This post strikes a more somber note. Firstly, it is our last full day in Berlin. Secondly, it is our last day without Amy. Most importantly, we traveled to a reopened concentration camp and got a feel for the atrocities committed there.
At 9:45, we woke up to head back to the Brandenberg Gate. Sandeman's offers a tour of a concentration camp an hour from Berlin in Oranienberg. The camp was called Sachsenhausen. It is important to note that it was a work camp rather than a death camp, despite the fact that 22,000 people still died there. The next couple of paragraphs will be disheartening, but are still important for me to record. Feel free to skip to after the dashed line further down if you would like to skip over the some of the more upsetting/graphic details.
We had a UK-born guide who walked us around the concentration camp for 3 hours. The camp was constructed in the shape of a equilateral triangle with a watch tower and mounted machine gun set up at the midpoint of the triangle's base, such that they could watch over all of the grounds from that one point. At its max capacity,the camp held 35,000 people with bunk rooms that were meant to hold 100 holding 400. The camp was a work camp and housed lots of political enemies, including the oldest son of Stalin (who died there), many generals and politicians. The prisoners were sent from Berlin by train on the same tracks that we took out of the city, to a spot 20 miles from Berlin. Once there, they were paraded through the town to the main gate beneath the watch tower (called Watchtower A) where the gate was adorned with the infamous motto, "Work sets you free".
While held, prisoners were put into work details. Most worked in the brick-making details, others cooked, cleaned, or carried bodies. The worst work detail was the boot-testing detail where they had to run in a circle all day testing out new boot soles and often holding loads up to 45 pounds above their heads. Life expectancy for these prisoners was 12 days. The camp was also home to a select group of prisoners who worked on a counterfeiting operation for the Nazi's to reproduce the pound and the dollar in order to flood those markets with currency and destroy the markets. Though the pound was successfully reproduced, the dollar never was.
Camp life also had two main features. Firstly, there were two daily roll calls. All prisoners had a half hour to line up in front of watchtowerA and stood there usually for three hours while being beaten and counted. The longest one lasted 15 hours just to torture the prisoners who only had thin cotton uniforms. The second facet of camp life was the beatings. SS soldiers had free reign to attack any prisoner they wanted whenever they wanted. Violence was subjective and encouraged.
The prison housed communists, homosexuals, convicts, and Jews,and each group wore a triangle to represent their affiliation. While sickness and disease accounted for many deaths, executions were a majority of the 22,000 deaths. Over 10,000 soviet prisoners of war were executed in the camp through the use of a "neckshot" device where prisoners were shot in the neck from behind while their height was measured for a "new uniform". A crematorium was built later on site and many bodies were burned. The neckshot and crematorium building was called Station Z, so that the prisoners "came through Watchtower A and left through Station Z." The Nazi party would sell urns filled with ash back to family members outside the camp in order to raise money, even though the ash was made of 25 random people rather than the loved one they believed it contained. There also was a pathology lab where all bodies were taken before cremation.
The camp was burned down when the Nazis were fleeing at the end of the war, so not much from the original camp remained. Some of the original stone buildings still stood, but some of the buildings were also reconstructions for the sake of education. Most buildings were not rebuilt though and their locations were instead marked by an outline of stones on the floor. While there, we visited Watchtower A, two barracks-turned-museums, the kitchen (now a fantastic museum), a memorial, the execution trench, the remains of Station Z, the roll call area, and the pathology lab. The pathology lab was the original building which was creepy because as we walked through it, we followed the journey of the body, first to the operating table to determine the cause of death (often a lie because they couldn't say "beatings by the officers"), then down to the basement to large holding rooms, and then to a ramp to be taken to the crematorium. You could just imagine the smell, the piles of bodies, and blood soaking every surface.
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My concluding thoughts on the experience can be summed up by the following sentences. I was very happy we chose to visit a concentration camp because it really put things in perspective for us. I think it is an important thing to do for anyone who has the chance to do so. Though it was still a sad experience, it was not as hard of an experience as any of us expected it to be. I attribute this to four factors:
1. None of us are Jewish nor a part of any of the other persecuted groups so we lacked that connection or any familial connection to the location
2. Sachsenhausen was a work camp and considered one of the "nicer camps", so the issues associated with a place like Auschwitz, where 1.3 million people perished, were missing.
3. Our guide stated most of the information in a "this is what happened" manner rather than being very depressing about it
4. The lack of ability to truly visualize. Though we could imagine watching the gaunt prisoners standing at roll call and suffering through their every day lives, the emptiness of the camp, our incapability to grasp large numbers (what does 22,000 people look like?), and our lack of experience with any comparable situation to the Holocaust made it impossible to see the camp for what it really was: a death sentence.
The hardest part for me was dealing with the ages of those involved. Two things really drove this home. Firstly, the fact that the average age of the German guard at the camp was only 20.8 years-old. On December 7th, I will be 20.75 years old. I could not imagine beating up and starving people on a daily basis, and being paid to do so, at this point in my life. Secondly, there was an exhibit of the faces of some of the Soviet soldiers before they were executed. It was done as a part of a propaganda program to show that the Slavic races were inferior to the Aryan race. Looking at their head shots which had been blown up to be two feet tall, I mainly noticed how young they were and how sad they looked. I began to be frightened, thinking about how these boys were my age, and I began to imagine an alternate situation where the US was called to war tomorrow, I joined the draft, I was taken in my first battle as a POW, I show up scared and defeated at the concentration camp, and I am shot dead while being lied to about being fit for a new uniform that it turns out I will never see. Just like that a life is snuffed out. Besides making me shudder, it made me feel lucky that I was born in a free country and made me feel fortunate that my childhood was not devastated by a war that killed 46 million people worldwide. It also made me appreciate those in the military who are fighting in the war on terror right now.
To conclude, this was the highlight of our visit to Berlin, in my opinion. If you get the chance to visit one, big or small, please do so. It lead to a lot of really good conversations between the three of us on the train ride back to Berlin. I didn't realize the full extent I was moved by the experience until I got to the site and then I was hit again by another wave when I sat down to write this blog post. Sorry for it being delayed recently. It is a combination of being a bit behind and wanting to take the time to treat this subject matter with the respect it deserves.
I will have another blog post tomorrow about the rest of what we did that day (it will be a short one for once!) and our first day in Prague.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Day 6 Part 2: Gates of Babylon and Pub Crawl
Continuing the previous post about the longest day ever now that I have rested and have more time:
Once the tour was done, we found ourselves standing outside the Berliner Dom. Our natural reaction was to enter the church, pay a couple of Euros, and climb to the top of it. We were able to walk around the base of the dome and take in a 360 degree view of the city. Though it was cloudy, you could still see everything. Afterwards, we visited the royal crypt in the cathedral's basement to see the ornate coffins of dead German kings and emperors.
Our next stop was the Pergamon Museum, Berlin's equivalent to a walk-in ancient history museum. I use the term "walk-in" in the most direct sense of the phrase: the first room contains a reconstructed Greek temple! It was a temple containing a holy altar from the ancient city of Pergamon in Asia Minor (now Turkey) that the museum had dismantled and rebuilt in Berlin. The exhibit has the massive 3-story-tall steps and entryway along with the frieze and altar from the temple's interior and the frieze that ran around the whole outside of the temple. This spectacle however was topped by the room next to it which contained the entrance to a Roman market place, a 4-story-tall structure that is more than 60% intact and must have been 30 yards across. In the room right after that, they had the gates of Babylon! That is, the gates from the real city of Babylon, as in, one of the7 wonders of the ancient world. The gates are made of blue brick, are three stories tall, and still have the cuneiform inscription that says something along the lines of "I am King Nebuchanezzer and I built these gates of Babylon and they are guarded by the Gods." Though one of the two wings of the museum was closed, we still had our minds thoroughly blown.
From here,we ate dinner at a restaurant called the Block House, where Maddie and I each had cheeseburgers. Then it was a quick cab back to the hostel for a 30 minute nap because at 8 pm, we planned to go on a Pub Crawl! For 13 Euros. Sandeman's took us to four pubs and then to one club. The four bars were: Silberfish, a German basement bar; Berlin Central Club, a bar with a large dance floor where you were more encouraged to dance than to drink; CCCP, a crowded Russian-themed bar with a live band; and Belushi's, an American sports bar/hostel. Around 12:30 am, we all boarded a train and headed over to the most bumping part of Berlin, Kreuzberg. This is the Southeastern part of the city where all the big bars/clubs are. They took us to Club Matrix, a club with 7 dance floors, underneath the train station. We explored all of the options but stayed mainly in the top 40/Pop room. Highlights included a urinal in the bathroom that was a painted porcelain recreation of the Rolling Stone mouth, boogieing my pants off, and dancing with Maddie in a cage next to the dance floor. At 2:30 am, we left the club and got to bed at 3 am.
Thus concludes one of the most active days of my life.
Once the tour was done, we found ourselves standing outside the Berliner Dom. Our natural reaction was to enter the church, pay a couple of Euros, and climb to the top of it. We were able to walk around the base of the dome and take in a 360 degree view of the city. Though it was cloudy, you could still see everything. Afterwards, we visited the royal crypt in the cathedral's basement to see the ornate coffins of dead German kings and emperors.
Our next stop was the Pergamon Museum, Berlin's equivalent to a walk-in ancient history museum. I use the term "walk-in" in the most direct sense of the phrase: the first room contains a reconstructed Greek temple! It was a temple containing a holy altar from the ancient city of Pergamon in Asia Minor (now Turkey) that the museum had dismantled and rebuilt in Berlin. The exhibit has the massive 3-story-tall steps and entryway along with the frieze and altar from the temple's interior and the frieze that ran around the whole outside of the temple. This spectacle however was topped by the room next to it which contained the entrance to a Roman market place, a 4-story-tall structure that is more than 60% intact and must have been 30 yards across. In the room right after that, they had the gates of Babylon! That is, the gates from the real city of Babylon, as in, one of the7 wonders of the ancient world. The gates are made of blue brick, are three stories tall, and still have the cuneiform inscription that says something along the lines of "I am King Nebuchanezzer and I built these gates of Babylon and they are guarded by the Gods." Though one of the two wings of the museum was closed, we still had our minds thoroughly blown.
From here,we ate dinner at a restaurant called the Block House, where Maddie and I each had cheeseburgers. Then it was a quick cab back to the hostel for a 30 minute nap because at 8 pm, we planned to go on a Pub Crawl! For 13 Euros. Sandeman's took us to four pubs and then to one club. The four bars were: Silberfish, a German basement bar; Berlin Central Club, a bar with a large dance floor where you were more encouraged to dance than to drink; CCCP, a crowded Russian-themed bar with a live band; and Belushi's, an American sports bar/hostel. Around 12:30 am, we all boarded a train and headed over to the most bumping part of Berlin, Kreuzberg. This is the Southeastern part of the city where all the big bars/clubs are. They took us to Club Matrix, a club with 7 dance floors, underneath the train station. We explored all of the options but stayed mainly in the top 40/Pop room. Highlights included a urinal in the bathroom that was a painted porcelain recreation of the Rolling Stone mouth, boogieing my pants off, and dancing with Maddie in a cage next to the dance floor. At 2:30 am, we left the club and got to bed at 3 am.
Thus concludes one of the most active days of my life.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Day 6 Part 1: Longest Day Ever - New Europe Tour
Holy crap! Today was one of the longest days of my life! We overslept our alarms because Maddie and I each thought the other was setting one, so neither of us set one! Chris, who didn't bring a single electronic device with him (not even a watch,) was not of much help either haha. We woke up at 9:45 and rushed to get ready. Our plan for the day was to go tithe free New Europe tour from 11 to 2:30 and then to explore from there.
A tour company called Sandeman's has begun to offer these free New Europe tours in almost every city. The way their business model works is that they have these free tours, where the guides are only compensated by tips from us. The company then offers other tours that cost €10-12 each that are more specialized than the free basic city tour, such as a Berlin in World War 2 tour, an Alternative Berlin tour, and even a pub crawl! Because they offer them Niall of the cities we are visiting, we are planning on doing each of the free tours because they help you hit lots of the major sites and help you get your bearings in the city quickly. Our guide, Sophie, did a great job for the free 3.5 hour tour. Because she is only paid on tips, she is encouraged to do a better job.
She took us around to see:
- the Pariseplattz: the plaza behind the Gate where th US embassy is
- the Brandenberg Gate: the last remaining gate of 14 from the time when Berlin was a walled city. It is an ico for the city. It is topped by a statue of a four horse chariot called the quadraga(spelling?) that is so famous that even Napoleon stole it
- the Reichstag: the house of the German Parliament. Has a huge gold dome in the roof that you can take a free tour of
- the Holocaust Memorial: a memorial that looks like a maze of cement rectangular prisms of varying heights
- the Luftwaffte headquarters: one of the few remaining Nazi buildings, the former air force hq has been turned into the German tax department
- the site of Hitlers bunker: though filled in, we stood above the infamous bunker where he shot himself
- a section of the Berlin wall
- Checkpoint Charlie: the American-run checkpoint between East and West Germany
- a big Christmas market
- Humboldt University: where Einstein and Lenin (not John Lennon like Maddie thought) studied
- a Nazi Book Burning Memorial
- the Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyranny: a cool memorial with an oculus so the elements can cast different effects on the statue it houses
- Museum Island: home to the Royal Armory/National History Museum, the Pergamon museum, the High Arts Museum, the Berliner Dom (a cathedral, "dom" is not a typo), and more
It was well worth it. Along the way two big things happened. Firstly, Chris and I tried currywurst. This delicious concoction costs less than €3. It is a sausage, cut into chunks, smothered with ketchup, and dusted with curry powder. It is usually accompanied by a small warm roll. The currywurst was so good I had to get two! Once we saw this first stand though, we began to see them all over. The second funny thing to happens as that Maddie left us to go get a crepe while we nommed on our curry wurst. She didn't meet up at the rendezvous point until 10 minutes after we had agreed upon. Less than 24 hours in and we thought we had already lost her! She blamed it on the slow people making the creeps but I believe that she had really been secretly scarfing down currywurst from a different vendor!
This is just the first half of our day (up to 3 pm). The rest will come in the next post.
A tour company called Sandeman's has begun to offer these free New Europe tours in almost every city. The way their business model works is that they have these free tours, where the guides are only compensated by tips from us. The company then offers other tours that cost €10-12 each that are more specialized than the free basic city tour, such as a Berlin in World War 2 tour, an Alternative Berlin tour, and even a pub crawl! Because they offer them Niall of the cities we are visiting, we are planning on doing each of the free tours because they help you hit lots of the major sites and help you get your bearings in the city quickly. Our guide, Sophie, did a great job for the free 3.5 hour tour. Because she is only paid on tips, she is encouraged to do a better job.
She took us around to see:
- the Pariseplattz: the plaza behind the Gate where th US embassy is
- the Brandenberg Gate: the last remaining gate of 14 from the time when Berlin was a walled city. It is an ico for the city. It is topped by a statue of a four horse chariot called the quadraga(spelling?) that is so famous that even Napoleon stole it
- the Reichstag: the house of the German Parliament. Has a huge gold dome in the roof that you can take a free tour of
- the Holocaust Memorial: a memorial that looks like a maze of cement rectangular prisms of varying heights
- the Luftwaffte headquarters: one of the few remaining Nazi buildings, the former air force hq has been turned into the German tax department
- the site of Hitlers bunker: though filled in, we stood above the infamous bunker where he shot himself
- a section of the Berlin wall
- Checkpoint Charlie: the American-run checkpoint between East and West Germany
- a big Christmas market
- Humboldt University: where Einstein and Lenin (not John Lennon like Maddie thought) studied
- a Nazi Book Burning Memorial
- the Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyranny: a cool memorial with an oculus so the elements can cast different effects on the statue it houses
- Museum Island: home to the Royal Armory/National History Museum, the Pergamon museum, the High Arts Museum, the Berliner Dom (a cathedral, "dom" is not a typo), and more
It was well worth it. Along the way two big things happened. Firstly, Chris and I tried currywurst. This delicious concoction costs less than €3. It is a sausage, cut into chunks, smothered with ketchup, and dusted with curry powder. It is usually accompanied by a small warm roll. The currywurst was so good I had to get two! Once we saw this first stand though, we began to see them all over. The second funny thing to happens as that Maddie left us to go get a crepe while we nommed on our curry wurst. She didn't meet up at the rendezvous point until 10 minutes after we had agreed upon. Less than 24 hours in and we thought we had already lost her! She blamed it on the slow people making the creeps but I believe that she had really been secretly scarfing down currywurst from a different vendor!
This is just the first half of our day (up to 3 pm). The rest will come in the next post.
Day 5: I Get More Friends
Today this party loses one man and gains two more. I left Matt in Italy on his way to class when I grabbed the 9:45 Aerobus to BLQ, Bologna's airport. Once there, security was a breeze and I had some time to hang out before my 11:30 flight. When I left Bologna, it was sunny with no clouds in the sky, a big change from the days of rain before. However, when I landed in Berlin, it was at least 10 degrees Celsius colder and raining once again. Was leaving the wrong choice?
A quick cab to the hostel brought me face-to-face with my girlfriend Maddie and my friend Chris! They had flown in at 12:30 and had spent an hour walking around. Our hostel, the Hotel4Youth, is situated on e road, Bernaur Strausse, one of the walls the Berlin Wall ran along. The museum and walking portion began only a block from our hotel, so we dropped our luggage off and walked around the memorial. Because the wall has been mostly dismantled (though some pieces still remain up for posterity's sake), red poles stood where the wall once stood. It was crazy watching a young girl roll her backpack through the poles on her way home from school while imagining that her parents could never have done that even 22 years ago. We walked the whole length of the outdoor exhibit, like 4 or 5 blocks worth, and learned a lot about that divisive time in Berlin's history.
Afterwards, we went to Berlin's Museum of Natural History which was INCREDIBLEEEEE. They have the world's tallest dinosaur, which stands 42 feet tall, and the worlds largest wet collection, over 90,000 jars of dead amphibians, fish, and reptiles. The wet collections were all in a big glass room that looked like the prophesy room from Harry Potter. The museum also had very interesting rooms about dinosaurs, the solar system, minerals, evolution of species, taxidermy, and display making. The collection was enormous and it was well worth the 3 Euros.
Our next stop was dinner. We chose a German restaurant and each ordered a different item: goulash, ribs, and bratwurst. The food was delicious and we had our first beers there too. Afterwards, we continued to explore the city in the rain by walking a couple miles. We started from the restaurant in Oranienberg Tor, walked down to Unter den Linden (the main boulevard), walked over to the Brandenberg Gate and the Reichstag, walked the other way up Unter dee Linden to see Humboldt University, Museum Island, a cathedral, the NationalHistory Museum, and two Christmas markets, and the all the way back to our hostel on Bernaur Strausse. We didn't enter any of the buildings but just admired the way they were lit up. Dead from our long walk, we turned in early for the night by like 10 pm.
A quick cab to the hostel brought me face-to-face with my girlfriend Maddie and my friend Chris! They had flown in at 12:30 and had spent an hour walking around. Our hostel, the Hotel4Youth, is situated on e road, Bernaur Strausse, one of the walls the Berlin Wall ran along. The museum and walking portion began only a block from our hotel, so we dropped our luggage off and walked around the memorial. Because the wall has been mostly dismantled (though some pieces still remain up for posterity's sake), red poles stood where the wall once stood. It was crazy watching a young girl roll her backpack through the poles on her way home from school while imagining that her parents could never have done that even 22 years ago. We walked the whole length of the outdoor exhibit, like 4 or 5 blocks worth, and learned a lot about that divisive time in Berlin's history.
Afterwards, we went to Berlin's Museum of Natural History which was INCREDIBLEEEEE. They have the world's tallest dinosaur, which stands 42 feet tall, and the worlds largest wet collection, over 90,000 jars of dead amphibians, fish, and reptiles. The wet collections were all in a big glass room that looked like the prophesy room from Harry Potter. The museum also had very interesting rooms about dinosaurs, the solar system, minerals, evolution of species, taxidermy, and display making. The collection was enormous and it was well worth the 3 Euros.
Our next stop was dinner. We chose a German restaurant and each ordered a different item: goulash, ribs, and bratwurst. The food was delicious and we had our first beers there too. Afterwards, we continued to explore the city in the rain by walking a couple miles. We started from the restaurant in Oranienberg Tor, walked down to Unter den Linden (the main boulevard), walked over to the Brandenberg Gate and the Reichstag, walked the other way up Unter dee Linden to see Humboldt University, Museum Island, a cathedral, the NationalHistory Museum, and two Christmas markets, and the all the way back to our hostel on Bernaur Strausse. We didn't enter any of the buildings but just admired the way they were lit up. Dead from our long walk, we turned in early for the night by like 10 pm.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Day 4: Bologna Day 2
Matt didn't have class until 1 today so we slept in until 10:30. At this point, we were disheartened to discover that it was still raining. Though we had chosen to sleep through breakfast, we stopped for lunch on the way to Matt's 1 o'clock class. We each had two courses, with a pasta dish first. He then got some bad tripe (we believe it is the intestine if sme animal but since neither of us is a chef or doctor, don't take our word for it) and I ordered what we though would be fried zucchini. It ended up being boiled zucchini and was not any more fun than the tripe. When Matt was in class, I visited a store called Scout, Bologna's answer to Urban Outfitters, and Footlocker. Scout was basically the size of a small KMart but was segmented into small rooms so it seemed like the store never ended. If I had no fiscal restraint, I wouldve dropped infinity euros on the great clothing they sold, but I walked out of both stores empty handed. I did however find and purchase a deck of cards have a picture of Bologna on them from a tabbacheria (general store).
I spent some time hiding from the rain in the library until Matt got out of class. Then the two of us and two of his friends went to a Santa Lucia market in search of Christmas ornaments that said Bologna on them. We struck out. Afterwards, Matt and I went back to the apartment and relaxed. At 7:15, we met two of the girls on his program for dinner at a pizza place that one of the girls had gone to more than 20 times since she had arrived in Bologna! My pepperoni and peppers pizza was delicious. This was followed by a visit to an Irish pub, where happy hour went from 7:30 pm to 10:30, and then to a gelateria called Grom's, which is also in NYC. After a visit to another bar, we went back to our apartment and fell asleep.
I spent some time hiding from the rain in the library until Matt got out of class. Then the two of us and two of his friends went to a Santa Lucia market in search of Christmas ornaments that said Bologna on them. We struck out. Afterwards, Matt and I went back to the apartment and relaxed. At 7:15, we met two of the girls on his program for dinner at a pizza place that one of the girls had gone to more than 20 times since she had arrived in Bologna! My pepperoni and peppers pizza was delicious. This was followed by a visit to an Irish pub, where happy hour went from 7:30 pm to 10:30, and then to a gelateria called Grom's, which is also in NYC. After a visit to another bar, we went back to our apartment and fell asleep.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Day 3: Spaghetti Bolognese
Today, we started our day at 9:30. The woman offers breakfast to us between 8 and 10 so we each took fast showers and then had some breakfast. Matt had drama class at 11, so we left to walk over there. Though we had walked around the area last night, it was much nicer to be able to see everything with some sun on it.
As I learned today, Bologna is famous for three reasons. Firstly, it is the place where tortellini was created. Secondly, the city contains thousands of porticos. For those who do not study architecture, a portico is a porch supported by arches. All of the porticos are connected in Bologna so all of the sidewaIks are covered and you can walk from place to place without getting wet. Bologna is home to the worldest longest portico, but more about that later. The third reason why it is famous is because of the 300,000 people who live here, 100,000 are college students.
When Matt left for his theater class, I began to wander around the Plaza Maggiore, the city's central square. They had put up a 40 ft Christmas tree in the middle of it today but it was rather ugly undecorated. There is a famous statue of Neptune in the square as well as a huge Basilica and the public library. I walked down some of the side streets and visited a book store. I also stumbled upon an ancient university for physicians, now a library, and an anthropological museum. The museum had a ton of Egyptian items in the basement, including sarcophagi and mummies, plaster casts on the first floor of many famous Greek and roman statues, and on the second floor, tens of thousands of artifacts from Bologna's history between the prehistoric and Gallic eras (when occupied by the Gauls, or Germanic tribes, after the fall of the Roman empire). The highlight for me was a visiting exhibit about the history of counterfeiting currency called Il Vero e Il Falso. It was sponsored by the Italian Guardia di Finanza and covered 2500 years of counterfeiting. They had set up huge displays of currencies with their counterfeit copies right next to them.
Later I met up with Matt after his class and we took a taxi up to the monastery of San Luca that looks over the city. The bad news was that it was raining, the monastery was closed, and so was the pizza restaurant at the top. The good news was that we walked down from there in the worlds longest Portico. It measures over 2 miles and has 666 arches. We had a delicious lunch at a restaurant near arch 44. Afterwards we visited the basilica. It was massive. We walked around Bologna for a bit in the rain and visited a place called San Sebastien (maybe?) that had seven churches all crammed together and connected to one another. After we went back to the apartment to rest.
For dinner, we walked back to the center of town and met two of Matt's friends for apertivi and dinner. Apertivi is this cool thing Italians do where you pay for one drink (like 6 Euros) and then you pay a Euro or two more for access to a buffet of appetizers. The place we went had at least 9 different dishes including couscous, two pastas, and some salads. You hang out for an hour and then go get dinner. We went to a different restaurant for dinner where I had some tasty lasagna and we drank some wine. After an hour and a half of dinner, we traversed the city for good gelato and then traversed the city again to go to a bar. Although the city was kind of dead (it was Tuesday) it was fun to be in the bar. All the places we went to tonight were playing a channel called mydeejay which was incredible because it was a commercial-free music video station that seemed to only play good music. Afterwards, we went home and got in bed by 11:30.
As I learned today, Bologna is famous for three reasons. Firstly, it is the place where tortellini was created. Secondly, the city contains thousands of porticos. For those who do not study architecture, a portico is a porch supported by arches. All of the porticos are connected in Bologna so all of the sidewaIks are covered and you can walk from place to place without getting wet. Bologna is home to the worldest longest portico, but more about that later. The third reason why it is famous is because of the 300,000 people who live here, 100,000 are college students.
When Matt left for his theater class, I began to wander around the Plaza Maggiore, the city's central square. They had put up a 40 ft Christmas tree in the middle of it today but it was rather ugly undecorated. There is a famous statue of Neptune in the square as well as a huge Basilica and the public library. I walked down some of the side streets and visited a book store. I also stumbled upon an ancient university for physicians, now a library, and an anthropological museum. The museum had a ton of Egyptian items in the basement, including sarcophagi and mummies, plaster casts on the first floor of many famous Greek and roman statues, and on the second floor, tens of thousands of artifacts from Bologna's history between the prehistoric and Gallic eras (when occupied by the Gauls, or Germanic tribes, after the fall of the Roman empire). The highlight for me was a visiting exhibit about the history of counterfeiting currency called Il Vero e Il Falso. It was sponsored by the Italian Guardia di Finanza and covered 2500 years of counterfeiting. They had set up huge displays of currencies with their counterfeit copies right next to them.
Later I met up with Matt after his class and we took a taxi up to the monastery of San Luca that looks over the city. The bad news was that it was raining, the monastery was closed, and so was the pizza restaurant at the top. The good news was that we walked down from there in the worlds longest Portico. It measures over 2 miles and has 666 arches. We had a delicious lunch at a restaurant near arch 44. Afterwards we visited the basilica. It was massive. We walked around Bologna for a bit in the rain and visited a place called San Sebastien (maybe?) that had seven churches all crammed together and connected to one another. After we went back to the apartment to rest.
For dinner, we walked back to the center of town and met two of Matt's friends for apertivi and dinner. Apertivi is this cool thing Italians do where you pay for one drink (like 6 Euros) and then you pay a Euro or two more for access to a buffet of appetizers. The place we went had at least 9 different dishes including couscous, two pastas, and some salads. You hang out for an hour and then go get dinner. We went to a different restaurant for dinner where I had some tasty lasagna and we drank some wine. After an hour and a half of dinner, we traversed the city for good gelato and then traversed the city again to go to a bar. Although the city was kind of dead (it was Tuesday) it was fun to be in the bar. All the places we went to tonight were playing a channel called mydeejay which was incredible because it was a commercial-free music video station that seemed to only play good music. Afterwards, we went home and got in bed by 11:30.
Day 2: In Transit Part 2
The 20 hour trip wasn't over when I got to Dusseldorf; there were still 11 hours left beginning with 4 hours of sitting in the airport. Unlike some people who were drinking beer at 8 am, I chose to read and sit in a coffee shop. The highlight of the airport was definitely the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar I found in duty free for only 15 Euros. The next flight was an hour and a half to London. You are probably thinking, "Wait. Why did he fly to Dusseldorf to London? He's flying one time zone backwards and an hour and a half further away from Bologna?" There is no good answer to this question so I just won't answer it. ingot to London at noon, so I had 4 hours to kill before my flight. I didn't want to sleep in a chair at the gate in Heathrow for fear of missing the plane or getting robbed, so I spent the time trying to figure out my phone situation. I bought a sim card for 20 GBP but it wasn't working in my unlocked iPhone so I spent the next two hours sneaking in and out of an electronics store in the terminal using the macs to both look up information and to connect my phone to iTunes. I finally got asked to not come back to the store again that day, but at that point I was hungry for lunch. Next thing I know, I'm sitting on the airplane with a belly full of Wagamama. I fell asleep before we left the gate and then woke up in Bologna!
My bag made it fine and customs was a joke. A quick cab ride took me to Bologna's central train station were my buddy Matt was waiting for me. Matt has been one of my best friends since 7th grade and has been studying in Bologna all fall. His dad is from Italy so he is trying to connect with "his roots". I reminded him that he was born in Miami, speaks minimal Italian, and wished him good luck with that! We are staying in an apartment that he found on airbnb because he lives in a dorm room with 4 Italian guys and it would've been tight. The apartment is super nice and the woman gave us half of the apartment. We have a room with a double bed, tv and lots of outlets. We also have a bathroom for our personal use right next door that has a shower, bath tub, toilet, bidet, and two sinks. It's massive! After settling in, we walked to meet two of Matt's friends from the program at a grocery store. We went back to one of their dorms and cooked what they call "family dinner," Matt and like 5 friends cook in one of their rooms and hang out for like 3 hours. It was fun and the tortellinis and green beans we made were delicious. Afterwards, we went back to the room and fell asleep after some face booking and blogging.
My bag made it fine and customs was a joke. A quick cab ride took me to Bologna's central train station were my buddy Matt was waiting for me. Matt has been one of my best friends since 7th grade and has been studying in Bologna all fall. His dad is from Italy so he is trying to connect with "his roots". I reminded him that he was born in Miami, speaks minimal Italian, and wished him good luck with that! We are staying in an apartment that he found on airbnb because he lives in a dorm room with 4 Italian guys and it would've been tight. The apartment is super nice and the woman gave us half of the apartment. We have a room with a double bed, tv and lots of outlets. We also have a bathroom for our personal use right next door that has a shower, bath tub, toilet, bidet, and two sinks. It's massive! After settling in, we walked to meet two of Matt's friends from the program at a grocery store. We went back to one of their dorms and cooked what they call "family dinner," Matt and like 5 friends cook in one of their rooms and hang out for like 3 hours. It was fun and the tortellinis and green beans we made were delicious. Afterwards, we went back to the room and fell asleep after some face booking and blogging.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Day 1: In Transit
So today the trip began with a transatlantic flight to Dusseldorf. Getting my ticket for free with my American Airlines miles caused me to have the distinct pleasure of flying from Miami to Dusseldorf to London to Bologna, a 20 hour trip plus a 6 hour time difference. I got to the airport at 2 pm for the first leg of the trip. Unfortunately, the seat that was assigned to me was in the middle of a four person row and right next to the bathroom. This made sleeping hard (only got an hour's worth) and I hate not having an aisle or a window. However, the seat did have two benefits.
The first was a tip from my neighbor about Coca Cola. We watched an Asian woman walk out of the bathroom and proceed to throw up on the floor right next to us. Why she ever left the bathroom when there was this looming possibility of vomit is beyond me, but it happened regardless. Anyways, it was one of those situations where you just watched one of the funniest things you have ever seen, but at the same time, you know that any escaping chuckle basically guarantees you're going to hell. The result is a strange throaty croaking that ensures you will have no friends. When they were cleaning up the remnants of the mystery pasta we ate for dinner (were the olives, zucchini, or mushrooms?!), the flight attendants cleaned up the mess with Coke. This prompted the central Florida-born traveller next to me to explain how you can use coke to clean the bugs off of windshields. I normally just use the windshield wipers, but in case they're ever broken, I now have a new pro-tip.
The second benefit was that an overactive bladder led to some late night acrobatics over the sleeping man next to me and to a self esteem boost for the remaining shreds of my athleticism. I watched the Avengers on the flight, finished William Gibson's Neuromancer, and began Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. We landed in Dusseldorf to a gray morning, just in time to watch the sunrise over one of the other terminals.
The first was a tip from my neighbor about Coca Cola. We watched an Asian woman walk out of the bathroom and proceed to throw up on the floor right next to us. Why she ever left the bathroom when there was this looming possibility of vomit is beyond me, but it happened regardless. Anyways, it was one of those situations where you just watched one of the funniest things you have ever seen, but at the same time, you know that any escaping chuckle basically guarantees you're going to hell. The result is a strange throaty croaking that ensures you will have no friends. When they were cleaning up the remnants of the mystery pasta we ate for dinner (were the olives, zucchini, or mushrooms?!), the flight attendants cleaned up the mess with Coke. This prompted the central Florida-born traveller next to me to explain how you can use coke to clean the bugs off of windshields. I normally just use the windshield wipers, but in case they're ever broken, I now have a new pro-tip.
The second benefit was that an overactive bladder led to some late night acrobatics over the sleeping man next to me and to a self esteem boost for the remaining shreds of my athleticism. I watched the Avengers on the flight, finished William Gibson's Neuromancer, and began Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. We landed in Dusseldorf to a gray morning, just in time to watch the sunrise over one of the other terminals.
New Blog
Hey guys,
Welcome to the new blog! I had so much fun writing Being a Sore Thumb in Morocco this past spring that I've decided to expand and continue the blog. I've got a bunch of never-before-published posts from my Galapagos trip this summer that I hope to put up soon, but, more importantly, I'll be blogging every day over the next three weeks as I travel around Europe. Keep checking back here for updates. Sorry this post isn't any funnier but I'm just too jetlagged
Welcome to the new blog! I had so much fun writing Being a Sore Thumb in Morocco this past spring that I've decided to expand and continue the blog. I've got a bunch of never-before-published posts from my Galapagos trip this summer that I hope to put up soon, but, more importantly, I'll be blogging every day over the next three weeks as I travel around Europe. Keep checking back here for updates. Sorry this post isn't any funnier but I'm just too jetlagged
Friday, June 1, 2012
All of the Pictures
Today I put up the final album from the trip. It's got pictures of the water park and my host family.
Here are all the links to the 10 albums starting in descending order. Just click on the link.
Album 10 - The End/The Family
Album 9 - Essaouira, Assilah, Tangier
Album 8 - Toudra Gorge and Countryside
Album 7 - Two Days in the Desert
Album 6 - Assilah Beach
Album 5 - Chefchaouen: Rif Mountain Voyage
Album 4 - Marra-cash Money
Album 3 - Do the Rabat
Album 2 - 12Slumsy (Fes, Meknes, Volubilis, Moulay Idriss)
Album 1 - Knife O'Clock (Fes)
Here are all the links to the 10 albums starting in descending order. Just click on the link.
Album 10 - The End/The Family
Album 9 - Essaouira, Assilah, Tangier
Album 8 - Toudra Gorge and Countryside
Album 7 - Two Days in the Desert
Album 6 - Assilah Beach
Album 5 - Chefchaouen: Rif Mountain Voyage
Album 4 - Marra-cash Money
Album 3 - Do the Rabat
Album 2 - 12Slumsy (Fes, Meknes, Volubilis, Moulay Idriss)
Album 1 - Knife O'Clock (Fes)
Day 67: Last Day
Today is my last full day in Fes, so I was pretty happy I didn't wake up hungover! I slept in until 10, despite Benton waking up at 6 to exercise on the roof and go to school. In the morning, I ate breakfast and then did some blitzing. I'm pleased to report that we did not have baguette today, so that means I'm in the clear and on my way to Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cracklin Oat Bran breakfasts when I get back to Florida.
At 11, I met up with Elle and Marissa to do some shopping. I got the last remaining gifts and haggled for the last time. I went out with a bang though by getting everything I bought for 50% of the initial price. I went home for lunch and then napped for three hours in the afternoon. I was woken up by Elle and Marissa at 5 who wanted to watch a movie. We went to the riad and watched Judd Apatow's phenomenal creation, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was a good movie to end the friendship on. After the movie, I submitted an application to work in California for Google in the fall. Though I'm currently signed up to go to Spain with the Spanish department, if I get a job offer from Google, it's going to be a hard choice to make. Either way, it should be a fun fall!
I said goodbye to Elle, Marissa, and Ariel in the riad before heading home. It's weird to think that I won't see these people I've been spending 6 - 12 hours a day with for three weeks. In Marissa's case, because she's a rising senior and graduating a term early, if I don't go back to school until the spring, I won't ever see her again! I'm flying home with Christy, Ron, and Joe though, so they're stuck with me for a while longer.
At home, I ate dinner and did the last remaining bits of packing. I'm all ready for my 5:30 wake-up tomorrow. I hung out with my family tonight and gave them my thank you gifts because it is probably the last time I will ever see them. Though I have complained on this blog upon occasion, I will miss my Moroccan family.
Also, I'm going to put up the last photo album soon featuring pictures of the pool, of my family and house, and a 60 picture series I took today that recreates the walk from my house through the medina to Batha. If you flip through them fast, it's pretty fun.
Secondly, I've decided I'm going to keep blogging while I'm in the Galapagos next week because I've enjoyed having a record of everything. While I'm home for 48 hours, I'm going to work on creating a new blog for all my international travels because the Galapagos obviously aren't in Morocco, so it doesn't make sense that they should be written about on andrewinmorocco.blogspot.com! In the future, this site will redirect you to the other site. More news on that to come.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Day 66: Memorial Day Dinner
Today is Memorial Day, a day when we pause to remember all the men and women who have ever died serving and protecting the United States. Most people just see it as the start of summer vacation, a day off from school, or national barbecue day, but they are wrong because summer vacation hasn't started, there was school in Morocco today, and there is no National Barbecue Day, there's only National Barbecue Month (May), National Hamburger Day (Dec 24), National Roast Suckling Pig Day (Dec. 18), and National Pigs-in-a-blanket Day (April 24). In my research, I also found out my birthday falls during National Peanut Month, National Frozen Foods Month, and National Noodle Month and that my birthday is National Crown Roast of Pig Day. You are welcome to do more research on Food Holidays and figure out my birthday at the following link: Food Holidays.
I had an incredible Memorial Day though. I walked with Ariel to ALIF in the morning to use the wi-fi to finish up my papers. When we got there at 10, the school was packed! ALIF's summer classes start today so there are over 100 new students. I guess I should have realized this when I met Benton, but never really put two and two together. There is a big group from VMI, a group from University of Georgia, a group from University of Iowa, and more that I didn't even meet. Despite the influx of pseudo-hipsters who didn't know what they are getting themselves into, Tash, Ariel, Joe, and I worked at school all morning. I finished my paper for Lalla Mary Jean just before noon and turned it in. To celebrate, Joe and I got McChickens.
After lunch, I got to work on revising my paper on gender and sports. I hate doing bibliographies and footnotes so that alone took me 2 hours. I got my paper up to 10 full pages, with footnotes, and emailed it in at 5:30, thus finishing my Spring term!!!! After I clicked send, I quoted the character Azel from Leaving Tangier, and yelled, like I cited in my paper, "I'm free! I'm free!...I don't have to sleep with a man to make a decent living!" The effect was not the same for me as I hadn't been feigning homosexuality for the past year and a half to get a visa to Spain, but the sentiment was still there.
Afterwards, I went back to the medina and packed up all my stuff. The room is much emptier now, but Benton's stuff keeps it from being devoid of character. At 6:45, I went with Elle and Marissa to Cafe Scorpion to hang out. Alice, Christie, and Ron met up with us there, and we also saw my brother, Lotfi, and Tash/Meredith's brother, Ayoub. At 8, we had our end of program dinner at Le Maison Bleue, a swanky restaurant in Batha that had $60 meals (yes, I mean dollar$). At dinner, we had a lot of fun one last time as a group with Lalla and Si Ron. They seemed to bring out endless bottles of wine and the biggest plates of couscous and tagines. Everything was delicious and we could not have had a better time. Afterwards, we went back to Cafe Scorpion to hang out for a while before heading home at 11:15. Tash leaves at 6 am tomorrow, so it's the last time we'll see her until we get back to school. I stayed up talking to Benton about religion until 1 and then we went to bed.
I had an incredible Memorial Day though. I walked with Ariel to ALIF in the morning to use the wi-fi to finish up my papers. When we got there at 10, the school was packed! ALIF's summer classes start today so there are over 100 new students. I guess I should have realized this when I met Benton, but never really put two and two together. There is a big group from VMI, a group from University of Georgia, a group from University of Iowa, and more that I didn't even meet. Despite the influx of pseudo-hipsters who didn't know what they are getting themselves into, Tash, Ariel, Joe, and I worked at school all morning. I finished my paper for Lalla Mary Jean just before noon and turned it in. To celebrate, Joe and I got McChickens.
After lunch, I got to work on revising my paper on gender and sports. I hate doing bibliographies and footnotes so that alone took me 2 hours. I got my paper up to 10 full pages, with footnotes, and emailed it in at 5:30, thus finishing my Spring term!!!! After I clicked send, I quoted the character Azel from Leaving Tangier, and yelled, like I cited in my paper, "I'm free! I'm free!...I don't have to sleep with a man to make a decent living!" The effect was not the same for me as I hadn't been feigning homosexuality for the past year and a half to get a visa to Spain, but the sentiment was still there.
Afterwards, I went back to the medina and packed up all my stuff. The room is much emptier now, but Benton's stuff keeps it from being devoid of character. At 6:45, I went with Elle and Marissa to Cafe Scorpion to hang out. Alice, Christie, and Ron met up with us there, and we also saw my brother, Lotfi, and Tash/Meredith's brother, Ayoub. At 8, we had our end of program dinner at Le Maison Bleue, a swanky restaurant in Batha that had $60 meals (yes, I mean dollar$). At dinner, we had a lot of fun one last time as a group with Lalla and Si Ron. They seemed to bring out endless bottles of wine and the biggest plates of couscous and tagines. Everything was delicious and we could not have had a better time. Afterwards, we went back to Cafe Scorpion to hang out for a while before heading home at 11:15. Tash leaves at 6 am tomorrow, so it's the last time we'll see her until we get back to school. I stayed up talking to Benton about religion until 1 and then we went to bed.
Day 65: Pottery with the Sweeneys
Still finals, still grinding out the papers. However, today I finished both of my first drafts! I went to the riad in the morning and reread all of Leaving Tangier to get quotes for my comparative literature paper. I went back home for lunch, avoided eating the fried fish, and then did some more work in my room.
At 3, Elle, Marissa, Alice, and I had planned to go back to the pottery studio we visited during the first week of the term to get some gifts. Meredith called me right before we left because she remembered we were going and wanted to come too. We had forgotten that her dad, brother, and best childhood friend had all flown in last night, so we got to meet them and they tagged along too. While they took the tour of the studio, we did our shopping. I got a joint Mother's Day/Birthday present for my mom. I hope she'll like it, and, better yet, I hope it doesn't break on the airplane home!
Afterwards, I went to the riad with Joe, Tash, Marissa, and Ariel. Two big things happened during this time period: 1) I finished the first draft of my comparative literature paper and 2) I blitzed Prof Sadiqi about the length of the paper and she blitzed us all saying it should be 8 to 12, not 10 - 12 like she had said yesterday. It was like Moroccan Christmas all over again.
When I got home for dinner, I had a big surprise: a roommate! His name is Benton and he goes to Virginia Military Institute, which strangely enough, is located in Virginia. He's 21, from Texas, and a rising senior. Benton's on track to be an officer in the US Marines after graduation. He also has already done an ALIF program before, having lived with a family in Fes last summer, and he is fluent in Modern Standard Arabic. He's really nice, and I'm excited because I've decided living with him for the next two days is God's way of helping me transition back to American life more smoothly.
After dinner, I worked some more. Benton went to bed at 11:15, so I set up camp in the kitchen and worked until I finished my 1st draft of my sports paper at 1:30. I'm in a great place workwise moving into the second to last day of finals.
On an unrelated note, Mr. Sweeney told me that they have kept up with my blog in the Sweeney household this whole term. It made me ecstatic to hear that my grandmothers are not the only ones who have been keeping track of me and to be meeting one of these mysterious readers in the flesh! Mr. and Mrs. Sweeney, thank you for reading my blog. I hope you've enjoyed my posts and you probably heard some stories from this trip you wouldn't have heard otherwise haha!
At 3, Elle, Marissa, Alice, and I had planned to go back to the pottery studio we visited during the first week of the term to get some gifts. Meredith called me right before we left because she remembered we were going and wanted to come too. We had forgotten that her dad, brother, and best childhood friend had all flown in last night, so we got to meet them and they tagged along too. While they took the tour of the studio, we did our shopping. I got a joint Mother's Day/Birthday present for my mom. I hope she'll like it, and, better yet, I hope it doesn't break on the airplane home!
Afterwards, I went to the riad with Joe, Tash, Marissa, and Ariel. Two big things happened during this time period: 1) I finished the first draft of my comparative literature paper and 2) I blitzed Prof Sadiqi about the length of the paper and she blitzed us all saying it should be 8 to 12, not 10 - 12 like she had said yesterday. It was like Moroccan Christmas all over again.
When I got home for dinner, I had a big surprise: a roommate! His name is Benton and he goes to Virginia Military Institute, which strangely enough, is located in Virginia. He's 21, from Texas, and a rising senior. Benton's on track to be an officer in the US Marines after graduation. He also has already done an ALIF program before, having lived with a family in Fes last summer, and he is fluent in Modern Standard Arabic. He's really nice, and I'm excited because I've decided living with him for the next two days is God's way of helping me transition back to American life more smoothly.
After dinner, I worked some more. Benton went to bed at 11:15, so I set up camp in the kitchen and worked until I finished my 1st draft of my sports paper at 1:30. I'm in a great place workwise moving into the second to last day of finals.
On an unrelated note, Mr. Sweeney told me that they have kept up with my blog in the Sweeney household this whole term. It made me ecstatic to hear that my grandmothers are not the only ones who have been keeping track of me and to be meeting one of these mysterious readers in the flesh! Mr. and Mrs. Sweeney, thank you for reading my blog. I hope you've enjoyed my posts and you probably heard some stories from this trip you wouldn't have heard otherwise haha!
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Day 64: 64
It's still finals, so I'm still working on my papers. For the first day in a while, I got to sleep in so I stayed in bed until 10:30. After breakfast, I set up camp on my bed and got some research and writing done on my sports paper. I've done just over 6 pages on it so far, but the bad news is that we found out today that it's supposed to be 10 pages, not 8 like we all thought. People aren't very happy about this, myself included. After lunch, I napped for an hour and then went to the riad. While there, I began to work on my paper about Leaving Tangier, which luckily did not have its length changed from 8 to 10 pages today, too. As of writing this post before bed, I am 4 pages into that one and 6 pages into the other. That means 10 of 18 pages down and the remaining pages all have quotes, ideas, and paragraph snippets just waiting to be expanded. This has been a very relaxed finals period so far and I'm happy with my progress. I am hoping to finish both papers tomorrow so that I can do all the proof-reading on Monday and hand them both in Monday night. Not much else happened today, but Amanda graduated from high school yesterday, so congratulations on that, sister!
To keep things interesting, I will talk about the number 64, the number of days I have been in Morocco. I will now do a stream of consciousness discourse about the number 64 and relate it back to itself. 64 is a square number, the product of 8 and itself. Broken down into prime factorization, it is 2^6, so it can represented in binary (base 2 numbering system) as the number 1,000,000. Binary code is used to represent bit strings. Bit strings are used in computers. One of the first and most popular mainstream home computers was the Commodore 64. Commodore 64 was also one of the first game consoles. Game consoles. Nintendo 64 was released by Nintendo in 1996 and one of the first gaming consoles to feature 3-D graphics. Video games. Board games. Chess. 64 is also the total number of squares on a chess board and the number of disks in the myth of the Towers of Hanoi.
A Shakespearean aside: For those who do not know what the towers of Hanoi is, it is a simple game where there are three pegs and a set of disks of descending size. All the disks must be moved from one post to another post with the conditions that no disk can be below a disk bigger than itself, that only one disk may be moved at a time, and that only the top disk can be removed from any given post. The game is pretty simple because you just have to recognize the pattern, and once you have, you can win any game in the optimal number of moves with any number of disks. The smallest number of moves for any given number of disks is 2^n - 1, where n is the number of disks. A Towers of Hanoi solver is an assignment in most lower level computer science classes. In the myth, there are 64 golden disks that Brahmin monks in India must move. However, they are wasting their lives doing this because it will take them 2^64 - 1 moves to do so, which is over 18 quintillion moves. The moral of the story is that if faced with the choice of becoming a Brahmin monk, you should run the other way because you do not have 585 billion years to spare.
To bring us back to 64-ology though and using India as a segway, there are 64 positions listed in the Kama Sutra. Sex leads to children. Children play with crayons, and there are 64 crayons in the Crayola 64 pack. As a child, I played with crayons in the 90's. The 90's. 90's rap. Old rappers always rap about their low-riding 64 Chevy Impalas. Rappers. Musicians. Rock music. The Beatles have a song called "When I'm Sixty-Four." The Beatles are a four man group. 4 squared is 16, but if you cube it, it's 64. And thus we find ourselves back where we started at the not-so-simple number of 64. Hopefully, you learned something or another on this journey.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Day 63: WATERPARKS!!!
Today was the best day of finals I have ever had. I woke up at 9 and did some work until 10, when Elle and Marissa came over. At this point, Driss, his two friends, and the three of us went to Batha to get cabs to go to the pool. Squished with the driver into a 5 person car, we drove across Fes to a vacation spot called the Diamant Vert. They had a huge pool, big grassy areas, a river with swan boats, and most importantly 8 water slides! It only cost 60 dh to get in ($7) and we had access for the whole day. There was a big patio with a dj on it and Driss told us there are concerts there every night.
The composition of the visitors was interesting because it was all 14 to 23 year old Moroccan men. There were probably about 120 men and only 10 women in the whole place. There were no parents present either. It was the ultimate teenage paradise with the big lawns around the pool, the music, and the water. Elle and Marissa stuck out more than I did with their blonde hair and female figures. This didn't stop us though from going on every water slide in the park. Marissa had never been on a water slide before so it was an eye-opening experience for her! She didn't really like them, but I think she just needs to give them some more time. Elle and I had a blast though. The highlight was either a big white slide that finished with a bowl at the bottom where you "toilet-bowl" around and then fall out the bottom of it or another slide where it was only like a 10 ft long slide and then a 12 ft drop straight down into a big pool. The cool water felt so good and we had a good time swimming and relaxing in the sun. We also met Driss' girlfriend who was very pretty. I don't know if his family knows about her though, so we'll keep that a secret.
The three of us left Driss and his friends at the pool and came home at 2. For lunch, Lla Fatima had prepared two tagines: chicken with cauliflower and chicken with carrots, and for dessert we had honeydew on the rind. Everything was tasty.
Afterwards, I got some work done on my papers and did a bunch of research. At 5, I went to the riad to watch The Descendants with Elle and Marissa. It's a George Clooney movie that came out last year about a lawyer in Hawaii who reconnects with his two teenage daughters after his wife gets into a power boating accident and is in a coma. It was an incredible movie and both he and the girl who plays his 17 year-old daughter do a great job.
I spent the rest of the night working on my papers and went to bed by 1. Today definitely felt like summer and I'm excited to be finishing up with work over the next couple of days. Enjoy this super-summery song by a teen from Miami who is the son of my uncle's friend. This acoustic-ish reggae-ish cover of Foster The People's "Pumped-Up Kicks" just embodied the feel of today so well.
Day 62: Last Day of Class
Today was our last day of class. I walked to school in the morning for the last time. Though it has been cooler again recently, we all still end up showing up at ALIF with sweat stains in the shape of our backpacks after the 2.5 mile walk. Our Arabic final was supposed to be two hours but it only took an hour for most of us. I didn't think it was very challenging, and, if they are not too nitpicky about their grading, I think I should do well. After class, I tried to round up one last Casa Nostra group, but instead ended up going to McDonald's with Tash, Joe, and Meredith. Funny enough, we ran into Lla Mary Jean and Si Ron while we were there because they were checking out the wi-fi situation. Si Ron had a thesis defense at 10 pm that night and ALIF closed at 10, so he was going to Skype Hanover from McDonald's that night! Too funny!
I watched the season finale of Modern Family during the second half of lunch and then we had our final class with Prof. Sadiqi. Afterwards, I walked back to the medina with Elle and Marissa. Elle had lined up another meeting with the guide we had the second week, Hakim, to take us shopping around the medina. He took us to great carpet, scarf, and jellaba places. I got some good presents, but won't divulge any secrets here. We would have never found these places without him and he helped us haggle too. At the end, when we tried to pay him for taking us around, he wouldn't even accept the money! A super stand-up guy in my opinion, but I personally would've taken the dhirams. He must do pretty well because he told us he is working 9-5 all week and showed us some pictures he had from taking National Geographic around Morocco last week.
Afterwards, I went home and got to work on my papers. I made a big stab on my sports paper. During dinner, we watched this great show on Channel 2M that we often watch which is basically a Moroccan version of Candid Camera called Cameracash. In tonights episode, a man pretended to be blind and had a will from his recently deceased wealthy uncle. He would then ask people in a park to describe to him what was in the will, but the issue was that in order to get all the riches and livestock, he would have to get married. Once they finished reading him the will (and making funny noises to represent the animals he was getting), he would then try to convince them to marry him. I couldn't understand most of it, but comedy is one of those things that transcends borders and language barriers and the show was hilarious. The other half of it was a woman would sit at a table at a restaurant and order a big breakfast. When it would come, she would tell the person that she was going to put it all in a huge briefcase she brought with her in order to tell the waiter the meal had never come and that she wanted another. When the waiter would accuse her of fraud and open the briefcase, she would blame the other person at the table, claiming she didn't own the briefcase, and we would watch them freak out and try to worm their way out of the situation. The whole show was hilarious and at the end, each person who is tricked gets a gift. We had seen a couple episodes of this before where an actor puts another actor into a trance in front of someone and all this fake supernatural stuff around them, scaring the person watching. In another episode, an actor convinces people to come with him to dig up some treasure he found in a guy's backyard, claiming its his house, only for the homeowner, another actor, to come out and begin talking to the people. The show gets everyone in my family laughing!
Tomorrow, Driss is taking me to a pool in the morning. It should be a fun break during all the hecticness of finals period.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Day 61: Making Moves
This blog post will be just as short as yesterday's because I still have a ton of work to do and have the Arabic final tomorrow. More Arabic class in the morning, followed by lunch at the center. I hung out and did work at school afterwards until the riad opened, at which point I went back to the medina to work there. I stayed at the riad until 9 with Tash, Joe, and Meredith and then went home for dinner. Over tagine, I practiced some Arabic with my parents after explaining to them that I have an Arabic test tomorrow. I then studied some more in my room and went to bed by 2.
I'm feeling pretty good about my level of studying as of writing this before bed. Today was super productive because I banged out the film review, did my presentation write-up, and did all my Arabic studying. That leaves me with the whole weekend to do my two remaining papers. It wasn't a very exciting day otherwise.
Highlight of the Day: in the riad, Meredith threw a roll of toilet paper at Tash, causing Tash to scream, "AHHHHH MY BOOB!!" in front of the whole riad.
Day 60: Work
This blog post is teeny because it was a small day. We had Arabic in the morning and no class in the afternoon. After eating lunch with my family, I got in bed at 1 and didn't get out of bed until 8 for dinner! I alternated between studying for like 10 minutes and sleeping for 45 minutes with some blitzing and internet time spread out in between. After dinner, I skyped my mom, dad, and sisters to talk about the coming year because, in exciting news, a spot has opened up on the Spanish study abroad program to Madrid in the fall and I've been talking with the professor about joining the program! If I get accepted, I'll have to change this blog's title to not be limited just to Morocco. That's right, you'll have to deal with my blog posts for another three months!
After skyping, I got to work on the stuff going on this week. All the work for this term has been compressed into this week with:
- 1-2 page film review on Ali Zaoua due Monday, the movie we watched in Lla's class yesterday
- 3 page presentation write-up due Thursday for the presentation I gave last week
- Arabic final on Thursday morning
- 8-10 page paper due on Monday for Prof Green's class, I'm writing about the main character's sense of entitlement in Leaving Tangier
- 8-10 page paper due on Tuesday for Prof Sadiqi's class, I'm writing about Moroccan youth sports and the opportunities available to girls
Should be a pretty fun 7 days. It's crazy to think that exactly a week from today, I'll be packing up to head back to America.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
5000 and Pictures
Hey all,
The blog hit a big milestone yesterday when it got its 5000th page view. While that pales in comparison to the millions of hits Google gets everyday, it's about 4900 more page views than I thought I would get this term. And it's not just coming from America, people all over the world have found their way to this little blog! Readers in Germany, the UK, Argentina, Peru, France, Russia, Canada, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, the Ukraine, France, Slovakia, and Malaysia have all opened the blog at least once. While the majority of these 5400 views are friends and family back home, it's fun to think that I have made some new friends out there somewhere. I think I've done a good job so far being an iconoclast by spreading information about the Moroccan way of life and hope you've felt like you've been standing right next to me everywhere I've gone the past couple of weeks. Keep reading!
I've also added a couple pages to the blog, as you should see in the horizontal bar at the top. Clicking on a page is similar to clicking on a label and will show you all the posts I've written about the specific city.
I've also added a couple pages to the blog, as you should see in the horizontal bar at the top. Clicking on a page is similar to clicking on a label and will show you all the posts I've written about the specific city.
As a visual treat, I put my 9th album of the trip up on Facebook yesterday. Like usual, here's the link:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151734767235461.850067.867195460&type=3&l=5c972ab8fc
Or go to:
https://www.facebook.com/andrewrobe
and click on Photos then "Morocco 9 - Essaouira, Assilah, Tangier"
Or go to:
https://www.facebook.com/andrewrobe
and click on Photos then "Morocco 9 - Essaouira, Assilah, Tangier"
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Day 59: How to Number 2 in Morocco
Today begins our last week of class. We have Arabic monday to thursday morning with our final during class on thursday. In the afternoons we have Prof Green's class on Monday and Prof Sadiqi's class on Thursday, but are otherwise free to work on our two final papers. I walked three of the ways to school, had chicken tagine at home for lunch, and have begun studying for finals and working on my papers. Last night, I skyped Maddie for an hour before bed and watched sunday's episode of Game of Thrones.
I want to use today's post to talk about the potty. Moroccans take pride in their appearance and hold themselves to very high standards of personal hygiene. That being said, many of them smell absolutely terrible because custom dictates that you go to the hammam once a week. On the whole though, most Moroccans shower every day (everyone in my host family does) and try not to smell too bad. They also sweat a lot less than westerners do because they are acclimatized and have undergone generations of evolution to adjust to the temperature. That is why when I am in a t-shirt and shorts, I still see Moroccans wearing three or four layers without breaking a sweat. Most showers have a hose and moveable shower head, but the distinguishing feature is the lack of boundary between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. Unlike in the West, the drain for the shower is just on the floor and there is no tub or closet or glass doors or formal area you step into to shower. Sometimes, there is a curtain. It saves space, but the rest of the bathroom gets wet too. In Assilah, we had an issue because the drain was clogged when Meredith showered so water started coming out from under the door and spreading into the surrounding rooms.
In terms of excretions, bathrooms and practices vary. You have two types of toilets: Western and Non-western. The former is your standard issue Porcelain throne to which you'd bring a sudoku book or a novella and hang out for a half hour. The latter is also called a squat toilet and it's just a pretty looking hole in the ground. Squat toilets have a small hole about the circumference of a large water bottle and two foot pads to stand on. I tend to do the "one hand on the knee, one hand on the wall behind me" technique, but everyone's got their own style. To flush, there is normally a spigot and a bucket near the toilet, so you fill up the bucket and pour water around the toilet and down the hole. As a result, squat toilet restrooms tend to be much wetter. Urinals are not very popular and are rarely seen in public Moroccan restrooms. On the other hand, bidets are quite popular for reasons that I am about to discuss. In our main bathroom, there's a western toilet, and in the laundry room, there's a squat toilet. I'm comfortable using either so which one I use varies on my mood and availability.
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| Typical squat toilet with bucket/spigot combo. Also demonstrates typical level of cleanliness of bathrooms |
1) The previously mentioned bucket and faucet is the default way of cleaning your crack in public restrooms.
2) Small hose. Most private bathrooms, including the one in my house, have a small hose coming of the shower or out of the wall that is used only for washing your booty.
3) Bidets. Only for wealthy Moroccans and hotels, a bidet combines the best of the West (sitting) and the best of the East (water shooting up your ass) into one device.
4) Shower head. Before getting too handsy with your shower head, be sure to check that the bathroom has either toilet paper or one of the previous three methods to clean yourself. If not, that means that shower head you're about to grab has spent a lot of time washing your other cheeks too.
Toilet paper is pretty widely available though, especially in restaurants, hotels, and homes that are less traditional; however, my house only offers the hose or the bucket so I have stolen a roll or two from ALIF.
One of the strangest things of all though is that as a man, you can pee wherever you want! We've seen so many men just peeing on walls and on trees on the sidewalks in Fes, both inside and outside of the medina. Women would never do this, and as a foreigner, I haven't dared to try it, but it appears to be socially acceptable for Moroccan men to mark their territory as they please.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Day 58: More Tangier
Because of our late night, we slept in till 11:30 and skipped breakfast. I showered and shaved in the morning and was ready to start the day. Unfortunately, it was raining again, so we had to modify our plan.
First we went to a place called the Foundation Lorin where they had a couple hundred cool black and white photos of old Tangier and famous dignitaries visiting the city. I love those kinds of old pictures so this was a great free museum for me.
Afterwards, we went to a cafe near Hotel Menzah called La Giralda that overlooks the water. Despite the sprinkling outside, we could still see Spain in the distance and it was definitely raining over there too! I had some crepes and a vanilla milkshake but then I had some issues keeping them down. It must have just been a couple hour bug because, as of the time of writing this (10 pm), I haven't thrown up since lunch and have kept down some Sprite and some Pringles. I had to eat Pringles because the train didn't have any good recovery food like toast. I didn't want Pringles to see me in this haggard state, but they did and I think our relationship is still fine. Sometimes, I feel like Pringles just use me because I've got a good digestive track and they want to show off to the other chips at the grocery store. Sometimes, I feel like it's a very unhealthy relationship, but I can never say no to that face on the can; we connect. Do we need to go to joint therapy? Is a nice tupperware an okay 1 month anniversary present for a chip you recently started seeing?
After lunch and throwing up, we went back to the Kasbah to the museum. I wasn't very excited by this idea, especially because it was raining and we had to walk up some steep hills, but in the end, the sun came out as we entered the Kasbah and the museum was the best one we've seen in Morocco. It was a huge museum (the kasbah was the sultan's palace after all) and it had different rooms representing the seven periods of Tangier's history back to the first settlers in the area before the Romans. They had a lot of neat artifacts and good presentation style. The most fascinating room was all about trade through the ages. It had a huge map of the Mediterranean with each city around the ocean labelled, the trade routes from each period highlighted, and what each city would give the other cities. The map had details on over 60 goods and 50 cities.
Our train left at 5:30 and we got there early to get seats together. The train filled up too, so we had planned this well. On the ride back to Fes, I watched the movie Winter's Bone, Jennifer Lawrence's (of Hunger Games fame) breakout movie. It's about her struggles in Missouri, raising her two younger siblings, dealing with a mom who has checked out of the family, and trying to track down her dad who makes meth because he has to be in court in a week or their house will get taken because he posted it as bail. I didn't think it was that great, but it won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Drama two years ago. We got to Fez at 10 and found a cab that would take us and use the meter, which never happens at the train station and especially not after dark. Then it was bed time.
Day 57: Seeing Spain
Our plan was to spend all day in Assilah and then to take a 5:30 train to Tangier which is only 45 minutes to the north. When we woke up at 9, it was raining, so we changed our plans. In the morning, as it cleared up, we walked around the medina and looked at all the murals. We explored the medina even more than I had last time so I got to see some cool murals I hadn't seen yet. Afterwards, although it was sunny and clearer, we didn't trust the weather to hold so we caught a 1:40 pm train to Tangier. There was no one to buy tickets from at the station, but no one checked them on the train either, so our 16 dh ride was free!
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| Assilah medina |
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| One of the many murals in Assilah |
You can also see Spain 8 miles away across the Straits of Gibraltar, even on cloudy days. Seeing its proximity and the huge ferries that are constantly making the 35 minute run, I understand how Moroccans could get so jaded and eager to leave for Spain. Illegal immigration is a big problem for Morocco and Europe and many have lost their lives attempting the crossing. The land on the other side is exactly the same and everyone on both sides can speak Spanish, but when you throw an 11 to 1 exchange rate into the mix, it's hard to ignore the greener grass just across the Straits. Europe doesn't want Moroccans, and Morocco has lost a lot of its young talent to the allure of Europe. Moroccans have a terrible time legally leaving Morocco because to get a visa to Europe, you must prove you have over 15000 Euros in assets. Even if you have that much, you still have to deal with inefficient bureaucracies and a shortage of visas. It's not a very pretty side of Moroccan/European relations.
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| Our lunch spot with Spain in the distance |
We spent the day walking around the medina and the Ville. We went up to the Kasbah to have the best view of Spain and had lunch on the terrace of a nice small restaurant. We tried to visit a bunch of museums but they were all closed. We went to the beach though and to the Gran Socco, a big fountain and central meeting point in Tangier. We also stopped by the Hotel Mensah to see its storied Caid Bar. It's a five star hotel built at the beginning of the 20th century that has housed the likes of Winston Churchill and other famous people. We had dinner in the medina at a fancy restaurant called El Jedad and the food was delicious. Afterwards, we were planning on going out so we went back to the hostel to drink and change.
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| At the beach in Tangier |
Day 56: Assilah 2.0
So this weekend, Meredith, Ariel, and I are going to Assilah and Tangier. Of the three of us, I'm the only one who has been to Assilah and none of us have been to Tangier.
We left from Fes at 7:10 on the train. Meredith barely made the train with only 30 seconds to spare, and unlike last time, I didn't oversleep my alarms. We all napped on the way there and got to Assilah at 11:45.
We walked down the beach to the medina and headed straight for the hostel. We stayed in Christina's house again and she has not gotten any less spacey since we were last here. We went to a delicious restaurant for lunch where I had calamari and then after lunch, we took advantage of the sunshine and went to Paradise Beach. We decided to take a horse cart there and then walk back while the sun was setting, but it was less glamorous than it sounds. The horse cart, which we had been picturing as something similar to a Central Park buggy ride, was literally a two-wheeled flatbed cart with a blanket on it. It cost us 100 dh because Meredith and Ariel wouldn't let me haggle but it was an experience. We had to hold on for dear life and got bumped around so much that we will probably have neck problems tomorrow.
In other news, I found out I'm going to be a Presidential Scholar next year, a Dartmouth program that pairs bright students with faculty members to do research. I applied for it back in March and was selected by the professor I wanted to work with. I will be doing computer modeling of language shifts by creating multi-agent virtual worlds where the agents interact, communicate with one another, and live like humans, all under the guidance of the computational linguistics professor in the Linguistics department. I'm excited and Dartmouth gives me some grant money too.
Day 55: Burritos
Today I went to class like usual. I had a presentation on The Sand Child in the afternoon. I know you're probably thinking, "What! You're in school?! You have homework!? What kind of crazy plot twist is this!" to which I respond, "Yes? Yes. Yes. The plot was beginning to get a little dry anyways." The presentation was a little unorganized because I read the book and put the presentation together three weeks ago, but it went well.
I didn't go home for lunch so I would have time to work before I presented. Instead of having tagine, Tash, Meredith, Joe, and I went to McDonald's. I had a McChicken AND a Big Mac because I put on my big boy pants this morning. I didn't walk either direction today because I took a cab to school in the morning and in the afternoon, I started walking back to the medina, but then an empty cab just happened to stop in front of Meredith, Tash, and I just after leaving school.
We all hung out in the riad because Elle's parents are visiting for a week and brought us some of the ingredients to make a proper Mexican fiesta! We had American tortillas, rice, refried beans, salsa, and spices, but all the chicken and veggies were Moroccan. We cooked it up in the kitchen of the riad and had a lot of fun. I spoke some with Elle's mom while we had a terrible time trying to cut the raw chicken off the bones because that was our assigned job. I faked cutting my finger, with salsa for blood, to lighten the mood. It only achieved moderate success and prompted stories from my FSP-mates to warn Elle's parents not to believe most of what I say or do. The burritos tasted delicious and it was nice to have some comfort food. I'm sad I won't be around this weekend to adventure with Elle, her parents, and Marissa, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the beach weekend I've got planned.
In the riad, I watched the new 21 Jump Street movie and it was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while. Fun fact: the directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, both graduated from Dartmouth in the early 2000's and they also directed Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs a couple years ago. Phil also went to my high school, Ransom Everglades, and Chris was in my fraternity during his time at Dartmouth. You could basically say we're in a three-way best friendship.
After dinner, I skyped with my mom and Amanda. They are good. Then after that, I watched the original Batman from 1989, directed by Tim Burton. The third movie of the reboot of the Batman franchise, The Dark Knight Rises, comes out this summer, so I'm going to try to watch all 6 Batman movies between now and then. I haven't seen any of the original four films, so this was a good start. I went to bed before midnight in order to rest up for the 7:10 am train the next morning.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Day 54: Dinos in Heat
I have been going through a huge Jurassic Park binge recently. I watched the third movie last night, the second movie tonight, and the first movie is one of my favorite movies of all time. I also started reading the book, Jurassic Park, today, which, although only 50 pages in, is much more violent and exciting than the movie. Supposedly, the screenplay only used 10 to 20% of the material presented in the book.
Also, today was so hot that the only time I walked was on my way home at the end of the day. I was so tired and dehydrated when I woke up this morning that I ate breakfast and then fell asleep for two hours! I ended up getting to class 40 minutes late but I felt much better after the extra rest. I repeated the same thing at the riad tonight too, falling asleep for an hour as soon as we got there when I was in the middle of checking blitz.
Besides Jurassic Park 2, I also watched a silly movie named A Fish Called Wanda about some diamond thieves in Britain. It was hilarious and all of the actors in it (Jamie Lee Curtis, John Cleese, Kevin Cline) were incredible. Cline's character Otto, hands down, stole the show in my opinion.
Do you have any suggestions for movies I should watch? Let me know.
I don't really have any new news from Morocco except it's hot. My bowels are doing well.
In the mean time, enjoy this acoustic cover I found the other day of LMFAO's I'm Sexy and I Know It.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsvlsuLau5c
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| They were made to go hand in hand. The perfect pong table |
Besides Jurassic Park 2, I also watched a silly movie named A Fish Called Wanda about some diamond thieves in Britain. It was hilarious and all of the actors in it (Jamie Lee Curtis, John Cleese, Kevin Cline) were incredible. Cline's character Otto, hands down, stole the show in my opinion.
Do you have any suggestions for movies I should watch? Let me know.
I don't really have any new news from Morocco except it's hot. My bowels are doing well.
In the mean time, enjoy this acoustic cover I found the other day of LMFAO's I'm Sexy and I Know It.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsvlsuLau5c
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Day 53: Return of the Baguette
The baguette came at me when I was at my lowest. I was covered in sweat, despite sleeping on top of the covers and having the fan my family gave me turned to the "Medium" and "Oscillate" settings. I was tired, after a night of rough sleep spent dreaming about what it must be like to be Bruce Willis when he realizes he's dead at the end of the Sixth Sense. Whoops, after-the-fact spoiler alert. I overslept, because I had forgotten to set an alarm on my dead iPhone. And I needed to shave, because I was as hairy as an 8 year-old Paul Bunyan.
Then, without warning, I opened the door to find a baguette sitting there on the table, smiling at me with its golden brown crust and relishing in my despair. WHAT. A. JERK! However, like the Star Wars movie referenced by the title of this post, it was time to make a comeback against this bready Sith lord. The shower and shave revitalized me like Leia freeing Han Solo from the carbonite in Jabba's Palace. Then I was ready to assault the breakfast table like it was the Death Star's shield generator on Endor. My ewoks, butter and strawberry jam, helped me take down some of the baguette, but before long, I found myself facing off against the baguette and the warm milk, one-vs-two like Luke against Vader and Emperor Palpatine. The Nesquik helped bring out the good in the milk and together, we were able to defeat the baguette before I drank the milk's last gulp. George Lucas would have been proud of this meal.
I walked to school with Alice, walked home for lunch with Marissa, cabbed back to school, and walked home with Marissa, Elle, and Tash after school. We stayed at school for two and a half hours because we had to meet with our professors about our final papers. For my gender in the medina paper, I will be writing about women's participation in sports and interviewing people's host siblings about their athletic involvements. It should be a fun paper to write and Prof. Sadiqi seemed excited about it too.
Tonight, I watched the 1 hour long season finale of How I Met Your Mother and the movie Crazy Stupid Love. Such a good movie and a good use of time. After, I watched the first 45 minutes of Jurassic Park 3, but got too tired, so I'll finish it tomorrow night.
I was just happy to come out of this day alive and as a Jedi Breakfast Knight!
Then, without warning, I opened the door to find a baguette sitting there on the table, smiling at me with its golden brown crust and relishing in my despair. WHAT. A. JERK! However, like the Star Wars movie referenced by the title of this post, it was time to make a comeback against this bready Sith lord. The shower and shave revitalized me like Leia freeing Han Solo from the carbonite in Jabba's Palace. Then I was ready to assault the breakfast table like it was the Death Star's shield generator on Endor. My ewoks, butter and strawberry jam, helped me take down some of the baguette, but before long, I found myself facing off against the baguette and the warm milk, one-vs-two like Luke against Vader and Emperor Palpatine. The Nesquik helped bring out the good in the milk and together, we were able to defeat the baguette before I drank the milk's last gulp. George Lucas would have been proud of this meal.
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| Have you heard enough nerd yet? |
Tonight, I watched the 1 hour long season finale of How I Met Your Mother and the movie Crazy Stupid Love. Such a good movie and a good use of time. After, I watched the first 45 minutes of Jurassic Park 3, but got too tired, so I'll finish it tomorrow night.
I was just happy to come out of this day alive and as a Jedi Breakfast Knight!
Day 52: Hot Hot Heat
This morning class was pushed back until 10. Unfortunately, Fes is even hotter now so walking at 9:15 would have been miserable. I was tired. I took a cab.
Strange interactions I had today with Moroccans:
- I saw a man with his half of his index finger up his nose while trying to sell groceries. Ewww
- I watched a man pick up a foot long stick and use it as an ear cleaner
- I saw a teenage Moroccan wearing a shirt that said "German and Sexy." He was neither.
- The man who charged me 6 dirhams for water in the morning charged me 8 in the afternoon. An excellent lesson in supply and demand (it was hot, I needed water, he had water) and understanding your clientele (he could tell I was too lazy to walk down the block and was willing to forgo the extra quarter).
I walked home for lunch, but then took a cab back. After class in the afternoon, I walked home. Because we have a week and a half of classes left before reading period, my only remaining work is my two final papers due May 29th and an Arabic final on May 24th.
When I went to the riad after class today, I watched 2 episodes of 30 Rock and the new modern family where they go to Disneyland and I laughed so hard.
After dinner, I skyped with my buddy Chris Gibson for an hour and with Maddie for an hour after that. There was no layover between conversations which was a little rough. It felt like running through an airport to catch your connection but without the airport and running parts, just the out of breath thing. Both of them are doing well.
After, I watched the new episode of Game of Thrones. It was great.
And to quote Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."
Strange interactions I had today with Moroccans:
- I saw a man with his half of his index finger up his nose while trying to sell groceries. Ewww
- I watched a man pick up a foot long stick and use it as an ear cleaner
- I saw a teenage Moroccan wearing a shirt that said "German and Sexy." He was neither.
- The man who charged me 6 dirhams for water in the morning charged me 8 in the afternoon. An excellent lesson in supply and demand (it was hot, I needed water, he had water) and understanding your clientele (he could tell I was too lazy to walk down the block and was willing to forgo the extra quarter).
I walked home for lunch, but then took a cab back. After class in the afternoon, I walked home. Because we have a week and a half of classes left before reading period, my only remaining work is my two final papers due May 29th and an Arabic final on May 24th.
When I went to the riad after class today, I watched 2 episodes of 30 Rock and the new modern family where they go to Disneyland and I laughed so hard.
After dinner, I skyped with my buddy Chris Gibson for an hour and with Maddie for an hour after that. There was no layover between conversations which was a little rough. It felt like running through an airport to catch your connection but without the airport and running parts, just the out of breath thing. Both of them are doing well.
After, I watched the new episode of Game of Thrones. It was great.
And to quote Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."
Monday, May 14, 2012
Day 51: MISERABLE
Day 9 of our 9-day trip
Plan: Essaouira to Casablanca to Rabat to Fes
Have you ever spent 11 hours traveling by bus and 3 hours sitting on the side of the road in the desert waiting for said bus to be fixed in the same day? I HAVE.
We left paradise at 10 am. Essaouira was definitely the best city on the trip, and probably Morocco. As we re-entered the endless arid terrain and left my future retirement home in the rearview mirror, I finished up Leaving Tangier. We knew the drive was going to be a long haul (8-9 hours) so I was also planning to look out the windows for a while, catch up on blogging, and hang out with the rest of the group for the next six hours.
We stopped for lunch at 1:30 at a rest stop. It was pretty good rest stop food. Then, disaster struck. We were trying to force the windows open as w started moving again because the AC was like a sauna. When we pulled over so the driver, Said (pronounced sigh-eed) could help us get them open, he quickly ran to the hood rather than to our assistance. Our shock at the lack of help was soon replaced by grief when he told us that one of the main belts in the engine that basically connects everything together had broken in the heat. We had a new one but it would be hard for him to put it on himself. Road side assistance showed up within 15 minutes but was of little to no help. They left 15 minutes later. Two police officers showed up 45 minutes into our despair but didn't do much for us other than set up flares and cones to help keep traffic from hitting us. It's important to remember at this point that it is 2:30 in the afternoon and the police's thermometer says it is 42 degrees Celsius out or 105 miserable degrees Fahrenheit. We had a limited amount of water and I had a box of ritz crackers hidden above my seat that I was planning on sharing with no one. We had discussed before about how a "FSP Hunger Games" could work and who would be killed first, etc. Meredith and I always ended up in the top two of every poll but the winner varied. Unfortunately, given the temperature, supplies, and mirages, it didn't seem that unlikely that people would soon be throwing spears at each other, and I planned to save my crackers and Sidi Ali water for when the inevitable fall-out would occur. I tried to do some scouting up the hillside but Lla MJ wouldn't let me crest it, claiming there were "snakes and scorpions." I think she had already planned out where she would make shelter and didn't want me to get any advantages in the Hunger Games. Suspicions only grew over the course of our three hours. If no one else was thinking it, I was at least sitting there, twiddling my thumbs, and considering who would be the most valuable, and later disposable, ally.
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| Dying out here |
A tow truck showed up two hours and 15 minutes into our road-side sun burn. They spent a while trying to help the police officers, roadside assistance, and Said fix the engine. However, the whole situation can be described by a scene I saw when five of them were on their cell phones and Said has his head in the engine compartment aka Moroccan bureaucracy at its finest. At 5:30, they gave up and the tow truck pulled us 20 km to a Shell station. We got to sit inside and have snacks and drinks while they tried to fix the car. They couldn't fix it though, so they had to call a new van to pick us up from Casablanca. It got us at 6:45 and we resumed our trek again.
We played a fun game Meredith created where you had to wear a pair of noise canceling headphones and the iPod connected to them was on shuffle. You had to sing and dane the song until the rest of the people could guess it. It was pretty silly but tons of fun.
We had to switch buses just north of Casablanca's outskirts so that the second bus could go back to Casablanca. The bus that got us came all the way from Fes. We drove for a while but then it was dinner time. Said (sigh-eed), being a pro like usual, took us to a mall in Rabat where we got Pizza Hut! It was so tasty and even had pepperonis. I had a half pepperoni and half barbecue chicken pizza that was like heaven on a plate. We were all the happiest we had been all day.
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| Never been so happy! |
We left dinner at 10:45 and were still over two hour from Fes. We didn't get home until 1:15 and my family didn't seem to be too happy that they had to stay up so late and wait for me. It was not a very good day.
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