Here's Looking at You Kid

I am standing on the roof or our hotel, that is Mosque Hassan II in the background as well as a portion of Casablanca. Please note, all photos are again taken by Emma since I still do not have a memory card.

As Americans who were interested in Morocco, many of us have seen (and love) the film Casablanca...so of course we dived into the charming tourist trap known as Rick's Cafe, opened by an American woman in 2004. They have the movie playing constantly on the second floor and it is a nice spot to have a drink without getting hit on by twenty different men--but alas, you must have the money to spend. Since we are all poor college students, we settled on lunch and took plenty of photos. It was amazing. Although, I felt bad for the waiters wearing the Fez caps, which according to history buff Jeff, has something to do with Ottoman rule and is considered rather degrading (although I do see men in the street wearing them from time to time).

Our hotel had open access to the roof--a lot of things are open access because the lawyers here are too pious to sell their souls to the devil; thus, most people are not constantly in fear of lawsuits. Anyway, Emma and I (and eventually Nida joined us) ventured up to the very top of our hotel room for some breathless views of Casablanca. We did not get to see much of the city on the ground due to our lack of knowledge and retreating back to the hotel after spending ten minutes attempting to shirk a boy asking us for money.

Above: Another shot of Casablanca. Below: A medresa, which means "school" (and not fundamentalist Islamic training center) in Arabic.

The call to prayer occurs five times a day, and people do not stop whatever they're doing to pray...they don't even pause in conversation (and I no longer wake up to the 6 am call to prayer every morning) and the calls from various mosques do not seem to coincide...at all. Regardless, it was neat to stand up there in a foreign city looking at all the buildings and people living their daily lives while listening to the minarets belt out the recordings of men singing their praise to Allah. Morocco is a very modern country, the women are fashionable and could teach a thing or two to many Americans! People all have cell phones and MSN messenger is bigger than AIM here. University students are fluent in Dharija (Moroccan dialect of Arabic), Fuhs-ha (standard Arabic), French, and often English or Spanish and are very knowledgeable about what is happening all over the world. There are as many women who leave their heads uncovered as covered (although I quickly realized that is not a sign of modernity but personal preference), and many women are in university and careers. Morocco is still very much a patriarchal society, but the Moroccan woman is cutting edge and savvy, and her social status seems to rapidly be climbing.
The image on the left is a park in Casablanca. The right image shows the French influence in a lot of the architecture in Casablanca. Well, that is all I have for now. I will be in the Medina tomorrow afternoon where all the souks are (open air markets) so I'll try to purchase a memory card and take pictures so you can match images with my lingo!

As Time Goes By

I just have to rub it in your face. It's going to be almost 20 degrees here on Friday. That's Celsius by the way...in Fahrenheit it's about 70 degrees.

We rode the train (which was nicer than the Metra to Chicago, and cost less than four dollars) for an hour south of Rabat to Casablanca on Saturday morning. After checking into the very inexpensive, but clean and colorful, Hotel Centrale (less than a ten minute walk from the train station and about $20 per person per night), we sat down to enjoy a cup of mint tea. Mint tea (tay d'el ban-ah) is popular in North Africa, and I drink it everyday in Morocco. It's very good and super sweet (I'll probably have diabetes when I come home from all the sugar they ingest in this country) . In this photo you will find Emma (who took all the photos in this post due to me being too lazy to purchase a memory card) and Nida, two girls who I hang out with quite often and will probably mention in passing quite often during my blog post. After a good half hour of chatting and tea drinking, we headed to the Hassan II Mosque to meet our fellow students who arrived the day before.

Hassan II Mosque (Masjid el-Hassan el-Thanii) is named for Morocco's previous King Hassan who died in the earlier part of the decade. Construction began in the 80s and it will not be complete for at least another decade (according to AmidEast staff). It is breathtaking, beautiful and intricate mosaics, and at nearly 700 feet tall, the world's tallest minaret (the mosque itself is the second largest). We did not take a tour inside; however, we will in a couple of weeks on our way to Marrakesh.

The top picture is the minaret, right about the caption is another part of the mosque with Casablanca peering through behind it.

Smiitii Kayla u kinskoon feh L'Océon

Nine things I've learned:

1) Men aren't afraid to offer you $5 for sex
2) If you are a woman alone in a bar, you are a prostitute...no really, you are.
3) Allowing your eyes to stray from the sidewalk results in you stepping into a hole and spraining your ankle
4) Henna people are not your friend, no matter how friendly they seem--keep your hands away from them or they will start drawing on you not matter what you say
5) Moroccan people are some of the nicest people in the world--until they get behind the wheel of a car
6) Keep reminding myself that I'll appreciate the fact houses aren't heated in about a month when it starts getting warm outside
7) The loud sound that sounds a lot like a tornado siren every morning at 6AM is really the beginning for the call to prayer
8) Keanu Reeves is still annoying, even when dubbed in French
9) Morocco is probably the best place I've ever been

Despite some issues and a minor case of culture shock, I've found that Morocco is probably one of the most amazing places on earth. Not that I have much credibility in that arena considering I'm not a world traveler...yet. I have yet to find another memory card for my camera, so you'll have to make due with photos from day one. I've been too busy/lazy to look for a memory card in the medina which is only a twenty-five minute walk away.
The next time America's Next Top Model goes to another country for the competition, they should totally come here. The girls are some of the most beautiful and stylish people I've ever seen in my life--they could give a many European and American girls a run for their money. And the craziest thing of all, the Moroccan girls (and even guys) have no idea how beautiful and stylish they are. Maybe that's a good thing, if they were conceded they might not be nearly as friendly!

I'm all moved in with my family...I have a mom named Khartoum who is about the same age as Clark (my father) and is super sweet. She stays at home most of the day, cooking, praying, and cleaning. Perhaps she goes out and socializes while I am gone, but I have only seen her leave once or twice to buy bread since I've arrived four days ago.

Moroccans love to feed you--and they will not stop feeding you and that's another thing I've learned...Schbet. It means full, and I put my hand on my stomach and say it and smile. My mom is good about not forcing food down my throat; although I do not feel that the other Americans are as lucky. She also had her son, Nadir, come over and set up Internet, so I am one of a few who actually has access to the world wide web from home--and I haven't heard of anybody else really having it on their computer (except for a girl who got the password for her neighbor's wireless service, which she only got because he wanted to date her, sneaky girl).

I live in L'Océon, which is a area of the capital, Rabat. It is not the most aesthetically pleasing area (and a fellow student informed me of their epiphany that L'Océon is the car garage capital of the city) and walking around late at night alone is a bad idea--but it's home and I love it with all its quirky charm and character. I live two blocks from one of (I think) two churches in the whole city--which is great because I can just tell the cab driver "el-Kiniisa feh l'Océon" (the church in Océon) and they know right where to take me! I also learned that if you walk quickly with a mean look on your face, men won't harass you as much, possibly because they are afraid you are going to punch them in the face if they make one more kissey face at you!

L'Océon is near the ocean, and I am grateful for that when the weather gets warmer. It is about a 45 minute walk to school when you get lost, 35-40 when you don't. The bus here isn't as complicated or threatening as the other buses in Rabat, and it takes about 20-25 minutes to get to school using that...as long as you figure out where the unmarked bus stop is and the driver doesn't decide to skip your stop or the bus breaks down...

It's kind of a random city, Rabat, but that's part of the charm. You can't really get frustrated with all the insanity that goes on in this city, because it becomes a part of you and amidst all the chaos you find the pattern and things seem to make sense. You even learn to either laugh at, or ignore the constant barrage of catcalls and you master your fear of being run over by a little blue taxi that may not have breaks that work very well.

Oh man, I typed so much and I didn't even begin to cover what I wanted to...I'll have to work on updating this more often. Maybe tomorrow? We'll see.

Je voudrais un hamburger avec fromage...

Let's get this off the chest, right off the bat...I'm not witty but I am going to make as many clever and cute remarks I can make, and they will rarely fall into either of those categories. With that said, onto the pulp.

I spent my Friday night in a hotel in Montreal after my Royal Air Maroc flight was cancelled. After calling my father sobbing, inhaling some food after barely eating all day, and spending ten minutes trying to teach my mother how to unmute her computer so we could have a proper conversation through Skype, I finally calmed down and spent the rest of my evening watching reruns of American crime dramas and slept a bit. In the morning I awoke and headed to the airport around 7:30 a.m., and grateful I did. Although my flight wasn't until 11, due to the fact that two flights to Casablanca had been cancelled that week, I spent about two hours in line to get my ticket. I don't even care, I was so thankful to get a ticket.

The flight itself was not too bad, it was definitely a second hand jet, probably purchased from Air France--but a 747 that got us to Casablanca in one piece nonetheless. I sat next to a kind, middle aged woman with purple hair who was either French of from Quebec--I think French...who spoke a little English. I landed around 10:45 p.m., grabbed my baggage and spent more than twenty minutes searching for my driver to take me to my hotel in Rabat--all the time my stomach churning, worrying that he was not going to come. I'm sure I gave myself an ulcer for no reason! He did come, well his younger brother found me, they had been told the wrong terminal. The ninety minute drive from Casablanca to Rabat was pleasant, the driver and his brother chatted with me, clearly interested in their fare. I do not speak the darija dialect of Arabic spoken here, I know fusha (pronounced fuss-ha), or classical Arabic; thus, we communicated in French instead. My driver turned up Backstreet Boys real loud when I laughed after they came on, explaining I listened to them when I was very young. I arrived at the hotel at about 1:05 in the morning.

They accidentally booked me with one of the guys on the trip--it's illegal for unwed people of the opposite sex to share a hotel room in Morocco. Luckily, I got details from Dante, the guy I woke up when trying to get into the room, for what was happening the next morning with the program. Around 1:30 I got into a room by myself and saw there were no clocks, Moroccans have a very lax concept of time apparently. I plugged in my travel alarm clock and was ready to cry when I watched it burn out. I was exhausted. Luckily Moroccans believe in wake-up calls, even if they don't believe in clocks! All ended well and I found my fellow study abroaders the next morning who were more than happy to show me the way to AMIDEAST, my school for the next 4 months.