Sending everyone a hello from Fez, Morocco! It is the vacances d'hiver in France currently, so I have (another) two week break. For this time off, I decided to run across the ocean to the lovely Morocco with two other assistants from the Poitiers region, Laurel and Calla. I studied abroad in Rabat during the summer of 2012, so this trip has a little bit of a feeling of coming home for me. The smells, the food, the warmth of people we have met, it all makes me smile fondly remembering my last time here.
We have just finished up a fun two days in Fez. As any good visitor to Fez should do, we got a little lost in the medina yesterday morning. With beautiful crafts around every corner and delicious spices wafting across the alleyways, we were perfectly content just walking around. In the afternoon we took a walk through the Jewish Quarter and then to the Royal Palace. To Americans the idea of a 'royal palace' has such a tone of fantasy, but for people here in Morocco it is something simply walk past every day! Today we hired a tour guide, who turned out to be a fantastically talkative Moroccan man named Ali. He took us around to see some major sites in the medina. Due to the vast expanse of the Fez medina, a very popular thing for tourists to do is drive up to a hill to the site of some tombs outside the city to take panoramic pictures of the area. Ali however knew a hill just outside the medina where if we climbed up a little we could take equally fantastic pictures. And of course, there were donkeys grazing along this hill, and men working with the renown leather that is produced in Fez. By the end of our day, Ali had given us all Moroccan nicknames, and we were happy to have had such a fun, knowledgeable tour guide to show us the medina. After relaxing a little this evening, Laurel and I went back out to do some more shopping and get tea in the medina. We found several nice purchases, and enjoyed tea while chatting with a waiter who apparently remembered me slipping around the main gate, Bab Bejloud, in my Toms yesterday during the unexpected rain. Everyone proclaimed to us, "You are welcome here in Morocco!" It is wonderful to be back. Next stop is Marrakesh-inshallah!
We have just finished up a fun two days in Fez. As any good visitor to Fez should do, we got a little lost in the medina yesterday morning. With beautiful crafts around every corner and delicious spices wafting across the alleyways, we were perfectly content just walking around. In the afternoon we took a walk through the Jewish Quarter and then to the Royal Palace. To Americans the idea of a 'royal palace' has such a tone of fantasy, but for people here in Morocco it is something simply walk past every day! Today we hired a tour guide, who turned out to be a fantastically talkative Moroccan man named Ali. He took us around to see some major sites in the medina. Due to the vast expanse of the Fez medina, a very popular thing for tourists to do is drive up to a hill to the site of some tombs outside the city to take panoramic pictures of the area. Ali however knew a hill just outside the medina where if we climbed up a little we could take equally fantastic pictures. And of course, there were donkeys grazing along this hill, and men working with the renown leather that is produced in Fez. By the end of our day, Ali had given us all Moroccan nicknames, and we were happy to have had such a fun, knowledgeable tour guide to show us the medina. After relaxing a little this evening, Laurel and I went back out to do some more shopping and get tea in the medina. We found several nice purchases, and enjoyed tea while chatting with a waiter who apparently remembered me slipping around the main gate, Bab Bejloud, in my Toms yesterday during the unexpected rain. Everyone proclaimed to us, "You are welcome here in Morocco!" It is wonderful to be back. Next stop is Marrakesh-inshallah!