Morocco

I suppose I should get around to writing about Morocco before it’s in the distant past. I’m going to have to gloss over some things in order to fit it all in, unfortunately. It was an extremely busy five days and I learned and saw so much. If there’s anything you want to know more about, just email or message me and I’d be happy to share. Here goes.

Sunday, April 20th

Happy Easter! Or Joyeux Pacques, as it’s said in French. I was brought back to the Easters of my childhood when I woke up nice and early in the morning. However, instead of searching for baskets, I was on my way to Charles de Gaulle airport to catch my plane to Rabat, Morocco. My time at the airport was rather stressful when I found out I should check my small bag instead of carry it on, which led to line after line. I am by nature a person who likes to be early, but I made it to the terminal only 20 minutes before we started boarding. I was not in a happy place. Luckily I wasn't alone in my stress; about half the group had to go through lines, so we were all kind of stressed. But we made it, and soon we were up in the air, on our way to Africa.

We arrived and met Nabil, our Moroccan program guide through the CCCL, which is an acronym I don’t remember what it stands for besides cultural learning being in there somewhere. Nabil was very nice and organized all our activities really well. There was resentment at some points when he made us sit through boring lectures or long classes, but I’ll get to that later. Overall we were very fortunate to have him as our guide.

We took a short bus ride to our hotel and got settled, but not for long. Our first activity of the trip was a guided tour through the Medina. The tour guide was this super tiny and adorable old woman named Fatima, who showed us the markets, and taught us some history of Rabat, which is really impressive. You didn't think I was going to get through this post without a mini history lesson did you? Oh, no. Here it is.

MINI HISTORY LESSON of the city of Rabat:

In the 12th century, the king of Morocco wanted to change things up and make Rabat the capital of Morocco, when it had before been Fès. It was kind of a big deal. So he made this huge wall all around where he wanted the city to be, because walls where the means of protection back in the day. But the king died, and his son wasn't brave enough to pull off the change, so Fès remained the capital for a few centuries, and Rabat sat there, an expanse of nothing except a giant wall. But then in the 17th century, the Hondolos (I have no idea if I’m spelling that right) were expelled from the Spain for being Muslim. They decided it was time to make Rabat the capital. So many of the buildings and streets we see today are from the 17th century, while the wall is from the 12th. It’s all older than the United States, which I find incredible. HISTORY LESSON OVER, and now it's time for pictures.

A market street of Rabat, right next to our hotel

The view from the oldest cafe in Rabat

So we had our tour, and then went to the CCCL where all our classes were. Nabil gave us a different little history lesson, which I remember nothing of because I was hungry and tired after the plane ride and long walk.  Dinner was delicious, as was all the food of Morocco. It was simple stuff, like potatoes, peas, carrots, and beef, but all with amazing spices. After a long day, we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Monday, April 21

Happy birthday dad! I was thinking about you as I was eating tasty breakfast flat bread and drinking sweet mint tea! The breakfasts were always the same, but that was by no means a bad thing. The mint tea I had been told about by my friend Nermine (hi Nermine!) and it was even more delicious that I could have expected.

Today was a very enjoyable day of classes and exploration. Our first class was “Arabic 101” and was exactly what it sounds like: we learned Arabic. It was mentally exhausting, but also exhilarating, if that makes any sense. Arabic is a language with sounds that don’t exist in English or French, so we had some fun trying to figure that out. We learned simple phrases like “My name is…” and “I am a student” and “Mint tea with sugar.” It was a lot of fun, especially when, at one point, I asked a question in three different languages, using Arabic, French, and English to get my point across. Morocco is an extremely lingual country.

We had a break then learned a little bit about how to eat in a Moroccan home, since that’s what we were doing that night. Then we had lunch and some free time to explore the markets and buy some scarves. And then, we met Youssouf Elalamy, Moroccan author of three books. We read one of his books, Les clandestins, in class a few weeks before, and now we got to meet the author. It was amazing to be able to meet the author of a book we had just read and understand some of the events in the book as well as where he came from personally in writing the books. That was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

However my favorite part of the trip was probably what happened that night: dinner with a Moroccan family. We were split into small groups to eat with the family, which was really nice since we then could consult each other on words, or take turns talking. My “host family” had two kids: a 12 year old girl and a 7 year old boy. They both spoke Arabic as their first language, but they had been learning French in school. Neither knew English since they start learning it in high school. But when we were there a neighbor girl came over to eat with us too. She’s 18 and in her last year of high school. We spoke French with her, but she knew some English which was fun to hear. She was just so nice, and she called us adorable, and the whole evening was amazing.

At one point I kind of lost it my composure and just started laughing. During the session where we learned about how Moroccan families eat, the instructor told us that they were going to try to get us to eat a lot. They would say “Kul! Kul!” which means “Eat! Eat!” in Arabic. At one point, we had eaten about a third of the tajeen (the generic word for the dish) and the mom just took a spoon and pushed it all toward us yelling “KUL! KUL!”  in a friendly but kind of aggressive way. I started giggling, and then sporadically burst into laughter. I had to hold back my laughing for the next few minutes to get back to normal. There had just been something so surreal about the entire experience. Once we finished dinner we were back to our hotel and to sleep.

Tuesday, April 22

FÈS. Because fezzes are cool. And that’s more than just a Doctor Who reference. Fès was so cool! From what we saw, it was my favorite city. It’s kind of hard to explain exactly why, but there seemed to be a lot more going on, the souks (street markets) were so much more expansive than what we saw in Rabat, and there was a different kind of energy in the city.

We had another early morning. Then there was the three hour bus ride to Fès. For the first part most people slept. I didn't even close my eyes. I was too absorbed in all the beautiful country side that was flying past. It was in some ways similar to driving through the Midwest, while also being so very different. For the second half, Nabil gave a little lecture, about the history of Fès and the Amazign/Berber people. If you thought Rabat was cool for being so old, get this: in 2010 Fès celebrated its 12th century of being a city. TWELVE CENTURIES. I was having trouble comprehending. I still am. But the even more (yes more) amazing thing is that even before it was technically a city, there were many people living in the area, which are the Amazigh people. The reason it officially became a city was in large part because of the implementation of Islam.

A couple examples of the beautiful countryside

It's like a computer desktop background. But real life.

We arrived in Fès and started a guided tour through the souks. There was everything you can possibly imagine and more; from teapots, to clothes being dyed right there, to fresh goats cheese, to shark meat. It was incredible. We also looked into part of the mosque there, but couldn't go in since we’re not Muslim, and then went into a smaller part a little further away. The decorations in Islamic buildings in overwhelming, but the most beautiful way possible. There were colors, calligraphy, and crazy geometric patterns. We had lunch, and then continued the tour. We went into a shop and saw where scarves were made. It was also very colorful, and a lot of people bought soft scarves from there. Then we visited the biggest tannery in Morocco. It smelled horrible. But there was an impressive view of the tanning vats, the city of Fès, and the mountains in the distance. The view made up for the stench.

Stores in the souks

It was pretty crowded

The mosque

Islamic imagery never includes living creatures, so they
make up for it with beautiful calligraphy

Inside the scarf store

Those are vats of dye for the leather.

View from the tannery. It was surreal.

After that, sadly, we left the Medina. We went to a building that helps women receive education. There, we met some Moroccan graduate students and talked to them in small groups. My group had some strong personalities on both sides, so it was kind of difficult for me to talk much. But a lot of other groups had really good conversations of what it’s like growing up in our generation in Morocco versus America, and some stereotypes of both sides. And after this, we had dinner on the bus and headed home. For a lot of the bus ride back I sat listening to music, thinking and trying to understand everything I had seen and learned that day.

Wednesday, April 23

This day was not very fun. I’ll just say it straight out. We were stuck in the CCCL classroom for six hours total. In theory, it should have been very interesting; we were learning about the Arab spring and Moroccan politics. But I just don’t quite have the capacity for so much of that. So it was a long morning. And there was a last session about Moroccan architecture that should have been very interesting, but we didn't actually know that it was happening, so a surprise lecture was not at all what we wanted.

And I learned something very important that day (please excuse me if I’m generalizing people of a culture, but it is what I had noticed several times): When a Moroccan instructor says they have “one last thing” or “just one more point,” it does not mean a concluding statement. It means anywhere from 5-15 more minutes of talking. And when you’re hungry and your capacity for listening is wearing thin, you will not appreciate this. At all.

Thursday, April 24

Today we got up the earliest of all. Breakfast was at 6 am, and for those of you who know me well, you know how much I love mornings. (And for those of you who don’t: mornings are not my friend.) But I got to see the sunrise over the city, and we were off and headed to Casablanca nice and early. The drive was next to the coastline for a while, so it was pretty spectacular.

At Casablanca, we took a tour of the mosque there. It is the third largest mosque in the world. Huge. It could fit tens of thousands of people for prayer. On Friday prayer, the average is 8000 people. It was different from what we saw in Fès though, because it is all a lot more recent; as in made in the 20th century recent. But even with more or less modern day technology it took six years to build. There was an underneath level for the fountains for ablutions, an upper level for women to pray, and beauty everywhere.

Inside the mosque

After the mosque we went to an institution that helps single mothers train for and find jobs in Morocco. We met the founder, a fiery spirited, fasting talking, wise woman. We listened to her talk about her inspirations and experiences, which were all incredible. After meeting her, we went to lunch and headed back to Rabat. Casablanca was probably my least favorite city we visited. Even the though mosque was incredible, the city itself was extremely large, and seemed more corporate or industrial than the others. But I am still so grateful I got to see it.

Upon returning to Rabat, we split off into separate groups to get in some last minute shopping. I bought a few gifts for people (they’re surprises, so I’m not saying what they are!) and helped others pick things too. Then we had dinner at CCCL, and there a Moroccan music group came to play a few traditional Moroccan songs for us, with drums and a strange trumpet like thing. We all stood around in a circle, a few people being called in to dance. When that started, I hid behind a pillar with Austin to avoid it (I’m not kidding we literally hid behind a pillar to avoid the dance circle). But it was very lively and exciting as a whole.

Thus ends my experiences in Morocco. The next morning we got to sleep in a bit, and then headed to the airport back to Paris. Luckily this time at the airport was a lot less stressful than the last.

I don’t know if I should reflect or just wrap up everything that happened, but if you've made it all the way through, props. I had a lot to say, and it was kind of therapeutic just to type it out. Morocco was so different from anything I had ever experienced. I can’t put to words all the things I thought about on those long plane and bus rides, but it was the first time in my life I had been on a “vacation” to a place that wasn't overtly beautiful. There was poverty. There were buildings that had windows falling off and my professors got mugged (they’re unharmed and got their credit cards back, don’t worry). But the people were so friendly and wanted to share their culture and language with you. The smell of cooking street food lingered for hours. There were stores full of beautiful scarves, trinkets, teapots, you name it. It was an eye-opening experience, and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have had it. And if I can, I will be returning to Morocco someday.

My Love for Louis (XIV)

Here's what I did this week! Brought to you by "My Internet is too Slow for Me to Watch Scandal."

Last weekend a bunch of people from the program went to Versailles for the day. After getting up nice and early that sunny Saturday morning, we joined the long line of tourists to enter King Louis XIV's castle. In an earlier post I mentioned that Louis XIV is my favorite king. I can't even tell you how true that is. This man was crazily self-obsessed. Practically all of the Versailles palace as we know it was made under the control of this Louis. I shall explain a little why Louis XIV is so awesome.

MINI HISTORY LESSON (skip to below if you aren't interested, but you should be): When Louis was a child much of his family was killed in the Fronde, a revolt of the nobles of France. As a result, Louis never trusted nobles later in life. So when the monarchy was restored and he became king, he made the Louvre (which was formerly the royal palace) into a museum, and had Versailles as his palace so he could keep the nobles contained away from the Paris, and there he could watch over (control) them. He then made tasks for the nobles to do that involved taking care of him, the great and powerful Sun King (he was very into myths and used Apollo as god of the sun in a lot of imagery throughout the palace and gardens). He was basically a manipulative genius. One noble had the job to wake him up every morning; one noble dressed him; the most honorable job a noble could have was to be in the bathroom with him (doing what I'm not exactly sure), because there was no where for Louis to go as they talked to him about their ideas.

Louis was an egomaniac (if you couldn't tell already). The entire palace was for him, and everything the nobles did was for him. There is one garden area shaped like an amphitheater with seats made of the foliage where Louis would perform his (sub-par) ballet recitals and forced everyone to watch him.  But besides himself, he was capable of loving others; in fact, many others. Louis was quite the ladies man in his time. It might have helped that he was the king of France. But the gardens at Versailles, which are incredibly expansive, have certain "rooms" that were created for his various lovers, decorated in different ways with numerous fountains. His love for the various women throughout his life can be seen all throughout the gardens of Versailles, if you know where to look. .

Most of this I know from the guided tour I did last time I was in Paris (thanks Auntie Michelle!) and from AP European History in high school. In sum: Louis XIV wanted to suppress the power of the nobles, loved women almost as much as he loved himself, and made Versailles as a combination of all these reasons. The expansion of Versailles didn't stop at him though; his children and children's children lived and embellished the castle even more. Marie Antoinette lived there for several years and she has here own little village at the far end of the grounds.

That was a lot more history than I was expecting. Here are some pictures!

I'm not even sure what the point of this room was,
other than to look beautiful.

There's a lot going on here.

One of the royal bedrooms. It's insane.

Hall of Mirrors.

Marie Antoinette's bedroom.

This is Marie Antoinette's fake village. It's really cute and Hobbit-like
but my camera died right after this, sorry.

Overall, Versailles was absolutely amazing and beautiful.

The rest of the week was less enjoyable. I had an abnormally large amount of school work, so not much sightseeing got done.

Thursday, our group went to the Opera. It was at the same place as the ballet, but I would say I definitely enjoyed the ballet more, in large part because of our seats. At the ballet we were on the main floor, but this time we were the absolute last row all the way at the top. We were at eye level with the giant chandelier. Besides barely being able to see the stage, the leg room was less than the length of my legs. I'm a tall person, so minimal leg room isn't unusual, but even those of "average" height - the girls who are about 5'6" - didn't have enough space, so I was struggling.

The view from my seat. My fear of heights was especially strong up there.

On Friday, since we don't have classes, my professor and her husband offered to take us to a museum that we might not otherwise know of. It's called the Jacquemart Andre Museum, and was a private residence in the 18th century. The owner of the house was incredibly rich, and he was a private collector of art, but when he died his house and art because a museum. It was smaller and less crowded than the more well-known museums, and just overall really cool. (There was a cushion and dresser from Louis XIV which made me happy.)

Louis XIV's dresser

Incredible staircase

Today, Saturday, I was planning on going to the Catacombs, but due to the line, Austin and I ended up wandering around the Montparnasse cemetery instead. This was by no means a bad thing. French (or even all European?) cemeteries are much different from American ones in that the tombs are large structures sticking out of the ground. We saw the tombs of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett, and many, many more we didn't know.

Overall, this post ended up being a lot more historical than I was expecting, but it was worth it, and I hope you maybe learned something from it! Learning about these places, events, and people, and now being able to see them first hand is a surreal experience, and I love every second of it.

This coming week I'll be in Morocco, so next time I post I will have a lot to say!

A day in the life

Rather than a "what I did this week" post (which will come on Friday or Saturday instead) I am going to show you what a normal day looks like for me! Note: no day is really "normal" here. Two days a week I have an hour and a half of classes, two days a week I have three hours of classes, three days a week I don't have any class at all. Routine has yet to come, which is something I'm absolutely loving. Everyday is different from the next.

And now I shall begin.

I woke up at 9:15 because I thought I deserved some extra sleep. I had oral presentations in two different classes yesterday, so I was somewhat exhausted. After getting my things together and "organizing" my room by putting clothes on the bed instead of the floor, I was ready to go.

I went downstairs where my host mom had laid out breakfast for me. She does this every morning and it's so nice of her. Breakfast is either cereal or toasted baguettes with jam. And always with orange juice. Everyone was gone so I had a quiet breakfast where I tried to finish the reading for class.

Then I was off for my five minute walk to the metro.

And then the 20 minute ride to class. Here is a beautiful scene of an empty metro car. It didn't last long.

Then, because I got to CUPA early, I actually finished the reading. Today was a one-class day, which is great. It's the class with the Carleton professor, called "Crossing identities" and we've been looking at how to define identity when you come from different backgrounds. We just finished a (admittedly confusing) book about people who wanted to leave Morocco for Spain. We'll be meeting the author of the book in Morocco and asking him questions, which I am super excited about.

Then for lunch Austin, Francina, and I went to a boulangerie just down the street for sandwiches, and then to Starbucks to get a drink and sit to do homework.

Here are my lunch buddies not looking happy that I took a picture of them while eating.

I sat at Starbucks for a while and tried to start my essay for the Crossing Identities class. However when I realized my topic was about how buildings/monuments reflect time and memory in Paris, I decided to walk around for inspiration. Basically: no homework was done.

Here are a few pictures of places I ended up while wandering. I would say I got lost, but I didn't really have a real destination to get lost from.

Wandering the Luxembourg Gardens. The vegetation and bright colors are
a lovely break from all the buildings in the city.

Under-construction Pantheon in background,
weird naked statue man in foreground.
Overall weird picture.

Saint Genevieve is a cathedral just behind the Pantheon. It's (unsurprisingly) beautiful.

I've already found the best, and cheapest, crepes in Paris, at a stand right next to
the Saint Michel Fountain. Everything in this picture is perfect.

Visiting Notre Dame really just means people watching.
Number of languages heard: 12

Eventually I decided it was time to return to the suburbs and getting cracking on this essay. I went to the local "mediatheque" which is actually just a lending library with tables to work at. I got one and a half paragraphs done before heading home for dinner.

The porch of my house one story about street level.

When I got back, my host mom asked if I wanted to help her make a "tarte au pomme" for dinner. There was no way to reject this offer. Although I struggled with the strange method of cutting apples (into thin slices and without a cutting board) I think I did a decent job. However the struggle really came with the conversation. Since it was just me and my host mom I had to talk more that I usually do. I want to think my French is improving, but at one point I forgot the word for gym and described it as "a house of physical activity." Rough going. I also tried to crack a walnut  and the shell ended up flying halfway across the kitchen. I tell you these things because I do not have a picture of the beautiful apple pie we made and I'm sorry.

Now, it's time for me to finish this paper that's due Friday. Tomorrow we're going to an opera (that's right, opera) so I won't have time. However, I'll probably end up getting distracted by Youtube and chocolate. I do realized I've already eaten a crepe and some apple pie, but I can't deny who I am.

I hope you enjoyed seeing one day of my wonderful Parisian life.

A bientot!

Churches, Chocolate, and... Cats?

It's been about a week since I last posted, so I think now is probably a good time to you catch you up on what I've been doing (which is a lot). I'll have to give a rather condensed version of everything, interspersed with many pictures, of course, because I haven't been lacking on activities.

I left off in the last post at my trip to the Arc de Triomphe last Tuesday. On Wednesday, I accomplished many things on my Paris to-visit list, beginning with Stainte Chapelle. Sainte Chapelle was the private chapel of Louis IX at one pointe (supposedly) housed the Crown of Thornes. The lower chapel, which was slightly more accessible to the public back in the day, had low ceilings, an altar, and of course a gift shop.

The lower chapel

Up a winding spiral staircase (Paris loves tightly wound spiral staircases) we entered  the incredibly ornate chapel. The ceilings were amazingly high, and the walls were almost nothing but stained glass. As is usual in a place of worship, they are scenes from the bible, beginning at Genesis and making it's way to the end, but then, differing from the content of most stained glass in chapels/cathedrals, the last window is about the kings of France and the acquisition of the relics. The amazing thing is that you can't even see the detail on the stained glass because it's so tall. But you know it's there.

Sainte Chapelle upper chapel - it's difficult to get a comprehensive view of the entire room

After that, we went to Shakespeare and Company, an amazing English bookstore that has a cool history (check it out here) and is crazy crowded. I bought a book of short stories by James Joyce. I'm not really sure why that book, maybe to feel pretentious but also so that I could have a book stamped from Shakespeare and Co. I also bought, on impulse, a beautiful notebook.

After this, my friend Austin and I wondered the streets, and happened upon a Gothic cathedral. It was called Saint Severin, and was a really amazing surprise. Stumbling upon Gothic cathedrals in Paris turns out to be a recurring theme, because a couple days later we found Saint Eustache in the middle of the 1st arrondissement, which was much larger. Both are still used as Catholic churches, and I thought it was a funny juxtaposition to have tourists like me taking pictures of the interior, right next to tables that had brochures for normal church events.

The view down the nave of Saint Severin

Thursday, to cap off our first week of classes, most of the group met to sit in front of the Eiffel Tower and eat baguettes and cheese and drink wine as the tower lit up at nightfall. While admittedly touristy, it was a truly beautiful and magical experience.

We don't have classes on Fridays, so Austin and I made the trip up to Saint Denis, a small town just to the north of Paris. To say town, I don't really mean a whole new city. It's still on the Paris metro lines, if a long ride. Saint Denis is home to the first Gothic cathedral. It was so much larger than Saint Severin and Eustache, but moreover it has a necropolis: basically a graveyard of kings of France. We saw the heart of Louis XVII, the more noticeable tomb of Louis XIV (my favorite king of France), and many monuments to Louis XVIII and Marie Antoinette. I'm only now realizing how many Louis's that is.

Vaults (technical term for awesome ceiling). It was very tall.

This isn't even the main door! But it was still huge and elaborately decorated.

Monument to Dagobert, who was king in the 7th century and first put a
religious sight at Saint Denis. That cathedral itself was made in 1144.

Saturday I went to the Musee d'Orsay which, even though it was crowded, was magnificent. Then Austin and I went to Angelina's which has the best hot chocolate and desserts I will ever have in my life. This is not a joke. It's a very fancy restaurant, with classy ceilings and chairs, and hot chocolate that will make your heart sing. I can't express in words what my taste buds felt. Here's a picture of how excited I was:

(photo creds Austin Showen)

This may be getting a bit long, so I'll just quickly say the other noteworthy experiences:

• Went to the Cluny Museum of Medieval History and saw the epitaph of Nicolas Flamel, along with other very cool and old things.
• Ate mango sorbet that tasted actually like mangoes. 
• Went to the Bibliotheque Nationale to see an exhibit for my art history class that I have to give a report on. The building itself is large and somewhat confusing, but it's a national library of France, so I was happy.
• Went to Cafe des Chats, in which there are many, many cats. To make things clear, I am not at all a cat person. Cats don't like me, I usually don't like them. But it was an underground cafe filled with animals, so it was hard to say no to that. Unfortunately, the cats didn't seem to want to hang out with us. We'll get them next time.
• Attended a ballet at the Opera Garnier. The building of the opera is incredibly ornate and beautiful, and I really enjoyed the ballet. It was enchanting.

Cluny Museum

Cafe des chats, notice the lack of animals in this picture

Opera!

That's all I have to say for now, but tune in next week see what other Parisian adventures I get up to!