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!)