Les vacances

D and I just returned from a trip to Morocco and Spain, and here's what how it went. This, without a doubt, will become extremely verbose, so I may have to break this into a several posts. Be patient. And enjoy the photos.

Day One: We woke up at 4a to catch two nightbusses in Paris to get to Porte Maillot to catch the 5:45a bus that would take us to Paris Beauvais airport. The airport is a very small one, about an hour and a half northwest of actual Paris. From there we had our Ryanair flight to Barcelona, and then another Ryanair to Fes, Morocco. After about 12 hours of travelling, we finally reached the tiny Fes Siad Airport around 2p Moroccan time. The airport was soooo small - I should have taken a picture but we didn't, so just imagine a building about the size of an average DMV office. One door for entering passengers, and one more for leaving. A passport control was set up to welcome travellers, and for the first time ever, my passport was scrutinized and my information was entered into a computer. Leave it to the least developed country I've ever visited to hold the most developed passport control. Anyhow, they stamped a Morocco entry stamp along with a long number onto my passport and sent us on our way.

After changing our money to a wonderfully low exchange rate of 11 dirhams to a euro, we stepped outside into the sun and immediately were accosted by a taxi driver. I expected the hounding, but was pleasantly surprised when, after we refused his offer, he left us alone really quickly. Instead, we took a city bus through the outskirts of Fes to downtown. I'm sure the countryside of Morocco probably resembles the countryside in Mexico, but having never travelled to anywhere but Europe and Canada, this was my first real foray into a much poorer region. The roads and architecture were almost exactly as I expected (thanks to my addiction to the Amazing Race) - the bus stops and little homes were very dilapidated, and lots of people were roaming around, seemingly, randomly.

Inside the actual city is much more modern of course, but still overwhelming as the majority of signs are in Arabic only, and depending on where you stand, people were always trying to sell you something. As soon as we stepped off the bus, a few men tried to pick the tourists (a very easy task) and offer their guide services to the hotels, but we decided to follow a British group that happened to be going to our same hotel. They picked up a gregarious young Moroccan kid who showed them the way for free. (The picture below is when a baker on the side of the street pulled me down to see the underground oven. He completely set up this photo op, yelling "tiens!" *hold!* The smile on my face is hiding the fact that I just about burnt off my fingertips from holding the bread for a second...it was HOT!)

Some people think tourists stand out in France, but I have to say you ain't seen nothin' if you haven't experienced a place like Morocco. Even if we knew the city backwards and forwards and could play ourselves off like we owned the place, there was NO hiding. Anybody with fairer skin was immediately regarded as different, and in most cases, obviously not Moroccan. It was warmer during our stay - probably around 75 degreees Fahrenheit - but I kept on a jacket everytime we were out, just in case we happened to go someplace a bit more traditional. Morocco, in general, is actually a fairly secular and Western-y country for a developing Muslim nation, so I never felt too scandalous, but I figured I wanted to try to limit the attention. However, as a young white woman in more Western clothing, in a country where probably 80% of people outside are men, we could tell I was constantly being stared at. I never really felt unsafe, but I was glad to have D with me - though I did consider a few times that maybe we should have worn some faux wedding rings or something to further avoid scandal. Still, it didn't matter I don't think. Most Moroccans we came in contact with were extremely welcoming and kind. (To the right is a zealous kid who jumped into our picture of a gate to a mosque in the medina.)

After we reached our hotel, we kind of collapsed in mental exhaustion. I don't think I've ever had culture shock the way I got it from my first few hours in Morocco. An hour or so later, we gathered the courage to venture out again and check out the train station, which was BEAUTIFUL. Then we walked around the 'ville nouvelle' looking for a place to eat dinner. We found a few markets to buy cheaper lunch items, which also was a bit of a shock to me, b/c they all basically resembled small garages. The floor was cement, and the shelving was your basic wood shelving. Prices were posted, handwritten on small index card type of paper. We walked up and down a main road outside our hotel, and I have to admit, were a bit intimidated by a. the lack of people eating and b. the amount of men drinking in sidewalk cafes, staring out at the roads (a la the French style) at us walking. The intimidation won out and we decided to minimize the shock by eating at the hotel restaurant.

The restaurant itself turned out to be a bit of a shock too, mostly because we hadn't realized later that our phones had not adjusted to the time change and we couldn't figure out why no one was eating at what we thought was 8p. We waited a bit til people arrived, and then tried a bit of Moroccan cuisine, albeit at the hotel. D had the chicken tagine (ew) and I tried some lamb (pretty good). I was still a bit overwhelmed b/c the dining room was full of ONLY men, but then another couple came in, so at least I had another female partner in crime. I know I sound a bit...closed minded?...when I talk about being so surrounded by men, but it really was a strange feeling. You should try it.

Morocco's national language is Arabic, however they also speak French, so I was able to somewhat communicate with them in French. The man who served us dinner though heard our accent and asked where we came from - we told him honestly that we were Americans, and he grinned and said "Big welcome." I thought it was nice. But after that, from some advice we had received before we left, we decided to become Canadian, and told everyone we were from Vancouver. :-)

Day Two: We woke up somewhat early and asked the front desk where we could find the Tourist Office. We wanted to visit the old medina - we had heard that it's impossible to navigate by ourselves and that you definitely want an 'official guide.' The front desk responded that it was "just straight down this road, ten minutes" so we figured it would be easy enough to find. Fifteen minutes later, we had no clue where we were. I asked a few taxis to take us; one didn't know what I was talking about, the next said it was only a few minutes by foot and we didn't need a taxi. So we set off again, but fifteen minutes later, we had no clue where we were again. Finally we found this street, Avenue Hassan, which was beautiful, but still not what we were looking for. We did see a group of four white guys, so we followed them to the medina.

At the entrance, there was a beautiful palace, in front of which we saw a threesome of French guys with a very friendly Moroccan 'guide.' We decided we wanted a guide like him, and again asked the taxis to take us to the tourist office. Again, no one knew what I was talking about. So, defeated, we kept on to the entrance of the small streets of the old medina. Here, as we stand out horrendously, a young guy asked us if we wanted an 'official guide.' Again, we felt incredibly defeated, and even though we knew the chances of this guy's guide being 'official' were as likely as us winning the lottery, we conceded.

Our guide was a young guy, maybe 25 or 26, and navigated the confusing streets very well. I don't really have any idea what we were looking at half the time, but it still was amazing to be deep inside the walls of the medina and walking through streets like this. At first, we followed him rather carefully, and I think both of us were keeping one eye on him and another on the nearest escape route at any given moment. We had a bit of a scare when he took us to this plaza, and still walking a few feet ahead of us, veered off the right and started to walk back the way we had come. He called to us that he "would meet up with us," which was confusing as we had no idea where we were supposed to continue walking. This is a moment where the movies and the scenes I saw in Bourne Ultimatum started making my imagination run wild, though the back of my mind was trying to comprehend why a Moroccan guy would want to hurt two innocent Canadians! What did we ever do to anyone except create a silly sport like hockey eh?!?! Anyway, jokes aside, it was a little nerveracking, and we did consider literally running the heck out of there. He returned about 5 minutes later, with some vague excuse about searching for a taxi, and we decided to trust him, though now I'd say we were definitely ready at any moment for a frantic escape.

He took us into a casbah, where he seemed to know everyone. Then we grabbed a taxi to a pottery place outside of the medina, which was amazing because we saw them working and carefully sculpting and hammering out mosaics for all their pottery items. At the shop, we faced the least amount of sales pressure we would face (though we didn't know it at the time), and I bought a few pieces. After that we returned to the medina and saw a traditional Moroccan house.

We then were transferred to an older Moroccan man who took us to see the tanneries (see next picture below), where they dye and fabricate leather products. The smell of the place was a bit much, but again it was cool to see so much done by hand. On the terrace overlooking the workers, a shopowner came to us and answered a few questions, then asked if we'd like to look in his shop. We told him, sure we'll look.

BIG MISTAKE! Once there, he began inundating us with prices and leather qualities of his handicrafts. We repeatedly told him we didn't want to buy anything, and he responded by showing us a different type of product. He finally berated us enough that we considered buying a pair of leather slippers ("they last 100,000 kilometers, no problem!") When we tried to explain that we didn't have the money, he offered to come to our hotel. When we didn't give him the name of our hotel, he started becoming irate, telling us that we're bad people to be travelling in Morocco and not supporting the workers. He told us he didn't want our money ("it's no good to me") and that he wanted us to buy a product. As stubborn as I am, I was not going to be guilted into buying something from this guy. I told Devon that we should just go, and the shopowner frantically yelled at Devon to stay ("Because she says go, you go?!?!") This only infuriated me more, and I turned to leave. The shopowner followed us out, mumbling intentionally audibly that he wanted his business card back and that he was going to save it for "the French who will buy things with their money." Then, of course, as we were on our way out, a random big Moroccan guy came out of nowhere and told us we needed to pay since we took pictures. (If this had been the US I so could have sued for false advertising!!!) So we gave them some money (about 40 dirhams, or a little less than 4€, which now I think was a grossly over-pay, but I just wanted to leave then.)

This incident really shook us up because until then we hadn't felt all that intimidated, even by our sketchy tour guide. We told our guide that we were done, but of course, we had no idea where we were, so we were taken to two more shops - a silk one and a rug one. I bought silk, from a pressuring but pleasant owner who let me bargain the price, and then we were even able to walk out of the rug shop without buying anything (though, they did try to persuade us into making a purchase, but let us go peacefully, even wishing us a "big welcome.") My faith was restored in the pushy but welcoming Moroccans, although I definitely stayed on a resilient lookout for more overwhelmingly unpleasant shopowners.

After getting swindled out of more money because our tour guide "didn't have" the change, we took a taxi back to the ville nouvelle and collapsed in our hotel room from mental exhaustion. I believe this was the night where we gladly welcomed the TV in our room, and watched both Paycheck and 28 Days. We had also discovered a pizzeria and bought a couple of cheap pizzas from another pleasantly helpful Moroccan, and found a little market with Coke and Sprite, and bought those from YET ANOTHER pleasantly nice Moroccan. I know this is probably extremely "American" of us to do, but our day was intense and we needed a break.

As do I now. And I'm only on Day 2. Lordy. More later.

Just missed!

Last night around 12:30a I received a text message from an English teacher telling me that she was having a test in her class and that I didn't need to come in. Since on Thursday I only have that class at 10:30 and another one at 2, I was very happy to sleep in. However, it's not fun knowing that I then have to commute for 3 1/2 hours just to work for one. But I'll take it.

When D and I first got to Paris, we had that whole runaround when we missed our Chicago-Paris flight by minutes. I think that was an omen as I continuously seem to miss my transportation by a matter of minutes.

Today, on my afternoon of one hour of work, was no exception. At the end of my one class, the girls stayed around just to finish up our conversation, and being the nice person you all know me to be, I complied. Then, knowing the bus came at 3:04 to take me to the train station and it was 3:01, I tried to power walk my way through the crowded halls. Not an easy task in any high school, but made even the more difficult while trying to dodge the bisous and the 'bahhh oui's'from every direction. I made it to the street with the bus stop at 3:05, just in time to see the bus pulling out from the stop. So, so much for that. I'll walk.

I reached the train station at 3:20, and saw my train on the middle platform, due for a 3:21 departure. I ran down the stairs, under the platform, and made my way about halfway up the other stairs when I heard the door alarm sound and the train departing. So, so much for that.

I went back inside the station as there were no screens on the platform displaying subsequent train times. To see the right screens, I had to leave through the little turnstile. Once out, I saw that the next RER to Paris was "supprimé"d. So, in actuality, the next train to Paris was a good 27 minutes wait. And, I had to wait in the station another 10 minutes as my transport pass had been "déjà validé" and I couldn't get back through the doors of death.

Sidenote: On the train to Paris, we stopped on the tracks at a station for 11 minutes due to an unspecified "incident technique."

Once I got to my metro stop in Paris, I discovered that I had just missed the 13 and now had to wait 8 minutes for the next. While this is a rather long waiting period for rush hour on an already overcrowded metro line, of course when the train actually arrived we were stuffed in there like cattle.

Then, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and my total came to 12,33. If you've ever used the euro currency, you probably try as much as I do to lessen the amount of coins you carry by paying with exact change. Guess how much I had. Just guess.

20,32.

This one hour of work ended up costing me 4 1/2 hours of nerve wracking train commuting and a heavy pocket full of euro change. Those four girls in my one class better have learned something from me!

Le Bureau

I came across some clips of Le Bureau, which is the French version of The Office. I thought I'd share one clip with you, as it is just so.....French. Here is the original (yes, the British, not American):



As you may or may not know, the American version recreated this scene almost verbatim. So did the French, only they decided against jello and instead used a different food item. I'm sorry I don't have a translation or subtitles for the clip, but all you really need to know is that the dialogue is seriously almost the same.



FROMAGE!! (cheese!) So French.

Voyage à la région haute normandie

Yesterday, D and I day-tripped a few hours west of Paris. First stop was Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake here:
Behind this was a really cool Japanese-looking church, of which I didn't get a good enough picture to post. But it was really cool, because usually all the churches in western Europe look the exact same. We also checked out a small Joan of Arc museum, located in a cold dungeon close to the site she was burnt. Of course, the little musée was completely outfitted with numerous scenes of the requisite eerie wax figures used throughout the entirety of European museum life. So I hurried through there, and am still unclear about the whole story of Joan of Arc. Oh well.

We also found a little playground secluded by huge green trees next to the Musée des Beaux Arts, so of course I had to stop off there. I left my backpack on the bench and was up checking out the playground, and saw another guy come into the area, so, completely oblivious to the implications, just commented nonchalantly to D that someone else was there. D silently turned and walked straight the bench where I had left my backpack, and curious as to why he was such a poor sport and had left me enjoying the playground by myself, I followed him. It was then that D explained that the guy was holding a beer and was walking toward my bag, then stopped when D reached it first and walked away. It was also then that I realized what an idiot I was. This was the first time I've ever had a little theft scare in the whole of my travels. Hopefully I won't be that oblivious again, and luckily D had the great sense to keep an eye on my bag, or I would have been out my apartment keys, my Navigo, both of our passports, and the kicker, our lunch for the day!

We wandered around the city in the frigid fog for a few hours, then caught a train another hour west to Le Havre. We found another cool church - this modern church was basically a hollowed out tower, probably forty stories high, and the entire walls were covered in stained glass. It was really beautiful, but of course my camera allowed me no decent pictures to post. After that, we walked down to the coast, as this was the main reason for our excursion:
La plage, of course! Nevermind the awkward plethora of odd-shaped rocks and the mid 40's temperatures, it was so refreshing to get to the edge of the country and listen to the waves. In case you desire an image of the sunset without my silly face obstructing, here's another shot:

Oops.

So I disappeared off the face of the blog-planet for over a month. Apologies.

Since my last post, I went to Disneyland Paris, went to Strasbourg, and discovered Parisian Christmas. I also helped a good friend (yes, I do occasionally stray from my solitary life with D) to scurry around Paris and do everything she wanted to do all at once before she quit France and returned for good to Boston. The talk of December for R was a Parisian discotheque with our Italian and Indian friends. After braving the freezing cold and then climbing five flights of stairs to meet at R's apt before, I don't think it can surprise anyone that all four of us sheepishly admitted that the allure of cookies and wine in a Parisian apartment instead of flashing lights, awkward dancing, and a 20€ cover charge was too much to stand.

So the discotheque never happened. I did have my lost-Sara moment that evening though, as N and I took the same night bus to place de la concorde, at which point I was supposed to connect to a different one. I couldn't find it though, and ended up walking along the Champs Elysees at 3:30 am desperately seeking a cab. It was actually really cool - still plenty of people around so as to feel safe, but comparatively deserted. The Eiffel Tower was completely dark save a red light at the top for the planes to see.

Returned home to Colorado for two weeks, still dislike United Airlines and am torn on my status about Air Canada. The first flight was great, the second - the flight attendants were rather rude. One accosted D as we were boarding, claiming that he absolutely HAD to show his boarding pass getting on the plane (I mean, literally stepping onto the plane), as this apparently is a new "pro-cess" developed during our four hour layover in Toronto. I have never once had to show my boarding pass on the plane, but I guess those Canadians are sticklers for fake "pro-cesses."

Also, the little screen on my seat was completely worthless - nothing would work. They kept restarting it, but eventually it was just annoying, so I didn't watch much. Later, when my on demand TV screen just completely froze, I called the flight attendants via the little button, and no one showed up for THIRTY MINUTES! Then, a flight attendant stops by and says "Can I get you to turn off that call button?" I told her that actually, I had pushed it for a reason, my screen was completely frozen and I was wondering if she could turn it of b/c I had asked another attendant and she hadn't done it, and the new woman responds, "First of all, you don't know that she didn't do it. Secondly, I've been very busy. We've been coming through with water." I told her, that, yes, someone had come by with water an hour earlier and that was the lady I had asked. She continued to argue, at which point I think I may have been affected by the hour of a frozen screen burned into my eyes and two (TWO) crying babies directly to our left in the aisle, so I asked the flight attendant why she was getting an attitude with me, all I wanted was for the screen to be turned off b/c it had been malfunctioning the entire time, and couldn't she please just turn it off? (I know you are all rolling your eyes, wondering if perhaps it was ME with the attitude, but I promise you, I was well-behaved up until this point.) She disappeared at that, and five minutes later a DIFFERENT f.a. showed up to try to turn the screen off herself. She looked surprised that, wow, I must have been right, b/c she couldn't turn the screen off either. Really. I must have been the talk of the plane. The same plane in which some drunk Greek guy kept bothering people before takeoff, and the same flight attendants had to deal with him. Priorities, people.

So anyway my trip home was pretty good and I'm glad it snowed, even if it may have caused some driving difficulties for some. I'm selfish that way I guess.

Also, I love my Navigo. Anybody who's ever used those little paper tickets in the Paris metro has to understand my love for this magnetic masterpiece. It's the small things in life....