Karaoke on a Boat!

Hello Everyone,

CLS took a trip to Rabat this past weekend. It's a really nice city, although I didn't take too many pictures. We stopped just outside the city at a place that's known for being the pottery center of the region. There were tons of pottery shops. I may have splurged a little. Or a lot. But I've been craving pottery since I got here. I'm just hoping it'll all going to fit in my bags. Unfortunately one of my bags got stuck with the handle up so I'm going to have to check it at the airport. Who knows how much that will cost...

Anyway, so Rabat.

I saw the Atlantic. That was cool. I Saw the ancient fortification walls around the city. We went to a market that was crammed with people. That was a little stressful. Everything is much more expensive in Rabat than in Meknes. We went to a roman ruins. Apparently a family took the ruins, used the pillars to build a house over top of the cite, then there was an earthquake followed by a tsunami in the 1700s and the whole thing was washed away and today the only thing that's left are the outlines of buildings. There was a pool that was once for bathing before prayer but became flooded and now is swarming with eels. AND the best part of the day was that there were like 10 cats near the pool. Just chilling. SO CUTE. Brenda, I remember all of those pictures you took of cats in Rabat and now I understand. Meknes, the cat's aren't in that great of shape, but Rabat has some spectacularly cute cats.

At the end of the day I stayed in Rabat with a 3 friends. I was really excited because they are really cool, really chill people and I've been wanting the chance to get to know them better.

We met up with a group of 9 at a syrian restaurant. We were all soooo excited for shamy food. We had sad hummus and my babaghanoush was mashed eggplant with balsamic vinegar and cucumbers on top. But the shwarma was good so that was something. And they didn't have baklava. But they did have banana milk (jus de banan) which is milk blended with bananas. Very tasty.

Afterward there were rumors of a restaurant on a ship that served drinks, so we made our way back to the beach. On the way we stopped at a fair and had cotton candy and rode some rides. That was a lot of fun, and the guys even offered to hold our purses (and our shoes in one girl's case :-p)! My one friend wouldn't get on any of the rides, he said he can't trust that they're safe. I went on a ride with two girls and it was one that is like an octopus. You go round and around and the legs move up and down at different intervals. Well half way into the ride the lights went out and everything slowed down, then there was a hydrolic sound and the ride began moving up and down and I was like *this is us for the rest of the night, being bounced around...* lol the ride did eventually end, but not before I made my one friend freak out by telling her that the ride was probably never going to stop :-p

Afterward we finally found the boat. It kind of looked like a pirate ship. And there was karaoke! So we ended up sitting around until 2am waiting for my friends to get the chance to sing

That night we stayed in a two bedroom apartment through “airbnb” which basically means that some rich guys owns an extra house he lends out to people. It was nice and quiet. We talked till 4am about mental illness and its effects on family life. It was really nice. The next day we slept in. First time all summer. And we didn't have an 11am check out time because it was a privately owned residence. We Went to a french restaurant and got crepes and coffee for lunch before heading back to Meknes. It was a very nice time.

Eid is supposebly sometime this week, although the meteorologists can't be trusted for reasons I don't understand so we won't know until they see the moon tonight weather today is the last day of fasting and tomorrow is Eid or if Eid is Saturday.

Because we don't know whether or not we'll have class on Friday, we're going an extra two hours today and then, in the case that Eid is on Saturday, we'll have a normal day of classes tomorrow anyway.

We had a presentation in Darija and a big paper due yesterday on “The Global Economic Crisis” and our opinion on it. And We had a big presentation today. On top of all of this there have been running OPI practice exams to prepare us for our official OPI that will be next week. I'm still recovering from my relapse last week and so all of this in one week has been really difficult and I'm really nervous about being as prepared as possible for the OPI next week.

But alhamdulillah this day is over. Now there's just the next week's OPI to worry about. .. and an hour long presentation I'm giving on unemployment in the arab world.. :-/

A lot of people are traveling this weekend, my roommate included. I've realized that much of my stress is because I'm feeling out of control and as if everything is moving too fast. It feels like my time is crowded and running out. It doesn't help that I don't know when Eid is so if I did make travel plans I couldn't know what day I'm leaving until late tonight. So I've decided to stay home. I'm going to sleep in and prepare for my big presentation next week. I might go to the token church here in Meknes. I've been told that there's a service at 11 on Sundays for protestants. Although I just found out that the services are in French, so that's a little frustrating. But the music and the people should be nice.