A wildly inappropriate picture

We walked around Volubilis, which are some really cool Roman ruins. I'll say more about them later, but for now...

That's how you know that room was the brothel.

Headscarves

When I see women in the streets, 100% of women over the age of 50 are wearing a headscarf, while maybe 25% of women under the age of 20 are wearing one. 

Climbed a mountain

https://plus.google.com/photos/101537118314665651162/albums/5697606329726638545
There's the photo album. Should be visible to everyone, tell me if it's not.
Left at about 10:45. We wanted to take a taxi to the base, but it wouldn't go that far (I think there are rules against certain taxis leaving the city) so it dropped us off... Very far from the base. As soon as we realized we would have to walk all that way we figured we had 0 chance of making it to the top. But we made surprising progress and then realized that we should be able to make it, and eventually we did! Hooray.
Mostly the pictures are just of really beautiful scenery. What amazed me the most is how many different views you get. On the one side is this lush greenery, agriculture, etc. Then it smoothly transitions into these cool sand hills. Crazy.

It was very sunny so a lot of the pictures are kind of bad quality (very light). I don't really know how to deal with that.. Tell me if you do, for future reference.

There was a road most of the way but at one point we were doing some climbing up on all fours action. That was fun. What was less fun was doing the same thing on the way down. 

(Pictured above is what we went down -- it took us about an hour!)

Another picture I want to highlight is the cutest girl of all time -- she must have been like 5 years old, but she was doing some serious shepherding. They were doing what she wanted them to, it was awesome.

Missing from the album is a picture of the mountain itself -- hah. Next chance I get, I'll take one and post it up here. 

Some events of the trip:

1) Constantly being worried that we were encroaching on people's property. This was especially the case when we went to ask random strangers for directions. But then you say salaam, labas (hi, how are you?) and they just say labas back (good -- this exchange is the Moroccan equivalent to "ca va?" "ca va bien") and you know you're fine. 

2) When we had to go down that steep cliff, there was a dog barking at us literally the entire time. Just a constant yap-yap-yap-yap for one hour straight. It was terrible.

3) Right after we descended, there was a donkey tied to a tree by one leg. It was constantly trying to get free! Every 2 seconds or so, it would try and move forward, realize it was stuck, get back into position, and then try again. It was very sad.

4) At the top, we met some people guarding the telecommunications towers. They were both in uniform and one spoke good French so we could communicate with them effectively. They were really cool and clearly had the greatest job of all time (sitting around in the mountains all day). Very friendly people.

That's about all I can think of for now. 

Today (Sunday) we went on a trip to see some Roman ruins and a cool village. I'll tell you about that sometime later though.

Drugs

Fes (and I assume other cities) has a huge drug problem. I very often get asked if I want to do drugs. Specifically, if I want to "try the pie before I die". Aside from being hilarious, it's also kind of depressing. According to Sofia, this happens to all men, not just tourists. I can guess that this is correct based on the fact that I get asked when I'm alone and don't look like a tourist and the fact that the women all say that they don't get asked to do drugs.

Couscous

Oddly, I've only had couscous twice now, once at a fancy meal in a hotel on one of the first days, and once just a few hours ago for another nice meal (because our host mother's two sons, and one wife, and a cute granddaughter who is ~2 yrs old came over). I think couscous is eaten really commonly, so my experience so far is probably anomalous.
But each time we've had it, there's an absolutely massive serving dish in the middle, with a ridiculous amount of couscous piled on it. Then on top of the couscous is all these vegetables/possibly meat. It ends up looking really elegant, and forms kind of a pyramid. Both meals were incredibly delicious (and fairly similar).
On top of the couscous were garbanzo beans, carrots, zuchinni, potatoes, raisins, onions (I think), and lamb. I think that's all, I might be missing something. There was also some sort of broth that you could pour over it.
I have no idea how she prepared any of the things I just mentioned. They all were flavored very heavily, but I'm not sure how. The raisins I think were boiled in a mixture containing cinnamon and honey (they were amazing). The carrots were also very sweet so I think they had been soaked in honey or something. Everything was very tender, so I think they had been stewing for a long while along with the lamb.

We all had plates but never used them and instead just ate out of the central dish. 

Doors

That's a door.

There are actually two doors, one larger one and one smaller one (you can see the two handles). Initially, the big one was for animals and the small one was for people. Then people stopped inviting animals into their houses, so they used the different knocks (which sounded different from each other) to differentiate who was knocking. If you were knocking and, if a woman answering the door had to be veiled, then you used the big knock. If she could answer the door unveiled (e.g. you were a member of her family), then you used the small knock.

Now you just do whatever you want.

As we (all 22 of us) were learning this, someone living in this house exited, looked at us oddly, then carefully locked his door and left. We continued staring at his door and talking about it in English.

Mint tea

I think this is a thing throughout much of North Africa, but mint tea is big here. Mint tea is green tea stuffed with mint leaves and a ridiculous amount of sugar. I love it. You drink it ALL the time. Supposedly in business meetings that go on for a few hours, people will be served like 20 glasses of tea (so you have to always ask for it without sugar or else you die).
I am averaging slightly over a glass a day. It's amazingly delicious.