I thought that was going to be it, but I think recent events in Tunisia demand one more post.

I left Tunisia on Wednesday January 12^th, and up to that point, though I had received news of protests in Tunisia, the extent to which I was effected was Soumaya telling me Monday night that downtown Tunis would be a bad plan for the following day’s activities. I left not thinking much of it.

However, I landed in New York on Friday afternoon to hear from my worried mother that Tunisia was in the midst of a revolution. The government had just collapsed, the president had fled the country and the airport was closed.

I’m going to be cheesy here and say that the world has gotten smaller. For the past three days, I’ve been glued to my computer trying to piece together the current situations of my friends, looking up news articles, and trying to decipher the darija/frarabic on people’s facebook walls to see what everyone is saying about it. Soumaya and her family are safe, by the way, and according to her, it’s not as crazy as the news sources would have you believe. She thought it was rather funny that I had read that gas stations were running out of gas, and told me that, except for some rural exceptions, gas stations were fine, public transportation is working as normal, and she’s going back to work after two days off. It’s so shocking to me because I was just there and it seemed so calm. And now I’m so far away and trying to get my information from Hollywood news sources and facebook walls.

Look! That's the Ministry of the Interior. I was just there!

Home is less shocking and more home-y than I expected. The two feet of snow on the ground took me aback a bit, but it’s nice to be back. Both in general and in reference to Tunisia’s revolution, I’ve been surprised to realize how much I learned in those five months. Obviously everything is fairly general, but when people here ask me about what’s going on, I actually find that I can explain a little of what’s going on, what has lead up to it, and what people are saying about it.

Final words from the airplane

Well, I’m on an airplane. After almost five months away, I’m finally on my way home. I have to say, I don’t even know what to think. I’ve had a handful of temporary homes, but all of them feel more immediate and real than the one I’m coming back to. Away seems more normal that back and I can hardly remember what I miss. I guess when I get back I will slowly re-remember my life there and find out how I relate to it now. Everybody talks about how going abroad changes you, but honestly, I no longer have a point zero to compare. I know I’ve learned

Turkish security was serious business. I had my passport checked by nine different people and was given a total of 13 stickers. I also got special care (I’m hoping it’s just because I was coming from a different country than I was going to or that that country was Tunisia, not because I’m flagged now…). Everyone got an interview at check-in and before getting on the plane, they hand searched our bags and patted down every single person. However, it was all done very smoothly and pretty quickly considering how thorough it was (as opposed to the US, where it often seems neither quick nor thorough). I’m mad at them for taking my empty water bottle and my toothpaste, though.

The screen at check in said the weather in New York is negative eight degrees Celsius. I’m too sleepy to do the conversion, but that sounds cold.

Last stop

I somehow managed to finagle a stop in Istanbul. (Well, it wasn’t very difficult. The cheapest flight from Tunisia to the US went through Istanbul with an 8 hour layover, and at first I thought, “Sleeping in the airport is going to suck” but then I asked if I could fly out a day later instead.) So I had something like 35 hours to see Isatanbul (though unfortunately some of that had to be spent sleeping).

Highlights include:

My hostel. Not only was it clean and only 5 euros a night, there were kitties! The stray cats in Istanbul are much friendlier (and also cleaner, it seemed) than in Morocco, and the hostel had adopted a few. It was also friendly, and I met a group of German and Spanish students who go to school in France (so they all speak French) who I hung out with both nights I was there. And my French was totally solid. I understood them perfectly and very rarely had to search for my words.

Making friends. In addition to the students from the hostel, I met two cousins who ran a scarf shop. I had stopped there in the morning as I was wandering because they had scarves for 2 lira ($1.50) I was going to buy a scarf that was 5 lira, but realized I only had 3.50, but they let me get two cheaper ones. Later in the day, however (after finding an ATM), I came back, and they were so excited to see me, they told me to come inside, offered me tea, and though neither of them spoke English, the girl was clever enough to think of using google translate.

Just wandering around. Though I paid some attention to the map to make sure I made it to Hagga Sophia and the Blue Mosque, I spent most of my day just wandering, looking around for whatever was in sight (or sticking up above the buildings) that looked interesting, and walking towards it. Istanbul has so many mosques, old houses and palaces, and even ruins that I could just walk around and see so many cool things.

As soon as I left my hostel in the morning and started walking into town (I was across a bridge from the main tourist center) I found myself stopping every thirty seconds to take a picture.

The entire side of the bridge was filled with men fishing over the rail.

From the bridge, I saw a big mosque up on a hill and decided to go there, and as I walked up the hill, I walked up this street, full of toy stores with giant boxes outside filled with toys. It was kind of bizarre.

The Blue Mosque was beautiful. The inside was so ornately painted.

I thought the Hagia Sophia looked kind of funny, but it was MASSIVE.

This was perhaps my favorite. It was the one up on the hill, and it was simple, but bright and peaceful inside.

1-12 And inshalla I will come back

Well, I’m currently at the airport about to bid farewell to Tunisia. I ended up really enjoying it here—probably mostly due to Soumaya’s family, who are so wonderful—Tunisia seemed to have amny of the aspects that I lived in Morocco—the hospitality, the sun, the ocean, the beautiful architecture, the relaxed lifestyle—but wasn’t so exhausting (so much less harassment). I’m actually plotting my return—I even found an internship…

Tunisian airport security was a really funny joke—I got to the bag scan and began to take my computer out of my bag, when the man told me not to. I then started to take off my scarf and coat, but he told me not to do that either. I walked through with a camera and all sorts of change in my pockets, so of course it beeped, but as I pulled my camera out and got ready to go back, the man just waved me through. He seemed confused and I wanted to tell him about security in the US (I even could have done it in Arabic).

There are orange trees all over Sidi Bou, but they aren’t normal oranges, they’re decorative ones. However, Soumaya insisted that I pick one and try it, and it was actually quite tasty (this comes from someone who eats lemons, though). VERY sour, but I enjoyed it.

On Saturday evening, I went with Soumaya, her mom, her brother and her fiancé to a town called Hammamet. This town is a popular tourist destination, as we drove in, I wondered if I had landed in Disneyland—what I saw out the car window reminded me of epcot: a newly constructed medina, palm trees, fake elephants… (you can’t even find elephants in Tunisia, but they were used by Hannibal, who came from Carthage, to attack Rome. Don’t quote me on any of that, but I think that’s more or less how it went…

Wanderings and such

Ok, so you’re probably wondering what I’ve actually been doing in Tunisia. When I arrived, Soumaya’s mom and aunt met me at the airport and brought me home.

For the first few days, we were staying in a GIANT diplomat’s mansion (they have a friend who works for the embassy and were house sitting while she was away) which was, as I mentioned, GIANT. And had marble floors and palm trees in the garden and a sun porch with a view of the sea. It was actually less strange than I would have expected (maybe I’ve moved around and been in so many different places lately that nothing is strange at all…) it’s nice though—there is heat and toilets and plenty of hot water… and a really sweet kitty!!! That sometimes bites…but is sweet nonetheless. It was definitely a bit strange walking around the gated community—it seemed pretty dead.

Soumaya works during the day so I’ve been doing a fair amount of solo exploring, but her brother, who is off from work, has been playing tour guide and entertainer. On my first day, he showed me around Sidi Bou Said, the town where they live, which is also populated with quite a few diplomats and politicians, but also seems to house normal people and is much more alive. It’s a really pretty little town—everything is painted blue and white (with a few yellow doors), which they tell me is mandated (I guess it’s some sort of national heritage site). Narrow, cobbled streets wind up the hill to some beautiful views of the sea.

I think this photo describes Sidi Bou pretty well...

Another day, I explored Carthage (where we were staying in the diplomat’s house), which is now a quiet, ritzy suburb of Tunis, but was once a Phoenician and then a Roman settlement. It was cool to wander around and see Roman ruins scattered around the town. I thought it was cool that they actually use the old amphitheater. My guidebook described lighting fixtures marring the views, but I thought it was an interesting mesh of ancient and current.

The next day, I decided to venture into Tunis. At first, I was pretty nervous walking around a strange city alone—I’m not sure if it’s as much of an issue here to be alone or if I was just used to Morocco, but I felt pretty conspicuous. However, after traversing the entire medina and coming out the other side I began to relax (maybe that reminded me that if I got lost, I could just walk until I found my way out). I also started to feel better after I bought a few things and talked t the vendors. I think that’s how it worked in Rabat, too—I began to feel comfortable when I began to interact with people. The Tunis medina seemed distinctly different from Moroccan ones, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. There were a lot more buildings like mosques and palaces with really ornate architecture randomly thrown in.

Tunis has it's share of medina madness

Look, I found the souk al hoot

Tunis new city

To be continued…

Similarities and differences

My next destination was Tunisia. I have a friend here who was at Wesleyan last year on a Fullbright, so instead of going back to Colorado, I decided to visit her and before heading back to school. It’s definitely been a lot of travelling and the homelessness is beginning to wear on me, but when else am I going to be able to visit Tunisia? It’s a long way from the US! I can’t help but see it in comparison to Morocco, so I decided to write about what I’ve seen.

Same: the language. Sort of.

Different: The accent. When I arrived, somehow I could understand neither the Arabic not the French. Mushkil Kabir. However, I am getting accustomed, am able to have conversations with Soumaya’s family in French, and am even starting to be able to converse in Arabic. Shwaya shwaya. I think the accent is kind of funny, actually. They have a really drwn out ah sound like the a in apple, so instead of the Moroccan salam that is said like we would say the beginning of salami, they say asalaaama, how are you is shnahawaaaylek, They have a lot of cute words and like to put things in doubles: shwaya shwaya = a little bit; mush mushkl = no problem; safsouf is Souaya’s nickname for her fiancé. A lot of it is very much like Moroccan Darija, but it seems to be taken just a bit farther in terms of cute nicknames and doubling and whatnot. Instead of streetslang, here I am being taught baby talk; nanny is sleep, mommy is eat, kakha is yuck, I think sit was something like shoushi…

Different: I can not longer use certain key phrases. When I say zwina and safi (both awesomely multipurposed in Morocco meaning variations of good/pretty/tasty and enough/already/finished respectively), I just get weird looks. Luckily, shbet (I’m full) still works (though they say shbaat) and there are subsititutes for the others. Akahow will stop the piling of food on my plate, and behi seems to function in a similar way to zwina. I’m working of getting a feel for exactly how they work.

Same: The need for the words shbaat and akahow.

Same: Tea

Different: Table manners. At least in this family, everyone has their own plate, we eat salad with every meal, and I can’t figure out the bread. Sometimes it’s used to pick up food, usually, it’s used to push food onto the fork, and occasionally, it’s just dipped in the sauce. But somehow I seem to be the only one getting my fingers dirty… I guess that’s not different though.

Same: The fact that I feel like I shouldn’t be wandering around alone.

Different: Street harassment—it’s still there, but I’ve gotten way less of it, even walking around by myself. I also saw way more women out and about in Tunis, sitting outside at cafés, sitting on benches, etc.

Same: Cool doors. I think these ones are even prettier, though, or at least there’s more cool ones. I think half my pictures are probably of doors.

Different: Windows. They exist on the outsides of buildings.

Different: Dress code (sort of). No Djelabas. In terms of other street clothing, people dress fairly similar (jeans, sweaters, pea coats, boots, some people wear headscarves) though the jeans tend to be tighter, and these clothes are worn by older generations as well as younger ones. One thing that surprised me, however, was looking at pictures of Soumaya’s engagement party, all her friends are wearing shrot strapless dresses (yes, that was one of the first things I noticed), though she said they all got yelled at by their fiance’s for dancing. She said that most people dance what kind of looked like half-hearted Moroccan dancing, but whenever anyone actually goes all out they think they’re weird.

Same: Everyone changes into their pj’s when they get home. By the way, I fully intend to take this practice home with me.

More adventures in Espagna

Sorry, I’ve been really bad about keeping this up to date. I’ll work on finishing up about Spain and my family and telling you about Tunisia promptly.

My mom and sister were relieved to get a break from the craziness of Morocco—though unfortunately not from carting unreasonable amounts of baggage (my fault) on wild goose chases looking for badly labeled lodging. Our first stop was Granada, which, unfortunately was grey and for most of our stay, but still beautiful. The Alhombra housed perhaps more ornate and better preserved Moroccan architecture than I had seen in Morocco, and I loved the gardens and plazas that seemed to pop up unexpectedly all over the city. It was funny to see many of the same lanterns, scarves and embroidered shirts for sale that I saw in Morocco, and also the stores that sold them, which seemed to contain a mix Moroccan, Indian and whatever else might seen “Oriental” and exotic.

On the second morning, we decided to try to get into town a different way (we were staying way up on a hill). The map showed a road leading down the other side of the hill, but we must have taken a wrong turn because we ended up scrambling down a muddy trail. Luckily, I was wearing my hiking boots… I had forgotten how much I missed hiking and the mountains.

My mom tried to slowly and gently wean me off Moroccan food. I was so excited when she came back from wandering around Algeciras (where the ferry came in and we were stuck for a few hours waiting for our bus) with a Moroccan hubz. Then we found another Moroccan bakery in Granada. The hubz became slowly less spongy and crusty and more like focaccia, but it was still round and fresh. We even managed to find good avocados! When I was in Madrid the first time, I bought an avocado. I knew it was a bad idea but I wanted it so bad. It was a bad idea; it was shriveled stringy and brown and the pit was loose in the fruit. After that, I was much more careful about which fruit I bought.

We headed out to Madrid the afternoon before I flew out. I had written down the directions to our hostel and they seemed pretty simple, but what sounded like it was going to be a block or two ended up being more like a mile, and we kept worrying that we were going the wrong way, that we were on the wrong street, that we had missed it… After trying to ask several people for directions, I finally went into a different hostel (which was absolutely adorable; it looked like it was run by a family, there was a fire going, and the little girl was in the living room doing her homework). The woman was really nice and gave me a map and looked up the address for me. After wandering back and forth on the street several more times, we finally found it. No wonder we had missed it—it was just an apartment door with the name written in the call button. We rode a rickety old elevator up to the sixth floor, where we were greeted by a blind mad with a long grey ponytail and lead into an apartment with torn couches that smelled like stale smoke. However, somehow we got lucky, and our room was actually in a different building (another hostel, actually—maybe they’re both owned by the same person?), so a woman came and lead us several blocks up a little road. This one smelled much better, though there seemed to be no one in charge of the desk.

The next morning, after a little walk and a breakfast of churros and chocolate, I headed off to the airport. My mom and Raina accompanied me on the metro, which was nice, as there were quite a few stairs and quite a few suitcases involved. We said goodbye and I left them to explore Madrid before they flew out the next day.

1-1 The fam comes to Morocco continued…

Happy New Year! But I have some catching up to do. After Essaouira, we took a very very long bus ride to Casablanca (it was supposed to be 6 hours, but ended up being more than eight) and then caught the train to Rabat. It was so nice to be back. Rabat is like home; I know my way around, and see people I know on the streets. I dragged my family all over town to all the sights and we visited my host family, my adopted host family and Erin’s host family. It was a bit awkward for my family since they couldn’t actually talk to almost everyone, but I did my best at playing translator. Of course, everyone fed us and gave us tea. My host family really pulled out all the stops for my family—they made couscous, which they had only done once during the semester. I tried to feed my mom and sis all my favorite foods (I told them they had it easy—they were in morocco for more than a week, whereas Hannah was only there for a weekend…) and they loved my juice place as much as I did.

On Monday, we took the train to Fes, where we stayed the night before catching a bus to Chefchaouen, a little town in the Rif mountains. We really only spent an evening exploring the Fes medina, which wasn’t enough to experience how crazy and huge and winding and chaotic it is, but I probably wouldn’t have been brave enough to take them far in anyway for fear of never finding my way out again. As I did when I visited with my program, I found Fes friendly. Somehow it’s not as in your face and rude as Marrakech, or even Rabat sometimes. I was looking for a certain kind of hat and I asked a guy from whom my mom had just bought a scarf if he know where I could find one, and he lead me to several shops, where he asked if they had them, and where we could find one, before finally finding someone who had them.

The Rif Mountains, which cover the north portion of the country, are beautiful. They are splattered with olive groves, terraced farms, grassy meadows, goats, sheep, palm trees and yucca plants and are a shade of green that is almost surreal. Chefchaouen was also quite pretty. It’s all built on a steep hillside and covered with narrow streets and stairs winding up through buildings that are all painted blue.

Our taxi got lost and dropped us nowhere near our hotel. He dropped us in a deserted parking lot with stairs leading up into the medina. Since we were hauling around giant suitcases (my fault—I’m making my mom and sister bring home all my summer clothes and have filled my own suitcase with gifts) I went in to try to find the hotel. I had all but given up and was thinking that there was no way we would cary the suitcases up so many stairs, but I met a Dutch woman who asked what I was looking for and said she was going in the same direction and would take me there, so I followed her. The hotel was so cute that I decided to try to get the suitcases up. Luckily, I also realized that we could take the road around and only had a few flights of stairs instead of the dozens that I had climbed.

Somehow, the only one to get food poisoning on this trip was me. I’m not sure how that worked, but it was probably better me than them, and it was very mild.

After not nearly enough time, we got back on the bus and headed to Tangier to spend the night before catching the ferry to Spain. I realized that this time, I was saying goodbye to Morocco for real. My adventure isn’t over—I’m travelling a bit in Spain with my mom and my sister, and then I’ll spend another week in Tunisia visiting a friend—but my time in Morocco is. So maybe now is a good time to think about summing it up. I don’t think I necessarily got what I came in expecting, though honestly can’t even remember what that was. I guess I came in without a whole lot of expectations and maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much.

I learned to appreciate the ease of knowing how everything works and being able to communicate freely, but also became comfortable in a foreign city and by the end, tasks that were at first daunting and unforeseeable complicated, such as printing a paper in the medina or navigating the city buses became facile and normal. Over the course of three and a half months I accustomed myself to a modes of conduct, routines, table manners to the point that it feels weird to go back to what was normal. I got used to speaking four languages on a daily basis, but also learned enough Darija to be able to get around mostly without breaking into French. Not to mention all the wonderful people I got to know. I think the friends I made were the biggest surprise, but also what kept me alive and sane.

I think one of the big questions of the semester was: What is Morocco? People keep asking me to pin it down, and though I myself spent so much of the semester trying to figure it out, I still don’t feel confident answering their questions. I think my final answer is that Morocco is very diverse and is in so many transitions and constantly changing. There are so many different—and often contradicting—aspects of life. I say that Morocco is historically quite religiously tolerant, but also advised my mom against mentioning that she is Jewish. There are modern cities that host businesses from across the globe, but I also don’t bat an eye when I see chickens or a donkey cart in the road. There are people who speak five languages but can’t read or write. Many people can read and write Classical Arabic, one of the country’s official languages, but feel uncomfortable speaking it, while Darija, the language that most of the population speaks, is not an official language. There always seems to be construction everywhere. Pretty much everyone has a TV—though they don’t necessarily have a toilet. These are just a few things that came to mind. I’ve spent my semester trying to learn without judging. Eventually, I became used to going along with things without necessarily needing to understand everything that was happening and why.

12-24 And I return

Sorry for the delayed posting. I've been super busy showing my mom and sister all around Morocco, and then the flaky internet hasn't helped anything. I'll try to get caught up soon.

I’m back! This time accompanied by my mom and my sister. It’s nice to be able to communicate again—in Spain, I felt completely useless and just made other people talk for me all the time. It’s also fun to show them a bit of my life from the past few months.

We arrived in Marrakesh by plane on Monday afternoon, and they were sports about being dragged all over the craziness that is Morocco after not sleeping for over 24 hours. They did, however, like Morocco better the next day after sleeping for a solid 12 hours.

This was out hotel in Marrakech. It was an old house and was so beautifully decorated.

We watched the sunset from the terrace.

Next we went to Essaouira, where I brought them back to the same nameless hotel wehre I stayed last time. They were a bit skeptical at first, but then they say how adorable it was. We took a camel ride, because that’s what you have to do in Morocco.

This evening, the fam got their first Turkish toilet experience. It was a particularly gross one in a bus station so I felt a bit bad. But Mom said it was fun…

I can’t wait to be back in the familiarity of Rabat and introduce my family to the families I have gotten to know there.

The rest of my time in Madrid was a blast. I sort of got a little used to the cold (I didn’t always want to immediately start thinking about the next time I would be inside as soon as I stepped out). Madrid was Christmas-y—all the main streets were lit, there were Christmas trees everywhere, and I did Christmas-y things like ice skating and baking Christmas cookies. It was a bit of a shocking explosion of the season, as I was not around for the buildup. It was also strange to be walking around at night, and to be able to stand alone in a square without having anyone approach me. My friend Eli though it was strange that no one asked him if he was lost and offered to give him directions.