Monday, June 29, 2009

Day 1.

This won't be a long one, because I'm headed to bed soon (I have to be at school in 9 hours!)

I have internet in my room now...yay! Ethernet (I'm glad I brought my cable even though they told me it was wireless), but it's connected. It was very complicated. But! I figured it out by myself, from instructions in French, no less! I was very proud of myself.

Last night I fell asleep fairly easily, but I woke up several times during the night. When I woke up at 7, I got dressed and went outside. I knew a shuttle came to take us to school, but didn't know what time- it was all very vague. So I stood outside and waited for the Americans, just like I said I would. And what do you know, I found one, and sure enough, she was headed to the School. But the shuttle never came and we ended up taking a cab. But we got there and had breakfast (egg, toast, LAUGHING COW CHEESE - I love that stuff - and OJ. Then I had a placement test for the first 2 hour block of class. I was pretty confident with it, some stuff I didn't know, but randomly scattered throughout the sections, so mainly just vocab stuff. At 10:30 we had a tea break- yummy Moroccan mint tea, but with a TON of sugar. Then I went back to class- there are three girls that have been here and one other new girl in my level. We finish out this week in Beginner 2 and then move to B3 next week. Chapter-wise, I'm behind a little now, because we finsihed through Ch 12 at Stanford and right now we're in chapter 8, but it's a good review, and by next week I'll be back on track.

Then we had lunch and new student orientation. Among the new students, there's a guy from Spain, girls from Italy, France, and Belgium, and the rest of us (about 3 or 4) are American. Our orientation was about an hour and a half and covered a ton of stuff, a lot of which was in the orientation guide they emailed out before. After that, I was just kinda sitting around, and then talked to Chris, here for 2 weeks from the State Department, Angela, from Ohio, and Olga, who was born in Russia, grew up in Italy, and has lived in Belgium for the last 11 years. Angela and Olga decided to go the medina, the old city, so we walked to a bank to change money and then caught a petite taxi to the medina. Once we got there, we just walked around a lot, looking at all the different vendors. Angela bought a leather purse (camel, probably), but mainly we looked. I'm defintely going back to buy stuff- shoes, shirts, wooden boxes, candle holders, scarves, wallets, jewelry, postcards....mm. Lovely! (Tara, I'm WHALISH!) We also found this lovely bread stuff and got it with honey and it was delish.

Something they told us in orientation that is definitly true is that the merchents in Rabat are used to foreigners (since it's the capatial, all the embassies and their assocaited staff live in Rabat), so they're a lot more laid back. There's not really pressure to buy, once you say "No thanks," so it's easy to just browse. Olga said she was in Tunisia and once you touched something, there was no way there were letting you out without buying it! And Alejandra- from El Salvador, goes to school in upstate New York, and has spent the last year abroad in Paris- said that's how it was in Fes, as well. Most of the foreigners there are tourists, so it's a different vibe.

We spent a long time in the medina, and then headed back to get our stuff from school. Angela is staying in a homestay, but Olga is in the same dorms as I am, two doors down, so we decided to try the walk back to see how far it was. It was about a 45 minute walk, totally doable, but not ideal. We came back and showered, etc, then went over to Ale's room. She gave me the information to set up internet. Then Audia (sp?) came over- she's Brazilian- and we all just talked for quite a while. They're all super nice. Ale's here until the end of July, Audia until August 19 (she'll be here a total of 6 months), and Olga just for two weeks. Then Olga and I went to get food at the same place I went yesterday. I swear my burger had strawberry jam on it. I bought more water, and now I'm back in my room, getting ready to go to bed.

Olga is in a double, but her roommate never showed up, and I'm still in a single, so we asked today if we can maybe move in together. We seem to have simlar habits- neither of us wants to go out at night, really. She's leaving after two weeks, though, but we might do it anyway. I'd have moved down there today if we could have gotten another key tonight, but I didn't want to without the key. So we'll see how that goes. We're meeting tomorrow morning at 7:40 to go out and get on the shuttle. Apparently it came today, but not until 8:05 or so, and the girls I was with just caught taxis with us. But hopefully I can get one tomorrow.

At orientation, they told us that there wouldn't be a weekend excursion this weekend, but as this is Olga's only weekend and she was really looking forward to it, she and Angela pressed for one. They said they needed at least 8 people, but out of the new students, there were already 6 that said they would go, so we felt pretty confident that we can find 2 more students out of all the rest of the school. We'd either go to Marrakesh or to Fez, Meknes, and Volubilis. I'm excited...I have class all morning but after lunch we're on our own, and it's lovely to hang out with people, but I think the weekend would get really long if we didn't go out of the city.

The weekly excursions, though, are still on- tomorrow we go to Ouadaya, part of the old city, I guess. I'll let you know more tomorrow after I go!

I guess I'm going to head to bed now, since I'm getting up at 7 or 7:15. More tomorrow, especially since I now have internet in my room!

Much love,
Aisha

1 comment:

  1. Pics, please--of all your new friends, and of the outside of the dorm, and the Institute and everything! And don't forget to make nice to all the support staff at the Institute--they're the ones who keep the whole place running, and you need to appreciate them!

    Love,
    Mama

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