Morocco!

Morocco was so beautiful that I'm not sure what to say about it, so for now, I'll just post a lot of pictures with commentaries.

We stayed in Rabat, the capital of Morocco for a week.  We stayed right outside of the medina, which is the "old town" and is surrounded by a wall.  The souk (market) is in the medina as was the school we took classes at. 

People buying cactus fruits in the souk.  I ate one on my birthday.  They cut off the outside part you can see, and inside it looks like a beet.  It tasted weird and afterwards I had a bright pink tongue and teeth! 

A picture from the second floor of SIT Morocco building.  It's in a very traditional old Moroccan house, and so beautiful. 

We took a day trip to the small village of Tiddas where one of our leaders was from.  We spent our morning in the market and then went to our leader's parents house for lunch.  His mother and grandmother cooked us the most food i've ever seen in my life.  

A lot of people ride donkeys to the market.  This one was "parked" and looking particularly friendly.

sheepies! and a lot of trash.

Root vegetables!

Little kids followed us around for about an hour at the market asking for us to take their photographs then show them.  This kido was playing with a little squirt-gun thing and thought I was very funny.

Man leaving the market with his things packed up on a donkey.

Robin and Brenner emerging from a forest of cactus.

A nice view of the village.

It's impossible to tell from this picture how large these plates of food are.  Soo huge.  The most delicious couscous I've ever had.  I got my own plate that was vegetarian, and was probably enough food for at least 10 people.  There were two gigantic plates of couscous with meat, too.  I've never eaten so much in my life.  It was soo good.  But afterwards it looked like we hadn't eaten anything.

Me with my couscous plate.  

The remaining photos are back in Rabat.

View of the Atlantic Ocean from the Casbah, the old fortress.

Me, looking goofy.  I was really sick the whole time we were in Morocco, so there are few good pictures of me.

A nice view of the beach.  The left is a cemetery.  I don't think I knew that when I took this picture.

Part of the Casbah.

This dog lived at the beach.  It really wanted to lick my camera.

There are very few stray dogs compared to other places in Africa.  There are, however, thousands of stray cats.  You can hear the at night, and it's pretty eerie.  This one was cute though.  

Rugs for sale in the souk.  

A covered part of the souk.

Morocco was really amazing.  Even though I was sick I managed to have a great time and a fabulous birthday.  On my birthday after class, the girls all went to the hamam, which is a kind of bathhouse.  It was an interesting experience.  We got scrubbed down with gooey black soap while all of the Moroccan women laughed at us because we looked so out of place.  Definitely interesting.  The experience was really awkward, but afterwards we went out for tea and were all very relaxed (and very clean!).  We then went to a cliff that overlooks the ocean and to dinner.  At dinner my friends sang happy birthday to me in English, Dutch, French, Spanish, American sign language, and about 4 other languages.  Then we went out for ice cream.  It was interesting to be in an Islamic country for my 21st, because Muslims don't drink.  But I couldn't have asked for anything better.  Ice cream, cactus fruit, and a beautiful sunset over the ocean?  Sounds nice to me.