Tag: Africa

Sand and Camels but no Desert!

Note to self: don’t go tanning on a beach in a city called “the city of wind.” You will most certainly be consumed by sand.

In other news: I SAW CAMELS TODAY! Okay, it wasn’t really legitimate because it was just some guys on the beach trying to make a quick Dirham enticing foreigners to ride them… but I saw like 7 and they are WAY HUGER than I had pictured. I mean, I’m always surprised by how big horses are in real life, but these guys made horses look downright manageable. (The camel guys were riding horses too). My prof got all up-in-arms about it because we aren’t in the desert and thus the appearance of camels isn’t legit but it doesn’t make me want to ride them any less. He said we should be able to ride some in Marrakesh on Sunday which also isn’t ideal in his eyes but it’s better than on the beach.

The hotel does not, in fact, have free wi-fi which is a HUGE bummer so we all went together and bought 5 days worth of unlimited access from Pete’s room and that’s what I’m using now. This is not ideal but its better than not having it at all. Now we get to put our sharing/taking turns lessons from kindergarten to good use.

I hope that’s an adequate explanation for why today and yesterday’s posts have been so lackluster. Sorry readers! Sunday night you will have a super post with pictures of the Gnawa festival and of CAMELS! Now I shall go take a nap in order to rest up for tonight’s festivities. Have a great Friday!

Wrestling!

I’m watching wrestling in German at the hotel we’re staying at here in Essouaria. There are a bunch of French channels but they’re all showing suuuuper dramatic movies and the English channel has continuous coverage of M-J’s heart attack. I’m not sure it warrants continuous coverage…  anyway so German WWE it is.

We left Rabat today at around 7:30 AM and got here to Essouaria at like 4. That is like three hours longer than the trip should have taken and I’m not sure why. Lets just say it was a long time to be in the tour bus/van/thing. I listened to some great music on my iPod and slept a fair amount so it was not bad. Traveling by road really isn’t good for one’s appearance though. I mean when you get off a plane you still look alright usually. In a car, bus or van its a different story.

The Gnawa festival is shaping up to be A-W-E-S-O-M-E. We watched one concert tonight and I’m looking forward to a day full of Gnawa tomorrow!!!

A Big Day, Food, and Books

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.