Hotel Majestic Rabat

... Ages, stretching from Spain to Egypt at its peak. Rabat housed a great library and scholars who were a major resource for the intellectuals of the European Renaissance. When Spain finally threw out all the Muslims and Jews in the 16h century, many of them migrated to Rabat where they set up pirate shop to get even with Spain, and eventually with the rest of Europe. By the 18th century, Rabat pirates were being paid not to plunder European ...

... I had no clue what to get. I just hope I can get everything home in one piece!

Yesterday afternoon Khadija did henna for a few of us. She's an amazing henna artist and made it look so easy! She did both of my hands in 15 minutes. Then I had to hold it still for another 40 minutes while it dried. It looks awesome and should last for about two weeks.







Two of us will be spending the night in ...

... to see (and hear). The mosque and surrounding area is beautiful as well, and included tombs for a few prophets as well as some burial sites for ancient members of the royal family. It was a short tour, lasting about 45 minutes, but it was a nice walk that bordered on a hike at some parts. It's the type of place I'd like to return to just to explore and relax - so peaceful. And, the minaret on the mosque was incredible - there was original ...

... by the fire trying to keep warm. The shepherd man stayed with us throughout the evening building the fire bigger and bigger and getting shouted cans of larger and our wintery meal of veggie chili concarne with rice. Just what the Dr ordered. Two more locals joined during the evening and stayed for about an hr or so. At 21:00 we called it a night going first for a loo stop which was just plain painful ...

... I guess that it's either absolutely heaving or dead as a dodo, with nothing in between. I noticed as cycling out there were a number of very nice villas at the back of the main beach road that wouldn't have looked out of place on the Lisbon coast with all the other designer places we spotted. It's commutable to Rabat, so perhaps that's why. The scenery from Medhiya to where we joined the road to Rabat was lovely, the nicest we've seen. Woods either side of the road and ...

... a ear-splitting wail and tugged the clothes off. Luckily A'isha quite enjoyed the attention, and instructed me how to take several photos. After scraping of the henna and wiping off the make-up, the night was drawn to a close with an especially delicious traditional Berber dish of pancake-like bread with chicken in a spiced vegetable sauce. It has been added to a growing list of the meals my host mother has taken it on to teach me while I'm here.

Alright. I've been putting off the decision for the past week, but I think I'm finally ready to commit; I'm going to write a blog. I'm willing to bet it will be irregular at best, but It's worth a shot. The chance to ramble in English sounds pretty attractive right now, as I'm taking a break from trying to cram a couple weeks worth of Arabic lessons into two days in order to be at the same level as the rest of the class and trying desperately to communicate with my host family that ...