Camels and Classes and Heat, Ohmy!
By Jen Lewis
Ohmygoodness. Three days have passed... and I have to write a blog post? This weather makes me (and everyone else) super tired... and then the computer gets too hot... and then... okay, fine. Here goes. The past few days in my life!
5.14.2012 - Monday
Monday was another super chill day... we didn't do anything super exciting, and just hung around the house, took naps and all that jazz. We take a lot of naps here. ALSO, we're sleeping on the roof, because the only thing we can compare our apartment to is an oven. It's so nice up there at night!
5.15.2012 - Tuesday
My first Arabic class! I love it - my teacher (Hayat) is the sweetest girl ever! The language is going to be super hard (especially the writing part, ugh!), but she makes it very fun. Miriam came with me to this class, and helped me navigate the public transportation system... so tricky! SO hot and crowded.
After class, we got lunch at McDonalds and rode the bus back to the Acima near our apartment. We got ice cream, visited the seamstress making our tunics, and headed home! The rest of the day was just more lazying around at the house.
5.16.2012 - Wednesday
Here's where it gets exciiiiting! We started this morning out a little earlier, got blanca negroes at McDonalds, and drove out to the mountains again! We stopped first at Lake Lalla Takerkoust, to ask the owners about accessible ramps and bathrooms. It is a GORGEOUS place. It's a resort for special events that is just spectacular! Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera inside the resort, so nothing from there. It's a ways out there, though - very long drive.
During the drive to our next stop (we were in the mountains again), Miriam and I got suuuuper hungry. The problem is that all of the side-of-the-road restaurants only sell tagine. Not exactly a "to go" meal. BUT, where there's a will, there's a way, and we made it work! The car was kind of a mess afterwards, but so worth it (mostly cos it was a rental and we didn't have to clean it ourselves)!
We headed out from there to meet with the same guy we talked to the other days - with the camels! This time, we went with him back to his home, and had dinner and tea with his family. We hadn't known we'd get another tagine meal, so we were pretty full by the end of the day. They were the sweetest people!
We drove the man back to his camel stop, and he decided he wanted to give us camel rides... we said yes. Obviously. It was so great! First time riding a camel, and I was pretty stoked. Daniella opted out this time, but Miriam and I both had a blast!
BUT the day wasn't over yet! We met with a man who owns a wheelchair accessible ryad (traditional Moroccan style house) here in Marrakech. We had tea and beet juice, toured the ryad, and finally headed back to the apartment. It was a ridiculously hot and long day, but definitely awesome!
5.17.2012 - Thursday
Caught up to today now, yay! It's been easy so far, just class in the morning a little ice cream and just working the rest of the day. We leave for Essaouria early tomorrow morning. I'm so excited to be on the beach! It's cooler over there too... thank goodness! We should have wifi over there, so I'll take lots of pictures and update!
See you guys next time...