spring is here!

spring is officially here. and this week was nothing short of amazing. the sun was shining and i was in a perpetual good mood. nothing could get me down. jeans were put away and shorts were brought out (ok, over tights, but still). i carried my coat rather than wearing it, and i was still hot. and of course, sunglasses suddenly had a purpose again.

my week started out with ikea and volleyball. chloe and i realized that each of us ordering our own plate of fries wasn't the brightest idea we had ever come up with, but hey, we can't get everything right. in volleyball i got to touch the ball more, was actually a little better, and our team won almost every game!

classes on tuesday were fine. theme was theme, not all that exciting. but in creative writing my teacher even liked my sentence on the first try! and that doesn't usually happen.
then after class chloe and i went to the park because the sun was shining, and we had some time to kill before meeting up others and to see a french movie for only 3.50! after a little nap in the grass though, we decided to use our last bit of extra time to get pastries. mmm millefueille aux pommes!

wednesday. psych got out an hour early, and i finally remembered to ask the teacher how the heck i can get the powerpoints offline since it hasn't been working for me. i still don't have access to the bureau virtuel, but at least the profs emailed me most of the powerpoints in pdf form.
then i had lunch with patrick who i hadn't seen in a couple weeks. we got our usual baguette and brie and ate by the river because it was gorgeous out! i also learned that he didn't know what a millefueille was, and since i hadn't gotten exactly what i wanted the day before, and we still had some time before he had to get to class, i insisted we head to vieux lyon and get the best millefueilles i have tried thus far. he was not disappointed.

yummyyyyyy :)

thursday involved salsa dancing, so obviously it was a good day. but before that i had version during which we received the results to our midterm. i didn't do amazing, but i think i did just fine. plus i was then joking with the two english kids in my classes about some of the dumb mistakes we had all made. like saying 'sur le train' instead of 'dans le train'.
salsa dancing was fun as usual, though for reasons unknown a lot of people were missing. and because of the positions of the windows and the sun, at points it was hard to see anything! and at the end some girl came in and danced with our teacher, making us all look terrible of course.

friday i hung out wtih samina and we sent out couch requests for next weekend before getting some food and hanging out by the river. i headed home when she had other plans and was home less than 5 minutes when i realized that wasn't going to work for me anymore. i made plans with the aforementioned english kids in my theme/version classes who i have recently started talking with more, and spent the afternoon wandering around town with them and their friend. he's brazilian and was telling us how he was now having more trouble with english because he had been taught american english and was getting thrown off by the british english phrases they used all the time around him. i thought it was funny.
i got halfway home after hanging out with them when i turned around to meet up with chloe. we wandered around trying to figure out what to do with our evening. we realized that if we were going to go salsa dancing we were going to need to bring more people with us. this will happen eventually! we also realized it was too early to head to any bars/dance clubs and went back to her place to drop our stuff and waste some time.
i was in such a fantastic mood from the entire week and having been outside and in the sun almost the entire day.
when chloe and i got back to the apartment zoe even asked if we were drunk or something since we were acting so happy and ridiculous, but nope! not. at. all. loooove it :)

eventually we went to our favorite bar to dance in, barbarousse. but for some reason the back room was closed off and no one was dancing, so we left. we went to ayers rock, which is usually just our fallback. and had a good enough time, but once we had heard our song, waka waka of course, we decided we felt like we were ready to head back to her place using the metro instead of staying out so long that we would have to walk up the hill all the way home.
then we finished the night with an episode of friends of course!

saturday we got up and had a lovely breakfast of potatoes and french toast (which by the way, is not french) since zoe happened to have all the ingredients!
i went home in time for lunch, which really just meant that i crossed paths with my host mom for about 20 min before she headed out, and i actually ate by myself.
but that afternoon we all met up at the park again and were joined by chloe's friend yanisse who provided us with a soccer ball! so we spent the whole afternoon at the park enjoying the sunshine, working up the sweat, and enjoying the first weekend of spring.

after heading home for a shower and some dinner, i went back to chloe and zoe's to make cookies! oh how i have missed chocolate chip cookies :)

i even brought a couple home for my host parents, and my host dad especially loved them. claiming the last one for himself.

i'm pretty sure i spent more time outside this week than i spent inside. and after the coldest winter i have ever experienced, i am more than ready for spring to be here. plus with parc de la tete d'or and the rivers, lyon has a lot to offer as far as just wandering around goes :)

returning to ma vie lyonnaise normale.. ish

my return to normalcy unfortunately started out with a midterm. but luckily that was over by noon and i could return to enjoying life again :) plus, it was thursday, which meant salsa dancing that afternoon! i have to admit, it is my favorite class this semester, and because of break and whatever reason the week before, class hadn't taken place in two weeks!
my parents' departure also started the devouring of the treats they had brought me. hot tamales. thin mints. goldfish. american goodness :) i even shared some!

it was also st patrick's day (which means at this point you can tell just how far behind i am on my blogs...) which meant chloe, zoe, and i decided to go out! i don't think i have ever seen that many people out on the weekends, not even a friday or saturday night. everybody was out to celebrate! there were lots of people wearing large st. patrick's day hats, and we decided we all wanted one. though we had no idea how we were going to accomplish this, let alone do it without paying for them. lo and behold though, the bar we met their friend at happened to be giving them away! so we got our hats, and we got them for free! what a good night :)

i was still super exhausted from traveling and midterms and my parents visiting though, so i headed home early. ok not really early, i took the last metro home. but considering i had thought about staying out later and sleeping at chloe and zoe's, this was technically early.

friday i really didn't end up doing much of anything. i was invited to the study at the library. but when i wasn't updated with what time, i didn't really follow up and so spent most of the day by myself. not that i'm complaining. sometimes having a day to yourself isn't such a bad thing. and i got some homework done anyways.
friday night i knew i'd be staying in because i knew saturday would be a big day. see it was my host sister's (caroline) thirtieth birthday on saturday, and the party was going to be held at my host parent's house. aka where i live.
but i did get to help my host mom make little cakes for the party! they really reminded me of those brownie bites that you can buy at trader joe's. i'm always trying to ask if she needs help making dinner or lunch or whatever, and usually she just responds saying 'tu es vraiment gentille', so i was super excited when she actually wanted my help! i mean it's not like i was doing anything else that night, and it was fun :)

saturday was the big day. by the time i came downstairs the couches had already disappeared. oh yea, they cleared out practically EVERYTHING so there would be space for dancing and mingling. i'm not even entirely sure where it all went. i helped move some bigger chairs upstairs and bring fold-out ones downstairs. then ended up on balloon duty. it turned out it was a lot easier to simply blow them up the old fashioned way than use the tool that was provided. after the house was basically ready for the evening's festivities caroline headed home again and it was time to rest up, pretend to do hw, whatever.
now i'm sorry i don't have any pictures from that evening (maybe i'll manage to get some from my host parents later), but they would be rather amusing. wondering why? well let me start my explanation by saying that the theme of the party was "blonde attitude". which meant, that if you weren't already a blond, you were expected to wear a blonde wig. i have to say i really dodged a bullet with this one, because although there were a couple nice wigs, most of them looked pretty bad. i don't think i've seen that many people in platinum blond in awhile, especially not in france! i loved though that for once if there was blond hair all over the place, people couldn't necessarily look straight at me!
so i felt a little awkward at the beginning of the evening because of course i didn't really know anyone. but i loved how my host mom would make a point of introducing me to some of her closest friends that were there as "ma petite americaine". marc-philippe introduced me to his roommates and i hung out with them for a bit too. i began to feel much more comfortable once i no longer felt like i would be standing by myself the entire night. others tried to talk to me too, some in broken english which i thought was fun.
about halfway through the party there was a slideshow of pictures of caroline at all ages, and some speeches were made. i thought it was all very sweet, and some of the pictures amusing of course.
then more dancing with a mix of french and american music which meant i actually knew some of it. and of course a break for some cake. one raspberry and one chocolate.
i had a lot of fun partying it up with my host family and their friends and was so glad that when the party came to a close at around 4am i didn't have to worry that the metros were closed or finding a cab, but simply head upstairs to bed! what a great night :)

i managed to get a few hours sleep that night before i heard banging on the door a little before 10am as caroline and her husband guillaume came by to help clean up. and they brought louis! i decided i might as well head downstairs and help with the process since i was awake. with good teamwork the house was back to normal in time for lunch. i ran upstairs to take a quick shower and came downstairs in time for food. a couple of the guests from the night before came over for lunch as well.. not sure what was particularly special about those two so that they returned and others didn't, but who knows.

after lunch most of us hung out in the jardin and relaxed. the guys were all playing with louis and i wanted to join in! i didn't though, and i think i ended up even falling asleep for a minute because next thing i knew almost everybody was inside again except for me and my host dad who had apparently fallen asleep on the grass. i decided to head upstairs and take a nap in my bed when caroline and veronique asked me if i had seen some envelope they were missing, after which i began to help them search. i somehow ended up back downstairs again instead of upstairs sleeping, but it all worked out for the best since caroline decided i should watch louis while the rest of them finished cleaning up and packing up the car!
i'm pretty sure i got to hang out with him for like an hour! i tried to get him to walk since he is getting so close, but it would appear that he is like me and isn't going to start walking early. man can that kid crawl fast though! he's so cute, and best of all he loves me :)
i think caroline even suggested me babysitting sometime in the future. she asked something about me knowing how to put him to sleep and i said i have no experience but i can learn quickly, at which point my host mom interjected and said she just needs to show me! so maybe i'll be babysitting at some point? i don't really know. but if they ask, i would be happy to help out.

it was a lovely weekend spent almost entirely at home with my host family and speaking french.

i love my french life :)

the parentals visit lyon

two days after i returned to lyon, my parents joined me for a day and a tour of my new life. i met them at my favorite place, parc de la tete d'or, because they actually arrived while i was still in class, and i figured it would be a good place for them to be able to wander around while they waited for me to show up. turns out that particular class has a habit of getting out early, so i actually met up with them sooner than expected. i was impressed by how quickly i actually found them considering i was early and my plan to have us meet up next to the giraffes turned out to be slightly flawed since the giraffes happened to be nowhere in sight!
seeing as they had all their bags with them and i wasn't feeling particularly well, it kind of worked out. i was able to lie down on a bench in the sun and relax while they were able to wander around the park for awhile without having to haul around all of their stuff. i'm pretty sure i even fell asleep for a minute while they were exploring!
once they had gotten their fill, we continued with the tour. we left the park the way i had instructed them to enter (they were very sneaky and figured out a different way to get from the train station to the park than the directions i had provided), and headed toward the metro. we stopped buy a supermarket real quick on the way to grab some water and cheese that would be part of our lunch up at fourviere.
one metro and five stops later we arrived at bellecour. i introduced them to the ferris wheel and the louis XIV statue and we continued on our way toward the saone, vieux lyon and finally fourviere. along the way i pointed out where kirstin used to live and grabbed a flute from the boulangerie next door.
we decided to take the funiculaire up to fourviere where my parents got a chance to see the amazing view that is this wonderful city. then we sat on a bench, ate our lunch, and they explored the church while i took opportunity number two to watch their stuff and relax.
i was so glad it was such a beautiful day out, because it would have been a bummer if it were gloomy for the one day they were in town.
we continued our journey by walking down the hill wandering through the gardens and seeing more of a view from a slightly lower perspective. we walked through vieux lyon, i pointed out my favorite pastry shop in the area, and they took it all in.
then we hopped on a metro and took it all the way to perrache so that i could have them walk down both pedestrian streets (rue victor hugo and rue de la republique) and see most of the presqu'il arriving at hotel de ville where we would be meeting up with my host dad.
since we had some time to kill i showed them place de terreaux and we went to a cafe. oh yea, it had started raining during our walk, so since we were all kind of tired we decided to just spend our extra time in a cafe where we would stay dry.
finally it was time to meet my host dad in front of hotel de ville. he showed up and my parents were happy to hear he had brought the car so they could ditch their bags for the rest of the evening.
then with his electoral powers he got us inside hotel de ville after hours so that my parents could see lyon's own smaller version of versaille. some of the lights were off, but hey, at least we got in!
next up was checking out the chamber of commerce, which i'd never been inside before. once again he managed to get us in after hours! that's right, i know people in high places ;)
at this point my host mom came and joined us as well. we ventured into the church that i guess my host mom's parents had been married in. another place i had never actually been inside before!
luckily our next destination was a restaurant, because i was starting to get hungry. we went to la meuniere which is a bouchon lyonnais restaurant. which basically means they only serve typically lyonnais food.
dinner was delicious. i got chicken. and there was some cheesy pasta as well for everyone. and of course some lyonnais sausages to start us off. but it was dessert that was the most exciting of course. mom and i split both a chocolate mousse and a tarte au praline. which were both amazing. though the tarte au praline was soooo rich and sugary that i kind of wished we hadn't split half and half, because i would have rather had a little more mousse since i couldn't even finish my part of the tarte!
eventually it was time to head home. we didn't want to stay out toooo late because i had a midterm the next morning and mom and dad were heading out pretty early as well. but we came back to the house, chatted for a while, figured out exactly when my parents' train was leaving and printed their tickets. my host parents were very impressed by my mom's french the whole time and told me i have to speak french with her when i get home! haha
the next morning i was very impressed when i didn't even hear my parents moving around until my mom came upstairs again to wake me up just before they were leaving. turns out my host dad would drive them to the train station instead of helping them with the tram since it was pouring rain. luckily that disappeared by the time i had to head to class an hour later :)
so their visit came to an end which was a tiny bit sad, but i was excited to finally return to my lyonnais life after a week and a half of crazyness!

Casablanca, the modern city

casablanca was the last moroccan city on our tour, and probably my least favorite. though i admit this could be due in part to the fact that i was exhausted after a week's worth of traveling already.

as i've mentioned in my previous blog, we left the desert by bus then by train. what i didn't mention, was that this took all night. we left the sahara at 7pm and arrived in casablanca around 7 am. the bus ride was long and we were lucky to be on a more comfortable bus than we had been on in the past, but this doesn't mean it was great for sleeping. luckily it wasn't full so i was able to take up to seats when i felt like it. unfortunately though, the bus made me feel a little big carsick (which was a bit of a surprise to me since i haven't felt that way in so long), and as i tried to spread myself over two seats, i found that it was a rather slippery ride. once i even fell off the seat! at which point i gave up on sleeping this way and decided to use my mom as a pillow instead. at one stop we got to use the restrooms and even get something to eat. i had these delicious mini hamburgers that i couldn't get enough of. what i couldn't believe is that we had to pay to use a bathroom that was a hole in the ground and didn't even provide toilet paper. oh well. before i knew it we were back on the road. and eventually my dad happened to look out the window at a stop and realize we were at our train connection two hours early! that probably wouldn't have ended well if he hadn't seen that. we got on a train in the next half hour and were soon on our way again.

we finally arrived in casablanca and our first goal was to get some food. we realized that it was probably too early to call our host since we arrive sooner than expected, so we wandered around in search of a cafe. mom seemed to think she knew exactly where she was going, but seeing as we had spent the entire night on public transit, i was a little grumpy and just wanted some food as quickly as possible.

after a couple tries of trying to find a cafe/bar that would actually serve us breakfast, we found one that made us each a delicious omelette, some bread, some orange juice, and of course some tea. with a little food in our stomachs, and a lot of time killed, mom called our host. we hoped that since it was 8:30 at this point he might be awake. wrong. we accidentally woke him up. we agreed to call pack around 10 or 11, and then decided to go visit the large mosque that tourists were actually allowed in to. we found a cab pretty quickly and thought we would be there in no time. turns out that although this mosque is one of the main tourist attractions in casablanca, our driver didn't actually know where it was. he stopped and asked pedestrians for directions twice, and asked another cab driver while we were at a light once.
eventually, however, we did finally make it! it was the biggest mosque i have ever seen, and probably more intricate than most i had seen (though maybe that's because i had a much closer view of this one).

it has even been modernized!

we didn't feel like taking the tour (or paying for it), but i believe we did see end up seeing most of the inside anyways since we accidentally headed in one of the exits at one point. though we got kicked out a couple minutes later, we felt satisfied by our time spent inside.

when we had had our fill of the mosque, we started heading up the beach. (well not technically the beach, which we couldn't really get anywhere near, but we followed the coastline. or maybe down the coast? hm. not the point. anywaysss)

we made a few rest stops since dad was sick, and eventually made it to a little area where we could sit, see the water, and wait for our host to come get us. when we got ahold of him, he said he'd meet us in an hour. that became two. and even a bit longer when we realized that he didn't realize exactly where we were.

it was convenient that it only started raining when we were sure he was already on his way. and that we were able to find cover.
eventually we had to wander closer to the lighthouse when we realized he thought we were next to it instead of past it on the main road, but at least the rain had let up by then. and i did get to see some goats!

finallyyy we met up with our host and started walking back towards town. soon deciding it was probably a better idea to take a cab. though we had to try a couple times since evidently we chose a time when all the cab drivers were finishing up for the day. luckily for me i was able to convince everyone that getting lunch next was a good idea, because i was hungry. we got some seafood, and i liked it, but it just wasn't the same as the rest of the food we had had in morocco. next up we headed to a hotel to drop all our stuff off (our host had a lot of family in town and so staying with him wasn't actually going to work out), before heading out again to wander around town. it was the most modern moroccan city i had seen yet, and also probably the dirtiest. or at least near the water it was. and i just didn't think it was nearly as pretty as marrakesh or the desert had been.
we wandered through the markets which honestly felt a little bit like an outdoor mall in moroccan market style, and saw other sites in the city.

at this point we decided to head back to the hotel to relax for a bit, plus dad was kind of done for the day since he was sick. our host took off to see his family, and said he would see us later that night. mom and i decided after a short rest that we would go explore the markets a little more. i wanted to get a scarf for myself, and maybe a gift for a friend.
i ended up buying two scarves. the first from a guy who was very friendly and did his best to sell me what i might actually buy. when i said i didn't like a particular detail of one, he found me another and told me it would last longer for me anyways. we even got it for a little cheaper than he had originally asked for.
the second though, well, that was kind of a pain. we were walking through the markets, just sort of looking around, when this kid (probably a little older than me), started trying to talk to us. at first i did my best to ignore him, but he just wouldn't go away. eventually i turned when i saw a scarf shop and hoped he would leave, but apparently he was in business with the guy and so i was sort of cornered. i mean i did find a scarf i really liked, but i really wanted to get away from the guy after that.

problem? it started pouring while we were looking at the scarves, so we had to stick around for a little until it let up a bit. then he wanted to show us another store. where we looked around just to make him happy. then he wanted to show us where we would eat when i said we were ready to leave because i was thinking about getting food. he was being wayyyy too helpful and it was driving me nuts. when he brought us to a little cafe, part of me didn't want to eat there simply because i didn't want what was being served, and part of me didn't want to eat there because i didn't want to eat where he wanted me to. man i'm stubborn sometimes lol. but we ended up getting rid of him eventually and heading out of the markets. we wandered outside for a bit and decided we wanted some ice cream because we needed to make it a trip. i mean technically we had been lost when we were with the cab driver, though it wasn't our fault. we found a place called a 'glacier' and went on in assuming there would be ice cream. we were wrong. but we did find a delicious little place nearby and got chocolate plus whatever the flavor of the day was. we figured you can't go wrong with pink ice cream even if you don't know what it is.

we soon found lots of other ice cream places too. we wandered around for awhile huddling under mom's small umbrella since the rain still hadn't let up, when i finally decided i was tired and that if we were going to go out later that night i wanted to get a little food and lie down for a bit, maybe pretend to study since i had midterms in a few days.
so we did just that, even having to ask for directions back to where we knew how to get back to our hotel from since we had gotten ourselves a bit turned around. but we made it back. i ended up taking what i thought would be a short nap before our friend came back at 10pm to take us to some show. well mom ended up waking me up at 1 am and telling me to get in my pj's and actually go to sleep. i was really confused at first, not knowing what time it was and thinking if she told me he was there and we were going to go out soon that i was going to tell her sorry but i'm done for the night. lucky for me i guess that was exactly the plan to stay in. i wasn't entirely disappointed because i was exhausted and ready to return to france the next day.

the next morning we got up, packed, and mom and i headed out to get some breakfast while dad got ready more slowly. it was pretty good. eggs, orange juice, and tea again. though no orange juice will ever compare to the stuff i had in marrakesh. then it was time to get a cab and get to the train station so mom and dad could find out what time their cab would be (they were spending an extra couple days in morocco after me), before getting another cab to get me to the airport.

it was a fun week, but i man was i ready to be back home in lyon (after a night spent in paris of course because that's just how connections worked out)

The Sahara Desert and Camels

we took an early morning bus from tinghir to get us most of the way to the desert. it took us to a town, that honestly i'm not sure i ever knew the name of. after many different people tried to be our guide and choose their taxi, we finally got our own cab and drove for a bit. got out. grabbed all our stuff and walked to the other side of town. to get back into the exact same cab! i guess he wanted a lot more money than our friend nabile thought we should have to pay, especially when we could walk to a location where a cab would be cheaper. i believe it was simply a coincidence that our cab driver beat us to the location and ended up driving us anyways! we were really glad to have our own guide with us because he was able to make sure we didn't get ripped off.
as we drove i thought it was interesting that there would be nothing anywhere nearby the road, then suddenly a clump of billboards, then nothing, then a clump of billboards again. i did my best to take a picture, but it didn't turn out all that well:

we finally arrived at an oasis and our hotel, le soleil bleu.

we were welcomed by the owner and surprise surprise, fed lunch!

we were also greeted by hama the cat, who tried to join us in our meal.

after relaxing for a bit, it was time to be introduced to the camels that we would be riding into the desert. i was very excited about this. i had tried to stay as uninvolved in the planning of this trip as possible, but i had told my mom that if we didn't get to ride camels i would be very upset.

we got to pet the camels, and they got to meet us.

after saying an initial hello to the camels, we went to get our warm clothes together and use the restrooms one last time before heading into the desert. but the hotel owner had a surprise in store for us as well. turbans for everyone, and a kaftan for me!

how moroccan are we?! haha

soon enough we were ready to mount our camels. i would like to point out now, that getting on and off a camel is a little bit like riding a roller coaster. the camel is sitting when you get on. and when it stands up you better hold on tight because first you almost fall off forwards as he stands on his hind legs, and then you almost fall of backwards as he gets is front legs up as well. or something like that.
one we were all on our camels (mom on bob marley, dad on a camel he named einstein, and me on jimi hendrix), we were led off into the dunes.

i don't think i've ever seen that much sand in my life. it seemed to go on for eternity. and it was a color so different from the sand i see when i go to the beach. orange. with hints of blue in certain areas, that i have been told is natural. oh and some of the finest sand i have touched. i suddenly wanted to make a sand castle, but seeing as it's the desert and not the beach, there wasn't exactly water to make a potential sand castle possible, so i gave up on that thought pretty quickly.
so we walked (well our camels, our guide, and nabile did - mom, dad, and i were riding the camels) for over an hour into the dunes in search of the bivouac (tents) where we would be sleeping that night. how our guide new which way to walk, i will never understand. considering when its windy the dunes change, and therefore the same path may not always be taken, i was quite impressed.
finally though we arrived, my butt already feeling bruised from the ride. but my excitement about getting to ride a camel had certainly not diminished because of this fact.
we dismounted and our guide parked the camels for the night. how do you park a camel, you might ask? well you simply tie one of it's knees which prevents it from standing up! (don't worry, they didn't do this back at the hotel because there was actually something already in the ground they could tie them to).

camp was already set up when we arrived, and while we waited for our guide to make some tea and food for us, mom and nabile decided to try out sandboarding!

when we all gathered near the tents for the evening, we discovered there were two kittens who lived out in the desert! they were so little and cute, but were a little skittish around us.
tea was brought out, delicious tajine was served for dinner, and drums were played. just your average night in morocco of course.
later a fire was even made, which i thought smelled really good haha. but i was exhausted and a little cold so i stayed covered on the mats under blankets. finally we did head into the tents for bed. i took off my shoes and was not surprised at all by how much sand i found in them.

i was a little surprised when i woke up in the morning and realized that though we were sleeping in a tent and it was pretty cold out, i had actually been the warmest i had been in a couple of nights. i guess when you spend that much time in the desert you realize how warm the blankets you bring for your tourists need to be!
soon after getting up and getting our few things organized, we were mounting our camels again and preparing to head back to the hotel.
during the night some of the camel tracks on higher dunes had already disappeared because of the wind. but as soon as you saw the poop, you knew we were on the right track.
ensuring that we got to experience a little bit of everything, it even started sprinkling for a few minutes when we were getting close! didn't think i'd see rain in the desert, but i guess i should be prepared for anything!
when we finally returned, our guide took us aside for a minute and explained to us that being a guide for the hotel might be his job, but his real interest is in fossils, and he promptly pulled out some he had found and polished. my parents of course bought some, and we thanked him for everything.
then, we got to take showers! in showers that actually had consistently hot water! i was so excited. i got to feel cleannnn again. we relaxed for awhile after that, played some music with the owners, then went for a walk to see "town" and the other hotels in the area. by the time we got back to the hotel, it started getting a bit windy, and then the wind got pretty bad. we couldn't believe our luck! the weather had been perfect for our arrival and our time in the dunes, and was only getting bad as we were about to head to our next destination.
we ate some dinner and were finally driven into town where we would be catching a bus to catch a train to head to casablanca.
goodbye sahara desert, hello final destination of our week long moroccan adventure!

Tinghir and the Todra Gorge

we took a 6 hour bus ride from marrakesh to reach our next destination, tinghir, which seemed to me to be a modern day "downtown" to the village we were staying at in the todra gorge, which is actually a few villages away by cab.
joy of joys, this lovely bus ride started at 7 am and wasn't all that comfortable. but i did try to get some sleep, and luckily there were two stops - one for coffee and to use the bathroom (during which the lack of western toilets did not please me), and another for lunch (where i was overjoyed by the presence of western toilets).
there was some nice scenery along the way though.

and i got to watch mom attempt to text our host. look how hard she concentrates on it! haha

finally, however, we arrived in tinghir and just had to wait for our host's friend to come get us (long story short our host ironically had to head to marrakesh to visit the consolate while we were on our way to meet him, but anyways). while we were waiting though, we had a few people try to talk to us and a couple guys even tried to tell us they could find us a place to stay. one (and one of the younger ones i might add), turned to me and told me he had a guest house where i could sleep. i told him no thanks, but thanks for the offer haha.
the friend did arrive though and drove us first into the gorge to check it out before taking us to the hotel we would be staying in the first night.

we arrived at the hotel and met the very welcoming owner and his nephew (who would actually become our guide and go with us to the desert). we started off with some food. typical bread with amazing honey and butter so creamy and light when i first looked at it i seriously thought it was brie cheese. and some olive oil. and olives and apricot jam (though i didn't either of those).

we then got to go up to the roof of the hotel and get a view of the village. i have to say it's MUCH smaller than my view from fourviere in lyon, but it's nice.

mom and dad ended up taking a hike while i decided to crash in our room since i was already completely exhausted. and we weren't even halfway done!
that night we had dinner with other guests as well as the owner his nephew/our new friend nabile. drums were brought out as well as some other guitarish looking thing that i have no idea what it was called.

as the evening came to a close i was ecstatic that i would be able to take a shower (we hadn't had a working one available to us in marrakesh), though i didn't learn until after i had taken my fairly cold shower that warm water was available if i asked for it. but at least i was clean again!

and stylish too...

we slept in until 9 the following morning and took our time eating breakfast (the same food we had been provided with upon arriving). but soon enough we were getting ready for our day and heading to the school near by with nabile where our host, abdelaziz, teaches so we could see hi and when he would actually be ready to see us. he teaches a class of fifth graders and they were all so cute. they were excited to see americans and tried to teach me numbers. in bereber and arabic i might add, which made it even more difficult for me when i was struggling in the first place haha. i think i'll stick to french for now.

then we met nabile's uncle in my dad's search for new batteries for his camera. which ended in his inviting us into his shop for tea, us reading him postcards that he had received, and my parent's buying a carpet from him.

we ate lunch back at the hotel when abdelaziz finally came to join us, and then went on a hike to move all of our stuff to his apartment where we would be staying that night. (other than in marrakesh, we wouldn't be spending more than one night in the same beds).
remember how i said "downtown" was a cab ride away from the village we were staying in? well we walked about halfway there as we tried to catch a cab to get us there more quickly. luckily this meant walking more downhill than anything, because it was far more enjoyable than having to walk would have been. and nabile even made my mom an oragami camel with grass!

i also particularly enjoyed the different signs warning cars to be careful.

and eventually we got a cab to take us the rest of the way. i was able to buy postcards which i had been forgetting to do on past trips, and we picked up some food our host would cook for us later. my parents also bought some wine which only exists there so the tourists can buy it because i guess it's illegal for muslims to drink.
after making plans with a cab driver to come up to the village to get us early the next morning so we could catch our bus to the desert, we headed back up to the village for the evening.
evening festivities involved hanging out with the hotel people, but this time at a blind mans house, and listening to them play their music.

and around 10pm we finally headed back to our host's place to eat some dinner. oh yea, they eat dinner pretty late here. and then bed time! because of the whole snoring situation i was allowed to sleep in a separate room from my parents which made me super happy of course. :)

Orika - mountains and a waterfall

Day 2 in morocco was probably the only day we slept in even a little bit, and by that i mean we woke up at about 9 am. After a lovely breakfast with the family, we grabbed a bus back into vieux Marrakesh. mom had to run to the consolate as a favor to our future host, so dad, khalid, and i wandered around the big square. first we stopped because dad saw snakes and felt obligated to get his picture taken with them.. which of course cost us a little bit of money, and i somehow ended up with a snake around my neck too.

next up i made sure we got more of that amazing orange juice. one sip the day before and i was obsessed. the bills we had to pay for it were too large for the man to give us change, so khalid ran off to get change for us. meanwhile, we stood there. a woman came up to me and offered me henna. i said no, but seeing as i couldn't actually walk away and go anywhere else, she had me cornered. she grabbed my hand to demonstrate and there wasn't much else i could do. first she pointed out it doesn't hurt (yes, i know that), then continued the design, then asked for my name, and before i knew it, my hand was covered and my name was written in arabic as well (i am sure she did it correctly because for the rest of the trip people were reading my hand). then of course we had to pay her, even though i had tried to get out of it in the first place. i guess its all part of the experience!

when we were all together again, we headed into the souks again to say hi to saiid 2. mom took a picture of saiid 2 and i, and then decided it was some picture marriage? don't ask. it didn't make sense to me either. but i've decided my parents are wayyy to ready to be grandparents and need to stop looking at me. im only 20 people, this is not ok! haha

finally we started heading out of town to go to the mountains. on the way to finding a cab though. i ran into a couple of my eap friends! (there was a whole group going to morocco through a program, so i knew there might be a small possibility of running into people, but it was still a surprise).
the cab ride to the cascades was about an hour long i believe and gave me my first glimpse of camels.

when we finally arrived at Orika, i found more eap students! surprise again! we soon began our hike to see a waterfall. it felt kind of nice to be in nature again, or at least in much less of a city setting.

on the way back down the mountain we saw some amazing bereber (i believe they were bereber) women. every other day they hike up the mountain and bring back food for the animals, carrying it all on their backs. it's bigger than they are! and they walked faster than we did! i was so impressed.

finally, around 5pm, we got around to having lunch. i didn't think we'd even had that big a breakfast, but it was some kind of miracle breakfast since i wasn't falling over from starvation even with our hike. though i was hungry. if i haven't mentioned it enough, of course the food was delicious. my favorite part being the tomato salad.

khalid, who is a vegetarian, though solely because he dislikes the taste of meat, even decided to try some.

after tasting it, he decided to continue being a vegetarian. but you shouldn't judge the food based on his opinion lol.
and even before the food came, we got a little music while we waited!

after lunch it was time to head back to marrakesh. we wandered into the souk to see if saiid 2 was still there, and i was pretty proud of myself for recognizing the shop even though we walked right passed it without stopping since it was already closed up.
we took a collective taxi home again. and though mom's legs didn't fall asleep this time, we did have other problems. transmission problems to be more specific. which involved waiting around for awhile and eventually getting into a different cab. but hey, what can ya do?
we finally got home and were fed an excellent dinner by khalid's mom. and soon enough it was bed time since the following morning would be an early one as we headed off to the todra gorge.
it was cute though, as their mom was making sure we had enough blankets and were comfortable, she started calling me saiida. not sure what that was about, but i took it as a sign of endearment :)