The trip ended up being me, my mom, my friend Emma (from Middlebury), and Emma's friend Clair. It took us a while to get all the details hammered out and our departure date was fast approaching. Thankfully my mom is the most organized person I know and it all went off without a hitch.
JANUARY 7-8
We left Boston at 5:40pm on January 7th and after many hours of travel and a layover in freezing Montreal, we arrived in Paris at 8:45am on January 8th. As classic American tourists starting off our trip right, we accidentally got into an unregistered cab with a man from Cameroon who barely spoke English. It was one of the more stressful rides of my life, but we ended up arriving safely at Phillipe's house where we were staying the night. After catching up for a bit and getting some much-needed food my mom and I crashed and slept until dinner.
Seeing Phillipe, Chiara, and Leo again was amazing, and it was so shocking to see how grown up Chiara and Leo were. We had a delicious dinner with them and then hit the hay for another early wake-up.
JANUARY 9
We woke up at the crack of dawn to make it to the airport for our 7:50am flight to Fez. After having some issues at the EasyJet baggage area, we were finally off on our flight to Morocco. It was strange walking off of the plane in Fez because it finally hit me that we were in Morocco. A country I knew almost nothing about before coming. A country with a culture entirely different from mine. A country where things I might consider normal were completely unacceptable, and where things I might consider completely unacceptable were normal. It was a bit of a culture shock. I read a book on the plane there about what it was like for a girl to grow up in a harem, but I could have read an entire library on Morocco and still been surprised about the things I found once we were there.
We passed easily through the customs in Fez, and were picked up by a driver who brought us to our riad. We stayed in Riad al Bartal in Fez, and it was beautiful. When we walked inside, we were greeted by the sounds of running water and birdsong, and our host Abdul sat us down with traditional Moroccan mint tea and treats.
It was nice to have a moment to sit and relax in the tranquil oasis before facing the bustling streets of the Medina. We couldn't stay long though, as we were meeting Emma and Clair at Bab Boujloud, one of the main gates of the medina. They had both been in Morocco for a few days already, so they were well versed in how to find their way around and interact with the locals.
One thing about Morocco that would have been important to know when first getting there was that none of the streets are marked, none of them are straight, and that Moroccans are really terrible with directions. When we say "straight ahead" it's pretty self explanatory. When they say "straight ahead" it means there are at least 20 turns and dead ends involved and there is no way to look at a map and figure out where you are. We learned this quickly, as we got lost in our first 5 minutes in the medina. We finally found Clair and Emma, and set off around 1pm to begin our explorations of the city.
We spent the day walking around the medina and exploring the shops. It was so easy to get lost in the streets; every turn we took looked exactly the same. It felt like something out of another world. There were baskets overflowing with spices, jewelry, oils, pottery, and other beautiful things. The air smelled of a combination of fresh spices, tanned leather, and sewage. We were surrounded by the sounds of people shouting to one another. We had to dodge the occasional donkey or motorbike that sped by us on the tiny streets.
UNFINISHED
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