Back in M'co...

Firstly, apologies for not getting my spring break reflections up promptly. It seems much of my teeny-tiny readership decided that they would attempt to read these/catch up on my activites via the blog this week and sadly I was a slacking blogger. Hope you enjoy the bits and pieces of my journey and the pictures. I still have a variety of random occurences that I'll share with you all in person whenever I see you next, inshallah.

So, I'm back in good ole' Ifrane, Morocco. And like it often happens the week after spring break was not...how shall I say it...altogether enjoyable. We were psyched to get back to Morocco after the cold, slushy, frigid weather of Paris, we clearly jinxed ourselves by thinking that we were coming back to good ole' Africa. In fact, that was the wrong assumption.

On Monday, it started raining. Valparaiso style. The cold raid mixed with a biting wind, sometimes bringing a little bit of razor-sharp hail and certainly bringing with it the killjoy mood that just didn't help our tired traveling-weary bodies re-adjust to being back in class or having to focus. Bad news bears. But if we thought that was bad, we again were very very wrong. As yesterday, it began to snow.

Yes, snow. It's almost April. In AFRICA. March 29 in AFRICA and we have 5-6 inches of slushy gross snow, gray skies to replace the permanently blue ones, and a sluggish tired feel among everyone here on campus. I brought back out my blue boots (thanks mom), long underwear (again thanks mom), ridiculous hat with ear covers and my scarf and trudged back and forth to class the past couple of days.

Add into that the normal homework load and a lovely essay midterm in my history class and let's just say I'm really glad to be done with the class week! However, clearly God had a plan as we at first thought that it was inconvienent to have a 3 day weekend right after spring break but now we are all very ready to get away from the cold mountain region of Ifrane for warmed weather...such as the exotic vacation place of Morococo, Marakesh down in the south in the desert. :-) We leave tomorrow. Should be a good time.

So that's the plan. After that, I will be really traveled out and will be sticking around Ifrane for awhile, especially next week as we experience Holy Week and Easter in Morocco land. Should be interesting.

In the meantime, this evening, some of the girls and I went to Ladies Henna night and all have henna designs up and down our hands and arms (I'll put pictures up soon) and took the opportunity to go all out and paint our fingernails and toenails and watch The Mummy in honor of our return from Egypt. :-)

Well, that's pretty much all the news from me at the moment! I'm down to about 6.5 weeks left here and feeling good...like I'm both making the most of my experience but also will be ready to come home. Pretty good place to be. Although unfortunately, I've hit the lovely point in the semester where academics seems more like a chore, so hopefully I'll return from my weekend trek inspired to write 3 papers in the next couple weeks, then do a couple of final papers, an Arabic presentation, and three finals and fly back to the US...craziness!

Love and Peace to you all!

Part 3: Paris, The Last Leg

After flying all night and sleeping in the Barcelona airport, we arrived in Paris about 9:30am to a dismal cold and rainy day...but hey, it's Paris!

Aileen and I met up with Nicole Koehler (VU, in Germany for the semester) at our hotel, changed clothes and were back out on the Parisian streets to begin another two crazy days exploring our third and last city for the break. We hit the Louvre where we ran into the VU Germany group who was doing their art class for the day in the huge Parisian muesuem, saw some amazing artwork and tried not to get too lost in the winding hallways and galleries. From there we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral (beautiful, huge, and centering) and then went back to the hotel to pick up Anna before heading out to climb the 200 steps up to the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur which had an absolutely view of Paris at night and where we had our first Eiffel Tower sighting. Probably one of my favorite spots. Then Anna, Aileen and I had a lovely French dinner (Onion soup is really amazing in France...) complete with funny, stodgy resturant owner, three courses, French wine, and a woman serenading all of us eating in the resturant...beautiful.

Day two started out with me deciding that I valued sleep more than seeing Versailles (don't judge me...we'd done a lot of traveling!) and heading to the Bastille and doing a little window shopping (which later turned into real purchasing) before meeting up with the girls for lunch and the day's plan. Aileen, Nicole and I went to the Musee D'Orsay which was awesome. I think I liked it better than the Louvre because it was so well laid out and slightly less intimidating. We saw some amazing art by Degas, Monet, Manet, van Gogh, Renoir...awesome. Then we jumped back and forth from the metro into the rain to see the Opera House (very magestic), Moulin Rouge (pictured here), and then the Arc D'Triumph where we had a hilarious but slightly traumatizing experience for Nicole in which a Paris pigeon took direct aim at Nicole's head covered in her blue hood...I have a great picture which juxtaposes green bird doo on her head with the amazing architecture of the Arc D'Triumph, all the while standing in the middle of the street with cars on both sides whizzing past. Good times.

Aileen and I then went back to the Bastille for a mad-quick shopping trip in which we decided that French fashion is amazing and that it's probably good we don't live there because we would never have any money. :-)

Back to Notre Dame to meet up with some other VU students studying in Germany (Caitlin Kerr for you Valpoites) for dinner...keep in mind that all of this back n' forth is done basically running through cold shivering rain. Awesome.

After dinner, Aileen, Nicole and I finished our time in Paris by going and seeing the Eiffel Tower all lit up and sparkling. And I must say, wow. It's one of those touristy things that you just have to do, but at the same time it is gorgeous and does have a romance to it that I didn't really see in Paris (which could have just been the rain) up until that point. Ultimately, a great way to end our two days in the city.

That evening, we packed and I basically stayed up and recorded the week in my journal and showered just in time to wake the others up and leave at 4am to catch a taxi and bus to the Paris Beauvis airport(notice that this is the 3rd Paris airport I visited within the week), flight to Madrid, Madrid to Casablanca...customs, back into Morocco, train to Meknes (with all our fellow international students who were journeying back from various places such as Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Italy, the Canary Islands...), taxi to Ifrane. It was BRUTAL. I was pretty much dead and unamused the whole time and very glad to be back by the time I arrived in my room at 10pm that day. Whew.

But ultimately all of that traveling (over 20 hours in airports + flight time) was totally worth it to see good friends, three amazing cities in three different countries, eat good food, and have the lovely experience of traveling a crazy amount within a week on discount airlines and staying in hostels and cheap hotels...there's a reason people only do that as students I think. But hell, it was a really good time! :-)

And that was my spring break...check out the pictures. They're awesome.

Part 2: Riding Camels in Cairo

To pick up where my last post left off...

Claire, Libbi and I woke up bright and early at 4 am Tuesday morning (March 20) to catch my bus from Cambridge to the Luton airport and was greeted with a lovely wet snow as my departing gift. Made it to the airport and had plenty of time to read the latest issue of the Economist (my fellow travelers would later make fun of me mercifully for this. apparently the Economist is not on the list of cool magazines to read...craziness) and eat some breakfast before meeting up with Anna and checking in for our EasyJet flight to Paris. We arrived in Paris (Country #2) late morning where it was cold and gloomy (Weather Change #2) and had little trouble, in fact we didn't even get a passport stamp! For those of you who haven't traveled around Europe since the advent of the EU, it has apparently streamlined travel so much so that there's not even a need to go through customs if you're coming from another European country.

Went from the Paris Charles De Gaulle airport to Paris ORLY where we met up with Aileen and caught our Iberia flight to Barcelona (Country #3) and then our flight to Cairo (Country #4)! We effectively spent over 20 hours flying in and out of 5 airports, 4 countries, and almost all of the seasons (as we arrived in Cairo to beautiful early summer like temperatures). Utter craziness.

Arriving in Cairo was a little more confusing than it needed to be since we'd been traveling so long and were a little slow on the uptake. But we soon had bought our visas and got a sweet Egyptian stamp in our passports, picked up our luggage (all there!) and were soon driving through the Cairo streets with our driver from the hotel. We arrived at the Ramses II hotel in one piece, and after going to get some Egyptian pounds from the ATM to pay our bill and basically planning our stay with the hotel manager, we got to our beds. Those semi-clean beds with shade maroon coverings could never have looked so beautiful to us!

The next morning we woke up and met Adam, a friend of a friend who is studying at the American University of Cairo and who offered to show us around for the day. (Amazingly all of our "meet ups" and various connecting points throughout the entire spring break trip happened with fairly little problem, which is good since we never really had any true back up plans!) We started off exploring Cairo - we went in the Citadel of Salah al-Din (which some tour guide calls the squat mosque, but its huge!) and went in the Mosque of Sultan Hassan and the Mosque of Al Rafai. It was cool to go into the mosques because for some reason they're not quite as open to visitors here in Morocco. We visited the Cairo marketplaces...both the touristy one and the more true Egyptian one accidentally. It's pretty funny, no matter where you go, shopkeepers have their specially crafted phrases...in Egypt they attempt cleverness: "let me help you spend your money" "free to look" plus the simple "Welcome to Egypt" Welcome to Cairo" Welcome foreigners" which we heard over and over and over again within our short stay.

We also went up in the minaret of Bab Zweila which I think was one of the old city gates/mosque...either way it was cool, though a little scary once we were up at the top. We basically paid our fee and started up without anyone else around...up and up and up the winding uneven stone stairs (reminded me a bit of going up in Blarney Castle in Ireland) and you end up at the top where there is just a drop off where you could fall/hold on and look out at the city. I'm glad I didn't think about how high up we were going to be until after we were at the top! Though, the scariest part was actually problem descending the minaret when parts of the winding staircases were shrouded in complete darkness...awesome when you're never sure how big that next step is going to be!

Anyway, we made it down alive and got some excellent Egyptian food called koshary with a light tomato sauce over the top....SO GOOD! Energized, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the huge collection in the Cairo Museum which is sort of like an art history major's best and worst nightmare all collected in one building. There's artifacts everywhere which is really cool...but most of it is right there for all visitors to touch, examine....and there's so much in there that its all crowded in between the walls. It was fun to be there though one because 1) there's so much stuff and so much history with each artifact that its hard to really grasp it all and 2) there are tons of other tourists from all over the world which wasn't bothersome since we're not usually around a bunch of tourists in Morocco.

After that we went back to hotel briefly and the got dinner at a great little restaurant called Felfela not far from our hotel, then went back for a good night's sleep which was greatly needed at that point!

On Thursday, we awoke refreshed and met up with our private driver for the day, Moses (this was the same guy who picked us up from the airport early early Wednesday morning, who basically is like a freelance driver for various Cairo hotels and tourists). He was GREAT. Really nice, funny, pretty good English, and he seemed to have fun with us for the day too! We left and went out on the edge of Cairo to Sakara - the step pyramid and dodged the large Asian tourist groups that covered the place...got done really quickly and so Moses took us by a carpet "school." Basically, kids start there at a young age and learn how to make carpets and then get a certificate to work anywhere else...they had some beautiful stuff but it was a little sketchy. It was hard because in the west we hear so much about child labor exploitation and sweat shops that even if this place was legit it was really hard to be sure, especially since these kids don't get any other schooling...where do you draw the line I wonder? I don't know, we didn't buy anything but it was cool to see some of the differences between Egyptian and Moroccan carpets. Heck, after a few more Arab countries I should be a carpet connoisseur. Ha ha...just kidding. I still have trouble judging prices, but I'm getting there.

From there we grabbed some lunch and then went to the camel stables (again guys partnered with our hotel/driver...clearly a daily operation). We made our little camel caravan and received a 16 year old guide named Mohammed who made sure our camels continued at the pace and direction they were supposed to and chatted with us ("Where are you from? "Indiana...near Chicago" "Chicago!...mafia!). The camel ride was a laugh fest for me as I was at the back of Anna and Aileen and so I got my own personal show as Aileen was nervous and jumpy on the camel and Anna was just eating up the whole experience. So we rode the camels for awhile and soaked up the warmth (sadly it was hazy and not sunny that day, but still nice and desert-like), took funny touristy pictures with the pyramids (see photo albums for the whole Cairo trip on the link to the right), and saw the Sphinx from the distance. We had been told by multiple people that it wasn't worth it to go inside the big pyramid, but it was Anna's dream to come to the pyramids and go inside...so we did.

Yeah, let me tell ya about that...first imagine paying money to descend about 25 feet at a steep angle down into a structure which has thousands of tons of stone above you. Then imagine what it would feel like 10 feet into the descent to lose clean air and instead breathe in the B.O.-filled stale air that really has no where to go as you continue about 50 feet straight and then ascend and find yourselves in....wait for it, wait for it...and empty stone room with an empty tomb. Yeah, good times. Aileen and I get into the room and look at each other with the "I can't believe we just did this, much less paid for it and lets turn around and get out of here" look and then we see Anna turn around with this huge grin on her face. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. To each her own I suppose.

So that was an adventure. We got out, back on the camels, and back to the stables and went for a water-check-out-the-perfume-shop-nearby break and then were back on horses this time to see the sunset over the desert as we looked out over the pyramids and the huge sprawling metropolis that is Cairo. Pretty cool.

After that, Moses took us for a boat ride on the Nile, where we had a nice dinner and watched some Moroccan dancers...gotta get in your Egyptian belly dancer before leaving Cairo...then we dashed back to the hotel to grab our bags, thank the hotel managers, and back into Moses' car to the airport.

Obviously, we shoved a lot into Thursday, but it turned out to be such a good day! We had so much fun chatting with Moses about stereotypes about the US, listening to the Arab music in his car, and seeing him weave in and out of the crazy Egyptian traffic. We got to see the pyramids and sphinx and realize that the history books are misleading in two ways - first, the pyramids and sphinx are basically right by the edge of cairo...the city stops at the edge of the desert and then there they are. And secondly, the sphinx is teeny compared to the pyramids! We also got a little taste of Egyptian culture and life; here's some random bits and pieces...

• shops are open all night long in the summer because its so hot, so year-around there are always tons of people on the streets from like 8pm-midnight and often beyond, and its very common for all the shops to be open all hours too.


• Egyptian Colloquial Arabic sounds a lot more like Modern Standard Arabic which means even though I couldn't understand everything they were saying, I could distinguish a lot more words than I ever can in Moroccan Arabic. Which was cool. They just say some words differently. Oh and English is the second language...who knew?
• Everyone we met was very friendly...
• You tip everyone even if they only do a very small service. Kind of to the point of ridiculousness. Especially coming from Morocco where you barely even leave tips for waiters.
• Egyptians are very proud of their history and heritage and clearly very used to showing it off for tourists.
• Cairo is HUGE. Huge huge huge. And very very polluted. For every picture you see of the pyramids and the sphinx add a layer of smog to the bright blue sky depicted and it will be a lot more correct.

So that was Cairo...very very cool. A great 2 days...and then it was onto Paris.

Part 1: Jaunt to Cambridge

I am currently sitting in the comfy 2nd floor room in the VU Overseas House in Cambridge, looking out onto the street that winds its way through the heart of this old college town and which tomorrow will take me to the bus station bright and early in the morning to embark on more adventures.

However, for the past few days, I've had the opportunity to spend time in lovely Cambridge with my dear friends from VU, Claire and Libbi which has been rejuvenating and refreshing and has been a lovely piece of home filled with hugs, laughter, familiar faces, and tea! :-)

I got in on Saturday after flying with friends from AUI from Fez to London Luton and then taking a bus to Cambridge. Claire and Libbi met me and stuffed me with tea and scones before we spent a lovely evening cooking dinner and catching up. Yesterday, we woke up and went to church; the VU Overseas Center is right next to Westfield House, an LCMS seminary where they take a couple classes and a little church. So, we didn't have to walk far. Then we had a lazy Sunday afternoon while Libbi worked away at her honors thesis and Claire and I went for coffee. Who knows how much I would miss Starbucks!

Last night was our girls night and what a night it was! We had wonderful italian food at a little place called ASK and then went to a little pub called the Elm Tree and met up with one of Claire and Libbi's friends, toasted Libbi's productivity and listened to some great live jazz. Very fun. Then went to a little kabob place before having a fun walk back home.

Today, the girls showed me Cambridge...which for those who haven't been is basically a town built around the gorgeous old buildings housing the various colleges within the University of Cambridge. These majestic buildings are all around with their high gates, gorgeous stone walls, and a very lovely academic-sort of pretentiousness that comes with having prestige and good reputations. We had a lovely time sneaking around through some of the private gardens and trying to see what we could see as its not quite tourist season and the end of term for the students here. The colleges and their grounds are really beautiful and was fun to hear a bit of the history and myths that hang around these parts.

Also amusing to see Christ College, which CC at VU is modeled after...though not quite living up to the coolness or the majesty. Although, some might say that we do often achieve the pretentiousness...but I think until we have a private garden that only the Lily Fellows can sit and read in or only CC students can be in with necessary CC ID we're still safe. ;-) Although, I do agree with Nicole that getting some sweet academic-wear...scarves and shirts and such...with a Christ College crest and it being a faux pas for any non CCer to wear them. Ha ha.

Anyway, so we had a lovely day of going around Cambridge and also walking in all of the fun shops with amazingly wonderful looking clothes and laughing at the awful prices. Things are SO expensive here! But I think Claire, Libbi and I each had picked out a dress or two that we would buy if we suddenly won the lottery or something. Mine was green and fairy-like as Libbi put it.

We had wonderful sandwiches at Tatties and had a good time dancing to various random songs that came on over the speakers and that dashed out back into the weather that by this time had gotten very chilly. England weather, not unlike Indiana weather. Who knew?

Explored Borders (I heart bookstores. Especially ones with English books. I miss English bookstores) and then went and had wonderful dessert at a place called Slug and Lettuce which was divine. Came on back for more girls night and tea and now its time for sleep before I leave!

Basically I'm very thankful for a couple days of friends and getting to see a little bit of this place called Cambridge. The more I travel the more I enjoy getting to sample little bits of the places in this world. The accents, the street signs, the different styles of houses and though we all wear simliar clothes these days, it's with a different air, a nuanced sense of priority and sense of beauty. And of course, I can't lie and say that its not refreshing to see the GAP, Starbucks, and various packaged foods and familiar consumeristic products...I know that globalization has many downfalls and that the free market system isn't all good (sorry to my Republican readers) but sometimes on a very basic level its nice to see something from home.

And now for Egypt...