Last days in Marrakech

We just took our final exam here at the American Language Center in Marrakech after returning from Essaouira yesterday (there were a few near-collisions due to our risky driver). This may be my last entry from Morocco - my schedule for today is lunch, leave for Rabat with my host family to attend a wedding tonight, seeing Rabat tomorrow and returning to Marrakech on Friday morning. I will have Friday to pack and then depart at 4:30 a.m. Saturday, arriving in DC around 7:30 p.m. It is extremely hot here in Marrakech, averaging aroud 110 during the day. I think I'm ready to come back home to air conditioning.

Now we are off to lunch - for my MD friends and family, see you soon, and for others, I will see you when I see you! Expect a gift and/or postcard. So long.

More from Essaouira

Essaouira is superb. Today I had breakfast at the hotel, Arabic class from 8:30 to noon, then a three-hour lunch break to order shawarmas (chicken, cabbage, mayo garlic sauce, tomatos, onions, etc. wrapped in pita-ish bread) and eat them on the beach. I read a lot of "A People's History of the United States" on the beach also, but the sand gets everywhere. It's really fine and sharp, and also incredibly windy on the beach so it really sticks to your body. Then after that we had two more hours of Arabic, I came back to the hotel for a while, and then I went shopping with some friends and got a load of gifts and stuff for myself - gnaoua music from the 2006 Gnaoua festival and Moroccan reggae. I think Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley used to hang out a lot here. Shops are always playing Bob Marley covers. There's also a rumor that Jimi Hendrix wrote "Castles Made of Sand" about the beach here, but I'm pretty sure that's false because it was on the "Axis: Bold as Love" LP which came out two years before he visited Morocco for the first time. He was definitely here at some point, however. And Essaouira is not that big so there's a pretty good chance that I have walked the same streets that he did, which is pretty cool. Also on the beach there is a man selling coconut slices, which I buy every time I go there - they are unsweetened and so tasty. Until they get sandy. 

Unfortunately I have not seen any movie theaters, so seeing Harry Potter 6 even in French won't be happening. But I am very excited for the next few days. Essaouira is a lot of fun to walk around and eat in (today I had a delicious Nutella crepe made by my new friend Ahmed the crepe man) and we have an entire day off (the only one) on Sunday. I think we are required to go to a group soccer game on the beach but aside from that I will be spending the day shopping, swimming and reading on the beach. 

Today I got a super cool wool hat that's red with a Moroccan green star on top - the current flag is red with a hollow green star in the middle, but it used to be a Jewish star actually. I'm not sure when it changed. I've seen a few really cool pieces of pottery with Hebrew on them. Also beautiful bowls with fish painted on them, but unfortunately pottery would be too difficult to transport. Today we walked through the spice/fish section of the medina here for the first time. There are all these places that sell "Viagra Morocain." I have no idea. 

I have to go now and study for my Arabic test tomorrow. I hope all you loyal readers are having as much fun at home as I am here. Only a week until I come back to the States! 

Essaouira!

After a long bus journey broken up by the breaking down of our bus and our hanging out on the side of the road for two hours in the afternoon, we are finally in Essaouira (pronounced Ess-ooh-weer-a). It was definitely worth the trip. Our hotel is at the very edge of the medina (walled old city) surrounded by shops and restaurants. The streets are all cobblestones and really narrow. Essaouira is very much a tourist town, but the cooler weather is much appreciated - it's very windy here and in the 70s and 80s during the day and chillier at night. There is also delicious fish and other foods here that aren't really present in Marrakech. I am actually able to post pictures now because the hotel has reliable wifi, so pictures from today (and several other days) will be on http://picasaweb.google.com/k.zitelman.

Yesterday after school a few other students and I went to a women's Quranic school in Marrakech. Some of the women there had been studying and memorizing the Quran for years. Hearing it sung was a really cool experience.

After that our host family let us invite our friends to a pool party ("hafla") at our house. The pool had just been filled up that morning. There was only about two feet of water but it was nice and warm, and we taught the Moroccan host sisters how to play drip drip splash (like duck duck goose but with water). Lots of fun.

Our hotel here is amazing. Somehow my new roommate Mariam and I lucked out and got one of the suites, so our room is huge and super nice. We have a giant picture window that we can throw open to feel the wind coming off the Atlantic. There isn't a beach below us but there are a lot of rocks, so the sound of waves is really loud. I can't wait to sleep with the window open tonight.

Well pictures are now up on the Google page, so I hope some of you loyal readers can take a look. I'm off to dinner here at our awesome hotel. I will try to write another blog in a few days - thanks for reading! (Oh also stuff here is really cheap - lots of cool wooden boxes and other typical Moroccan things, so if anyone would like anything special please let me know so I can bring it back for you!)

Hello again. I'm writing during our break between classes in the morning and intercultural dialogues in the afternoon - our last one is today, the one I have been in hasn't been that great but hopefully it will pick up today. Yesterday we had a really interesting guest speaker here who is the grandson of a former slave. He talked about the history of Morocco and the ethnic and cultural divisions between Berbers and Arabs here. He speaks seven Moroccan languages (variations of Berber and Arabic dialects) in addition to English and maybe some other ones.

On Thursday night we had an evening of gnaoua music, which actually originated from slaves in Ghana. It's about 80 percent percussion, and there's also a guitar-ish instrument that I forgot the name of. We had giant dance circles and lots of fun with the band.

Tonight is a birthday party at a Moroccan restaurant and I will be sleeping over at another student's house. Tomorrow we go to Mhammid, a village in the Atlas mountains, to do some community service (I think we are painting a school) and then hiking and a picnic in the mountains - no class! Monday is a regular day of class in the morning but I think we will be visiting a woman's coop in the afternoon, which should be really interesting. Then Tuesday morning we leave for Essaouira.

Yesterday I finished "A Street in Marrakech" after eating some delicious cous-cous (although my host mother always complains that I don't eat enough of it). Several chapters were on festivals and museums that I unfortunately won't be able to visit. A lot of the rest of the book chronicled the author's relationship with the other women on her street. So now I will resume my pursuit of "A People's History of the United States" and also "The Arab-American Handbook." For example, did you know that neither Iran nor Afghanistan are technically Arab countries?

Well, I don't have a lot more to write about. Tonight should be fun, tomorrow should be interesting. It is still very hot, obviously - I can't wait for that cool Essouira Atlantic ocean breeze. Our hotel is right on the beach!

Top ten things about Marrakech

10. Hawai tropical and Schweppes Citron soda
9. lunchtime at the American Language Center
8. cous-cous
7. the souk at Djemma el Fna
6. silver jewelry and leather stuff
5. Arabic classes at the ALC
4. lack of pedestrian safety laws
3. mint tea
2. the wool jacket I got at the souk
1. nice people

[some new pictures up on http://picasaweb.google.com/k.zitelman]

In reading news, I have finally finished "Homicide" which was a superb piece of investigative journalism. I have moved on to "A Street in Marrakech: A Personal View of Urban Women in Morocco" by Elizabeth Fernea. It's so interesting to read because I actually know a lot of the places Fernea writes about - not the street that she lives on but the school she sent her children to during her year in Morocco (it's right on the way to the American Language Center, where my Arabic classes are) and where she bought her djellabas, the long dress-type clothing that men and women wear, in the Djemma el Fna, the square and souk where the other students and I usually go when we have a night off.

Last night we went to Catanzaro Pizza. It was delicious. Unfortunately we also stayed out until about 11 and I hadn't done any of my homework, so it was a late night and I have been exhausted today. But the pizza was delicious, and before that we went to what I guess would be the Moroccan equivalent of Gap - "Zara." We are also planning a dinner out on Saturday to celebrate the 18th birthday of one of the students here.

I am writing here just after lunch, which today was lentils, rice, corn, Moroccan meatballs and, of course, bread. I think I will have to do some bread detox dieting when I get home. But before lunch we got to visit a synagogue across the street from the main building of the ALC. There are only about 200 Jewish people in Marrakech now, but there used to be a very sizable Jewish population - since post-WWII it has been decreasing steadily though and there are very few left in the entire country. The synagogue looked basically like an American one, although it was built for about 30 people.

Yesterday and the day before we also had guest speakers after school - Tuesday was a woman who spoke about non-governmental organizations here and yesterday was an imam and the female equivalent of an imam who talked about Islamic education here. The philosophy here in Morocco is that education and upbringing are the school's responsibility, not that of the parents.

I have to use the outdoor wifi here to upload pictures, and it's a little over 100 degrees and - as always - sunny here, so I am going to sign off now before I melt. Ma-salaama.

Arabic Arabic Arabic

More computer frustrations means there is a good chance of no more pictures going up before I return to the US (I was able to get about 100 posted on http://picasaweb.google.com/k.zitelman). Today I finally caught up on all the blogs I follow, each of which is about either typography or music.

As for Arabic classes, we are getting a truckload of homework every night - it usually takes me around three hours. Our schedule this week includes some "intercultural dialogues," which is when groups of four American students and five or six Moroccans learning English talk about... well, I don't really know. We have one today so we'll see if it gets interesting.

Lately I have started doing my homework around 8 in the evening, when it gets nice and breezy outside. I have found a few good homework background albums: Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes and the Submarines over the past few days.

Not much else to report from this end. In a week, we leave for Essouira, which I am very excited for - so I'm pretty much just counting the days until then. I'm listening to Wale to remind me of DC; unfortunately his album came out recently and I will have to wait until I get back to the States to listen to it. Nothing else new here. We might get thunderstorms this weekend?

School to home and home to school, I don't know how she does it

Still no luck with pictures. I will try again on Friday. Instead I thought I might talk about what I'm learning and my classes...

My normal schedule is class from 8:30 to 12 (with a tea break at 10:15), which is usually spent going through our textbook and doing all the classwork exercises in order. My teacher really tends to stick to the textbook, which is actually kind of good for me. We are starting on chapter seven (I am in the advanced class based on a test we took at the beginning of the program) and in my Arabic classes in school last year and the year before, we did not use this textbook so I am planning on going through the previous chapters and relearning everything - a lot of it I know, but there is also some grammar stuff that my teacher expects us to know and I don't.

Then at noon we have lunch - they have us alternate between eating lunch here at the American Language Center and at home with our host families. I prefer eating here at the ALC with all the students, because lunch at home is very quiet and usually my host family just watches TV and sleeps afterwards. They have rooms set up for us to nap in after lunch here at the ALC but I haven't had time to use them because I have been blogging and trying to upload photos or doing homework. The food is also a little better for me to eat here - my host family has meat with every meal and while I'm not a vegetarian like Rachel Mulbry (another student who is begging me to put her in this blog), I am definitely not used to eating a lot of meat and I would prefer just vegetables and pasta or bread or something, which is what we usually have here at the ALC. When we eat lunch here, we also have tea around 3, but I usually avoid the mint tea because I am already very sick of it (it is so sweet!).

Then we have two more hours of class in the afternoon, and then home. My teacher assigns us usually two or more hours of homework a night, all from the textbook except for sometimes memorizing a dialogue. I am so thankful for my host sister because I need her help a lot, probably more than I should be using her, but I should get better with time. We just finished learning hobbies ("al-huwayiti," I think) and some boring grammar. Our textbook has DVDs with "Maha" and "Khalid" talking about their families and school and whatnot. Sometimes their dialogues are hilarious - we just watched one with a friend ("sadiqa") of Maha's who said that Maha goes from New York University (where all students of Arab descent in the United States go, apparently) to home and home to NYU and she doesn't know how Maha does it (?). The dialogues are always very dramatic and serious.

So that's really all I can write about... besides this morning I saw a woman in a burqa (covers everything except the eyes) riding a scooter which was interesting. So check the Google photostream sometime after Friday morning and you might see some more photos. Thanks for reading!

Top ten things I wish they had in Marrakech

10. bagels
9. sandwiches
8. movie theaters (apparently they exist but I have never seen one... less than three weeks to HP 6)
7. street names (I have no idea how people navigate)
6. a public transportation system less intimidating and expensive than the taxis
5. parks
4. better electricity (my iPod speakers don't work, blerg)
3. Canada Dry
2. Macs
1. air conditioning

Sahara

The Sahara Desert was amazing. We had to ride about an hour and a half on camels to get to our campsite, so that was incredibly uncomfortable. I christened my camel Gouverneur Morris after the Pennsylvania representative at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and also an all-around cool guy. I took a lot of pictures and in a few minutes I am trying to upload them again. The campsite was very cool - there were eight tents with mattresses in them, but we dragged them out to sleep under the stars. We could also see the Milky Way, which doesn't happen in DC. The first thing we did when we got there was run up the tallest dune surrounding the campsite, then we had some photo shoots around sunset and after that we played some frisbee on the ground (the actual campsite was on a level surface).

Dinner was some Moroccan soup and (surprise, surprise) chicken with vegetables, which is basically the only thing I have eaten this entire trip. I am pretty sick of Moroccan food already. Ahmed, another student from San Francisco, brought a ukulele and I learned a few songs (the little melody from "Measuring Cups" by Andrew Bird and the beginning part of "Portions for Foxes" by Rilo Kiley). Later that night we had a campfire, but the temperature was actually perfect - not too hot and breezy on the way there and cool at night. Two other girls and I tried to sleep in the dunes, but we came back down with the rest of the group after a while.

We woke up at 5:30 the next morning to watch the sunrise, which was not quite as pretty as the sunset but still very cool. We went back on our camels right after breakfast - I was on a female camel on the way back, who I named Margot after the character from "The Royal Tenenbaums." Then we went back to the hotel we stayed in on Friday night to shower and swim, which was heavenly. Later that afternoon we had to leave for a different hotel about half the distance back to Marrakech. We toured the "casbah" (the old walled city) - where several movies were filmed, including the snake pit from the first "Indiana Jones" movie and parts from the beginning of "Gladiator." It was quite neat, but I can't really describe it without pictures - check out http://picasaweb.google.com/k.zitelman sometime for some photos.

Then unfortunately I was very sick on Sunday night/Monday from eating over the weekend, so the bus ride through curvy mountain roads at 70-ish miles an hour was not pleasant. However, I was able to listen to Andrew Bird's "Fingerlings" and "Fingerlings 2," which were both excellent. I am about halfway through "Homicide" and I will resume reading "A People's History of the United States" when I am done with that. I think I have gotten over whatever sickness I have, so I am feeling a little more confident. Yesterday I had some crepes at a French restaurant here in Marrakech, but they were not nearly as good as Crepes a Go Go back in DC. The schedule for the next few weeks is just straight classical Arabic from 8 to 5 (with about three hours off in the middle of the day). On July 14 we leave for Essouira on the Atlantic coast, where we will live in a hotel for a week before returning to Marrakech for an exam and then a day of concluding activities. We are going to have some guest speakers next week after school but I am not sure what they will be talking about.

I am usually online between 1 and 2 in the afternoon my time (8 and 9 a.m. EST) so if it is easy for anyone to be on Gmail, feel free to Gchat me any day except July 1, 3, 8 and 10. I heard Billy Mays died... how heartbreaking. Any other news from home? I would love to get some more emails in addition to the frequent Kensington news updates (ha) from the parents.

At the souk

Of the week I have had here in Marrakech so far, the other students, host siblings and I have been to the souk at the "Square of the Dead" three times. It gets its name from a period in history during which enemies of the state and rebels would be executed and then their heads would be displayed in the square. Now it's busy pretty much all the time. The square itself is very big and open, with shops and cafes lining it and a view of the Koutoubia Mosque (the biggest one in the city). It is populated by tourist attractions mostly: snake charmers, monkey handlers, orange juice sellers (we have been told not to accept juice because the cups are not washed), henna artists and whatnot.

At the edge of the square, the souk (marketplace) begins. It gradually turns into a very narrow alleyway with shops back-to-back on both sides. After a few minutes, you have pretty much seen everything - leather purses, shoes, counterfeit sunglasses and soccer jerseys, scarves, etc. All the shops offer virtually the same prices and goods, so I don't really like staying there for too long because it's rather claustrophobic. You have to barter for everything, but now that I know Moroccan numbers it's not so hard. So far I've picked up a few gifts for friends and family and a shirt, camel shoes and necklace for myself. It seems like it's the place to go at night. There's really not a lot to do here in Marrakech. Most of the economy is supported by tourism, but this is not a city I would recommend as particularly historic or tourist-friendly. Lots of locals go to the shops as well, so it's not quite as easy for shopkeepers to take advantage of the other students and me especially when we bring our host siblings with us.

One of our favorite pasttimes here is spotting Inappropriately Dressed Europeans (IDEs) and taking stealth pictures of them while shouting "ya haram" which means "forbidden." We have also developed a system of "rajul" ("man") and "imra'a" ("woman") points that we give each other when someone does something stereotypically male or female. It's not very funny but somehow we always laugh at each other whenever someone brings it up. Well, time to try again with pictures... this computer lab is not as well-equipped as I was made to believe, but at least it has air conditioning.

Zagora, pool hall, and MSA

Hello from Zagora! Yesterday we drove about ten hours through the Atlas Mountains, which were really cool. The landscape is very versatile and varied - we passed through mountains covered in trees that looked like they belonged in North America, and there was also a desert section that was pretty flat and bland. There was also a section that looked like the Grand Canyon - it had huge rock formations and a very twisty road. We spent last night in a hotel, which was incredible because it had air conditioning. It also has a pool! And delicious food. I have lots of pictures but uploading is a lot of work to make happen. Hopefully I will be able to when we get back from Zagora on Monday. There are about 30 up already on picasaweb.google.com/kzitelman, mostly of the plane ride and drive home. I have around 300 to upload.

I also meant to write a post last week about going to a pool hall in Marrakech but I never had time. I went with about 15 other students and host siblings. We probably stayed for about three hours; it was a lot of fun. I had my first "asir banan" (literally: banana juice), which is kind of like a banana milkshake and very tasty. We actually spoke darija (the local dialect of Arabic) to one of the waiters and he kind of understood.

On Thursday, we started lessons in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). I moved up to the advanced class, and my new teacher is much more focused than my teacher for darija classes. I find MSA much easier to make sense of so I am glad we are done with darija.

The schedule for today is visiting a village in the morning and then camel riding in the afternoon! I think we are leaving around 4 or 5 to go to another town. We will leave there on camels for an hour-ish ride into the Sahara Desert, where we will sleep in tents (or outside) for the night and then return on the camels tomorrow morning. Someone is bringing a frisbee so there might be some ultimate on the dunes. Pictures will be taken but who knows if they will be seen by you all. I am very excited for my first camel ride! Next blog will probably be Monday or Tuesday when I get back.

Driving

Driving in Marrakech is crazy. The most common cars are hatchbacks and these sort of minivan-station wagon combinations, mostly Renaults and Peugeots. I have seen one Hummer and it was shocking. The roads are mostly very straight, and none of them have names so I'm not sure how people navigate.

Our host mother is very intense about driving. She goes way over the speed limit most of the time and when she wants to pass, she leans on the horn - which never has any effect - until the other side of the road is clear (or not clear, she doesn't really care) and then zooms by the slower car, moped, bike, pedestrian or horse. Most of the scooters are Yamaha Mates, which look a little bit like old Vespas but not nearly as pretty or well-made. They also don't go as fast as the cars, but scooter drivers do frequently run red lights. Apparently traffic tickets are very expensive here, but that does not seem to be a deterrent from running lights or stop signs (they are rare, most cars just turn without stopping).

Crossing the street is another story. Just as cars don't normally stop for red lights, pedestrians are either ignored or unnoticed entirely. Horn-honking is basically a perpetual sound here. One must sprint across the street, stopping between mopeds, cars and trucks to avoid being hit. It's very frightening.

Parking, however, never seems to be an issue.

Tales from the airport

Hello from Africa! After nightmare upon catastrophe upon fiasco upon disaster getting here, the city is really interesting. On Thursday morning (still in DC) we went from our hotel in Arlington to Reagan National Airport to arrive around 8:15 for a 10:40 flight to JFK Airport in New York City. After checking our baggage, we went to our gate and waited. Our plane was delayed until noon. We waited more, and it was delayed again until 2 and then again until 5, and then only after 5 was it canceled entirely. Then our group leader, Christine, had to run around in a panic to try to get us onto another flight. (I was traveling with 10 other students; the other 10 had already caught flights to New York.) Our plane to Casablanca left JFK at 8:45, so it was unlikely that we would make it but there was still an 11 p.m. flight to catch. Finally we got on an 8:30 flight to JFK, landing there around 10:40. So then we had to run (literally) through the airport to the Royal Air Maroc check-in area with all our carry-ons (no one even tried to worry about our checked luggage, which just came yesterday). We had to beg them to hold the plane, then we ran through security and to the gate, getting on just in time. The flight to Casablanca was sevenish hours, then we had to wait about five hours in that airport for a flight to Marrakech. Then we finally got there, without our checked bags of course. Unfortunately I have to log off now to go back to Arabic class, but I will try to write another entry tomorrow or Wednesday with pictures. Ma-salam'a!

Actual last night in America

Today we had a LONG day of "meetings" at our hotel in Arlington, Va. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. It was painful to sit through. In a nutshell it was people from Legacy International (the organization that is sending us to Morocco) and foreign service officers from the State Department telling us how valuable Arabic is - which sounds useful and interesting until you realize that you have to listen to it for nine hours straight. On the other hand, we are going for free so I'll put up with whatever they want if it will get me there.

Before we came we all received an email telling us a little about the host families. They were all in the city except for one family on a farm, and all of them had students approximately our age learning Arabic. Okay, I thought, as long as I'm not on the farm that's outside the city I will be fine.

Guess who got stuck on the farm?

But actually it appears to be not as bad as I anticipated. My host parents are both doctors who own their own private practice, and they will structure their appointments around my school schedule. The American Language Center (ALC), where I will be taking my courses, is about 15 minutes from the "farm," which is really a few olive and orange trees. The parents have two daughters, 12 and 16, and I believe they have a guest house type situation where my roommate, Tamanna, and I will be staying. I think there is a Western seat toilet, not an Eastern squat toilet.

So that's been the main anxiety source, but after talking to our trip coordinator I am feeling much more confident about the "farm." Bonus.

As for everybody else, there are about twenty students on this trip. Most are entering their senior year of high school; myself and four others are entering college this fall (we are the oldest) at places like Georgia, Georgia Tech and Bennington (!). Most of the students are from the east - Connecticut, several from Atlanta - and then there's one from California, Wisconsin, Utah, St. Paul and a few other places. We have two adult chaperones, Ethan and Christine, and our coordinator, Hamza, going with us on the planes tomorrow. Royal Air Maroc has a reputation for "losing" (read: stealing) baggage, so I am a bit nervous about that. And our ten-hour layover in JFK Airport will be, obviously, long. However, I have brought my iPod speakers and am in the process of planning an airport dance party with some other students.

Lastly, for those not so technically apt, you can subcribe to this blog to make it easier to access by clicking on "Subscribe to: Posts" at the bottom of the page. If you have Gmail you can follow it with Google Reader, which is one of those links on the top left (next to Calendar, Documents, Photos, etc.). If not, you can follow it in your Internet browser. If this doesn't make sense it doesn't really matter, it might just be easier for some people. Ask your young friends.

Next post will actually be from Morocco - salaam!

Tuesday morning

To clarify: I actually fly out of the country (DC-NY-Casablanca-Marrakesh) on Thursday morning. Today I am going to a hotel in Arlington, Virginia for orientation with the other 20 students. Though I will still be in the US until Thursday, today is my last day at home. Last night I had my last York Castle mint chocolate chip ice cream with Melanie. I just finished updating my iPod with Guilt By Association Vols. 1 and 2 (pop and rap covers by indie bands, including an a capella of "Don't Stop Believin' ") and many new podcasts to listen to, so I should be set for music. For books I will be taking "Stuff White People Like," "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" (the inspiration for the TV show, written by one of the creators of "The Wire" - thanks Julia!), "I See By My Outfit: Cross-Country By Scooter," "The Arab-American Handbook," "A Street in Marrakech" and "A People's History of the United States." And I am very hungry so I am going to go eat waffles and watch last night's episode of "Weeds" and a "Top Gear" rerun I DVRed, probably the last bit of American television I will get... next writing should be from Morocco, so مع السلامة (goodbye).

Last weekend at home

Salutations! Thanks for reading. I will be using this blog as a diary while I spend six weeks in Marrakesh and Essaouira, Morocco, learning Arabic and staying with a host family. Who knows what might get thrown up here. Also be advised there might be some posts just about the music I am listening to, because I am filling up my 80 GB iPod with a lot of stuff that I've been meaning to listen to but haven't had the time. Your feedback is welcome. I'll also try to talk about Morocco and Arabic and whatnot.

Right now it's Sunday night, the second-to-last night I will be spending at home. On Tuesday afternoon I go to a hotel in Arlington for orientation, and I fly DC-New York-Casablanca-Marrakesh on Thursday. Yesterday and today have been largely devoted to packing; luckily my suitcase is only 30 pounds so I should be okay. I hope I haven't forgotten anything. If you want anything from Morocco, let me know and I'll buy it for you if there is room in my bags.

Unfortunately I am missing Telekinesis, Camera Obscura and Metric in concert this week (not to mention the June 20 Attributes & Action Jackson show) but, you know, going to Morocco is probably going to be more fun anyway. But to all my friends who are going to those shows, please share pictures and memories.

I'll most likely write something tomorrow or Tuesday morning before I leave, so until then, peace.