Things I Will Miss
- having an easy academic workload
- being able to speak French regularly
- basking in the warm weather
- melaoui (details to follow)
NASA

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ojovivo

Janaina Medeiros
Cosimo Galluzzi
we're not kids anymore.

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noise dept.
trying on a metaphor

Kaledo Art
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Kiana Khansmith

#extradirty
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Andulka
Mike Driver

roma★

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taylor price

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@moroccowithisabel
Things I Will Miss
- having an easy academic workload
- being able to speak French regularly
- basking in the warm weather
- melaoui (details to follow)
Homesick
A list of things I can't wait to get back to:
- cuddling with Monty
- seeing my family
- seeing my friends
- sleeping in my bed
- having a quiet house
- my favorite pillow and my amazing comforter
- taking a shower in a real shower
- being able to walk out of the shower in just a towel
- wearing things that show my legs and/or shoulders
- being able to cook again
- not getting cat-called 3 or more times a day
- going to the gym regularly
- being surrounded by a familiar language
- being able to communicate easily with everyone around me
- having reliable internet basically everywhere I go
- being able to drink tap water
- drinking good coffee
- eating at all my favorite restaurants
- being able to do my own laundry
- the smell of detergent
- eating what I want, when I want
Chellah
Chellah is an area of Roman and medieval ruins in Rabat. My history class went exploring there the other day.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Moroccan Hanukkah Gelt
Gelt in Morocco comes in Euro form!
Throwback
Check out this very early "Game of Thrones" episode I stumbled upon on Moroccan television the other day.
Ned Stark? Robert Baratheon? Still alive?!
Weekend in the Mountains
This past weekend, IES took us all on a trip to the Middle Atlas Mountain where we stayed in the small village of Ein Louh.
It rained the entire time we were in the mountains, but that didn't stop our program leaders from leading us on a hike! What's a little torrential rain? I'm honestly shocked we didn't all return to Rabat with pneumonia.
On the way up to a vista point, we caught a glimpse at some goats!
The view from the top:
Our homestay family for the weekend was very sweet. The food they made us was some of the best I've tasted in my entire stay in Morocco! But I'm glad to be back in Rabat, with a Western toilet (we were stuck with squat toilets the whole weekend) and a bit of warmth! It's weird to be heading in my final weeks here in Morocco. The countdown to home is now in days, not weeks or months!
Yum
Greatest. Mojitos. Ever.
Thanks Madrid.
More adventures!
When a roundtrip flight from Rabat to Madrid is $65, it's hard to say no.
My name is everywhere in Madrid :)
Churros and chocolate, the toast of the town.
Midterm Break, Part 4: Milan
A little stop in Milan during our overnight layover.
Midterm Break, Part 3: London
What a wonderful stop on our trip. London was a great taste of home, where we got to enjoy some comforts that we've been missing in Morocco including: Chipotle, a night at the movies (popcorn! milk duds! raisinets!), Chinese food, barbecue, and more.
The best part of this stop had to be our accommodations. We stayed in Kensington, one of the nicest areas of London, with Francie's aunt and uncle. We were all welcomed into their home like we were family too.
To be clear, I'm very comfortable in my homestay in Rabat and I have a lot of affection for my host family. I've never felt not at home in my Rabat homestay. But there's something about walking into a kitchen and seeing things that I could find in my own home. Waking up every morning to find wonderful coffee just like I make it, American cereal, and other reminders of home was incomparably comforting.
They even had the exact same stuffed tiger that I had on my bed for years!
Our stay in London also included some touristy adventures. We saw Kensington Palace, home of Prince William, Kate Middleton, and baby Prince George (aka, my obsessions). We also bought a hop on/hop off bus tour pass that took us around London and let us glimpse at all the sites. We stopped by the National Gallery and wandered around Trafalgar Square. One rainy night, we also wandered by the Royal Albert Music Hall.
Midterm Break, Part 2: Dublin and Belfast
After a very long trek, we made it from Rome to Dublin. For two cities relatively close together, it is a pain to get from one to the other on a budget. And since budget was what dictated our travel plans, it took an entire day to make the journey.
We woke up in Rome at 3:30 AM and were on the road to the airport by 4 AM. From Rome, we flew to Milan, then from Milan to London Stansted, then on to Dublin. We finally made it to our hostel around 9 PM that night! We grabbed some food - and some beers, obviously - and crashed.
Early the next morning, we were on the road again, this time on a 2 hour train ride into Belfast, in Northern Ireland, for a quick day trip. I got to enjoy the sunrise over the Irish countryside as we made our way north.
Belfast has a long, violent history between the Protestants/those loyal to the British crown and the Catholics/those who want to see a united Ireland that is still very much felt today. We got to glimpse this during our tour of the city. We saw countless murals and memorial gardens throughout the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods that commemorate this long-standing conflict.
We also saw the Peace Wall, a wall constructed to separate the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast. It is covered in messages of peace from people who have visited from around the world.
When I told people that I was studying abroad in Morocco, I was often met with concern, especially regarding the fact that I'm a Jewish girl studying in an overwhelmingly Muslim county. My experience in Rabat cannot be further than these concerns: I have been fortunate to never have felt any sort of religious tension during my time in Morocco. How odd it was to go to Europe and have a stronger sense of religious divide. Not something most people would expect. Some liken Northern Ireland (at least during the Troubles) to Israel/Palestine. After touring this divided city, I can see the similarities.
Above is a photo of houses in the Catholic neighborhood. The backyards have cages of sorts surrounding them, attempts to protect the families who live there from any danger.
Our first full day in Dublin was much lighter than our visit to Belfast and started out with a free walking tour of the city. It was a great way to see Dublin in a quick way, the perfect glimpse at the history of Dublin given our short stay in the city. We got to see City Hall, old churches, Trinity College, and much more.
The walking tour company partners with a group that organizes nightly pub crawls, so that was an excellent addition to our Dublin plans. What's a trip to Ireland without a trip to a few pubs?
The Jameson and Guinness factories were also essential stops on our Dublin stop. It would have just been wrong to go to Dublin without visiting those two important destinations. :)
The Guinness tour was our last stop in Dublin on our third day before we headed off to London! I think I poured a pretty good Guinness, right?
Midterm Break, Part 1: Rome
After midterms in the last week of October, IES Abroad granted us the week off. My friends and I decided to extend that week to 10 days and take off on a European adventure.
We left in the wee hours (aka, 4am) on Friday, November 1st for the Casablanca airport, where we caught a flight to Milan. From Milan, we made our way to Rome, where we settled in to our gorgeous apartment for a couple days.
The first day, we explored Vatican City. We started by wandering around St. Peter's Square.
We then made our way inside, where we forked over 35 euro (I really miss the Moroccan dirham!) for a tour of the museums and St. Peter's Basilica. For my Catholic friends traveling with me, this place obviously held special meaning. For me, I was mostly in dumbstruck awe of the artwork that is housed in the Vatican museums. I could stare at Michelangelo's work for hours, wishing that I could absorb some talent merely by being in its presence. I'll take a sculpture class when I return to GW and let you all know if my talent-by-osmosis strategy has worked out.
We saw countless sculptures, engravings, tapestries, and paintings while wandering through these museums and the Sistine Chapel was among them. While my friends managed to sneak some photos of the masterpiece, I was sadly unable.
It is literally impossible in Rome to find bad food, at least by our experience (except for a small bout of food poisoning, but that's a story for another time). Every meal was delicious and certainly a welcome change of pace from the Moroccan fare we've been treated to the last 2 months.
Here is a summary of my Roman diet: pasta, pizza, gelato, suppli, wine. No apologies.
The next day, we wandered through other Roman sites. We saw the Colosseum (only from outside. Unfortunately, it closed before we had a chance to make our way inside.), the Italian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and more.
Another perk of Rome, besides the beautiful sights and excellent food: short skirts! Given Moroccan modesty standards, this miniskirt has never left my closet. But hello, knees! It's nice to see you again!
Early the next morning, it was time to jet off to Dublin! More to follow...
Celebrating
Who says I'm not allowed to drink mimosas in class on my 21st birthday?
Look who showed up!
Love you, so glad you came to visit :)
Worst blogger ever
Sorry about this massive hiatus. I'll be blogging again starting now! There's a lot of catching up to do!
L'Eid el-Adha
Today is Eid el-Adha (the Feast of the Sacrifice) which is an Islamic holiday celebrating Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his first-born son Ishmael as an act of submission to Allah's command and Ishmael's aceptance of being sacrificed. The holiday also celebrates the fact that Allah intervened to provide Abraham with a lamb to sacrifice instead. So, the tradition of sacrificing lamb/sheep/rams began.
Warning, readers: this is a bloody, bloody post. It documents the 3 rams that my host family sacrificed on our roof this morning for the holiday.
These poor guys had no idea what was coming for them:
In case you were wondering, this is what the aftermath of a ram sacrifice looks like:
The butchers take the rams apart in front of our eyes. I'll spare you all the more gory photos. Suffice it to say that I am now intimately informed on the insides of sheep. Below, our 3 rams in various stages of being taken apart. One is already skinned, hanging from the door. The second is still laying in the same place as where it died. And the last has been blown up like a balloon (literally, they do this with their mouths) in preparation of being skinned (the extra air makes the process easier).
As you can see from the photo above, these butchers were quite the models. Look at them working the camera! Smize, boys!
Once the animals were... disassembled, it was time to start the feast! My host family was super considerate and bought me some chicken, knowing that I wouldn't want to eat much of this freshly-slaughtered meat. A cousin did trick me into trying some sheep intestines, saying it was just regular lamb. Oh well!
Our lunchtime spread included:
spiced olives and eggplant dip
a tagine of sheep intestines and a salad of rice, spiced carrots, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and beets
freshly BBQ'd chicken and sheep liver
and sheep liver brochettes (wrapped in a thin layer of stomach).
All in all, quite an adventure today for this former vegetarian. It was great participating in this important holiday and tradition with my host family, but the whole experience just confirmed my no-red-meat status. Thank you rams for your sacrifice today, and I promise I won't be eating any of your brethren any time soon!