Day 33: A Discourse on Pringles

Today was a rough day because of the presentation I had to give and all the studying I have to do for Thursday. While the presentation went well (I got an email after from her saying I did a good job!) and the studying has been coming along well too, I will just ignore discussing these facets of my day in this post.

Usual start to my day: toast, 7:30 wake-up, skipped a shower, walked to school. I got chided by some of the people on my program who get to take cold showers every other day for passing up the chance to take my daily hot shower! Arabic in the morning, lunch at the center, and then Lla Mary Jean's class in the afternoon. I got caught up on Modern Family and How I Met Your Mother during study breaks in the riad and at home. I skyped with Maddie for an hour but didn't really communicate much with America otherwise.

This post has been curt because I'm struggling. For weeks now, I have been falling into a downward spiral, a black hole, a dark chasm… addiction. I have become addicted to red tubes of Pringles since I got here, eating a small one for 10 dh every afternoon on the walk home. There are three Pringles dealers I usually go to: the food stand at school where they only sell the Red and Green small tubes for 10 dh, the Australian women on the walk home who also sells the Paprika variety but ups the price to 12 dh (I like to justify paying the higher price as paying for service in English), and, lastly, the grocer just outside the Riad who, if I can hold out for that long, sells a full tube for 22 dh and even has multi-grain sour-cream and onions Pringles. While I have stuck to consuming only the Red Pringles, I have since recategorized them as "gateway potato chips" because I have also developed a craving for the Cheddar Cheese flavor, one that I haven't been able to find. I have also seen other flavors such as a mysterious purple tube of unknown taste sensations and a Jalapeño flavor, but I don't think I have fallen far enough to try to eat those. 

I didn't realize I had a Pringle problem until yesterday when it dawned on me while making a duck bill with two chips. I realized that I had used the phrase "Once you pop, the fun don't stop" 6 times this week, which is six times more than you are allowed to say it in your whole life. I also realized my addiction developed as a coping mechanism with a tajine chicken diet and the lack of chicken tenders in my life. I've begun working with my host grandmother to help me overcome my problem, as she used to be addicted to raw artichoke. This explains why she never eats it when we have it for lunch, which I had attributed to her being an old wise women who had realized decades ago that artichoke is not meant to be eaten raw. 

Never Again, Mr. Pringles

I'll let you know how my recovery goes. In the mean time, I've got a midterm tomorrow to study for. Anything to keep my mind of that salty crunch.

Day 19: More-tichoke

I jinxed myself yesterday by saying I didn't have to eat any more artichoke because I had to eat TWO artichoke halves at lunch today. It's definitely begun to grow on me, in a wheatgrass-smoothie kind-of way. I'm beginning to look at it as a health challenge.

Typical breakfast and Arabic class routine. Journeyed home for lunch, but in the afternoon, we didn't have to go back to school. We were having a lecture on Medina architecture and the Medina itself makes a better classroom in this situation! We met with the head of ALIF, an American expat named David, who took us around the medina, pointing out the Romi and Beldi styles (old and new), restoration projects underway, what makes a "good restoration," and helped us solidify our mental maps of the medina. He took us to two houses he owns that he has been working on restoring too. The tour was long (3+ hours) and I thought it could have been better organized and shortened. Either way, we learned a lot and stopped by the Fez Cafe afterwards for some tea and drinks before heading home.

Tonight, I read all of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell; it was a very easy read because all the chapters are blog posts. I don't feel any smarter after reading it, but it was pretty funny at times. The wi-fi stick stopped working after lunch today, so I need to work on that some. It connects to the 3G service but won't load any websites. If anyone has any tips, please let me know!

I'm off to bed now. Hopefully I'm not sure if I'll be able to fall asleep because I'm too excited for our trip tomorrow!

Day 17: ArtiCHOKED

Let me begin my recap of today with a rant about lunch. I went home for lunch today where we had the usual tagine chicken and carrots. While this standard meal is pretty tasty, dessert was the opposite. The one piece of advice is I can give to any college student is: while abroad, you need to watch out for host families that enjoy artichoke. When I lost my artichoke virginity today, I was given a raw, unwashed artichoke at lunch and told to consume it. When you don't know enough of the language to yell, "Never! Give me some freedom fries," you unhappily begin to eat the artichoke. This entails peeling off the tiny individual leaves and eating the bottom 10 to 20% of each one. When I tried this, I ended up eating the bottom 30 to 40% of each leaf, which made me even crabbier. Once done with that, you will feel like Spike from The Land Before Time, who I always believed never talked because he was too disgruntled with the fact that he was a plant eater, but had the most badass name of all the characters. So after stomaching 20-something leaves that I knew my body did not have the chemicals to digest, I put down the bottom of the artichoke and was happy to be done with the trial. ALAS, I WASN'T DONE. No part of the artichoke is wasted in this country. They cleaned up the stem till it was one huge piece of artichoke and played charades with me until I could no longer pretend to not understand that they desperately wanted me to eat that chunk of chlorophyll-filled plant tissue. I thought, "hey, I'll just eat like a bite of it and just casually run off to class an hour early." When I implemented the aforementioned plan, my brother said "put the whole thing in your mouth!" I didn't even have enough time to think, "that's what she said" before he shoved the rest of it into my mouth. I ate it, don't worry, but a small part of me died today. I have since taken two massive fiber-filled dumps, but, no matter how relieving they were, the ends do not justify the means.

To continue complaining about food, I had my usual breakfast of baguette and nutella before school. Arabic class today was fun and I did the walk to and from school 3 times today. It was real hot so I had some nasty back-sweat showing through my button-down whenever I got to my destination. After Professor Sadiqi's class in the afternoon, we decided to all go to Cafe Clock for milkshakes and then to the riad to finally watch the Hunger Games. My chocolate milkshake wasn't very good, but it was fun to sit in a cafe together like real Moroccans do. Watching the Hunger Games was also a good time. I had to explain a lot of stuff that happened in the books that the movie doesn't do a good job of explaining, but everyone seemed to really like the movie. Afterwards, I got home just in time for dinner at 8:30. After dinner, I just read some Steve Jobs, did some homework, put pictures on Facebook, blogged, and skyped with Maddie. She spent the weekend in Iguazu Falls and is having a fun time in Argentina. I was able to do all of these online activities because Ariel and I traded wi-fi sticks. Her Maroc Telecom one wasn't working well in her house and my meditel one wasn't working that well in my house. However, after switching for the night, our "new" modems are working so well that I think the switch will be a permanent one.