Casual Friday

Already Day 8! It's hard to believe we are already so far into our journey.

The view from the hotel is stunning and breathtaking...
We are getting used to the classic Moroccan breakfast of croissants and breads
served with jam and cheese (La Vache qui rit). And always some tea or cafe au lait.

Our first outing was to the ancient ruins of Volubilis.

There were amazing mosaics with surprisingly vibrant colors and mostly still intact.

Here is the city of Moulay Idriss snuggled into the mountains.

We came back from the ruins and ordered lunch. They served us Tuna with salad and pasta as well as fries.
Every day the meals seem to get smaller, but only when we don't get to eat at Defaa's family homes.
After lunch some of us went down to the courtyard behind the hotel, where there were orange trees. It is so strange to see so many orange trees along roads and in the middle of cities.

While we lounged by the pool side and tried to get some sun rays, Mrs Mandra went on a tour of Moulay Idriss with Nada and her cousin, Sliman.

Later, we left Matt, Remy, and Chase at the hotel with Mr.Defaa while the rest of us went to have tea and pastries at Nada's Uncle's house before going to Haja's for dinner

As a custom in Morocco, people normally have Couscous on Fridays as a dinner. It was delicious, we also had these thingamajigs filled with almonds and veggies. For dessert we had some sort of jiggly cake, one was chocolate flavored and the other was banana. Afterward, we headed back to the hotel for bed, where the other three bragged about their pizza and chocolate mousse.

Thankfully they were all feeling much better and ready to travel to Fes the next morning.

Meknes and Moulay Idriss

It is officially a week into our Moroccan adventure, and it has been a blast. We have not been able to update a frequently as we would like, but it's happening.
We thought it would be cool to get a sunrise picture over the mountains and the city, but all the fuss was for nothing because we woke up to a cloudy, cold day in the mountains.

Let's be honest though, the view is still amazing!

After waking up to see the cloudy day, we went to sleep for about another hour or so, when Sanaa and Mandra woke us up for breakfast for the drive to Meknes.

Meknes is a city full of history and sights.

This used to be a huge stable for many horses. They built it so that one guard could watch what was happening in three different directions.

One of the kings built a pool near the medina to teach his soldiers how to swim because they would need it to establish a navy.

The markets were extremely hectic but full of little shops of spices, treats, and olives. We spent a good deal of time at the olive and date stands where Mr. Defaa and Mrs. Mandra bought SO many. We were also exposed to a little butcher shop of horrors in the stand nearby which we found gory and bloody especially in a market place, but that seems to be the norm in Morocco.

Marita made a friend. Cats and dogs are everywhere in the streets. Marita has a song to sing on car rides that goes like "I love sheep! Everything about then is so coooool." She still can't get over the donkeys (les anes).

Sanaa decided to give Nor a cute gift, she bought her an adorable little turtle. There were boxes of these guys in the marketplace.

We had a light dinner in Moulay Idriss of lentil soup and some salads. Marita and Jeff became food olympians, eating orange peels and leaves.
Sanaa taught Marita how to make rzezza. It was difficult but fun! Unfortunately that night, Remy, Chase, and Matt came down with cold symptoms.
We spent the night in the hotel which was beautiful and comfortable- our first and probably last time sleeping in real beds.

Our stay in the mountains

Day 6 on our Moroccan journey was a bit overwhelming for most of us. We awoke in Sidi Slimane around noon after going to bed very early in the morning. Aziz, Mr. Defaa's son, had gotten
sick during the night which kept the Defaas up, and us teenagers were just tired from all the travel and staying up late. We spent the morning in a cafe catching up on things in Merrimack with the free wifi connection and drinking more cafe au lait. One thing we will all miss when we go back home is the consistent caffeine dosages in the form of cafe au lait, Moroccan tea, or cafe nos nos, which many of us order now. It simply means half coffee half milk instead of a majority of milk like in cafe au lait.

We also went on a sunny walk through the city and saw a house where Mrs. Defaa lived when she was younger, the karate studio where Mr. and Mrs. Defaa met, and visited the grocery store where we bought some foreign snacks, and just took in the views of Sidi Slimane. It was very different from the other places we'd visited because it was less wealthy and less of a tourist attraction. Because the locals hadn't seen as many tourists, we attracted quite a few stares. One man on a bicycle even took a photo of us as he drove by.

After, we enjoyed a Moroccan barbecue lunch, where we ate ground beef patties with grilled vegetables and spices inside some of the freshly baked bread, along with more tea of course.

We then packed up our stuff from the house in Sidi Slimane and loaded on the bus to head to Moulay Idriss.
                                  
Even though the morning seemed somewhat extended and uneventful, and some of us were a little grumpy from fatigue and sun, it was all forgotten when we drove through the incredible green
mountains of North Africa just as the sun was setting behind them.

 Believe us when we say that the pictures don't do the view justice and it was a sight that none of us will soon forget.
We stopped by the Hotel Volubilis, where we'll be staying Thursday night, to make reservations. Watching the sun finish its descent over the mountainside pool and among the various
amenities of the 4 star hotel got us all very excited for the stay there.

We got back on the bus and headed the last few minutes toward Moulay Idriss. We saw the city clustered together on the side of the mountain and no one could believe that that was where we'd be staying. We walked through the narrow streets toward Nada's grandmothers house and took in the beautiful old city. The house is incredibly beautiful and the fact that the walls
we were sleeping inside of were significantly older than our own country... is just insane.

    We shopped around in the shops that were still open, ate dinner and lounged in the beautiful
mountainside home. It was a great ending to a crazy day and we were all excited for the days to come.

      One downside to this day was a short scare when we thought Matt was lost in the back streets of the city. Thankfully a kind stranger helped him back to the house. He was really shaken up,
as anyone would be. Thank goodness Sanaa was there to take wonderful care of him. We prepared ourselves for probably the coldest night yet in the beautiful city of Moulay Idriss.

 

Sidi Slimane

Day 5 started with a lazy morning in Cafe Islah, downstairs from our homebase in Kenitra. Sanaa brought down pastries, razezza, biscuits, and the usual breakfast delights. We all relaxed
in the cafe enjoying the sun and the free wifi.
After breakfast we visited the Moroccan artist, Benani's, workshop next door. We saw a few of his sculptures and paintings and it was very cool to see the space that he worked in and
check out the different works in progress around the room. We also saw camels for the first time on our trip.

We ate a quick lunch of sandwiches prepared by Sanaa before getting on the bus and heading to Sidi Slimane, Mr. Defaa's hometown.
While we have seen many of the city scapes in Morocco, the drive to the mountains was breathtaking and very very green. It was incredible to see so far around us and nothing but green and
the occasional village. Forests are few and far between in Morocco, so you can see for miles in every direction.

It felt great to help people in a different country we had never seen before. There were so many people who were looking for clothes, any clothes. Aziz said that a postive for him that day
was to help all of those people and to make the happy.

We couldn't stay the night in Mr. Defaa's childhood home, because it had collapsed due to a construction mishap, it was pretty awesome to see where his roots are from. Plus we got some
neat pictures of him as a younger guy. We also saw the bedroom where he grew up and all of the books he accumulated over the years.

We've told Defaa that he is growing this moustache for our graduation present!

we went to Otman's house for pre-dinner snack

We relaxed in a traditional Moroccan bathhouse or hammam that was over one hundred years old. Mr. Defaa had told us that he ised to sit on the entrance steps as a kid and watch the world
go by with Otman who now owns the hammam. It was a new experience that was surprising and relaxing. After a stressful day of travel, it was nice to relax in the hammam.

dinner at midnight
It was a very late dinner, with many of Mr. Defaa's old friends, it was awesome to see him in his 'natural habitat.'

It took us so long to get to sleep that night, so much giggling and jokes after a long day of good deeds and beautiful mountains. Usually we are pretty giggly at night, but this was a new
level because everything made us laugh, and Jeff complained about sleeping on the floor the whole night.

The Journey Continues

Now that we have some internet for a while at the school in Marrakech, we can finish this post.

We stopped by the archaeology museum and surrounding gardens for a dose of history before going to Mrs. Defaa's Uncle's house.

The sights were from an ancient Roman village and an Islamic mausoleum complete with a minaret.

Marita had a lot of fun taking around 17 pictures of cats, and there were pelicans on the tops of the ruins!

At night we took a walk to the medina of the city and it was very cold. Mr. Defaa took us through a winding, kinda terrifying route to a view of where the river meets the ocean. It as cold but beautiful.

Rabat was a beautiful city and a great addition to our adventure.

The Journey to the Capital

We overlooked the title of the last blog post, and found out that Hannah spelled Kenitra wrong...sorry.


We started the day in Loubna's house for another Moroccan breakfast

There were some absolutely delicious not-really doughnuts called shvinge

after a rather hasty breakfast, we steeled ourselves for the bus ride to Rabat, the Capital city of Morocco. This would probably be a good time
to mention our awesome bus driver, he lives in Marrakech with his family and has become a friend on this trip. Most dinners he eats with family
and is a fantastic driver. The traffic in Morocco is ridiculous ad we're luck to have him.

On the bus ride there, Nore was kept entertained by Marita and Hannah sitting behind her. We have fallen in love withthis little bundle ofjoy. The Moroccan children are kept on a
loose leash when it comes to things like bed time, Nore has stayed up with us through most of the nights

She is really cute, and has been a source of adorable on our journey

We arrived in Rabat to a bright sunny day and a lot of people. Our first stop was to see a theater that a friend of Mr. Defaa owns and operates. As we got
there, set up for a stand-up comedien Gad Elmaleh, that was a sold out show.

We think we're funny

The Theater was beautiful and we got some great shots

There was the king's suite and his box overlooking the theater that we only allowed a peak in, but rest assured, they were fit for a king

Traveling along with eyes squinting and sunscreened skin, we stopped at a unfinished centuries old mosque. There were still guards everywhere, but it
was a great time. A woman out of the blue grabbed Imane's had and started doing Henna, a type of tattoo art, sometimes used in Middle Eastern weddings,
or just for decoration.

The outside wall of the mosque.

The Guards on the outside were astride huge horses, and were glad to have pictures taken.

This next guard was probably the grumpiest in all of North Africa. His eyebrows are really catapillars in disguise. He wouldn't let us come anywhere close to him, so the picture turned out awkward and kinda weird

The mosque was beautiful,the moldings were intricate, and the atmosphere was calming.

We were not allowed into the mosque, but we were there for the call to prayer and it was a good surprise. We were able to see the mausoleum.

From there we saw one of the King's many palaces and it was huge, like any King's palace should be.

From there we had Lunch at Mrs. Defaa's friend Rita's home for delicious almond pie something with meat inside

We also had tea at Mrs. Defaa's Uncle's house and the biscuits were amazing.

Our second to last stop in Rabat was to the Archaeology museum and garden. This museum is an outdoor one and includes a Roman ruin sight and an abandoned mausoleum and mosque, the pictures from that we will upload later because we have to set off for Marrakech and Casablanca.

Our final stop was to the medina, or the oldest part of any city. The bus driver is calling me, so I will pick it up later