Things I will probably do when I return

(This is Mark)
Now that I come back super soon I figured I would tell everyone those odd habits that I will probably end up picking up from my time here.

- I will probably spend lots of time in my apartment strollin' around in my djellaba, which on the one hand is awesome but on the other hand looks sort of like a KKK robe.

- I will probably obsess over American breakfasts for a while. This definitely includes things like pancakes and omelets (I will actually probably spend the time to make them) but also plain ol' oatmeal and definitely peanut butter bagels.

- I will probably obsess over American (lunch/dinner) food for a while. This includes Chinese food. Or at least American Chinese food. Also includes pizza and pasta.

- After "a while" I will probably re-enter a Moroccan food phase, where I start eating Moroccan breakfasts (milwee!) and dinners (couscous, tajines)

- I will possibly be very bad at crossing the street

- I will probably rejoice over small things, like not getting run over by motorcycles all the time

- I will certainly complain about how hard real school is

- I will run a lot, but slowly.

- I like to think I'll be more social

- I will talk a lot about improving my English. And my chess skills.

- I think that I will be more into cooking new things

- I will either be really into being clean or be really into being "clean" where "clean" is a lot cleaner than I have been and a lot less clean than is socially acceptable in America

- I will definitely complain about lack of street food

- I will definitely complain about high prices of everything in general

- I will almost certainly have nothing interesting or insightful to say about Morocco or my time there except "It was fun" and possibly telling various amusing anecdotes.


You have been warned!

Souqing

This is Natalie. I joined Mark in Morocco on Sunday, and we first spent about 3.5 days in Fez. We're now in Rabat, where I will be until Sunday, when I come home. Mark is leaving tomorrow.

In Fez, Mark and I walked around a pretty public garden, saw the king's palace and "hiked" up a hill to see the Tombs of Merinides, from which we got a great view of the city. We also spent a lot of time walking around the souk, or market, and shopping. In fact, it felt like that was most of what we did there. We bought several items, but we can't tell you about all of them because some are gifts.

For each of the things we bought, we bargained. We became reasonably good bargainers after a few times, but I still think we can get better. It's pretty fun, actually - sort of like acting out some kind of game. After doing all this shopping, I'm now reading online other tourists' tips for bargaining, and finding that we sort of instinctively followed some of these tips/rules. One tip I heard that's good is that you can find reasons for your prices, each time you offer one. Eg, you can say "oh, well, it's really beautiful but it's not EXACTLY what I was looking for so I really can't go higher than 400 dirham..." or something like that. I think Mark and I mostly just said "umm...that's too much, we're students, sorry..."

We also weren't sure where you are supposed to make your first offer, relative to the first price the seller offers. I'm now thinking that you generally should start with less than half of what the seller offers, PERHAPS even a third. I think starting too low is a bit insulting though, but in general I started too high. This site says there's no fixed price relative to the seller's offer where you should start, and gives some interesting insight about why the price might change throughout the day: http://www.moroccotouristguide.org/marrakech.htm

This site talks about one tourist's experience with some really elaborate negotiating processes, but Mark and I didn't do anything like these:

http://www.davestravelcorner.com/articles/morocco/moroccan-rugs-fez.htm

In general, we walked in and looked but didn't ask about price unless we were pretty sure we wanted something. I once made the mistake of asking about a blanket's price before feeling pretty sure I wanted it, then walked out without negotiating...I think the guy would have followed us and been really pushy, but he had other customers, fortunately.

I was looking for a leather jacket, and the first day negotiated in several places, but didn't end up getting anything. I finally bought a jacket in the tanneries, and I think I overpaid by about 200 dirham.

In general though, the things I learned about bargaining are:

Don't ask about price unless you want the item(s).

Before even asking about price, think about how much you're willing to pay for the item. I feel like things are cheap in Morocco, so the price I'm willing to pay here is generally lower than what I'd be willing to pay in the U.S.

Start low but not insultingly low. Probably you can always start at less than half what the seller initially offers. 

Move up slowly, and don't be afraid to be hesitant and act like you're walking out (or really walk out!). You can also offer fun reasons for your reluctance to go much higher (ie you can be more creative than me, all I said was "um, that's too much.  Next time, I'll try stuff like "I spent practically all my money getting here..." or "I have three years left of school to pay for.") 

A footnote about your starting price, the seller's, and how quickly you move up: I think these are closely related, which I guess is sort of obvious. But I just mean, while the seller's first offer price gives you an indication of how much he'll eventually sell it for, there's no general rule like "if he starts at 1000, it means he's willing to sell for 500 at the lowest." I noticed some salesman came down really quickly when I started negotiating - they knew we were tourists and perhaps named outrageous prices just to see if they could get them, and then the second we started bargaining came down to something reasonable. Anyway, if a seller starts way higher than what you're willing to pay, you might start really low (like a third or fourth of where he's starting) and see how quickly he comes down. He may come down quite quickly or you may have to move up quickly and perhaps walk out if it looks like you can't get it for more than your limit.

Do be ready to leave if they won't come down fast enough and it seems they are really going to insist on more than you're willing to pay.

When the salesman says "Name the last price. the final offer. What is the democratic price?" he doesn't mean it. ie, he'll say that every time. 

Some things I've read have said the Moroccan salesmen take their time with the negotiations, but all ours went pretty quickly. 

On our last evening in Fez, Mark and I debated which of the three kids in our family is best-looking. We decided it's definitely not Charles. 

Some funny stories recounted to us by our professor, Ahmed el Shamsy

el Shamsy is awesome. Here are some random historical stories he's mentioned to us:

In the 1800s, there was a wealthy American slave owner who was also a missionary. He wished to spread Christianity to Africa, and had a slave who knew Arabic (many did). Therefore, he told his slave that if the slave would translate the Lord's Prayer to Arabic, he would be let free.
We still have the original document. On one side is the Lord's Prayer. On the other side is a chapter of the Qur'an.
The slave owner, of course, had no idea, and thought that the translation was accurate. He then sent his slave to West Africa to convert people to Christianity, at which point the slave simply left.

A similar story, in more modern times:
The Saudi government doesn't like people visiting Sufi shrines, because they think it's worship of humans rather than God. Near a certain mountain housing the shrine of a well-known Sufi, there is an official Saudi sign saying, in Arabic, "Don't go up there, this is un-Islamic" etc etc. The other half of the sign is a Turkish translation that says, roughly, "Go up there! You will receive great blessings from this Sufi shaykh!" (or something along those lines)
Presumably the same thing as in the previous story happened here.


Another story is the origin of coffee, for those of you who may be interested. Coffee was first grown in Yemen, but didn't make its way to the rest of the world until a Yemeni student went to al-Azhar university in Cairo. He spread coffee to the rest of the students there, who used it to stay up late studying (sound familiar?). Eventually authorities caught wind of this drug that made people act hyper, and called it "qahwa," which is one Arabic word for "alcohol" (the other being "alcool"; so we get both our word for "alcohol" and "coffee" from the Arabic word for alcohol).
Then they realized that it wasn't actually alcohol; but it was clearly some sort of mind-enhancing drug, so they had to decide if it was legal by Islamic law. Their solution was to feed a bunch of it to one person and see exactly what the effects were. Although he acted "a little cooky," he clearly wasn't drunk so they figured it was allowed, and it spread throughout the entire Ottoman empire (this decision would later become controversial, mostly because cafes sprouted up and became centers of revolutionary thought).

Then, a few months (or years?) later, the Ottomans were siegeing Vienna. When the siege failed, they left behind a bunch of coffee. The Viennese had no idea what to do with it; first they tried smoking it, which didn't work, then they tried a few other things, and eventually they tried cooking it, which worked and I suppose tasted good. Then it spread to the rest of Europe.


Last story!

When the British occupied areas of the Islamic world, they found certain practices incredibly barbaric, such as amputees. So they revoked all of these policies and replaced them with the death penalty, which is substantially more humane.  

What do I do with host brothers?

Play slime soccer, mostly. Takes me back to fourth grade...

The desert was awesome

But there's not much to say about it. It was mostly just really beautiful. We walked around and rode camels and visited a city in this big oasis (the largest oasis in Morocco). I found out that sprinting up sand dunes is incredibly difficult and that playing connect four in Saharan sand is more fun than on the computer. I also figured out how to properly tie a turban (I had a turban tied for me 4 different ways... I only remember one. And I can't tie it nearly as well as the person who tied it for me, it falls off more often). Also we saw some barbary macaques on the way there, which was awesome.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of any of these things because I was worried that the sand of the desert would break my camera.

Also, I have (finally!) decided what to do during my week off -- I'm going to Portugal!

And now to the desert

Again I won't be blogging for the next 4 days because I will be in the desert.
As a parting note, this is a picture of shebekiya, which is fried dough soaked in honey with sesame seeds sprinkled on top. It's absurdly good and costs a dollar a pound.

This is what a Moroccan couscous meal looks like

Everyone eats out of the same dish. You either eat with a spoon or with bread (using the bread to grab the food) or both. Some people eat couscous by rolling it up into a little ball but I've never seen that happen and I think it's considered uncouth or rural or those are kind of the same thing. You eat meat with your hands, or if you're using a spoon, you sort of hold down with the spoon and tear off a chunk with your hands.

The best couscous meal I've had is still the only one our host mom in Fes made. I wish I knew exactly how she did it. I will never be able to replicate that deliciousness. I am pretty sure that one of the keys was adding raisins (which I think had been cooked with cinnamon) but I am also sure she had other keys.

Maybe I'll just keep on talking about infinity forever

As a follow-up to this post, where I talked about the Islamic idea of infinity as embodied in architecture, here are a few pictures of the inside of a (no-longer used) mosque in Meknes. 

The second image is just zoomed in on the Arabic writing, which is the same throughout the entire mosque (100% of Arabic writing in this mosque is the expression "God is good," or something similar, I'm not entirely sure how it's translated. Laura, do you know? It seems like it says "Dear God" or "God is dear" or "God is good," I'm not sure which...)

But the whole infinity thing is pretty apparent.

Views from high places

I mentioned that this last weekend I went to Chefchaouen to go on a hike. It was really beautiful and pictures don't capture the beauty, but here are a few anyway.

This last one is of the city itself; all the houses are blue and white. It's really cool. Apparently it's entirely coincidence; people started building their houses in blue, and then people liked the way it looked so everyone built their house blue. So now the whole city is blue; people paint their doors blue, the walls, etc.

Churro

Spanish churro, dipped in chocolate, is an amazing food.

Thirty years after it became legal to be a non-Catholic in Spain...

Spain is full of reminders of both the Spanish Inquisition and the presence of Muslism everywhere.

If there's one thing I know...

It's that this bab (gate, door, etc) is in some way distinctly Andalusian/Maghrebi (Moroccan/West African). Those aren't quite the same thing but are really similar because of all the interaction the two regions had. I think it has something to do with the curved top and possibly the Arabic writing above it.

(This post is funny only to me because we've looked at lots of babs and been told how they're similar architecturally, but I've really never understood it. Instead I just sort of nod and smile and people think I know what I'm talking about). 

Alhambra in Granda

One of the things we did in Spain was to visit Alhambra which is an old Islamic palace in Granda, and an awesome example of Islamic architecture. It was extraordinarily beautiful. It was cool to see right after Catholic cathedrals; Islam is much more strict on iconography, so Islam doesn't decorate things with scenes from the Bible like Catholic cathedrals, but instead with Arabic writing and geometric symbols. Islam is also really into the idea of infinity (God is everywhere, etc). You got a good idea of this at Alhambra.

Those are three different areas of the palace, and any writing you see is saying "God is most high" over and over and over and over and over and over and over. It says this phrase everywhere at Alhambra! (There are other things said as well, including parts that aren't the same thing repeated over and over, but this phrase is really really prominent). 

It's interesting to compare it to Catholic art although I'm not sure if I have anything intelligent to say about it. All I'll say is that seeing the same praise of God written a million times wherever you go gives you a sense of awe different from the sense of awe you get from high ceilings and elaborate depictions of Biblical characters, but I'm not sure how exactly it's different. 

My itinerary, and why blogging has been slow

Last weekend I was in Spain from Thursday through Sunday. I had a ton of things to say about it but didn't really have time to blog as much as I wanted. Then this past Thursday (2 days ago) I went with friends to Chefchaouen, a mountain town that was the base for this hike we did. It's also just a beautiful town, all the houses are blue and it's really pretty (we're going to explore it a bit more today, once people wake up...). Later today we're taking a bus over to Meknes, another city, where we will meet up with the rest of the group for a formal excursion of various sites of Meknes; we'll see a mausoleum, an old madrasa (Qur'anic school), a museum and a "Sultana's garden". Then we'll head back, and next Thursday (5 days from now) we head out to the desert for another 4-day trip. I have no idea what that trip really entails. Then it's the last week of the quarter until my week on my own, which I haven't planned yet.

But anyway, I've been busy and will be busy all these weekends so it's hard to blog. During the week I'm playing catch-up on homework and stuff. 

Talking with non-native speakers

Moroccans as a whole are really terrible at speaking to non-native speakers in darija. I think that, as an English speaker, I'm used to talking to people who speak poor English and so I know how to talk such that they can understand me; I talk slowly, clearly, and if they don't understand I try a different sentence construct or use different words.
Moroccans rarely do this. A great example of this is the guy next to me on the bus on the way to Chefchaouen. We talked a good bit, all in Arabic, but it was the most painful conversation I've ever had because this poor guy just could not get his point across, but it was mostly his fault.
Example: After about an hour after we had been stopped, he starts saying something to me. At first it's just a blur of words (only a few) so I ask him to repeat. He repeats again in the exact same manner (unhelpful) so I ask him to repeat slowly. He does so (awesome!) and I isolate the 3 words in the sentence. I still don't understand what he's saying, so he starts repeating this one word, "ouzad" (or something, I forget exactly what). This is clearly the most important word in the sentence. I say that I have no idea what "ouzad" means so he repeats it a few times. I still don't get it, so he helps me out by saying it slightly louder and slightly more insistently. He says "ouzad zwiina?" (is ouzad nice?) to which I say "I don't understand the word ouzad". He explains what the word ouzad means by saying "ouzad! ouzad!"
I say I still don't get it and he laughs exasperatingly.
It's been about 2 minutes so far and we've gotten nowhere. I explain again that I just don't understand what the word ouzad means. Then he gets the idea to try and explain the word ouzad. He says,
"ouzad... medinat tanja. madinat rabat. madinat fes. madinat ouzad!"
"medina" means "city" so I immediately understand that "ouzad" is the city that we're stuck in. Awesome! Why did that take two minutes?

I just climbed another mountain!

This one was even more beautiful than the last! I'll put pictures up at some point but it doesn't really matter because the pictures couldn't come close to capturing the beauty.
Also we had a fun adventure getting to Chefchaouen (where I am right now, and where we climbed the mountain). We left at 5:30 PM yesterday evening and were supposed to get here at 10:30. At 9:00 PM the bus stopped. We didn't think much of it until about half an hour later, when we finally asked what was wrong and they said the brakes were broken. They said it would take about an hour for another bus to get here to finish the ride, so we decided to wait (the bus wasn't crowded so we were basically just hanging out, it was fine) instead of paying $10 each for a taxi to take us there (also, the taxis that go that fart are really, really sketchy. Sometimes the doors don't really close all the way and are generally terrifying). An hour and a half later we asked again what the deal was, and they said again that it would take about an hour. Now we talked seriously about getting a taxi, but again decided against it because we figured it actually would probably be an hour (not entirely sure why we thought this) and we were still having a good time. An hour later we asked again and they said it would be about half an hour. We no longer believed them so we started calling taxis. This was really confusing. There was already one guy with his taxi in the area, but he needed to call his friends to have enough taxis to take all of us.
There was a definite communication problem trying to talk to this guy and negotiate a price / not have him call his taxis before we figured out the price, but he spoke French so we brought our two best french-speakers over, who were both women, to facilitate conversation. Then when they came over he said "no French," we think because they were women and he didn't want to talk to them, but I'm not sure about this. Regardless, he didn't speak French after that at all so we had to communicate in Arabic, which ended up working reasonably well. Eventually we got the idea that more taxis were coming and we agreed on a price.
Unfortunately, at this time we started being told pretty insistently that a bus was actually coming and would arrive in 10, 5 minutes. These time estimates were really low so we thought maybe they were actually true, and we didn't want to take taxis if we didn't have to, but we also didn't want to put all of our eggs in the bus basket. We sort of just sat around waiting for something to be decided for us, and then the bus actually arrived probably about 5 minutes before the taxis got there. We gave the taxi driver a hundred dirhams and went on the bus, and I guess in the end he probably didn't give any of it to his friends so we probably really screwed them over... On the other hand maybe he did and they got a great deal. Who knows. The end of the story is we arrived at about 2:30, 4 hours later than we should have.

Cairo

For those of you who didn't know there were plans for us to go to Cairo for a week from March 11th to 18th. That has now been cancelled so I have to decide what to do during that time. Any ideas? Major constraints include cost, time, difficulty of getting there (specifically if we're talking West Africa) and if I want to go somewhere crazy, then safety. 

The Great Mosque of Cordoba

Well Spain was awesome so I guess I'll start telling you about cool things. We spent a day in Cordoba and a day in Granada and that was it (lots of travel time).
The most interesting part of Cordoba to me was the Mezquita, which was initially a pagan temple, then converted by the Visigoths to a church, then converted by the Muslims to a mosque, constantly expanded throughout a few hundred years of Muslim rule, and then converted to a cathedral by the Spanish after the Reconquista.
The cathedral is absolutely gigantic. Our tour guide said it could hold about 300,000 people. That seemed high to me, but 100,000 seemed perfectly reasonable. I got lost in there.
One note is that there are sort of two sections, the Muslim/Mosque section, where the underlying architecture is Islamic (but with lots of crosses and stuff everywhere) and the added cathedral section, which the Catholics built from scratch. Anyway, here are a few pictures.

This is from the Catholic part, and I tried (and mostly failed) to capture a sense of how freaking tall the ceilings are. They are much taller than in the Muslim part. This is because of the difference in the purpose of a Church vs a Mosque. A church is moreso a House of God; Jesus is physically present (transubstantiation). Muslims put a lot of emphasis, much more than Catholics, on the idea that God is "One" and everywhere at all times. They anthropomorphize him much less (at another cathedral, we saw a depiction of God standing above Jesus, but we couldn't take pictures there. You would never see this in a mosque). So a mosque is less a house of God and more a community building; it's a place for the community of the believers to meet. People pray there, teach there, organize meetings there, etc -- it has a much more multifaceted role, I think (especially the fact that people would be essentially attending lecture in the same room that they pray -- much more the case in mosques than churches).

Going back to the ceiling, the point is that in the cathedral section, the architecture is designed to impress upon you the weight of God, because he's actually there right now. So you have super-high ceilings and tons of fancy iconography. In the Muslim section, on the other hand, the ceilings are lower because there isn't that motivation.

Mom (or other interested Catholics...?) you can comment on anything about this that you disagree with or whatever.

Just posting that picture to show the level of detail that covered basically every inch of the church. Hard to give an impression of the magnitude of the effort without actually being there.

And that is almost certainly the most interesting picture. It's a crusader killing Muslims! Fun stuff for a church. This was one of the things that made Spain so interesting -- you are surrounded by evidence of the Spanish Inquisition. This was specifically put in here for the Muslims who would come to this church to convert; they needed to be reminded of the power of the Christians over the Muslims. And of course it was just to humiliate them.

Other various items that one sees around the city to remind you of the inquisition are the prevalence of pork in Spanish cuisine (Muslims and Jews can't eat pork, so feeding pork to suspected Jews or Muslims was really common) and tons of clearly Islamic structures that have crosses everywhere around them.

Wait, what?

Does this make sense?

(I'm guessing it does make sense and livre d'or is just what you call a guest book, but I got really confused when I first read this in the lobby of our hotel in Tangier)

This is a bird and that is Spain

I will be going there in two days!
(I'll be in Spain from Thursday through Sunday. Haven't decided if I'm even going to bring my laptop or not)

Tangier was awesome!

I absolutely loved Tangier, although it's hard to explain why. Instead of trying to explain exactly why I liked it so much in one post, I'll probably just try and post a number of smaller things that I did and liked.

We spent about an hour at the American Legation Museum and it was awesome. Morocco was the first country to officially recognize the U.S. as a country, and we got to see the first official recognition of the U.S.! Cool stuff. After taking this picture I was told I couldn't take any more pictures (but he didn't make me delete this one), but we also saw an original George Washington letter to the Sultan of Morocco. He (Washington) had really nice handwriting. Also, we saw a hilarious letter from some Department of State employee who was responsible for telling the Moroccans that George Washington could not accept a gift of two lions. It was a 3 or 4 page letter detailing to his boss how hard he tried to tell the Moroccans that the President could not accept a gift of lions. Then his Moroccan counterpart wanted to give the lions to Congress, but again he said no. Then his Moroccan counterpart asked him who founded the government, to which the guy said "The People," so the Moroccan said, "Well let us give the Sultans [i.e. the people] of America this gift," so I guess they just let these two lions loose on the streets. I was sort of unclear on how the story actually ended, but this guy detailing his plight was hilarious.

Then at the end we talked to the director, an American, with whom we had a nice conversation.

The horizontal shower

http://www.archello.com/en/product/horizontal-shower

In other news, Moroccan showers are the worst. In general bathrooms are very small and so when you take a shower the whole bathroom gets soaked. Luckily this isn't really the case in our house, where the bathroom is big enough and is mostly just a shower room. But the thing is, I've been to enough bathrooms to know that shower curtains would make a really big difference in keeping bathrooms from not getting soaked, but they're just not a thing here. It's so odd. 

Going to Tangier this weekend, Insha'Allah!

So I might not blog much. Also, one problem with Morocco is that lots of things that aren't good for you are really cheap, so I've been eating chocolate for the last hour. 

When the king comes...

All of last week, we noticed a subtle change around Bab Chellah, which is on the way some of us go to/from school -- there seemed to be more police, and there was also some construction going on. It turns out the king was planning on coming to celebrate a holiday, the birth of the prophet Muhammad (not commonly celebrated in the Islamic world because you don't want to worship Muhammad too much or it makes him out to be a Jesus-like God figure, which he explicitly is not). On the day of the holiday, we learned that the king was coming at 7:00 to Bab Chellah, but unfortunately we already had plans.

Some people in our group, however, did see him and said it was amazing (they were about 10ft from the king! Pretty cool). According to them, the whole thing was oddly emotional given that they have no actual connection to the king; but just being around all of these people who are in love with him and who were screaming for him caused them to get caught up in the emotional fervor. Or something. 

Anyway; the whole thing got me thinking. They paved an entire street for the king's coming. Does this always happen? Anytime he goes anywhere, they pave the streets for him? Aside from being hilarious (instead of a red carpet wherever you go, they literally pave the streets for you) I also wonder if the king has serious problems seeing what Morocco is actually like. I doubt it, but it's possible that he thinks that Morocco is in better infrastructural shape than it actually is.

By the way, what I was doing instead was watching Carnage, which was in English. I had wanted to see what Moroccan theaters were like for a long time but didn't want to sit through a movie in French or Arabic, which I would be unable to understand. I was worried this would be dubbed over in French and so still be a waste of money, but it was subtitled in French instead, so that was awesome. Also, the movie is hilarious. As for Moroccan theaters, they're like American but smaller (there was one screen/room), they don't sell popcorn/candy etc, and tickets cost about a dollar.

Languages

For those who don't know, there is a formal arabic (MSA) and a regional dialect for basically everywhere in the Arabic-speaking world. The dialect here is darija and it is one of the farthest removed from MSA. A Moroccan and a Saudian talking to each other would not be able to understand each other. Incidentally, linguists define the difference between languages and dialects as follows: If there is mutual comprehension, then you're speaking two dialects of the same language. If not, then you're speaking two different languages. Obviously the definition of vague, but regardless, I think it's clear that darija is a distinct language from Arabic. One could probably say the same about the Egyptian, Syrian, Saudian dialects as well. The reason they aren't called distinct languages is almost certainly to preserve pan-Arab unity.

One thing that surprised me is how little people know MSA. MSA is essentially the language of the Qur'an as well as of the media and administration, so I assumed that generally people knew it but if you spoke it, you sounded like a pedantic ass. In fact, plenty of people just won't understand you because they don't understand the Qur'an or the media or the elites. Other people will sort of understand but definitely can't speak it. From what I understand, this is vastly different than 20 or 30 years ago when very, very few people understood it at all. So perhaps if I return in ten years, most people will understand MSA.

On the other hand, a lot of people think MSA might generally be on its way out and certain colloquials (especially Egyptian) might kind of take over, as mass media begins to be used more in colloquial and also to reach more people. Social medias are all going to be colloquial dominated, but if people from different regions want to communicate with each other, it's a reasonable guess that one colloquial will end up dominating and Egyptian seems poised to take that role (many people can understand it because so many films, TV shows etc come from Egypt -- although maybe economic decline will change this?). But nobody really has any idea what will happen.

Lastly, ~50% of the population speaks a Berber language as a first language (although they almost all speak darija as a second). The population is far, far more ethnically Berber (Amazigh = "noble people") than one might think given the dominance of Arab culture. Recently there has been a bit of an Amazigh identity movement which stems from colonialism. Long story short: During colonialism, the French adopted a number of policies designed to divide the Berbers (Amazigh) and the Arabs in order to prevent a unified opposition. In many ways, this created the concept of an Amazigh identity, which hadn't really existed before. After independence, Arab elites fought to remove this concept of an Amazigh identity, for example by banning Berber from schools, contriving a convoluted history of the Amazigh that said they were from Yemen and lived primitive lives until they saw the light of Islam, claimed that Berber and Arabic were linguistically related (they're not), and jailed people for issuing Amazigh pride publications.
Recently (last ~5 years) this policy has been reversed and now schools can even be taught in Berber languages, and an Amazigh culture movement is growing.

But the point is that in an already fairly interesting linguistic situation where you have everyone speaking darija, MSA and French both used in media/government/among elites (and MSA also practically identical to Qur'anic Arabic), tons of people code-switching between all three languages, and the further complication of international communication, pan-Arab identity, etc, you also have this other element that nobody really likes to talk about which is that most of your population is Amazigh.

Surprisingly amazing

Orange slices powdered with cinnamon.
(You want the oranges to be really sweet, so if they aren't naturally sweet enough you can probably add powdered sugar as well)

On a run

At one moment, a little boy, around 7 years old, started running with me, saying "rriada! rriada! rriada!" incessantly, which as far as I can tell means "sports! sports! sports!" but maybe it means something different in darija or he was saying something slightly different, because although I suppose that sort of makes sense it doesn't make much of it.

During the same run, I passed by someone who said "biSaHa waraHa" which is something that I've only heard after meals and means "To your health" (it's also used after people take showers and after, and apparently during, exercise).

Just interesting to me because of the universal stuff (little kids running after you during runs) and the different stuff (to your health, saying 'sports, sports')

A food update

Eating in Rabat (or at least, with this host family) is different than in Fes. People generally report not-quite-as-good-food, because I think a lot of Fesians are families with moms whose job it is to cook, whereas in Rabat the situation isn't quite the same.
Every day there are 4 meals - breakfast (bread or milwee and jam or honey or butter, a milwee is a little pancake thing - they're really good), lunch (varies -- often a tajine , generally has meat + vegetables + you eat it with bread), then a snack at ~6:30 which is identical to breakfast, and then dinner which can be as simple as spaghetti or sometimes a little more complex and resembling lunch.

There is less side dishes -- in Fes, we often had side dishes of eggplant, prunes, etc which let me have a good vegetable intake. Not so much here, unfortunately. Bread is a huge portion of my calories, and also meat. It's not terribly unusual to eat a meal of potatoes, bread, meat and eggs.

Couscous is definitely a Friday thing.

Insha'Allah

Insha'Allah translates to "God willing" but has a wide variety of meanings across the Islamic world.

In some areas of the world/contexts it just means "Hopefully," as in:
"Are you going to make it to dinner tonight?"
"Insha'Allah"


In some areas of the world it means "No," as in:
"Will we have a break?"
"Insha'Allah!"

In some contexts it means "I don't want to answer this question," as in:
"Mom, can we go get candy today?"
"Insha'Allah!"
(This is the equivalent of an American parent telling their child "Yes" as a way of avoiding the issue and then realizing 4 hours later that, as a result of thoughtless "yes"'s, the child is now owed candy, ice cream, and cookies. Insha'Allah is better! Bet you wish you knew this one when Natalie was a child, right mom?)


And lastly it means literally "If God wills it". From the wiki: 
One's use of Insha Allāh indicates not one's desire to succeed in an endeavor, but rather that the endeavor one embarks on will be within God's will, which might be interpreted as that which is best for Humanity, the Earth, and all of Allah's creation. It indicates one's desire for being in tune with God's plan... It is commonly used by Muslims, but is also common in Christian groups in the Middle East, like the Coptic Orthodox Church... The phrase also acknowledges submission to God, with the speaker putting him or herself into God's hands, and accepting the fact that God sometimes works in unexpected ways.

In the Qu'ran, Muslims are told that they should never say they will do a particular thing in the future without adding "in sha'Allah" to the statement.^[1] ... Surat Al Kahf (18):24: "And never say of anything, 'I shall do such and such thing tomorrow. Except (with the saying): 'If God wills!' And remember your Lord when you forget...'"

In other words, whenever you talk about the future, you have to say "Insha'Allah" because it indicates your desire to submit to God's will, a generally central theme of Islam (which means "submission" and a Muslim is "one who submits")

As an example of its usage, something that's happened to me a few times is I get into a cab, say something like "safarat miSr 3fak?" = "The Egyptian embassy please?" (it's the most well-known place near school, and the 3 is pronounced like you're gagging) and the cab driver responds:
"safarat miSr? Insha'Allah!"

This is a really common occurrence and I still find it funny because I really just want him to say "OK," not "hope so!". But I take what I get I suppose. 

The call to prayer

No matter where you are (even if you're up on a mountain) you can hear the call to prayer 5 times a day. Luckily I'm an incredibly deep sleeper so I rarely hear the dawn one (~6AM), but I have been woken up by it a few times. The call to prayer here is really harsh. It's like the guy is yelling at you; it was the same way in Fes. According to people who have been elsewhere in the Islamic world, this is unique to Morocco.

The exception is the morning call to prayer, which I have heard enough times to reach the conclusion that it is generally really beautiful. Admittedly I've never been more than half-conscious when listening to that call to prayer, so I suppose its beauty could be a figment of my dreams, but other people have agreed with me so I think it's actually just that the powers that be have decided that it's best to coax people out of bed in the morning rather than yelling at them to pray when they're tired and cranky. 

I am disappointed

Saw a Moroccan wearing a University of Michigan jacket today.

The tourism industry in Morocco

In Marrakech, people will throw monkeys at you, expecting your amazed friend to take a picture to capture the hilarity of a monkey running around on your head. Then he'll charge you a lot of money for taking a picture.

People will also offer anything and everything to you for free. The important thing to remember is that they are lying. Whatever they say is free is not free at all. Once, in Marrakech, we all sat down for dinner and were promised free tea. I didn't believe them and never ordered any tea, but some people did and bought it. We continuously asked them if it was free and they said yes (repeatedly). In the end they gave us the tea for free but charged us 5 dirhams for each piece of bread (it turned out to be the exact same price as the tea would have cost)

Sometimes when people rip you off they're really, really obvious about it. They're horrible actors. I asked how much some figs cost (they should be about ~30dirhams/kilo). The guy looked at me, looked at the (white) guy next to me, realized we were foreigners (my accent didn't help) and thought a second before saying "150 dirham" (in french). Generally people don't rip you off too much with food; prices are often posted and are just a flat rate. But I could literally see him thinking "how much can I rip this sucker off," he wasn't good at it at all. And this happens a lot, where people will hesitate to tell you how much it costs, look you over, and then name some really high price.


Lastly there was a restaurant in Fes, the owner of which was hilarious. Whenever we walked by he would come after us and tell us that there was a student discount and we could get this meal for 40DH instead of the sticker price of 70. I am about 99% sure that nobody has ever payed 70DH for this meal, he just tells everyone that there's a student price, even people who are clearly not in school. Also he always tells us we can see Mars from his terrace. "Come eat here to see Mars!" 

More cute pictures of my host family

My host brother 'Omar

My host brother Adam on left,

My host cousin 'Omar on right 

Our hotel in Marrakech

One interesting part about our Marrakech trip was our hotel owner. We didn't come with reservations (which was silly I suppose) so we just sort of wandered around trying to find a hotel, which wasn't hard because there were a million of them. Eventually we found this cafe hotel restaurant de france, which seemed decent enough -- we got 2 rooms, one was a four-person room (2 beds), the other was a 2-person room (1-bed). we had 6 people, one of whom was a girl (Jackie) so we gave her the 2-person room for herself and the 5 of us split the 4-person room (but one of us never ended up staying there, so it worked out well). it came out to about $5/person/night - cool.

Anyway, as we were buying the room, the owner was explaining the rules, and he mentioned (in arabic) that the doors closed at 1. We were planning on possibly staying out later that, so luckily we picked up on what he was saying and asked to clarify. We said we were thinking of coming back as late as 2 or 3, and would that be OK? He said it was no problem and we could just call a number and someone would let us in.

Fast forward to slightly later in the day, around ~8:00, and we were hanging out in the hotel room and invited other people, who were staying at a different place, over. As they entered our room the hotel manager started yelling at us, pointed at the girls, and said something along the lines of "albinaat tkhrj! mshlbnaat!" which as far as I could tell meant something along the lines of "no girls allowed". A few more seconds of us talking to him led us to be pretty sure that, yes, the problem was that we weren't allowed to have girls and guys in the same room together. This was a bit of a problem for us, because we have female friends and like to spend time with them in areas that aren't really cold (like outside). So we went to the hotel where the other people were staying, and spend a while there.

Fast forward again to slightly later and 4 of the 6 of us who were staying in our hotel headed back home at right around 1AM. The door was locked so we called the number, the owner came down and let us in. He had clearly just woken up. He counted us, asked where the other two were, and we somewhat awkwardly said they were planning on coming in a little bit.

It was clear at this point that there had been a miscommunication. I had thought there would be no problem if we came back late; it was a decent-sized hotel with a pretty fancy restaurant attached to it, so I thought that there was someone whose job it was to stay up and let people in (this was the situation for the place where the other members of our group were staying, so it was a reasonable assumption I think especially since he didn't seem to think it was a problem that we were coming back at 3AM when we first told him).
So at this point it certainly occurred to us that our friends coming back in an hour or so would possibly have to wake him up again to be let in, unless we could let them in, and we weren't sure about that.

Anyway, as soon as we said that, he got very mad, made a big show of locking the door and told us they couldn't come back tonight because he wouldn't wake up again. We wanted to ask if we could let them in ourselves but couldn't figure out how to, and we didn't have much time because he sort of stormed off.

So they slept at the other place.

Anyway, the whole thing made me feel bad because we ended up waking this guy up since we came back late. But the broader point that I'm trying to make is that hotels are way different in Morocco. Or at least this one was. And you definitely get the impression that Islamic values entrench everything about the culture -- no bringing women into hotel rooms, even with the door open, no staying out late, etc. It's sort of oppressive because it means that it's incredibly difficult just to spend time at night with friends, or spend any time with friends of the opposite gender.

A little bit about Marrakech

I had a great time in Marrakech, but it was slightly disappointing. It is known as the most touristy city in Morocco, and so I was expecting to be pretty busy all the time, seeing all the sights etc, doing lame touristy stuff and feeling good about it.

However, Marrakech's main tourist center was its medina, which was similar to the medina of Fes and Rabat except more stereotypically orientalist (and also slightly crazier). There is a huge square, called Djemaa el Fna where there are all sorts of things like snake charmers, people with monkeys, Berbers selling 'traditional potions' or telling stories. Basically what we associate with the Arab world in the 8th century. 

If you had never been to the Middle East before, it would have been completely astounding I think. I would have been completely content to spend 3 days in that square just seeing everything there was to see and probably would have been gushing about he experience, but unfortunately it was just more medina-y than the medinas of Fes or Rabat, so it wasn't nearly as much of a shock. 

That being said it was still a great trip. Marrakech has a lot of stuff to offer that the medinas of Rabat and Fes don't (like all of the things I listed above) and it was also nice to be out on our own with no rules of when we have to be back (one major complaint people have had with IES is that we are expected to be back by 10PM, which makes it hard to explore the city). We did see some cool sights like some palaces and whatnot. Also the hostel where some members of our group (not me) were staying was really, really cool and was owned by an awesome British guy. So we ended up spending a fair amount of time just hanging out there doing some team bonding.


Also despite sounding unenthusiastic about Djemaa el Fna, it was actually really awesome. Here are some pics:

This is a sheep's head.

Yes, that thing on the bottom is the ear. Yes, it's edible, but no, it does not taste good. 

Anyway I ate that

Probably won't blog until Monday

I'm in Marrakech. I will note that we ate breakfast in a cafe and I understood the news, which was talking about the Florida primaries. That was exciting.

Also I think my overall schedule here was somewhat unclear so:
I stayed in Fes for 10 days with one host family. Then I moved to Rabat to move in with my second and last host family. We are in Rabat for the rest of the time here, until we (possibly) visit Egypt for the last week. There are occasional excursions, both organized by IES and not organized by IES. This trip to Marrakech is not organized by IES, but later we will go to Spain for a few days, visit the desert for a few days (no idea what that entails), and visit a Berber village (also no idea what that entails). Those are all organized by IES. 

Even more things I do for fun

- Various cultural activities. A group of us went to a photo gallery which was kind of cool. We spent a long time trying to decide if a certain photograph was of an eye (it was) or a wave (what I thought and what it clearly looked like). A bunch of people also went to a Berber music concert, which I mention only because I didn't go there because of other cool things I was doing (not team handball)

- Hanging out and talking with other people in the program. I like the other people here! Cool. We spend time in cafes drinking sugary and pesticide-heavy mint tea and other cool things like that.

- Doing slightly cooler things with other people in the program. Today we played soccer on the beach (I mention because this is actually the first time I've played soccer since I broke my wrist and it was loads of fun) and this weekend we are going to Marrakech since the first 'quarter' is over and we have no organized excursion this Sunday.

- Hanging out with my host family. I do this a lot, but part of that is because, due to the fact that I've already had two host families, I've spent more time than would be expected in the "getting to know your host family" stage.

As my life goes on here in Rabat, I hope to spend more time in the "doing slightly cooler things with other people in the program" and "various cultural activities" areas.

What walking in the streets is like

When in the medina:
Hectic but not as hectic as in Fes. All of the streets are narrow, and even residential areas (i.e. not the market) have various food stands around where you can buy some fruit or something. A lot of the main streets in the medina are market streets, though, where they sell various stuff. Typically things are sold in sections, i.e. there's a food section, a clothing section, some touristy-items sections, etc. It's not neatly categorized though, there will be food items sold in the clothing sections and there are many sections of the same thing, e.g. there are a ton of food centers. The food sections smell amazing because there are spices out in the open and people are cooking street food which smells and tastes very, very good.

You can tell you're in the tourist section of the medina when people start following you and asking you what languages you speak. In general that's the only interaction I have with random people on the street unless I am specifically asking someone for directions or buying something. But basically they'll see that you're white and will then follow you and say "you speak french? english? russian? dutch? spanish?" etc. I generally just ignore them and they give up after a while. I feel really rude, but to be fair, they're really annoying. If you engage, they'll just talk to you for a while, not saying what they're getting at, and then offer to sell you drugs or give you a tour of the city. Also, they actually do know all of those languages (I think) because people in the group have said that they've said "yes" when someone asks them one of the less common languages; i.e., someone will say "yes, I do speak German" (in German) figuring that the person doesn't actually speak it, but then the person does. And it's sort of awkward at that point because now you have to talk to him. I'm only using a sample size of like 3 here though.

When I engage someone in conversation by asking for directions or trying to buy something, if the conversation is going to entail not just a few words (e.g. "how much is this, ok i want it") but something more substantial ("how do i get to this place") then they very often ask me if I speak french because clearly they think communication in french will be easier. But often enough we have the whole conversation in arabic and it generally works more or less.

Also, there are a lot of beggars. There is a beggar whom I always see right across from our house. There is another one or two on our street, which is about 100m long. There is rhetoric among middle/upper-class Moroccans (or just Rabatans?) that beggars aren't actually starving but are doing fine and just saving up money for a house. Or something, I'm not entirely clear on what the story is or where the idea comes from.

When you exit the medina it's more like Chicago. The biggest difference is honestly crossing the street, which is fun because there are no rules. Red lights do exist but they're really more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules so it always makes crossing the street an adventure. Also, there are some streets, like Muhammad V (the main avenue) which continues to have things for sale on the ground. For example, half of the sidewalk is taken up by people selling books. Another street has tons of paintings taking up half the sidewalk. 

This is my host brother, Adam

Il est mignon

More things I do for fun

Get lost and watch team handball, which is way more of a thing here than it should be.

What I do for fun

Mostly try to get un-lost and watch soccer. 

Moulay Idriss

This is a follow-up to my post on Volubilis.

Moulay Idriss is a town right next to Volubilis, where the person Moulay Idriss founded the Idrisid dynasty in the late 8th century, bringing Islam to the Maghrib. He died soon after, but his son, Moulay Idriss II, went on to found Fes somewhat nearby. Shown above is the town (it's very small). In the picture below, the building with the green pointed roof is the mausoleum of Idris I, accessible only to Muslims. People still take pilgrimages there today.

So all we really did after going to Volubilis was wander around this city and see the (outside of) the mosque and tomb. Neat stuff.

Night life

Note - this is mostly second-hand, from other people who have tried going to bars and whatnot.

There are basically 3 types of bars, as far as I can tell.
1) Male-only bars. There is no music but lots of guys hanging out and smoking cigarettes.
2) The same as above, but with prostitutes and music. A lot of guys in Fes said they tried to find good bars and this is all they found. They also said it was incredibly awkward.
3) Bars that are very 'Western', i.e. both men and women can enter, there is music, etc. Also incredibly expensive. I'm not quite sure how expensive "incredibly expensive" is though. I think ~$15/beer.

Alcohol is legal in Morocco but there is a strong movement that thinks that it should be illegal. As a result, drinking alcohol is stigmatized by the dominant social class. People who deviate from this are not poor people so much as very wealthy people, I think.

So in general there isn't much of a nightlife simply because of the stigma associated with alcohol. 

Food

Foods that I haven't eaten, or even seen, include hummus and falafel. I have been incredibly surprised that there is no hummus anywhere. How weird.
I have seen occasionally, but have not eaten, pita bread. People eat more substantial bread. Makes sense.

Today I ate spaghetti and pizza which was kind of funny. Yesterday I ate rice and milk for dinner which was also funny (seriously, just a plate of rice). This family clearly makes dinner as somewhat of an afterthought.. hah. It's always very simple stuff with few vegetables like... a plate full of rice or pasta.

Lunches on the other hand are... uh, better. For example today we had some really good chicken, tomatoes (they were spiced in a certain way so as to be absolutely delicious with bread, but I have no idea how exactly it was made), and a cauliflower thing.
I eat meat every day, which surprised me but in retrospect it shouldn't. Meat is simply really abundant here because of the sea and the general abundance of pastures and whatnot.

In general food is of lower quality than in Fes, because I think our host mom in Fes just spent a lot more time making food. 

Running

To answer some questions:
So far I've only run on the beach. There is sort of a path that one can run on, similar to but far lower in quality than Chicago's lakefront path. At some points I end up running on the beach itself, which is fine because the sand is packed enough.
Also, the stretch of beach that I run on is terrible for actually going to the beach because it's very rocky. I'm not sure where the best beach spots are but I've come across some decent points once or twice.
The other supposedly good place to run is a park in the city. I think it's about a mile around and it's where most people run.
Running is definitely a thing. It's not much of a thing, but people do it. On the beach I see a few people running, sometimes even in shorts (but a long-sleeved shirt, or pants and a short-sleeved shirt which is what I do regardless of temperature. Since I run on the beach with the wind, and in the morning, I don't get too hot). When I asked my host father "where to run outside, for exercise" he immediately understood what I meant and said I should go either to the park or the beach. He also offered to go with me to the park because he plays soccer there, but I declined because I didn't want to get up at 6:30AM (ha). This is in sharp contrast to Fes where my host mom simply didn't understand what I meant when I said that I wanted to "run outside, for exercise" and I certainly never saw anyone running (not once!)

Also, I forgot to say that on the second day after we arrived in Morocco, when we traveled from Rabat to Fes, at some point there was a cross country meet going on! With girls in shorts and everything. It was really cool. So there's some cross country culture here, but I would guess that it's less of a thing here than in the states (which is saying something).

Also I would say that the biggest difference comes to running in the city itself (aside from in that park). Running on the streets is really not done. This is unfortunate because generally I like running in new areas as a way to explore, but I can't really do that here. 

The beach

I live very close to the beach (it takes me about 4 minutes to run there). It's beautiful!
The second picture is of Rabat.

One weird thing is that there are tons of cemeteries on the beach. It's odd but nice in a way.

Things I've discovered

Last night I got terribly lost and had no idea where I was, but discovered that my darija is good enough that I can ask for directions and even kind of understand them!
Also, cabs are incredibly convenient (costs about 8DH = $1 to get pretty much anywhere within the city, and they REALLY help if you're lost! hooray)

Fried Cauliflower

Had this in Fes actually, but I'll post as much of the recipe as I know (aka the list of ingredients).
1) Cook the cauliflower almost all the way (boil, steam, whatever)
2) Mix together a bunch of olive oil, an egg, a few (possibly many) cloves of garlic, some (possibly a lot of) cumin, salt, a hefty chunk of parsley, and I think some amount of harissa but I'm not entirely sure about that. Generally the important principle is "something spicy".
3) Fry the almost-cooked cauliflower in that mixture for a short period of time.


If anyone tries this and it tastes good, then that means that my darija is improving! 

Couscous Part II

It's definitely a Friday / special occasions thing. And the KEY to making great couscous is to add the cooked-in-cinnamon-I-think-raisins. I think.

An important verb, found only in the imperative form

"kla" means "to eat," but one only needs to know the form "kul!" which means "eat!"
My host parents (especially mother) say "kul!" to me a lot, regardless of how much I may be eating at the time they're telling me to eat. I have been told (insistently!) to eat while currently chewing on large amounts of food.
The following is quickly becoming a common event:
I am eating food, possibly a borderline-rudely large amount of food. The mother looks at me, says "kul! kul!" and the dad then says "kul!". My mouth is full of food so I can't really say anything, I just kind of nod and chew a little faster. Then the dad puts more food on my plate, regardless of how much I've already eaten. Then he says "kul!"

Another example of this is the first night I was here, when they were serving us tea. They served me one cup of tea, which I gladly drank. Then they served me another while I wasn't looking, which I also gladly drank (the tea is really quite amazing). Then the mother asked me if I wanted more, to which I said "la shukrun" (no thanks). She insisted, and I said again, "la shukrun, la shukrun," to which she said "un petit peu!" and then filled up my cup all the way.

Bye bye, Fes!

I am now in Rabat. I feel like I hardly spent any time in Fes, and I will sorely miss it. It was lots of fun and I barely scratched the surface of it. I'll still write a few more blog posts about my time in Fes -- there are some things that I haven't gotten around to yet -- but those might have to wait. For now I'll quickly tell you about my first day in Rabat.
Our host family is really cool and active. Both parents speak French. We met them at the IES center in Rabat and drove to their house, which was a bit of a drive with traffic (which there was a lot of), although normally I'll be walking. There was a lot of conversation on the way there (sharp contrast with my experience in Rabat), in Arabic, French, and English. It was all very fast but enjoyable. At one point our host dad asked in Arabic, "Do you like sports" to which I replied that I liked football and American football. He got excited, said "real madrid vs Barcelona tonight! You real or barce?" to which I replied "Real". He got even more excited, said that he also liked Real Madrid, but he had a son who like barcelona.

Then his car broke down.

So after awkwardly waiting around for a few minutes, he said "Welcome to morocco, eh?" (very cheerfully) and we took a cab back home. There was a ton of traffic so at one point the cab just went into the other lane (with traffic going the other way, but there wasn't much traffic that direction). This was somewhat terrifying but admittedly saved us a huge amount of time. It was sort of awkward when other cars came directly towards us, though. It was a bit of a game of chicken. Also at one point we got so close to hitting a pedestrian that our host mom screamed.

Then we arrived at the house and met the sons (I'm not entirely sure how many there are, I think there are 4 but one of the 4 we met was actually a cousin, so...), all of whom, upon meeting us, asked us "real or barce?"
This was especially funny when it was the 4 year-old asking us this, as he was pretty adamant that real was the way to go. He also high-fived us at least 20 times. He really enjoyed high-fiving us, going back to his seat a few meters away, then running back to us and high-fiving us again.

Then we were watching TV before the game came on, but at some point the TV stopped working. So the spent about an hour trying (and eventually succeeding, in time for the game) to fix it. At about the halfway point the host dad again turned to us and said, "Welcome to Morocco, eh?" (still cheerful).

The house is incredibly nice. The living room is quite big (maybe as big as the apartment I was staying at in Fes) and there are 3 floors. I have no idea what's on the third floor, though, it might be nothing. But all the bedrooms are on the second floor. They have a really nice TV too, as well as a maid.
I have now discovered that living with maids is incredibly awkward because they do all of your chores for you  and you sort of just feel rude having this person do all of your work.

Lastly, although the house is very nice, and they have two bathrooms one with a normal toilet, none of their bathrooms have sinks. I'm kind of confused. Also the bathroom with a toilet doesn't have a door that closes which is sort of weird.


Finally, the answer to the question I posed is: The lines are for sliding doors.

Some less offensive ruins

On Sunday we went to Volubilis and Moulay Idriss.
Volubilis is these cool Roman ruins. 

That is the public bath. You sit in the indentations on the sides. I have no idea what the middle part is for.

Those are at the base of columns to certain buildings. The symbols let you know what structure it is. The first is the bakery and the second is the butcher. Pretty cool stuff.

That's a gate. You can also see how they had different styles of columns, some plain and some spiraled. 

There were also lots of mosaics like the one above, but honestly you might as well look at the wiki page for those. It was really sunny so it was hard to take good pictures.

And lastly...

Can anyone guess what those lines in the floor are for?