Morocco

This past weekend, I went on a trip with AIFS to Morocco. That is correct, I am the first Bellows to go to Africa, how exciting. Well anyway, we went to Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat, and Tetuan. It was an interesting experience, needless to say. It was the first time I have gone to a country where the primary religion was not christian. It was weird to see a few of the women covered completely and I felt like more of a foreigner than in Spain. In Spain, I at least know the language so I have never had a serious problem with communicating. In Morocco, on the other hand, I was extremely overjoyed when I encountered people that either spoke English or Spanish. This was just something that I have never had to deal with before. It was a nice experience though and it was nothing like what is at Epcot. The cities were fun and the hotels were all nice but to get to these nice cities and hotels was not so fantastic. We totaled up all the hours and it came to be around 30 hours on a bus for the weekend. Awful, I know, but I survived. I guess it is a good preparation for my 24 hour trip back to the states. Anyway, back to Morocco, the food was good but there was alot of couscous involved and also many pastries. All the cities had cool market places that were kind of daunting. Oh, and I got lost with Karen in the market in Marrakech. It was such a lovely 10 minutes or so of my life that I hope will never be repeated. I did not panic though and I knew that if we just stayed where we were, our tour guide would eventually find us. He did find us easily though, I suppose it is not too hard to find a white girl and a chinese girl that are both together in a country like Morocco. Aside from that and the fact that our tour guide that we were stuck with for 4 days was absolutely awful, the trip was fun and it would be cool to go back again.

I did not get to buy many souvenirs but I did get a henna tattoo. It is on my hand and it should last for a week or two. It is just a little flower design and there is also my name written in Arabic. I also got some dirham to show to everyone when I get back. Dirham is the currency that is used in Morocco and you are apparently not supposed to take it out of the country but no one checked our bags to make sure of this. So I have one 20 dirham bill and a few coins. They are pretty interesting so make sure you ask to see them when I am back which is in only 2 and a half weeks. Aren't you all just so thrilled to have me back in the states? If not, you should be.