Morocco Adventures

Well, I know its been AGES since Ive posted on the blog, but I figured since I added some new photos I might as well write something to go along with it. In a few days Ill be heading over to France to meet the parents, but not after spending a couple days couchsurfing in Marseille and Lyon. Ill be sure to take photos and maybe even write a bit about it…

So now, for Ramadan…. Well for those of you that dont know, Ramadan is the Islamic month of fasting. It apparently takes places in the 9th month but because traditionally the Arabic culture followed a different calendar, Ramadan appears to happen at different times of the year and in different seasons. More info can be found here. Continue Reading »

http://thetravelersnotebook.com/photography-q-a/10-words-and-phrases-we-never-want-to-see-in-travel-writing-again/

I wont replicate the article here, just click above to read it. Its a hilarious article about words people really ought to eschew when recounting their adventures. I must say, if I have used any of these words in the past I apologize! I am now removing them from my writing vocabulary

This also reminds me of something of an inside joke my family and I have about a few words: “cute” and “amazing”. Neither of these words are particularly descriptive and are just replacement words for our lazy minds. Cute represents some hazy notion of interest between “i could care less” and “possibly adorable”. Its the default fallback word we use to lie to our friends and family. “Isnt my baby adorable?” “Ya, sure, it’s cute…” As for amazing, I just received an email from paypal describing the “amazing back to school deals”, yet none of these deals actually bewildered or even astonished me. Like the article says about “breathtaking” : “Was your breath literally taken away by the beauty of that sunset? Probably not, so this word is overkill. Unless you’re blue in the face and suffering from awe-induced oxygen deprivation, look for another word.”

So a few nights ago I had horse meat for dinner. Im not sure if you’ve ever tried this, but it is REALLY good! Surprisingly so. I bit into it expecting something quite the opposite but I must say I think I prefer it to cow.

Also, I went to the main beach yesterday for a swim and they have there a stage for different sorts of promotional activities (sponsored by Maroc Telecom undoubtedly, they seem to own everything here) and saw something typical and hilarious. This is something of an inside joke with those who have been to Morocco and seen the machismo atmosphere and have seen the men doing pushups at the beach in the sand for no apparent reason. Anyway, one of the promotional activities was definitely a pushup contest between about 10 guys. Unfortunately I was by myself at the time so I am sharing it now hoping some of you are chuckling on the other side with me…

Moroccans LOVE to talk about the weather. I mean, I know we do too, but its almost comical the number of times a day i say the phrase ‘ljoe sxoon bzef!’ (the weather is really hot!).

Anyway, just a couple of random thoughts…

So I’ve recently moved out of my “kinda-homestay” through the Qalam Center (I was staying with 2 of the teachers there) and into Ali’s house in the heart of the old medina, right near Bab LHad (main gate). I have a number of reasons for doing so: Continue Reading »

Just a quick post about sugar in Morocco. I am fairly certain that enough if we, in the US, used sugar in place of high fructose corn syrup and all made a concerted effort to double our sugar intake each year, we’d still be dwarfed by the Moroccan annual sugar consumption. No joke. Continue Reading »

Hey guys, attention – new hard link on the top of the site will show you the photo stream using the flickr widget. Snapfishes limitations are annoying and so ill be moving to flickr from here on out. Be sure to check the photos often incase I make updates.