Day 22: Fez is More

Saturday, July 13

So, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before (and I'm too lazy to look), but the same program that sent us here to Morocco also sent a group of students to Egypt to study for a year on the same day we left. Well, within the first week of them being there, the political state in Egypt (as you may have heard) was in upheaval. Thousands of people were protesting in the streets across the country, refusing to stop until President Morsi left office. The U.S. put a travel ban on the country due to the severe, unsafe political state, but this all only happened after those students were already there. They were basically confined to their dorms and kept on lockdown. So, naturally, being that it was impossible to study there, the program was finally able to pull them back out of Egypt. But they didn't want to just take them back to the U.S. because they still need to study for a year abroad, so instead they brought them here! And it looks like they'll be here for a full year. That sucks for some of them, those that wanted to learn the Egyptian dialect and not Moroccan, because, while Moroccan is interesting and all that, it doesn't have as much practical application. And it's also stupid-hard because nobody uses vowels.

"There's the door. Now get out, all of you."

Anyway, the point of all that was, so now the Egypt students are here in our school (they'll be going to the university in the Fall, I think?) and one of them is friends with my roommate, so the three of us and another girl from their school all took a trip on Saturday! We went to the nearby city of Fez.

We had to take a train to get there, because it's WAY cheaper than taking a taxi, and it only takes maybe 30 minutes anyway.

On the way there we sat in a compartment with four other men, which was a little weird, especially when we saw at least two of those men later AFTER we had returned to Meknes, just in the streets during our walk back. That was weird.

Anyway, Fez was pretty sweet. It is definitely, no question, a tourist hub. All the shop owners know just enough to say, "Are you American? Please, please come in! Look at everything ! The price for this is____."

After finally finding a taxi from the train station that wasn't going to rip us off (by a lot), we went to the Old City where the market is. It was very long and very busy. We saw quite a few tourists there, and admittedly we were tourists too because Fez is not our hometown.

The door to the Old City

Fez is known for its leather-working, so most of the shops were filled with leather-type goods. It was really awesome. After searching, we finally found the tannery, which you have to go through this shop and up onto a roof to look at it.

It was just like that happy scene in Fern Gully where they were puddle hopping and it was all romantic and sweet. Except for, y'know, all the dead animals.

Ignorance is bliss.

Afterwards, we went into the shop, where he mostly sold lots and lots of leather shoes and clothes (like jackets), and I was highly considering buying one of those pairs of shoes, until the shop owner was like, "You need to hurry up. We are very busy, you know."

And I was like, "You expect me to just pick a pair of shoes in 2 minutes when you have 800 different ones?"

This is but a fraction of what he had.

So we left. If he was going to be rude, he didn't deserve our business. As if whatever he had that made him "so busy" was more important than making a sale. And anyway, his shoes were WAY too expensive.

Then we went to another shop where these ladies were making soaps and things by hand, and they were MUCH, much nicer. They even  gave out shoulder massages for super cheap (though I didn't get one). They were like $3.05. Everyone but me bought a bunch of medicinal and/or smell-good things. I know me well enough to know that if I bought those things, I would save them, and save them, and save them, because I have such a limited supply, and then they would just get old and weird and I would never use them. So yeah. That logic is sound.

I didn't buy anything during the whole trip. I regret it a little bit, but I suppose I can always go back this weekend, or sometime during the next four weekends. But, we'll see. The only thing I bought were two orange Fantas, and they were overpriced and awesome.

We came back in the early evening, before dinner, and I ate the best ice cream bar ever. After being in the heat all day, and not having eaten anything, that chocolate-on-chocolate ice cream was totally worth the $2.00.

And here's some more pictures that I took during the walk from the train station to the apartment after we returned to Meknes.

All-in-all, it was a good day.