Marrakech, Morocco: Day 6

Today begins lazily, on account of last night. My uncle's elementary school friend, Bertrand, and his wife drive down from Casablanca to eat lunch with us. Mariam's couscous is one of the best things I've ever tasted. Bertrand's wife is the most empty-headed person I've ever met, so the lunch is amusing as I try to stifle rude giggles. She asks me where the black people live in the US and talks about how she's read that everyone there is fat.

Once they leave, we take inventory of all the plates, cups, saucers, teapots, etc, etc of my uncle's hotel. My uncle claims that it's fine he wasn't able to sell it; he now has a present all ready to go for the marriages of my brother and me. I'm fine with that too.

This is not all of it

Then, off to the tourist activity of the day: le Jardin Majorelle. This is a huge garden and estate established by the French painter Louis Majorelle and then owned by fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent. The museum about the Berbers, the indigenous people of regions of Northern Africa, has excellent English translations and lots of cool jewelry and traditional clothing, but no pictures in the museum. Here are choice ones from the garden itself:

Marrakech, Morocco: Day 5

In the morning, we go to two museums: la Palais Bahia and another one whose name my uncle can't ever remember. He tells me to look it up on the internet, but I really don't have anything to go off of so apologies; it will remain a mystery. In any case, the two museums resembled each other in that they were both full of unbelievably intricate, stunning architecture and lots of sun burnt tourists.

In the afternoon, after packing a metal crate full of random fragile things, we go back to the market to re-buy supplies. No one gives me presents this time, but what's even neater is that I now feel like a familiar face. I'm also a little more brave about taking pictures.

Spices, in bulk

If you say that you want a kilo of tomatoes, they use this scale with pre-set weights to give you the right amount. Super hi-tek; this means these vendors could give you the right amount of fruits or vegetables even if you were on the moon!

For dinner, we've been invited to Thierry's house, where he lives with his "friend" Sebastien. It's going to be a French style dinner, which means we're expected to arrive around 20h30. I spend the late afternoon roaming around the house feeling unbelievably hungry. I've finished my book and stupidly only brought one, so the only thing to distract me is Fruit Ninja and taking pictures of my sunglasses. Finally, 20h rolls around and we get ready to leave. I of course forget my camera, and turns out there's a beautiful sunset waiting for us on Thierry and Sebastien's balcony.

Hipsterified product of my sunglasses photo-shoot. I made the collage by arranging my four photos together on the desktop and then screenshotting them all together ;)

Dinner is delicious but I find the conversation and company a little bit perturbing. First of all, I automatically feel super shy when around French people I don't know. My accent becomes more pronounced, my frequent grammatical mistakes become more frequent, and I suddenly feel very American. It doesn't help that Thierry launches into a rather serious rant about his impressions of the USA, none of which are very positive. The word "extravagant" must be mentioned at least three or four times. I don't have much to say besides the fact that the US is a big country, a lot of which I know very little about, but in my personal experience a lot of the stereotypes he cites aren't very accurate. I think the language barrier prevents me from delivering a solid defense. Sebastien, who I haven't met before, is less controversial and pleasant to hang around with. Both smoke five or six cigarettes during the course of the evening. 

We arrive back to the house much later than our normal bed time. While in the bathroom getting ready for bed, I close one of the windows and feel a sudden thud of extra weight on the back of my pajama top. I swivel my neck around in surprise, and there's a giant cockroach just sort of hanging out there. Needless to say, a frantic, hectic wiggle ensues to get it off. I catch myself wiggling in the mirror and have to start laughing, because I look absolutely ridiculous flailing my arms around in impulsive desperation. At all the frats next school year I'm launching a new dance craze, I've decided, called the "cockroach wiggle." So that is how I learn that I'm very scared of cockroaches. I'm not really scared of spiders or snakes or other normal things like that. But this: *shudder*

Marrakech, Morocco: Day 4

By day four, I sense that my life in Morocco is settling down into routine. Every day begins to blend into the next. 9h for breakfast. 12h30 for lunch. Swim and read until 15h30. 19h30 for dinner. 22h sleep. Half the day is dedicated to packing, and the other half to tourism.

Today, it's tourism in the morning. We do a far amount of walking in the old walled city, la Medina, before arriving at a riad, owned by one of my uncle's friends, under construction in the traditional manner. Right before arriving at the door, a group of kids cluster around us, gawking, and ask "Comment tu t'appelles?" When I answer, they all repeat my name and start to giggle. This also happened on the way back, only 10 minutes later. Inside the riad, the detail is astounding. Each tile decorating the pillars is chipped into form by hand. When we visit, however, most of the workers are napping on mattresses.

After a little bit more meandering, we then happen seemingly coincidentally on Ben Youssef Madrasa, an ancient Koranic school. My uncle jokes that this was the Stanford of the 14th century. It's mind- boggling how much history this place has seen, and despite all the tourists there's a sacred ambiance to it. The "dorm rooms" are cubicle sized, but their windows look out from the second floor onto the beautiful first. There, the terrace is massive, with a fountain in the middle and tiled floors and walls.

The Musee de Marrakech is next, but by this time it's too hot for me to appreciate the modern art that mixes with the Moroccan artifacts like swords and teapots. My uncle sits in a chair and waits for me to look through the exhibits. Finally, we also go back to souks and look around some more. I feel more comfortable than yesterday already.

In the afternoon, after lunch, I notice that trying to tan and also being irrationally paranoid about skin cancer is not an awesome combination. I'm too reasonable to make any improvement on my translucence.

Before dinner we go to a huge mall, complete with a Pizza Hut and a Dominos right across from each other, to buy the groceries that Mariam had requested. I buy a Twice bar AND a Mars bar. We forgot to buy bread, and I feel very proud of myself as I run back to go retrieve some.

Instead of struggling to intersperse the relevant photos in my day's summary, I'll just post them below. The first is the new riad, the next three are la Madrasa, the next two are parts of la Medina, and the last is my favorite photo I took in Morocco :)

Marrakech, Morocco: Day 3

Today we begin work. My uncle is moving from his house in Morocco, so the (official) reason I'm here is to help him pack all the remaining stuff up in boxes. We sort through my grandma's things first and find, among other surprising things, a butterfly knife the size of my thumb. I also find a Moroccan peasant hat I take a liking to, and I wear it for the entirety of the trip. To the left and the right, I exemplify the only two expressions I ever have in photographs. 

After lunch and the nap/swimming/reading period, we go to the ultra modern train station, which is basically like a mall, to eat "une p'tite glace." The KFC (which we would go to for lunch on Day 8 , partly as a joke) and the MacDonald's are packed with happy looking people. I receive my first batch of dirhams from the ATM and feel rich. 10 dirhams is about 1 dollar, but when you're holding 200 dirham bills, you feel awesome because of the zeros. 

Later on, we drive (I'm getting used to the roads by now) to the artisan ensemble and look at beautiful Moroccan knick knacks without buying anything. It's quiet and empty. We then go directly to the souks, the traditional markets that meander through a long labyrinth of alleyways. These are anything but quiet and empty: the souks are bustling and full of strong smells and colors. Vendors call to me insistently. Hello! Hello! HELLO! If I smile at them, they think I want to buy something. They smell the weakness and follow me a ways through the souk talking about how great their product is. At first this intimidates me, but I learn how to look straight ahead and say no forcibly enough to seem like I mean to. We would go to the souks three more times, and I would buy lots of things but let  Dominique do the hard core, a la Marocaine price bargaining. The souks end up being my favorite part of Marrakech. I think they're really most symbolic of the vibrancy of the Marocain culture. Some souks are  more touristy than others, but in any case there's a healthy mix of Europeans, savvy locals, and the whizzing passing scooter that go by. Unfortunately, I find taking pictures in the souks to be frustrating due to the lighting situations and the fact that I'm worried people will notice I've taken a picture of them. Oftentimes if you try to take a picture of someone, they'll ask you for money and I don't want to get into any sticky situations so I try to be sneaky. Still, I end up taking pictures almost exclusively of buildings, inanimate objects, and cats because none of these things mind. I don't think I have the right personality to be a good photographer. 


 In one souk, on a different day, a 20-something Moroccan walks by and starts talking to my uncle. I'm immediately hesitant about what he has to say, thinking he's a persistant vendor. But turns out he's just walking in our direction, and tells my uncle "She is very pretty. How much are you selling her? I'll offer a million camels." My uncle laughed and said I wasn't for sale. Although this was kind of strange it, was also strangely flattering. 

Unrelated, but another angle of my rose. Low-grade obsessed.

Marrakech, Morocco: Day 2

My rose

Fruit at the market

We wake up at 9 and are greeted with a breakfast prepared by Mariam, my uncle's cook and maid. My historical conscience makes me feel uneasy around these sorts of people, and although Mariam is very nice and not much older than me, I'm a little bit awkward the whole week when talking with her. The only things I ever really found out about her are that she lives in the little village near my uncle and that she loves "Vache Qui Rit," a toothpaste-tasting cheese that's super popular in Morocco. In any case, she spoils us with Moroccan crepes for breakfast and a different but equally delicious lunch everyday.

In the morning, we go to buy provisions for the week at the market. All the vendors shake my hand, chat with Dominique, and ask about my grandmother. I leave each booth with a little present: a melon, a carton of raspberries, a banana, a sardine, a rose. This makes me very happy, and I start to get an idea for the warmth and generosity of the Moroccan people.

 <--- my room before it got messy

where we ate lunch every day ---------->

After lunch, my uncle takes a nap until 3:30 and I sample the pool and bring my book. It's so hot that you don't need a towel to dry off. We then go to the old walled city, la Medina (photos to come in later days), to visit a riad. A riad is like a mini traditional Moroccan hotel. There's a central patio, a terrass, and five or six rooms on the first and second floor. My uncle's friend Thierry shows us around and we have a coffee with him. I'll be seeing more of him later on in my trip.

COFFEE

Marrakech, Morocco: Day 1

Early in the morning we drive from L'Artaudie to the airport in Lyon, just about 2 hours away. I'm not used to the friendly coziness of a small airport, but it is refreshing. After saying goodbye to my mother at the train station, my uncle Dominique and I head through the itty-bitty security checkpoint and on towards the gate. Waiting for the plane, I read over with great amusement an idiotic advertisement for a museum exhibit. It's in pseudo-English: "There is another way of looking at things language allows us to create new thoughts to interact with others to change in every moment of our lives everywhere in the real world the human longing for freedom ..." yadeeyadee. I shake my head at the lack of punctuation.

The flight itself is uneventful and full of Radiohead.

When we touch down in Marrakech, I brace myself for the heat that I know is waiting outside the door. Sure enough, the runway is an oven, especially compared to the 8 degrees C that we had left from. But it isn't as bad as I had anticipated. The heat is very dry, so it doesn't stick to you and the air doesn't feel heavy. 

The car ride home is certainly an adventure. I had not anticipated that Marrakech would be such a city and therefore possess a correspondingly messy traffic situation. As the car driven by one of the employees from my uncle's house careens through the streets and the roundabouts, at all moments I feel that an accident was imminent. There is such a quantity of taxis, cars, scooters, and little motorcycles rushing about in a virtually lawless brawl that I'm not sure how anyone manages to be brave enough to drive. Scooters are the worst. A man with huge packages of goods piled on the back of his vehicle zig zags through traffic with as much bravado as the family of three that has all squished on to one little motorcycle for a trip to the grocery store. 

I notice how many veiled women there are. Maybe 75% of women I encounter are veiled, and of those 10% are completely veiled in black with just a small slit to be able to see. Still others wear American style clothing complete with high heels and glamorous sunglasses. But despite the heat, only the dorkily sun-burned tourists are wearing anything without sleeves or shorter than knee length. 

We finally make it (in one piece) to my uncle's neighborhood in the palm grove, La Palmeraie, and I breath a sigh of relief. It's an area with palm trees as far as the eyes can see, dotted with huge villas, resorts, and golf courses. Amidst the luxury, we pass a poor village with a football field right next to a spigot where children meet and haul water back to their hut-like houses. We would pass by this village on the way to my uncle's house every day, and it's a place I would come to think a lot about during my trip. 

My uncle's neighborhood

Morocco

I'm back from a ten day trip in Morocco, which means that I now have functioning internet again. This is both a great thing--I can write to all my hundreds of loyal blog followers about my trip--and a horrible thing--I sensed that I was making great progress fighting my facebook addiction, but I will now most certainly fall into a relapse.

As I sort through my photos and thoughts, I'm thinking that what would make most sense is to cover the trip day by day, an entry for each day with my corresponding best photos and commentary. If I do this right, I'm hoping the ten days will read succinctly and cohesively, like a story. :)

Here's a first picture. The landing in Marrakech, Morocco, with ice crystals on the outside of the window making things look grainy. The land is very dry right now because it's been hot and hasn't rained in months. At this point, I had no clue what I was getting myself into....
[to be dramatically continued]