stretch you out. Grabbing and twisting and bending your arms, flipping you on your back and pulling you up, straddling you and pulling your legs everywhere, turning you on your side and yanking your legs. Let’s just say, in American culture, it would be nothing short of something very homosexual. But it was nothing like that at all. It’s just a part of their culture, let alone it was a somewhat violent experience haha. After this, you lay on your back and they take a very rough brush and scrub all the dead skin off of you. It’s like when you rub your hands together and that nasty stuff comes off. They do that to your entire body, and then soap you up with a bar, and you rinse off. Then you go to the cool down room, rinse off again, and then change back into your clothes. I don’t think this many pores of mine have been open since I was a new born. We’re hoping to go back once every two weeks or so. It’s only about $5 American.

           

            After that, Nabil (our Moroccan friend) took my roommates and I to get custom tailored suits from a friend of his way outside of town. It was like 10 pm and we went into this guy’s tiny shop. He came out with a measuring tape around his neck, perfectly stereotypical tailor. Nabil told him what we wanted, and he pulled out 100’s of fabric samples for us to choose from. It took us awhile to choose from just square patches, but then he took each of our measurements, drew out our suits, and we added or took away any features. For example, I got 2 buttons, regular pockets; one cut on the back of the jacket (it’s common to do two cuts over here), and then got pleats on the pants. It takes him about 5 days to make the first stage, then we go try it on and make sure it fits perfectly. Then he takes another few days to finalize everything. Then $100 American, we take our suits home.

            

            Well, I decided to write this blog when I had a lot of reading to do for my class this afternoon. So I must go attend to that really quick. On a quick side note, the beard is still going strong, looks outrageous, but it’s still in tact! Hope everything is going well with everyone on the home front. And don’t forget to go get your pumpkins at the Pick’n Patch!!!

(Sorry for any grammatical errors, I didn’t have time to reread it yet.)

Hello Morocco!

            Whew…. Want to talk about different cultures. Morocco’s your place. After leaving Granada we took a ferry across the Mediterranean to a port just outside of Tangier, Morocco.  That night we spent the night in Tangier, and that was quite the experience. To be honest, I hated it. It was dirty, and FULL of solicitors. You didn’t walk anywhere where someone didn’t bug the crap out of you to buy something. Then at dinner, there was about 6 of us Americans, and literally as we walked down the streets people would yell at us, grab us, move tables together for us, speak any language they thought we spoke just to get us to come to their little outside restaurant. It was horrible. Even after we found a place, well were forced to a place, they gave us a HAND WRITTEN menu ha. And of course tried to like give us stuff we didn’t ask for and pretend like they didn’t know what we were talking about. Long story short, I have no desire to EVER go back to Tangier…ever.

            After this first night I was ready to get out of there, like Morocco in general. I figured Meknes would be just like it. Now that I’ve been in Meknes for almost a week, I can happily say that it is NOTHING like Tangier. They are not a tourist city and truly enjoy having Americans come and learn about their city and culture. I really haven’t solicited at all. Heck some people just want to come up and say Hello and welcome us to their city. There are a few guys that usually try to take advantage of the ISA girls wallets, but our directors warned the girls of who they are and how to avoid them. They aren’t really trying to harm the girls, just take advantage of their money and their US citizenship. But overall, people in Meknes are great and very welcoming.

            Two Moroccan guys deserve special shout out because they have helped out my apartment-mates and I since we arrived. Nabil and Khalid… both of them are a little older (late 20’s early 30’s) and have jobs in agri-business. They work for a company that distributes a lot of wine and alcohol for Morocco. They are really good friends with on of our directors and have befriended many previous ISA students. They actually was with our directors when we arrived in Meknes and showed us where our apartment was. They also have showed us around town, bought us tea and even pizza late last night. Not to mention the fact that they helped us all study our Arabic and French the entire day yesterday over a bottle of complimentary wine from them.  Bottom line, for someone like me with no background in French (the main language of business transactions) or the local dialect of Arabic (Berber/Dirjha) these two guys are lifesavers and welcome around anytime.

            So when we arrived in Morocco and until a few days ago (Friday exactly I think) it was Ramadan. Ramadan is a huge religious “event” in the Islamic culture where they fast (including water) from sun up to sun down. This was fascinating just because everything was like closed during the days, then really busy and loud at night. Then, 3 days after Ramadan (Eid is what it’s called) is pretty much a big “party.” Party in quotes because not like a Wickham family party, or one thrown at the Garage Majhal (Sorry I think I butchered that spelling Billy haha), it’s more of a celebration and big feast. It was very fascinating to see and experience even though we didn’t really take part.

            We finally went to see our university today, Moulay Ismail University. Moulay Ismail was once king of Morocco and he was the one who moved the capital city here to Meknes for his 50 years as king. The only time Meknes has been the capital. But he built extravagant walls around the entire old city, many of which remain today. I live in the new city but am walking distance away from the old city. He also built a grainery that was big enough to hold enough grain to feed the entire city for 20 years. We toured it and it was the BIGGEST thing I’ve ever seen. Walls are 10 feet THICK and about 40 feet high with just empty square footage to store grain. It was unbelievable. The university itself is within walls that are about 30-40 feet high. Walls surround the entire campus with 3 HUGE Aladdin type doors at the front and only a small door in the back. It is a very cool campus, small but awesome. I should have my schedule by tonight with classes starting tomorrow.

            I don’t want to bore you with a long winded day by day explanation of what has been going on (if I haven’t already haha) but I will make a list of things that remind me of where I am and the cultural differences. Most of them should be funny, but no guarantees:

T.I.M.’s (This Is Morocco)

When the store had to open up the “forbidden closet” where they hide the beer and liquor in the supermarket, then asked us to see our Passports because they don’t sell to Moroccans until today (3 days after Ramadan).

Then the subsequent glares we received as we checked out with our black bags of alcohol. And of course, the bottle I had had no bar code so they proceeded to yell across the store for 5 minutes in French about how much it was. I have never felt so dirty in my life from all the stares I was being given haha. (Don’t get me wrong, Moroccan’s enjoy a good glass of wine or a beer now and then…but it’s definitely not something they boast about)

There are really no cross walks in Morocco. If you can even fathom how this works, you literally play the game Frogger in real life. There are some stoplights, but no one goes there to cross, you just walk across one car at a time literally touching the other cars (going at a pretty good clip) as you walk by. I know some of you may not even be able to see this in your head, because it is extremely dangerous and unheard of, but nonetheless how it is. It turns out it’s very efficient and kind of fun.

Traffic in Morocco also follows really no rules. There are no lanes, you just swerve and drive up to 4 cars wide and beep your horn every time you pass someone ha. So LOTS of beeping, worse than any major city I’ve ever been to. No ones mad, it’s just how it works.

When we walked out of the open air market (that had nearly a million bees swarming all the sweet goods, literally you couldn’t see what the people were selling because bees covered everything in sight) but upon walking out we had to squeeze around a butcher shop on wheels. There was a truck and in the back they were cutting up a pig blood splattering everywhere ha.

When you’re woke up at 4:30 AM every morning by a megaphone yelling Arabic phrases from the Quran. Each morning there is a call to prayer really really early, and each minaret has a megaphone on it so it is heard around the entire city. This happens 5 times a day…it is very eerie.

When my roommates and I go to buy Risk, the board game, and end up paying $60 US DOLLARS for a stupid board game. We split it 6 ways so it was only $10 US dollars apiece, but still OUTRAGEOUS!

When a huge homemade lunch magically appears on the table every day around 1 o’clock thanks to our awesome cook Nora! She also cooks us dinner and leaves it in the fridge, does our dishes, and helps us keep this place clean. She probably hates us for being so dirty, but she’s the best.

Alright wow. I should try to write in my blog more often to keep it short, but it gets busy and it’s hard to decide what to write in this thing. Hopefully you all enjoy and let me know in the comments if you have any specific questions!

Granada!

Sorry for the delay on this post. I know it’s been about a week since I’ve posted but I was waiting for my stay here in Granada to wrap up so I could just do a general overview of the entire experience here.

Following the pictures on Facebook will also help give you a visual for what I’m talking about but I’ll try to describe stuff here too.

After arriving on Friday we worked on getting settled in our hotel and trying to meet everyone. My roommate Shane (pronounced like Sean) was already here waiting for the rest of us to get here. He had met up with another guy who will be living in our apartment in Morocco, in Seville, Spain a few days earlier. His names Juan and he’s from Columbia but goes to school in the states. So his first language is Spanish, which has come in very handy here in Granada. Anyways, long story short, all 6 of us decided we were going to go out and grab some dinner together and get a feel for what everyone’s like. Before I go into detail about that I want to talk really quickly about the culture here in Spain.

The culture is here is so different when it comes to a normal day. There is usually breakfast from like 7:30/8 until 10 ish then shops will open up and do their thing. Then around 12 until 2 there’s lunch. Lunch usually is the biggest meal and almost every restaurant has what is called a Menu, pronounced Men-“ew”. And what this is essentially a 3 course meal. You choose from a few options for your first dish, usually some sort of salad. Then your next dish is the most substantial with meat or pasta or something. Then you can either get coffee, tea, or some sort of pastry dessert. This also comes with a drink, beer, wine, or a soft drink usually for about 10 – 15 euros.  Personally, I only did this once because it was a little expensive for my taste, I prefer a 3 or 4 euro “Kebab” which is like a pita filled with fresh vegetables, and in my case, “pollo con queso” or chicken and cheese. They are amazing. Then after lunch comes the best part of the day, the siesta or naptime. This is wear many people close their shops and go take a few hour nap until about 5 when shops start opening up again.  Then at about 9:30/10 dinner starts to pick up. Dinner lasts from 10 until 1 or even 2 in the morning. Dinner is a little bit different from lunch. It usually consists of things called “Tapas”, which are essentially appetizers.  The concept is quite simple, every time you order a drink, they bring you food. Usually they are smaller portions but fantastic nonetheless. The drinks may cost 1-2 euros but come with food. This is what we did for dinner most of the time. Ordered 4 or 5 rounds and just ate dinner like that. We also would kind of bar hop to try as many different tapas as possible. Then after dinner, if you’re interested, you can continue to drink a little bit until it is time to go out “clubbing” or bar hoping, whichever you prefer. Personally, I enjoy a good “discotecha” or club with loud dance music. Some of these clubs don’t open until 3 AM and almost all of them are open until 6 AM!!! This makes for some crazy long and wild nights.  There’s a little taste for how the Spanish culture’s days are structured.

But back to the first night. So we went out and with Juan’s help, had no problem getting some dinner and tapas. We actually all kind of clicked as a group. There was really no awkward time between the 6 of us. Bottom line is I’m really excited about living with these guys for the next 4 months. It should be an awesome time.  Just for future references in later blogs, here’s a list of the guys and where they’re from:

Shane (Sean) My actual roommate – He’s from Santa Barbra, CA

Zach – Maine

Ben – Virginia

Jared – Colorado

Juan – Columbia (But goes to school in Maryland)

The next few days we were in Granada, one of our program directors, Daniel and his girlfriend Christina showed us all over town. If you check out the pictures on Facebook you will see the tour around Granada then the amazing tour of the Alhambra. I labeled all those pictures so you can get the description of the tours from the pictures.

Each day was about the same with regards to what we did for food. Kebab’s for lunch, tapas and drinks for dinner. Then we went out to the discotechas at night. So far it has been an amazing trip. I will definitely want to make it back to Granada someday and hopefully show the family and Mandie around. Today is our last day in Granada though and we will be traveling to Tangier, Morocco all day tomorrow. Taking the ferry out of Gibraltar to Morocco, which should be awesome. Oh, and tonight we are going to see one of the famous Flamenco dancing shows! That’s supposedly one of the best things to see in Spain. I’ll continue to post pictures and try to keep my blog updated.  Hopefully in Morocco it will be easier. I also learned a lot of information about what life will be like in Morocco, but I’ll share that in a later blog.  Hope you enjoyed the read and the pictures! Update again as soon as possible

"This is URGENT!!!!!"

That is not the most pleasant voicemail/email to receive from your travel agent only 27 hours before you're first flight to fly out of the country.  But nonetheless, I received both the email and voicemail from my anxious sounding travel agent less than 2 hours ago (27 hours before I was suppose to leave).  And I am now sitting in the "Greater Rochester International Airport" waiting to board my flight in a half an hour.

So long story short, my travel agent got wind that Hurricane Earl might reek havoc with the east coast airports tomorrow, called me at 2 o'clock and told me that she thought I should move my itinerary up a day, and just spend a day in Madrid before continuing on to Granada for orientation. Instantly, I got dad on the conference call and we made the decision, we were going to go for it. I had JUST finished packing everything up and just BARELY made the weight limit (50.5 lbs... .5 above haha) but I was somewhat "Ready"... Barbara, the best travel agent known to man, was able to book me in the last seat for a flight out of Newark to Madrid tonight at 9. She also booked me a cheap hotel right near the airport in Madrid for my extra day.  During the madness I was running around double, triple checking to make sure I had everything while brushing my teeth, washing my face, and throwing everything together. Then mom got home and out the door we went, DRENCHED in sweat ha. We left the house at 2:50, made it to the airport by 3:30 (Mom drove, fast) and I had my bags checked and in line at security by 3:36. Poor Mandie was in class during all the festivities so we had to say goodbye through a very pixely Rochester airport internet video chat. But I'm at the gate ready to get on the first flight to Newark...hopefully it's on time and I can hustle and make my flight over seas.

Let's just say, it was a WILDDDDDD start to my trip. The adrenaline is still pumping as I type. Oh and a quick side story, I had wanted to wash my shoes before I left, so I had put them in the washer earlier today, thinking they'd have all night to dry them. Nope, I had to hold them soaking wet out the window on the way to the airport to try to get them as dry as possible. And although they're drying...I think a change of socks will be necissary once I'm on my plane out of Newark. But "families with little children, older people, and anyone needing extra time to board" are boarding now, so I'm nexttttt. Wish me luck on catching my flight out of Newark, and I will post again when I am at the hotel in MADRID!!!!