Weekend Travels: Fes and Meknes

And now, dear readers, it is time for jotting down another adventure! Yay for weekend exploration and excitement :)

Before I begin though, let's back track a bit...

Classes started this week. YAY! With all the confusion of classes not being in the rooms they were said to be in, my beginning arabic class being EXTREMELY too big (according to my professor who speaks broken english so it was really amusing to try and explain that we couldn't move into the other class due to having other classes at the same time). Didn't get that all straightened until Friday (yesterday) so it's been a bit of a stressful week because there were those of us who signed up for the Madame's class when she said it was at ten am, then figured out that she kept it at 11am, so we were all stressing out about it. But it all got sorted in the end :)

Fes: Castle

My other classes are going to be really good too! I'm super excited for them as they are all encompassing African culture and history as well as minority and ethnicity in Europe and North African politics. With the first week done I feel that they will actually get up and running, so I'm looking forward to getting deeper into the topics.

FES

While here, I've gone to a couple of clubs and bars. The club was fun, though when I came back my clothes reeked of smoke, not a very pleasant thing, but here it is normal to smell that way, so even though I didn't wear them until I washed them, you don't have to worry about smelling like cigarettes. That may lead to people thinking that you do smoke, however, so if you end up getting offered one, don't be surprised :) The bar is by the lake about a five minute walk from campus. A group of us who didn't want to go to the club on a weekday due to early morning classes the next day, decided  to hang out and drink and have a good time without staying out until 3am and having to sleep four people to a bed or on the floor in a rented apartment without heating and return to campus at 8am or earlier in order to get to class. Thankfully I did not go with that, everyone who did was completely out of it by noon on Friday and didn't do much else but sleep all day after classes :) My Friday turned into a relaxing day (after paying my school fees) encompassing playing my ukulele and hanging out with my roommate Sara at the cafe on campus from 3pm until 9pm. We talked a lot, and my friends Mouna and Jared joined later on, making the conversation even more enjoyable. Mouna has decided to travel through Europe with me after the semester, so I now have a buddy to go with when I'm done with classes! We are both super excited!!! Back in the dorm Sara and I talked some more, and I found out that she is really happy that we have been able to click so well. And I feel the same way. I've only been here two weeks and I'm already good friends with my roommate: couldn't ask for anything better :)

Entrance to the Medina

Without sports and a job I've had a lot of down time, so I've started reading. I'm on my second book (I was halfway through one when I flew to Morocco). It's called "Born to Run," a book about the mysteries of the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico who can run up mountains and on the most dangerous terrain for hundreds of miles and never injure themselves or become tired. It's really interesting, I know that I love running, but to reach the level of love they have for running... it's incredible.

Today a group of us travelled by Grand Taxi to Fes. It's about forty minutes to an hour away by taxi, and with  four people in the back seat it's a little squished, but not uncomfortable. And it makes the ride cheaper. The way Moroccans drive is insane: no one stays in their lane, pedestrians walk right out in front of cars, cars weave in and out of traffic around the round abouts, cars pull right in front of each other without really looking, there is tons of honking... I'm amazed this system actually works! The tailgating too... if you know what I've been through in the last couple months, you would know that riding up on someone's fender that closely is not something that I am comfortable with, and these guys are basically a half foot at most away from the cars in front of them. Dad, you would HATE traffic and drivers here in Morocco, hahaha.

The tannery where they dye the animal skin (aka leather)

Writing on the walls of the Medina (in the Market)

We ended up going to the medina in Fes and walking around the pedestrian cobblestone alleyways within the city. The architecture reminded my friends Alyssa, Austen and I so much of Aladdin. I could imagine little kids running over the rooftops doing parkour of some kind! Mouhad took us around to the tannery, the place where they make leather. We were told how the process works and were able to see it be done. It smelled pretty bad (it's animal skin)  so the mint leaves that were handed to us at the door were super helpful. We also visited the Qur'an school that was built 400 years ago. It was gorgeous, no matter how broken down it may have looked. It reminded me of a palace in Spain I saw, the mosaic tiles everywhere and everything really ornately decorated.

fountain in the main entrance to the Madrasah

I could not get over the excitement of walking through the market place. You can buy sweet rolls for one dirham, and other things are pretty cheap as well: we all tried pastias with chicken, a phyllo dough meat pastry  sprinkled with powered sugar. You'd think it sounds weird right? Chicken and powdered sugar?? What? But it's great combination! It's definitely a recipe I'm going to be bringing home with me :) While walking around to see the historical buildings and mosques, a boy showed us up the stairs and onto the roof of a carpet shop, where we were able to see the entire Medina! Three mosques surrounded us and more were in the background. We were up there as the third call to prayer of the day occurred: voices from the mosques throughout Fes echoed and reverberated all around us. It was beautiful to hear.. then we were given an unexpected tour of the carpet shop, getting the opportunity to see how the blankets and carpets were made, what kind of wool was used (sheep, camel, lamb, etc). Every single thing was breathtaking, and the "student blankets" were not too pricey, so I bought one for Dad. Everyone in the group wants to find it again to get blankets, so I may end up getting myself one as well, but we'll see. I definitely saw cheaper in Azrou and the blankets may have been the same quality...

Window in the Madrasah

View of main Mosque from the rooftop of the Carpet Store

Went to Meknes yesterday with Lena, Maiya, Martina and Tess. Took a grand taxi to the Marjane (basically a huge superstore) so Maiya could get dictionaries and we could get some things we can't find in the markets. Then we took a petit taxi to the medina where we met up with Maiya's couch surfing hosts and walked around the market and got tea and coffee. It was nice to sit down and relax, even though the markets are pretty great. I saw a real snake charmer in the main square there, still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that that actually happened!

Man making blankets on a loom

Carpet store owner and his array of blankets and rugs

Cous cous with chicken... yummm

Night View of Fes

Dynasty tombs and nearby cemetary

There are so many things and places here that you would never see in the states. What an experience I am having and it is only the start of week three. There's a three day weekend coming up at the end of this week (Feb 4-6) for the celebration of the prophet's birthday. So many trip opportunities, so many choices, I have no idea what I'm going to be doing. As for now, back to studying, getting rid of this cold, and enjoying school life here in Ifrane :)