MOROCCO

Jan 5
       I am exhausted after three whirlwind days in Morocco but I can’t wait to catch everyone up on what I’ve been up to. But first shower, dinner, and nap.

Okay. Ate my fill, I was starving, and now I am ready to start cataloging the last few days of my life that has suddenly become a nonstop learning experience.

Alright, starting from Fenruary 2nd…
       We lost a day in Morocco but this turned out to be a really great day. I hung out with friends and laughed a lot, ate lunch with the cameraman who is on his third SAS voyage, and both voyages he was on before this were ones where disasters struck, the first being when Asia had SARS and they had to reroute to Japan and then Alaska, and the second being when the ship was caught in an intense storm and a 60 foot wave knocked out the tower and the engines. The ship was extremely close to evacuating everyone and the ship had to be repaired for weeks while SAS, of their own expense, FLEW all passengers to Asia for the entire time the ship was being repaired and put them up in four star hotels. This is his third voyage and people are just waiting around for something crazy to happen, but anyways he is a really nice guy and very interesting, and he has interviewed our group several times in different places. Hearing about those crazy SAS incidents is very scary but also reassuring that SAS and ISE really do take care of their students first before anything else. They are not here to jip us or see us hurt.
       Okay I have to just interrupt this journal entry for a minute. Our TV has one channel that plots are course and is constantly playing techno music, and it is the most hilarious thing ever. The stewards turn it on and blast it in every cabin they go into, and we always turn it in when we’re in the mood for a good laugh. Right now a song from Night at the Roxbury is playing. Anyways…
       So that day was just hanging out, and they announced they would have an open mic night, and I had planned on changing the lyrics to a popular song and performing it at an open mic, and my friend Greg suggested the song “No Air.”So we set to work writing new lyrics for it. The end product was genius. After we were done I went to the gym and had a great workout, I am really feeling more in shape and healthy since I’ve been working out for about a month now. And every day I’m in a country I am constantly moving, I have to cover several miles every day. I just feel stronger in general and it feels good.
       So then we got all gussied up, went to a talk about avoiding being pickpocketed which made us all paranoid, then open mic night began. We were slated for fourth. There are some extremely talented people on the ship. Many kids write and sing their own songs, on the piano or guitar, a couple of people we are amazed that they aren’t on the radio already. They are some really funny people as well, one kid performed stand up comedy and he was great! Greg and I go up pretending we wrote a song then No Air came on and we had the lyrics we wrote on a powerpoint behind us while we sang the words. I’ll put the video up and link it when I have the chance, but for now I’ll post the lyrics.

Tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land

It was so tough before Cadiz
Hitting the walls it hurt my knees
Plus puking everywhere was like living in a world with no land
ooooooh

Four drinks for me is not enough
I can’t walk when the seas are rough
Wish I could steal a boat to get myself to land

BUT HOW
DO YOU EXPECT ME
TO LIVE THIS LIFE ON THE SEA
all this water all around me is making me crazy

tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land
can’t live can’t breathe without land
Les McCabe don’t you understand
There’s no land no laaaand

Got me out here in the waters so deep
Lose an hour every night there’s no sleep
Guess I’ll go watch the MICE band
Cuz there’s no land, no laaand

No land land
no land land
no land land

I hopped a train north to Madrid
Tapas vino I’m lovin it
That Spanish gypsie cast a spell on me for real

Somehow I’m still awake at five
Churros and chocolate keep me alive
I don’t know Spanish but the guy in the club didn’t even care

So how
do you expect me
to get back on the MV
cuz Espana all around me it’s so hard for me to leave

Tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land
can’t live can’t breathe without land
Captain Jeremy don’t you understand
there’s no land no land

Got me out here in the waters so deep
Estrogen everywhere makes me weak
If there’s no more men I’m gonna scream
No men no men

no men men
women men
no land land

B R E A K ***

LAAAAAAAND

Tell me how we’re sposed to go without fuel
Can’t see Morocco without fuel
Wanna ride a camel or mule
NO FUEL NO FUEL

Sometimes it gets really hard
That’s what she saiiiiid
I can’t wait to get off
she said she saiiiid


What were doing for six hours last night
I’m sick of card games all night
Watched the superbowl until it got light
NOT TIGHT not tight

Got me out here in the waters so deep
If we don’t get there soon I’m gonna weep
Off this ship I might leap
time to sleep time to sleep

No land land
no land land
noooo lan
Les McCabe……


So I’m sure it’s not as awesome without actually seeing it, but let me tell you, it was a HIT! We got the only standing ovation of the night, and everyone was falling over with laughter. Greg and I have gotten countless compliments and we plan on writing a new one for every open mic night. We had a great time doing it and everyone was asking us to put the lyrics up on the public serve right away. Good times!
       Also, the last stretch coming into Morocco was extremely rocky, so we all sat in Tymitz Square near the purser’s desk and rolled around, sliding from one end to the other with the waves. It was hilarious and should happen again tonight on takeoff, so we are all going to put socks on and go enjoy the slip n slide.
       Oh also something happened this night that I figured my friends would appreciate. I had met this guy the night before that was doing all of these really cool things, like using his GPS to find hidden treasures that people leave all over the world and using this home exchange program to stay places in every country we were going to. He was an interesting guy and we talked for awhile, and I met him when my hair was up in a greasy ponytail and in sweats. So the next night I see him, except for this night my hair is down and down and I’m wearing makeup. I say hi to him and he looks at me quizzically, “Do I know you? Have we met?”Ummmm yeah we met last night? had a conversation? I’m Jillian? “…Oooh! You’re Jillian. Your hair looks really nice.”HAHAHA he didn’t recognize me in makeup and with my hair down! Man that is the first time that’s ever happened to me. I mean I know hair and makeup adds two attractiveness points for me, but really, I barely wear makeup when I do, I mean I definitely don’t think it is that extreme of a change. It was kind of like that time the guy at the party looked at me and said, “I thought there were going to be attractive girls here.”
       The next morning Nancy, Katherine, Tessa and I journeyed to Morocco’s capital, Rabat. Morocco is definitely the most different country I have experienced to date, culturally, socially, just in every way really. It is a Muslim country that speaks predominantly French and Arabic, and maybe bits of Spanish and English here and there if you’re lucky. Well I speak zero French or Arabic and neither did any of the THREE BLONDES I was traveling with. I say they are blond not to say that they are dumb or anything like that, but to say that I am traveling in an Arabic country with four women, which already ensures that we will be harassed, but also that I am with three white blonde girls, which means we will be harassed by men and people looking to gouge us even more.
       It was a challenging atmosphere from the minute we got off the boat. The port we had docked in, Casablanca, was gigantic, and SAS did a bad job of telling us where to go. We just kind of bobbed along with the hundreds of other SASers trying to find the train station, which is where we are all headed. In the midst of hundreds of gigantic trucks, giant cranes, a cruise ship three times the size of ours, dirt and muck from a lot of rain, men yelling and whistling at us, “hello, hello, America, spice girls, Christina Aguilera, Shakira, skinny, sistah.”It was chaos. Just generally really dirty. SAS told us the train station was ten minutes away. Wrong. Just to get out of the port it is a solid twenty minute walk. After that, we have no freaking idea where to go because the train station is being renovated and is not where it used to be. Well great. So we stop by a bank and I take out Moroccan money since I don’t have any, the Dirham. It is about 8 and a half dirham to one American dollar. I would end up spending more money in Morocco than I did in Spain, but that is only because I had a prepaid trip in Spain and therefore all of my hotel and meals were included. At the bank I saw the wife of the Moroccan speaker I had eaten with, and she was extremely helpful to us, asking for directions in French and showing us how to get to the station.
       Once we got to the station, it was trouble once again. Everything was in Arabic or French, we couldn’t figure out which train went where, what was the arrival time or departure time. We finally just went up to the ticket counter and said, “one, Rabat.”The ticket cost about four dollars for an hour train ride. The train ride was fine, I slept for some of it. Katherine and Tessa go to Point Loma and we discussed why they hate the school and are transferring to Boston next year, and Nancy, who goes to USD too, talked about being from South Dakota and how much of a culture shock it is. But you know what’s really a culture shock? Morocco.
       We get off at Rabat and already like the atmosphere better. I had written down a few names of sights to see off of wikitravel. First we walked down the street to the souq, or marketplace. It was so…I honestly don’t even know the word to correctly describe what I’m thinking. Primitive. Crowded. Something I’ve only seen in movies. Remarkable. Intimidating. The market we visited was much more of a “local’s”marketplace than the one I would visit in Marrakech. It would be really hard to adequately describe the essence of the scene. Food in piles sitting on just a sack on the floor. Goat heads roasting, entire cow legs sitting out with flies all over them. Fish being gutted and descaled on a dirty wooden panel. Spices in huge piles. Sweet breads being sold with bees swarming all over them. Small alleyways with smarmy characters, the women in outfits from everything from something you would see in everyday Spain to fully covered with only their eyes showing. Men dressed in jeans and shirts to traditional robes and fez hats. We spent some time walking through and that was our first true taste of Moroccan culture. 
Next we set out to find a taxi to the Kasbah. We got to the Kasbah and weren’t quite sure how to get in…we didn’t want to offend anyone. We had been told not to take pictures near any policemen or military buildings and to be respectful of religious areas. So we kind of inched near the area and this guy sort of ushered us in, saying that it closed in an hour for prayers. So we are following this kind of sketchy guy in, but he speaks English really well so we are sticking with him. He starts giving us a tour, and we know we are going to have to pay, but our mistake was in not asking how much right up front. He showed us around to all the different areas. The Kasbah was beautiful. It is a community that has shifted religious meaning through the years, first Jewish, then Portuguese, and now Muslim. The walls are painted a bright blue on bottom and white on top, like half and half, kind of like traditional Grecian colors. The blue color was to keep mosquitoes away, because apparently they are deterred by blue. I dunno, I mean the guy could have been lying about everything he said, but he gave us a pretty solid tour and even would pick plants out and have us smell them and tell us what foods they are used in in Moroccan culture. I kept them and stuck them in my journal, lemon grass, germanium, and something else. The Kasbah overlooked the ocean, and the view was beautiful. He showed us all of the historical sites in the town. Then he charged us 220 dirham, or somewhere around 25 dollars. Definitely more than we would have paid, but that taught me the lesson of always being assertive about things such as that from then on.
At one point he asked us, “Are you Chinese? You take as many pictures as the Chinese do!”And you know what, our tour guide in Spain told us that too. A little bit racist. A little bit funny.
       From the Kasbah we took the fifteen minute walk over to the tower of Hassan II and the Mosoleum. I don’t know who this Hassan II character is but there are mosques and such for him all over the place. The tower was iconic and used to be part of a grand palace, the ruins of which still stand in the area. After seeing this area we were hungry and looking for something safe to eat. We stopped into a hotel but it was far too expensive so we caught a taxi back to the area around the train station and had a pizza haha. I stopped by the post office and got some stamps, then we caught a train back to Casablanca to get back for our dinner with a Moroccan family in time.
       All of the people doing dinners with families went into groups of four, five, six, seven, or nine. The four of us were the only group of four, and we got lucky beyond belief with the family we got. The wife picked us up and she was immediately sweet, and a good friend of the wife of the Moroccan speaker. She took us on a tour of the...