Morocco Adventures

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…

Well, its not quite the end as my title suggests, but it has come to that point where all of my American friends I made on the trip are leaving to go home and get their summer jobs. In fact, my closest friend Mac is probably boarding his plane in Casablanca as I type. But, this post isn’t about them leaving so much as about this last week I spent traveling with Mac through the north of Morocco. We did 5 cities in 4 days. It was a bit fast but a good sampling, and I think I’ve learned that in a lot of ways I prefer the north of Morocco to the south. Continue Reading »

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 »

Last weekend I took off to a little coastal city in the south of Morocco for the largest Gnawa music festival of the year. Although I had never heard of Gnawa before coming here (it is apparently a very popular form of African music) who can resist the a music festival where about half a million people pile into a quiet surfing town? Continue Reading »