Culturally Ambiguous: Globetrotting in Heels

Travel to learn, to live life to the fullest and to have hilarious stories to bring home ; ) I'm currently studying abroad in Morocco, follow to hear about host family mishaps and fantastic adventures

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Google translate has become my life and while it remains a life essential translations like this make me nervous sometimes

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Home Remedy?

I had been stuck with no voice for about two weeks and an incisive cough when my host dad pulled out the home remedies: “You want hals wa hablieb(milk)?” …say what? “Hals was hablieb?” …”hals..?” “You know *cough cough* Halls” (To myself)Oh you mean Halls cough drops..and milk?..”ok..” “You must drrrink like this” *motions from chest outward with both arms* -“laying down?” “No like this, no sitting” *same motioning* …after 5 minutes “Yes yes laying down”

..dear god

Hot milk with Halls melted in: 1-isn’t milk the worst for congestion? 2-odd..just odd

Bought myself some lemons to make hot lemon juice and honey (because that milk concoction was really just making things worse) End up relinquishing them to my host mom after explaining my reason for coming home with a bag of lemons “Yes yes ok I make for you when you want to sleep” Perrrfect! ..what ends up happening? I end up chugging a huge class of pure, cold, fresh squeezed tart-ass lemon juice..if that doesn’t wake you up I don’t know what does..sweet dreams!

And this is why I travel for the lovely late night miscommunications :D

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Fes/Fez Flashback

I had a cold: cough, runny nose and no voice..I mean NO voice. Then the toilet wouldn't flush (flush stuff left over from other guests..ew!)so we informed the front desk of our downtown hotel. The marble floor seemed extra reflective after dinner..as I walked to the stairwell I began to notice a small pool forming from a little trickle of water coming from the inner spiral of the stairs...and that trickle slowly turned into a stream that turned into a river that became a flooding 1st floor...that was definitely not mop water residue as i had initially thought..but surely that's not coming from our bathroom..right? Wrong. While the 1st floor was being flooded the second floor was a foot deep lake in comparison, surging out of room 203..my room. "Am yes there is a problem with your room, please take things out and come to new room"..take things out? As in I have to walk through that water? Water from a toilet that was clogged from previous inhabitants? With my only pair of cotton-water-absorbent shoes? Shout out to my mom: the one and only time you'll be happy about me being lazy and leaving all my things sprawled out on top of my bed, the only thing that saved my backpack and it's contents from being waterlogged. My roommate on the other hand had laid her shoes out and put her backpack neatly BESIDE her bed..it drowned..in toilet water. We left out soggy items outside our room and attempted to get a room on a different floor...nope they were all booked. Came back and found the sewage bloated backpack pack on top of one of the beds with a wet spot soaking trough to the springs..de friggin lovely. Oh yeah they did was our clothes but despite our request they also fried everything..shoes included. Tight fit anyone? What's worse is that I actually laughed the whole time, sounding like a whisky chugging smoker due to my lack of voice, being stabbed with the daggers in my roommates eyes

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I call it the Camel Mafia Commercial

As unproductive as it may sound, watching TV in Morocco, or any foreign country is a must! Things are advertised differently because they are being sold to a different culture, soap operas take on a while new meaning of drama, and be leave it of not infomercials can be hilarious. Last night while watching an American action movie, we were assaulted with very wester commercials, slightly tweaked hit very wester…then came the camels It’s a caravan moving through the desert with flashes to two BMW zooming down a lone desert road. Then a secret compartment in the camel load is popped oped by some very slick, suited, beautiful Arab men. God bricks sparkle in the Sarah sun as the are transferred to padded suitcases and entrusted to the even bulkier men of the BMW…”Its just the time to be buying gold!”…or something like that ..probably the classiest most amazing gold commercial, serious improvement from the awful I-made-this-in-my-living-room commercials in the US

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Where The Belly Dance Magic Happens

Looked up the other day and realized that Ass Olympiques is the name of my new dance studio…guess that fits being and Assalone girl and what not! Haha

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Night out with friends..Arab Shaggy impersonator and a DJ spinning North Africa beats on a club converted old sailboat. Our faux night at sea followed by a deliriously delightful day at the beach Props to my girl Maggie and me for being one of the boys and swimming out to an island for a little sole invigorating adventure (ha ha get it sole?…the island was made of dead coral..a foot massage is quite the understatement).

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A Little Too Comfortable

Ever try drinking coffee while lying down?…don’t..can’t fathom why I though it was a good idea..my shirt can’t either.

Going to chalk it up to getting a little too cozy in this wondrously hospitable country!

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Identity Confusion

So I thoroughly try to not stick out as a tourist i.e. I try to go native, yes? Apparently being so good at going native can backfire. Well, the other day I went into a dance studio, said my salutations in Arabic and all was going well and dandy until the lady started asking me things outside my Arabic vocabulary range. My roommate soon took over in French and tried to explain that we wanted to try the class before paying for the whole month. The lady, however, kept insisting on talking to me in Arabic as I looked at her with confusion, and helplessness as her words went right over my head. A half a minute later: “Nti Magrabia?” (Are you moroccan?) “Ah, le le ana Italia we Alemania!” (No no I’m Italian and German)…you tend to get ripped off as an American So the conversation continued in French with my friend organizing our dance class. It wasn’t ‘till about a half an hour later, when the same lady chuckled to herself and said with a relieved and amused face, “I though you were Moroccan and I was wondering why you didn’t speak Arabic!” (and I was wondering if you were just a plain dumbass) Thanks so much, makes me feel a whole lot better….not!

Also the taxi driver kept calling me Saudi…yeah not quite but that’s okay, you were nice and Saudis are beautiful so I’m taking that as a compliment.

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Nothing better than getting pulled out from under the covers for a Moroccan nightcap of Caramel layered almond crisped icecream. Thanks moroccan mama!

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A hop, skip and a jump into the Atlantic after a long day hustling through the city. And by hustling, I obviously mean a delicious lunch of rotisserie chicken and apple soda followed by a crammed stroll through the markets.

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Moroccan tea poured from on high with vegetable appetizers followed by a plum and meat tajine

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First Real Day in Rabat, Morocco

So while I’ve been here for about 3 days, yesterday was my first “real” day. Why? Well a couple of friends of mine and I decided to make our way to the ocean and Morocco threw itself at us on the way, and in the best possible way. We stopped into a cinema for an Arabic subtitled Bollywood movie..because how could we pass up a chance to sit in the balcony of a theatre and see a large projected spectacle of colors and music?! After about and hour we politely snuck out and asked a young moroccan for the way to the beach. Terik and his wife decided to join us on our walk to show the way. Next we had to cross the river in a little wooden boat to a shadier part of town, really only because we were told not to…we returned promptly. Our little snack of seasoned garbanzo and kidney beans was followed by fresh squeezed orange juice from a sidewalk cart..again, we just couldn’t help ourselves to the street food we were supposed to “ease ourselves into” Dinner at a whole-in-the-wall kinda place and lengthy session of people watching and getting to know one another over tea ended the night of what I hope will be the first of many delightfully foreign experiences.