Category: Other

Not only did I take (and hopefully pass) my Arabic midterm this morning, write the final 2.5 pages of my paper during my lunch break, and give my presentation in class… but I took the bus home from school all by myself and completed a game of minesweeper on expert level without putting any flags on any mines.

You can be impressed, its okay, go ahead.

After school I finally got to meet up with my friend Riley from Loma who’s also studying in Rabat this summer (quelle coincidence!) and we had dinner near my school Brynn and Pete came too. Thing is, I’m getting really tired of the cafe fare in my school’s area. I’m trying to remember what I used to eat. Burritos. I miss burritos! Also Chinese. And Maccaroni and cheese. I gotta stop thinking about this! When I land in San Diego one month from today I fully expect my first stop to be at Santana’s. Parents, put it on the itenerary. Santanas, then 10-hour nap.

Its hard to believe I only have one month left abroad. I mean I kind of just got here–but Sunday will mark me being here for three weeks. I’ve been blogging really consistently too so I’m kind of proud of that.

Hmm. Just one more bit of miscellaneous information to put here since this post is kind of just a handful of thoughts flying hither and thither… not being able to understand what’s on TV is very good encouragement for one to read. That said, I’ve already read four books. First was Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, very excellent. Second was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (which was apparently a 1997 movie with John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and–Jude Law? Thanks google, now I’ve got to see this!), this book had hilarious characters and was pretty much non-fiction. Awesome right? Third was Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (lent to me by Angela, she bought it in Ireland). Last weekend I read Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult because it was English and because it was free on the bookself in the study abroad office. It was… pretty lame. Not a fan, not at all. This weekend I’ll be working on Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard, borrowed from Pete. Should be read fairly quickly, and that shall make five.

My family sure knows how to do a beach day. They’ve got it down to a science… two umbrellas, one tent/wind shield thing, boogie boards, a cooler, chairs, towels, etc, all loaded up in the car in less than ten minutes… would have taken my CA family an hour to get it done… anyway needless to say I spent all day at the beach. We were there from 11:45 to about 9. Yeah, I said ALL DAY. Don’t worry, I put on sun screen.

It was different from San Diego beaches–more rocks, but there were tide pools and no intimidating signs to leave the wildlife alone, so putting aside my strict US indoctrination I took the liberty of  poking at the fish and catching a hermit crab. Other things that were different from US beaches… women wearing long sleeves and head scarves instead of tank tops and shorts or less. I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to brown my legs but I left my shirt on out of respect… I was only 50% outrageous I guess. I mean, not all the women were wearing long sleeves and such but I’d say about half or more were. I know its a choice in this country and all (we’re not in Saudi Arabia or anything), but all I kept thinking about how sweltering they must have been in the sun!

Secondly, I was going to post this last night after my trip to the medina but the internet was being terribly uncooperative. So yesterday I wore one of Angela’s gypsy skirts in order to take advantage of the delightful breeze since we were going to be walking… many many miles (I couldn’t even estimate how many. Suffice it to say we hoofed it all around Rabat). Anyway, even though I wore the skirt I wore tennis shoes and socks. Later when I got home, I took off the socks and shoes and there was a CLEAR line between where they had kept my feet clean and where the dirt and grime of the city had made its way onto my body. And I shall share this image with you :)

Also instead of doing my homework I’ve been addicted to https://twitter.com/#search?q=%23iranelection since I got home from the beach… You should probably give it a gander…