Close encounters of the royal kind

The King of Morocco, His Majesty Mohammad V, is in Meknes.  This means that Meknes has been going insane.  It's also very clean.   It is the strangest type of insanity I've ever witnessed.  Apparently this happens any time the king goes anywhere, all the trash gets picked up and things get repainted.  There are flags everywhere (or alternately, long strips of connected flags that cover the front of basically every restaurant.)  Probably the strangest thing though is the trees.  Besides being trimmed (mostly into squares although there are some with lots of little round tree bits that look particularly Dr. Seuss-like) the bottom 3-4 ft. of every tree trunk has been painted white.  Before this happened you could see remnants of paint from last year.

An off topic side note.  I'm passively watching an Arabic cartoon about gnomes which is drawn in such a cutesy style that it looks like a bunch of little girls with massive beards... And now they're ripping their hair off  in one giant piece...  Annnnnd now one of the intentionally female characters (i.e. has pigtails and even more eyelashes) has a beard... which is trying to kill people.  I really don't understand cartoons in any language.

OK.  Back to the king.  I was waiting for the bus trying to get home from class when the king drove by unexpectedly.  There weren't any crowds or a parade or anything, I guess he was just hurrying to get somewhere.  Those of us who were waiting looked up as we heard some police motorcycles with their sirens on and saw the king texting in the back seat of his car.  It was very surreal.  I see pictures of the king EVERYWHERE.  Every restaurant, every shop, people's homes, any store that develops photos will have dozens of pictures.  I kind of forgot that he was a real person.  After that several dozen highly decorated horses went by.  This was unrelated to the king, they were going to the site of the agricultural fair.  It was nice to see such pretty horses.  There are a couple that graze on the school lawn a lot and they look pretty sad.

Going back to the cartoon situation, now Arabic dubbed Scooby Doo is on.  I should probably go turn that off... I just realized that with my haircut (especially since I really need a trim) and glasses I look like a tall version of Velma.  Halloween costume?  Perhaps....

Laila Saida  (Good night)

In which the author realizes she should not blog when tired.

Soooooo.... Ye olde blogging website as some pretty interesting features.  For instance, I just found out that I have an international audience. Specifically me (Team Morocco!), 2 people from Germany, and 3 people from Mother Russia.  How exciting.  They most likely came to me via my most common search query: "How to train orange tree to topiary."  I really do have the most exciting blog in the internet.

Because spring break happened, I have become a strange semi-nocturnal beast.  This makes 8 AM classes exceedingly unpleasant.  Especially when those classes happen to be Arabic.  I guess it's time for the nocturnal menace to re-diurnify herself.

Laila saida y'all.  (Goodness I need sleep)

For your viewing pleasure.

Hybrid Christian/Muslim graveyard.  Not pictured - graveyard cats.  Also not pictured - the adorable puppies I found here.  Why they're not pictured - because I'm a dinkus and deleted my memory card before checking if all the photos made it on to the computer.  Someone please alert Mensa about their newest inductee.

I think you will find that most of my pictures are trying to be artsy.

That's a banana tree behind me.  I'm very excited. As you can probably tell.  Banana.  Bananananananananana.

I like this one.  This is me getting lost in Tangier's medina.

Artsy photo of waaaaaaayyyyyy too small coffee cup.

BUDGIE.  Actually a cage full of budgies.  They must feed them something special to get them so brightly colored.

Okie dokie.  Good night!

Superpowers

I made it to Tangier in one piece!  Luck is on my side, because the hostel I'm staying at is in the middle of the medina (the old walled city) and is therefore rather hard to find.  I was scared that the taxi that took me from the train station part way into the medina was going to lose a rear view mirror or something, the streets were so narrow.  I was very happy to get out of the car and be able to walk myself because at least two people can pass each other in the opposite direction when on foot.  The hostel is really nice.  It is very tiny in terms of land usage, but it goes up 5 stories.  A lot of the buildings here are like that.  I went to a cafe today that had stairs at over a 45 degree angle to get to the door, and then there were 4 floors.  In the medina there aren't any skyscrapers, but there sure are a lot of tiny, tall buildings.

Anyway, today I was walking through the medina and I stopped by a flower shop.  Morocco grows and sells a lot of roses, so even the smallest shop is full of beautiful, wonderful smelling flowers.  I tried to tell the shopkeeper that I thought his flowers were beautiful, but I don't think he spoke much French (which is rather common here, what with Spain so close.  Not good for me....)  As I was about to leave he motioned for me to stop and made a bouquet for me free of charge.  This isn't the first time this has happened.  I've gotten free roses at nearly every flower shop I've stopped at here.  (I promise I don't loiter around flower shops hoping for gifts.)  I also get gifts when I go into normal shops sometimes.  It's always something little, like a key chain or a small piece of jewelry, but still.  It's very strange here.  I feel lie I have a neon arrow over my head.  

It's like a strange superpower, being able to make people stop talking, do a double take, follow you around. Honestly, I don't like it one bit.  I vastly prefer the anonymity of the US, but it is interesting to experience this.  It honestly makes me feel really lonely.  Being a celebrity must be so much worse, I feel sorry for them.  

Sorry this is a short post.  I'll hopefully be able to put up some pictures some time soon.  

Getting lost (again)

As many of you know, I have no sense of direction whatsoever (I also didn't realize that that was all one word... spell check may be lying to me... I've always gotten the feeling that it would like to make me look stupid.)

Aaaaaaaanyways.

When I first got to Meknes I was convinced that I would never be able to find my way around because it was "such a big city."  This is patently untrue.  Meknes, especially the area I live in (the Ville Nouvelle or Hamria), is actually pretty small.  For instance, it takes me about 45 minutes to walk to school.  This is one of the furthest journeys I can take and still be in Meknes, the trip goes almost from one side to the other.  Therefore, I have come to a startling conclusion.

It is actually very difficult to get lost in Meknes.

(At least in Hamria.)

((The Medina is another beast entirely.  You will most likely be eaten by Faux Guides who will try to sell you a toothpick for $50 or something like that.))

This would be great, if I didn't really want to get lost.  In fact, I set out today to do just that.  My Arabic class was cancelled (for the second time!  Yayyyy!)  and I wanted to explore the sights.  Unfortunately I seemed to keep ending up in the same place, or at least in a place I recognized.  I'm not sure what I was looking for, but I did stumble upon several things.

1) A playground/park that had no children in it.  It was entirely populated with couples.  Who all glared at me (except some of the guys who made the stupid ssssst sssssst sound... Having an actual, live girl sitting next to you is obviously not enough here.)

2)  Many fine examples of Morocco's favorite substitute for barbed wire, which is putting pieces of broken bottles into the plaster that covers the tops of the walls surrounding houses/schools/etc.  It makes them look like they have bottle green teeth.  I chalk this up to either Perrier or Heineken (although I've seen more Heineken bottles than anything else.  Anything you want to talk about, Morocco?)

3) Lots and lots of wildflowers I'd never seen before.  Next time I go wandering I'll have to be sure to bring my camera and document.  The flowers take over any spot that doesn't have active construction or a building on it.  It's also nice because the flowers conceal holes.  I Morocco, I believe the standard response to seeing a hole is, "Oh, we should fill it with trash! It looks so lonely all empty like that..."  What a sweet gesture.

4)  Lots of guard dogs.  Including one missing a large portion of its face.  Yuck.  This makes up for the fact that I saw the cutest little, fat puppy the other day.  It was so young it didn't really know what it's legs were for and kept falling over itself.  I'm going to keep imagining that one...

5) I can't really think of a #5 except that the sun was out today and that's the first time in a while.  I think spring might actually be coming!  I certainly hope so.

Zwina

Zwina (or Zwine if you're a guy) means beautiful in Darija.  It's also one of the words I hear the most on the streets of Meknes.  Unlike in the US where the phrase "cat calling" is an idiom, Moroccan boys/men actually yell at women the way they call cats.  It's mostly a hissing noise, "Tssssst, tsssssst, tsssssst."  Also kissing noises.  I've honestly heard people try and get cats' attention the same way. Sometimes walking down the street sounds like being surrounded by snakes and fish.  It's honestly kind of amusing.  But also gross.  Especially when they have almost no teeth and they follow you down the street.  (This happened to my friend and I yesterday... Super fun!)

You also get some very amusing pick up lines.  As one of my professors here noted, many boys only learn English from American TV and movies.  This means that they often say the stupidest things to you on the streets. So here, for your viewing pleasure, are some of the most amusing pick-up lines I've heard on my trip so far.

"Are you looking for me?  Because here I am!"

"Hello, I speak English very good.  Nice ass."

"Hey girl, it's your birthday."

"Have we met before?  Somewhere on the planet Mars?"  (I'm not really sure what was up with this guy, but the line seemed very practiced... Maybe it's worked before?)

(Something involving Barack Obama.  Sometimes just "Barack Obama!" yelled in a wannabe seductive voice.  It's quite disturbing...)

"You're starving?  You're starving for me!"
(after my friend mentioned that she was really hungry while we were walking.)

"Punch me in the face, you're beautiful!"  (After a conversation between my friend and I about how street harassment makes us want to punch people.)

"Very nice, I like."  (Ironically, Moroccan accents can sometimes sound very much like Borat, making this line extra amusing."

"Setta"  (Some more explanation for this.  Setta is the word for six in Darija.  This lovely gentleman was offering me 6 Dirhams (approximately 75 cents) because he hoped I was a prostitute.  Aren't guys sweet?)

"Ca va?"  (Which really just means "how are you doing" in French, but it now means "I'm an annoying boy, you should hit me")

After all this, I've decided that the only men worth bringing home from Morocco are under the age of 6 (because Moroccan children are the cutest.  Hands down.)

I accidentally ate liver today.

It was unpleasant.  I hope to never do that again.
               (The restaurant sneaked it in with my all carbohydrate meal, because they couldn't get my order right even after several promptings.  Oh well, there were some tasty, non-liver covered fries.)

I also got to play with chameleons and boxes of turtles.
               (You can buy all kinds of things in the medina or Rabat including, on the animal front, hamsters, guinea pigs, and fish.)

What else have I done recently... Let me think...
1) I finished my first Arabic course, which went very well.  Now I'm moving into Arabic 102, which will be a lot harder... Uh-oh.
2) I went to the hammam (Turkish bath where naked old women scrape off your skin for you) again with my family and didn't burn myself this time! Score for me!  (Also, my previous hammam burn is healing up nicely. It should be totally gone in week or two.)
3) I saw a double rainbow while it was raining over the mountains behind my house.  The sky was also grey and gold.  I was pretty sure the world was going to end/it was going to rain on me as I walked to school, but it didn't.
4) I have played with many cute children.  It's totally acceptable to play with strangers' children here in Morocco.  After playing peekaboo the parents will often bring the child over so you can kiss it.  I'm going to develop some bad habits that will make me seem really creepy back in the states... Fortunately, American children are far less cute than Moroccan children.  Thank goodness for small blessings.
5) I might bring a Moroccan child back with me
6) I bought bracelets with little bells and eye-balls on them.  I don't think they're a very popular item here in Meknes, since the shopkeeper gave them to me for almost nothing.  I think they're super awesome though... I'm not sure what that says about me...
7) I found out that "Al Manbat" is actually a private high school, which means that you can learn how to be batman.  Why didn't I go there?
8) Every time I think my French is improving, I have a conversation with someone and they flat out tell me that I can't speak French... Apparently some terrible non-language is coming out of my mouth... Oops.
9) About a week ago, I was trying to get into my apt. and the door was sticking. Pushed harder and finally got in and saw that the reason the door wasn't opening was because there was a woman passed out on the lobby floor.  There was no one around and I couldn't get her to wake up.  Finally a maid from another apt. came down and we moved her off the floor onto a couch and got her to wake up and drink some water.  All this was done with me speaking no Arabic/Darija and both the maid and the sick lady not speaking any English.  That is the scary story from my trip so far.  I now understand what Clara was talking about when she said that I put her into "emergency mode."  I'm sorry about that, Clara.  At least you have some form of first aid training (unlike me.  My response was to try and wake her up by yelling at her in English.  Not helpful.)
10) On a lighter note, here are some random pictures from my trip!

Me with the columns in Rabat that were stolen from Volubilis (Roman ruins near Meknes)

Roman ruins - Grainery

Roman ruins turned field.  Waste not, want not.

The sky full of birds over the ocean in Rabat.  Those of us who had never seen Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" were very excited about this.  Those who had were less so.

This is the castle I go to school in.  Parts of it are much pinker than this.

This is my Arabic professor and the drawing of a mouse he made for us.

I wasn't lying about Al Manbat.  Also, you all probably care a lot less than I do.  So be it.

Pottery at a ceramic house in Fez.  The entire room was packed with thousands of different pieces.

AJ, Karissa, and I in our beautiful djellebas AKA most comfortable articles of clothing on earth.

I hope everyone is having a happy March!

Random photos

I have managed to put my pictures on my computer, but I can't actually see what each picture is very easily.  Soooooooo, I'm going to put in random pictures and then tell you about them.  Ok? Ok.

Gena made me promise to take a picture of my feet when I got to Morocco, so I did.  Aren't I the best sister?  I know, I know.  There's another picture somewhere of my bare feet in the only mosque I was allowed to go into (you have to take off your shoes before entering.)

This is my friend Susanna in the fancy salon (Moroccan living room) in our hotel in Casablanca.  In general, all Moroccan salons are this plush and fancy.  I just went to a house today that had 5 different rooms set up like this.

This is me feeding pigeons (AKA flying rats according to everyone else on the trip.  I thought they were cute.)  

This is the inside of a public bakery in Marrakesh.  It's a pretty bad picture, but I did promise random.  I'm not exactly a great photographer.   

Moroccans are really, really, really into topiary.  Also, they line their streets with orange trees.  Sometimes there is orange tree topiary.

This is a picture of a pond at the Jardin Marjorelle, which was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life.  I'll have to post more of the pictures from here another time.  

BEAUTIFUL MOROCCAN LAKE

A poor quality picture of Hadija (our cook) sleeping on my roommate Shavon in one of the three living rooms in our house. 

I'm not entirely sure what this is.... Hmmmmmm......

The inside of the tomb of Moulay Ismail (King of Morocco back in the day.  17th century I think...) in Meknes.  

And, for your viewing pleasure, two lovely pictures of some of my friends and I riding in a carriage around Meknes.  We were hungry at the time and the horse was crazy.  Christine, Susanna, and I all got the grumpy-face message, but Cathleen missed it. 

Goodnight y'all.