Prince A Boo Boo

2/6/09
15:15

I left out some key happenings in Morocco, I realized.

While perusing the souks, us ladies were called various names such as: Skinny, Sister or Hermana, America, Christina Aguilera, Shakira, and my personal favorite Spice Girls. Also, on our big souk trip ten of us gathered for lunch at a nice restaurant in the middle of the marketplace called Argana. It immediately made me think of, “I’m from Ghana.” I miss my cabin girls.

On our last day, we woke up early at our B&B after a late night of hookah barring, hotel barring with other SASers, and pillow talk in the honeymoon suite between me and Jill. Jill and I, the newly weds, had one of the best conversations I have had in a while. Her and I have always been like this (insert gesture Chandler makes on that one Friends ep when he’s drunk and Rachel guesses what he’s thinking). 

After our carb and dairy overload (3 different types of bread, yogurt, brie, and an assortment spreads) we headed off to the train station. Oh I forgot, Jill, Win (new friend with strong east coast accent) toasted to Marrakech with our mint tea….god I love that tea. I’m on the patch to get over my addiction. Too hard to go cold turkey. Also Win thought Marrakech was actually Amarrakech because we had all been referring to it as such. “Amarrekech, f*** yeah!!!” You know? Kind of like “America, f*** yeah!” Oh ignorant and gullible Win, God love him.

This train ride I had a first class ticket, so I was guaranteed a spot. It was a fun ride home. Lots of laughs. Greg, Lea, Caroline, Jill and Stacey were all in my compartment. We were getting a bit bored so we decided to play a game. Greg suggested Geography, a very boring game that I would not recommend in the future. Basically someone says a continent, country, state, or city and the next person has to say one of the latter that starts with the last letter of the name given. Example: Marrakech, Hawaii
Fun, huh? So we start this stupid game and it was my turn and I think I said Alabama or something and Stacey replies, “…airplanes.” I died. She obviously wasn’t listening to the rules. And it is a pretty complex game. We busted her chops a lot for that remark.

Upon our arrival back in Casablanca everyone decided to go the Hassan II Mosque, which is the second largest mosque in the world (I think.) It was incredibly windy because the mosque is erected over water and the sea was quite rough. Walking against the wind was a chore. A fun chore. I felt just like Helen Hunt in Twister. Not really, but do you remember that movie? The mosque was beautiful. Every inch is intricately detailed with tile mosaics or wood carvings or Arabic writings. Exquisite. I took a tour with some others and there is an entire hammam (bathing area) built solely for tourists to view. 

Seeing as the mosque caters to tourists, Jill and I expected the pamphlet to be proofread a bit better. But it seemed as if they just took the French version and typed it into freetranslations.com and copy pasted. Let me give you an example:

The work of the Moucharabieh limiting these mezzanines is of a very high fineness.

Is that even English? We had a good laugh over that, being the snobby American writers we are.

After, 6 of us decided to go to Rick’s Café, from the movie “Casablanca.” It was closed. Total bummer. So we just walked back to the ship. The waves last night were nuts. A girl broke her finger, one got a concussion, a “code blue”was announced over the loud speaker. I don’t know what code blue is but I think it was a head injury. After the big waves died down a bit, I went to Jill and Caroline’s room and watched Aladdin. Great movie. Classic.

I had class today and good lord it was hard. Pretty much everyone is either seasick or actually sick. My roomie, Kendra, was really seasick. Caroline threw up twice. I have a head cold. Awesome. It was hard to stay awake in Global Studies. I really wish they would do a better job with that class. I had such high hopes for it. I think it should be more about current events and culture in the countries we are visiting rather than the climate and ancient history. I do recognize that the history of these countries is important but I think it would be more useful to have knowledge of present goings-on since…well…we’re in the present.

I’ve been talking and thinking a lot about mi familia et mes amies (Spanish and French, how do you like that?) I think about how it would be to travel to these places with all of you. I think about Nate bartering. I think about Dad talking to taxi drivers. I look at scarves and pottery and am reminded of Mom. I think about what Katie would order at a restaurant. I think of how big Liv is getting and wonder if the t-shirt I bought her will fit. I think about going to Guatemala and how Clare was just there. I think about California and how all my friends, new and old, will be there and not me. You are constantly with me. You are in my dreams and stories. Miss you.