Day 1: Green Chicken

Saturday, June 22

Now that it is the weekend, I finally have the opportunity to write about this past week in Morocco. I was hoping to update every day, but when I got behind, there was no hope to accomplish more than one blog in a day. So now, I shall write all those from this past week, and hopefully, إن شاء الله , I will be able to keep it up every day from here on out.

So, we woke up in the hotel, and I was hella sick. They all told us we'd get sick, but they always said it was because of something we'd eat. By this point in time, I hadn't eaten anything in Morocco yet. But at least I got to be the first. Gotta be the best at something.

It didn't last long, fortunately, and I was fine within the hour.

But now I must say that this was most beautiful hotel that I've been in. There was nothing generic about it. (Well, I'm speaking from inexperience; maybe all the hotels here look like this, and perhaps this one was especially generic, and people go there, and they're all like, "Oh, it's so 17th century." But I'm just speculating). The hotel is located in the Old City, as is our school. 

Inside the hotel, beyond the front desk and down a tiny hall, is a large open room, with lots of seating: couches, cushions, chairs, etc. The ceiling extends all the way to the roof, so that the second floor has a walkway around the upper half of the room. The bedrooms are located off of this main room or on the second floor. Three beds to a room, and each room has a bathroom. I took one of the ground level rooms, and the bathroom was a little sublevel, the ceiling only a few inches higher than my own head (and I'm kind of short). It smelled of mold a bit, and maybe that's what made me sick (sleeping near that smell all night), but it wasn't bad.

(Due to sickness, I didn't take any pictures unfortunately. However, my roommate did!)

From inside one of the bedrooms on the 2nd floor

Inside the main room

Fountain in the middle of the room, cuz why not?

Breakfast

From the roof

We woke up at 8, and everyone who wasn't sick had breakfast and tea (i.e. everyone but me, not that I'd want tea, I make a terrible Moroccan, besides, you know, my arctic complexion). Then we returned to the school and met our host mothers. (We all stay with host families. Two students to a family. Ours is small. Just a mother and her teenage daughter living here. Her husband is....... somewhere. We haven't dared to ask.)

Our host mother's name is Noura, and though it was very intimidating to, like, leave everyone behind (except my roommate) and get in some car with some strange lady who doesn't speak English, she's very nice. She's an Arabic teacher, so she's able to understand us better than some other families that don't know any standard Arabic and only know colloquial (because we know more standard Arabic than we do the local language). 

Before getting to our mysterious new home, we went to the... well, we went to the supermarket. We were surprised to learn of their existence in Morocco. Apparently they've only had them for about 10 years or so. They have everything~ish, except pharmacy-type items and clothes. But, as anyone who shops at Wal*Mart knows, it's really damn convenient. 

She knows.

Afterwards we went to the apartment in which I will be living for the next 7 weeks. It's on the fourth floor, and it's quite beautiful, the living room spacious. 

And this isn't even ALL the couches.
(I will add more pictures later.)

The bedroom is a bit small, and I share it with my roommate, but it hasn't been a problem. We each have our own closet with shelves and the bedroom has it's own balcony.

We discovered later that leaving the balcony doors open at night keeps the room cooler, as they don't have an AC here. (Well, they do, but it's expensive as hell to run, and it's only in the living room). This does, however, create the problem of sunshine spilling into the room in the morning and melting your retinas.

And afterwards we spent the rest of the day just baking chilling. Then Noura made dinner.

I ate chicken covered in green sauce. Wat.

But it was good! Doesn't taste like anything I've had in America, but I suppose green chicken isn't the most popular thing on the average menu.  

"Those were my parents."

And after dinner we went promptly to sleep, because really, we hadn't slept more than 4 hours solid in, like 3.5 days. And I really can't remember anymore about that day at the moment, except that it was my first time ever being in a culture so VERY different from my own. 

(Sorry for being long-winded, but these first few posts will be longer, because everything is still new).