Prologue

Alright, friends. Today I'd like to catch you up on some of what you've missed since I've been here (which is kind of a lot since I've been here for more than two weeks now). So, I might split this into several blogs, and then things will eventually level out as my life stabilizes. 

To start things off, I left from Austin for Washington D.C. on June 16th at 6:20 AM. At least... I certainly would have if I had caught my flight on time. Buuuut I didn't. And it's not that I didn't give myself enough time. I tooootally did. Chris and I got to the airport with 2 hours to spare. But the lines. THE LINES. I never would have thought they would have been so bad. And I've been to a lot of airports and been on a lot of planes. But the United Airlines line was just RIDDIKULUS.

The line was bursting at the seams, and where there should have been a worker at each one of the 15-20 stations, there were 5. To give them all due credit, they were dashing about like mad in order to help everyone, but it just wasn't enough, and by the time I got the front of the line, they were no longer taking checked-baggage for my plane, and I got a 49lb pound bag over here.

That's 1 pound under the maximum weight limit, bitches.

The lady said I could try to check it at the terminal and kind of dismissed me, and I was like, "O-oh, okay." So walked with Chris through the security line with my giant bag (in addition to two stuffed carry-on's) for a few minutes before I decided, "This is stupid." So we jumped the line and got back in the original United Airlines line and waited again until I could just get the next flight out.

And that's how I missed my plane. But honestly, my solution was the far less-stressful one. Much, much easier than trying to take 49lbs of clothing, liquids, and razor blades through security.

On the first plane, I sat next to someone who didn't have their window visor up, so there was nothing to look at. The second flight, however, I got a whooole row to myself, including a window.

I like how the clouds were kinda in these weird parallel lines.

D.C.

So much leg-room back here in coach for once.

I arrived in D.C. at 3-4ish pm. First thing on my agenda after dropping my stuff off at the hotel: find a delicious sandwich place (because they do not have 'sandwiches' in the traditional sense in Morocco). And so I did. I ate at Capriotti's, a sandwich shop a few blocks from my hotel. They did not disappoint. Those sandwiches are MASSIVE.

However, that was about the only non-disappointing thing about D.C. Not only was it actually kinda hot when were there, but the A.C. was not working in our very expensive, luxury hotel. That's pretty unacceptable. I am not about to travel to the Middle East where I'm not gonna have A.C. for a whole year, and not have A.C. on my last nights here in my swanky digs. But lo. That is how the story goes.

The next day we had our official Pre-Departure Orientation. Again. It was the exact same information as last time. Don't eat anything. Don't pet the adorable street kittens. Don't drink the water. Etc. It's all pretty mind-numbing after a while. However, my favorite part was the security presentation, when the FBI guy very seriously talked for an hour and a half about how we should definitely not get recruited by foreign governments because that's bad. Finally, when he reached the end, he asked if there were any questions, and after a very pregnant pause one lone student raised their hand and asked, "Does the U.S. government try to recruit foreign students?"

Silence.

He had clearly not been asked that question before.

After a few delicate moments where everybody just sat patiently staring and waiting, he finally cleared his throat and said, "I'm not at liberty to answer that question."

After orientation finished on Wednesday, we ate at a fancy, but not-very-good, restaurant. AT LEAST they served American food! Thank goodness! (You may recall from two years ago that we had Middle Eastern food as our last meal in the States, to which I had a lot of things to say about on our final evaluation of the program. I didn't forget.) 

Then on Thursday, we needed more orienting before traveling, so after another 4-5 hours of mind-melting information, we were finally done, and back to the hotel for our stuff. Then we were off to the airport so that the adventure may begin!

You know, after 28 hours of plane flights and layovers and whatnot. 

We had a 10 hour layover in Germany this time. It wasn't so bad. We had an entire end of the airport all to ourselves. I mostly napped. 

We got to Morocco at like 1am, and to Meknes at 5am. After a few hours and an appetizing bread breakfast, our host families came to pick us up. Fortunately, I'm living with another girl from UT this time, so I am familiar with her and we can fight the mysteries of language barriers together. Funnily enough, her name means something very, very inappropriate in Arabic, so we had to alter it a bit before meeting the family. Admittedly I did not encounter the same issue. I'm quite certain Stephanie is never going to mean anything in Arabic ever. As a matter of fact, it's been 2 weeks, and the host family still thinks my name is Stephan, which is fine. 

Anyway, I gotta work on homework now, but I'll get back to this blog when I can.