Gite Dayet Aoua Ifrane

We are now back in Casa for the final few days of our Moroccan adventure. It was a long drive from Fes, and we stopped and had lunch in the beautiful city of Ifrane. I would've liked to see the American university there, but c'est la vie! The pictures I'm posting are from Fes: the district conference on Saturday, staying with our host family, the medina, and our other host ...

... also speak french, and a little arabic. i doubt you could find anyone here who couldnt speak a little of more than a few languages. the lights in Melilla for christmas are beautiful and really made it feel christmasy(hanging along side the palm trees). The chesnuts roasting on an open fire helped to give the chrsitmas feel as well(and are delicious by the way!) today Steve, the family friend of katie's arrived and came over to give us the low-down on going into ...

... and then as I mentioned above arrived at around 9pm. Since then, we've cycled about 20kms down the coast (west) to Roquetas de Mar and are staying at one of the few campsites that stay open all year. Last night the thunderstorms were HUGE. The rain always sounds worse in the tent, but it did rain. The thunder and lightening was pretty good too, but we have a very sound tent so we were'nt worried. The wind has ...

... prison we decided to take a taxi to the Roman ruins of Volubilis. As you can see we got there just in time for a spectacular sunset. It was quite empowering knowing that my lineage was literally everywhere. After staying well past sundown we headed back. The cab was only 300Dhs between four people, not bad since our driver waited there for about an hour and a half for us. Karim picked us up and we headed back to AUI. We ...

... to always be happy and doing something. Anything really. Even sitting outside in the middle of a field is satisfactory for these people which I love. I am looking forward to this weekend. I may go to Casablanca with Karim and his friend who is coming in, tonight actually, from Germany to visit for about ten days. Some people are also renting a villa either here or in Meknes or something so it will no doubt be a good one. Tomorrow I will be on my way to ...

... One of the West Point Cadets that are here I've made friends with wants to go to find motorcycles...down? Offfffffff course haha. I love this place. The inexpensiveness of living is staggering, the people are so friendly and the environment is simply breathtaking. We skipped a few orientation sessions to go to the marche today. It was dreadfully busy but saying Salaam to ...

... are quite limited. Finalized my schedule today (everything except Arabic in fact which I have to take a placement test for) : Islamic Art and Architecture, Islamic Civilization, Comparative Religion and History of the Arab World. Classes start Wednesday and I'm thoroughly enthralled about it. Still getting to know the campus but it is phenomenal. It feels like you accidentally were whisked away into the Swiss Alps. It was probably sixty or so ...

... how bad we have to resort to speaking spainish as french or arabic not our strong points) a young boy did, we ask him where the bus staion was, right next door! wanting to go to chefchaoen, apparently next bus only 4 hours away, we wait sipping on our extremly strong mint teas trying to avoid the stares of the men around. bus ticket guy chatting with us and trying to sale us hashish while practising his english on us. found out as we get ...

... here. One of the principles of the Islamic religion is to embrace everyone like a brother or sister... to love everyone. I have definitely been on the receiving end here in Morocco and I am happy to say that this destination beats any and all of the western places I've ever visited... In terms of the group I've really hit it off with Gabrielle... we had a very long chat about anything and everything here... such a great woman... as it turns out we are on exactly the same flight ...

... helped to homestead this area when he was a little boy. One of the sons lives in France and sends money back home, the rest are near by. One son runs a hanut in Benjamin's town and the others were all home to help with the harvest. Lots of extra women and children (all family members) were out at the farm to help with the huge task. There is a thresher that the co-op leases out that will be brought up as far as they can bring it....all the farmers will then take their crop down to it on ...