Today is the 5th day I have been in Tangier, or the 6th day since i've left. I have uploaded plenty of pictures, but i haven't really written much about my experience, so while i have some free time I decided to update everyone on the adventures i've had.
The plane ride overseas took us from JFK in New York to Madrid, Spain. The flight was overnight, and was around 6 1/2 hours long. I know the flight probably seems like the least important part of my trip, but there were a few things that made it special. As I was trying to sleep, I looked out the window. The night sky seems so closer when you're flying through the atmosphere. The shooting star that I saw as I looked out, made me realize how incredible flying from continent to continent really is. As I started looking around for more shooting stars, I noticed that the sky changed. The stars were in different places, and I couldn't find the constellations that normally seem so easy to find. That's when it hit me that we were far from home.
When we finally arrived in Morocco, and got through customs we were immediately greeted by Anouar Majid, the Associate Provost for Global Initiatives. Anouar took our picture and we boarded a bus to bring up to campus. As drove through the city it was obvious that the people on the streets knew that behind the windows of the bus were "the Americans". Two little girls walking by waved to us, and blew me kisses. A few blocks later, I was greeted by the same gesture as a man blew me a kiss. I guess you could say that I immediately fell in love with the city.
We got to campus, which was not completely finished and brought our belongings up to our room. Many workers aided us in finding our rooms and moving our luggage; we were treated like royalty. After settling into our rooms, we all ventured around campus to explore. We went into the academic building, to find a beautiful mosaic fountain in the lobby and a rooftop terrace to spend time on. After we took the beauty of our new home in, we met up for lunch & a walk around Tangier.
The walk was lead by Anouar, and took us to the nightlife of downtown Tangier right by the beach. The city was full of people, families and their children, street venders with horses to take pictures with. It was beautiful, but we were exhausted. After a long day of traveling, what seemed like a 20 mile walk was not what everyone was looking forward to. Eventually we made it to the architects office, where were looked over the city of Tangier. He showed us pictures of our campus being built and also the new soccer stadium.
We then headed to go eat dinner, walking further around the city. We walked through old markets and ended up at a traditional Moroccan restaurant. The restaurant had beautiful carpeted walls, and couches surrounding a table to eat at. A band played traditional Moroccan music with instruments such as guitars, bongo drum, fiddles, and tambourines. We were fed a lot of food.. to say the least! We were given bread, vegetables, cooked vegetable dip, Brochettes (shish kabobs) were the main meal, followed by chicken pie, and finished off by honey comb desserts and sweet Mint Teat. I supposed i should add, I was chosen to dance to the music with Chase, in front of everyone. It was surprisingly fun! :)
The next day we went on a walking tour of the market where we could buy water and hand soap, and we were also shown where the internet cafe is (seeing as we don't have wifi). That night we went out for dinner where live musicians came to play for us, and then were taken to a club. We got to the club around 11:00 pm or so, and were the only ones there. In Morocco, people eat much later- usually around 10 pm; so therefore, they also go out a lot later. After an hour or so, people started arriving at the club and we decided to start dancing. At first we were looked at as silly americans, but eventually got the Moroccans to start dancing with us. It was fun and quite an experience. The music was somewhat different than the music in the states, and was similar to spanish music. The dancing too, was different from the dancing in America. Dancing is face to face, with spinning eachother around and moving with each other- its more laid back and fun. People started getting tired, and decided to leave the club, but a few of us decided we wanted to stay as we were having a good time. This is where the real adventure starts...
We left the club around 2:30 and got in the car with one of our security guards. He took us on a tour of Tangier, and we were having a great time blasting music and dancing and taking pictures. Then i looked over and saw a huge spider on my shoulder. I freaked out, jumped out of the car, but was told "No problem. You're in Morocco- no problem!". We then ended up at a second club called 555 by the beach. Getting into the club took a long time, but we eventually passed through security and got in. As we walked down the stairs to the patio, a huge pool was to the left, but we entered doors to the right. The club was much bigger than the first one, with loud music, lots of lights, lots of people, and a huge LED robot dancing on the dance floor with everyone. We got on the dance floor and found more people to dance with, and had sooo much fun. Eventually we were dragged out of the club and headed back to campus. When we returned we ran to the rooftop terrace where we hung out with a few people. I didn't go to bed until around 5 am, but the lack of sleep was worth the night we had.
Yesterday we had a bus tour of tangier- Hercules cave, Cap Spartel (lighthouse) and a few other sightseeing places. We took pictures with donkeys and in caves, and had a picnic lunch. We then went out for dinner and to a club called The Underground with Rita and her friends.
Today we took a map and got lost in the city. We met a guy from Georgia, who is here to play professional basketball. We had Shwarma for lunch, and used a compass to navigate our way around the city. It was fun, and was a good way to learn where everything is. We walked through a lot of small farmers markets, and little stores. After dinner we talked with Mourrad for a while, and he taught us some of the Darija language. He gave us a great presentation on the history of Morocco and the food and the dos & don'ts and the makeup. He has done so much for us and i'm so thankful he's the campus manager.
So enough with the stories- i'll tell you a little about the culture.
People here are so friendly. So accepting. Every religion is accepted whether your are muslim, catholic, christian or jewish and everyone is welcome. Call to prayer is announced to the entire city 5 times a day from the mosque, which seemed very unusal at first. People are also a lot closer to each other. When greeting eachother, everyone kisses eachother on each cheek- even men. When walking around with friends, most people link arms or at least have their arms touching. Men also express their feelings to girls a lot more vocally than at home, and have no problem telling a girl she is beautiful. Often men will blow kisses to girls. In this culture, it is more beautiful to be heavier rather than really skinny. There are many abandoned cats and dogs here. They roam the streets like squirrels do at home.
Everything here is so different, but i honestly wouldn't want to be anywhere else studying abroad. (:
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