{Trading Nicole for Camels In Morocco}

*Met an american girl on the train from Barcelona to Madrid who just came from Morocco and highly recommended it: so we skipped our plans in southern Spain and now we're 5 hours from the coast in central Morocco.

*Everyone's your friend in Morocco until they realize you're not giving them any money and then they kindly leave you alone. 3 different men offered information to us as to cabs, trains, schedules, all within 3 minutes of getting off the boat from Algecrias. Only the third of which persisted: he showed us the currency exchange, found us a cab, told us about the trains, rode with us in the cab to the station, and finally gave up hopes of becoming our tour guide when we said we didn't need help finding our way inside the station. I think he was the exception however. Most Moroccans are more than willing to help and much kinder than the average european.

*That first morning we took the train from Granada to Algeciras- one of the main ports on the southern coast of Spain- and took the 3 hour ferry across the strait and into Tangier. We didn't realize we were actually in Morroco, however, until the cab ride to the train station when everything was written in arabic and every street corner was decorated with a not-so-flattering picture of King Muhamed VI. The ferry ride was beautiful: Spain on the right and Africa on the left.

*The ticket agent in Tangier quoted us a price of 145 for a 4 hour train to Fez and our hearts skipped for a second before we realized he wasn't talking about EUROS (about 155 USD), but durhems (slightly less than 14 USD). We waited for the train in the station's cafe, trying to convince ourselves that yes, we were actually in Morroco.

*The Medina is the old part of Fez. It has 14 official entrances, over 9000 streets (most of which are no wider than your shoulders), 350 main streets and consequently 350 mosques to correspond with each street. Everyone we talked to, including the cool Aussies we met in Granada, told us to hire a guide and that they'd be able to take us through the Medina. So we asked our hotel and they arranged for an english speaking guide to come to the hotel today and pick us up.

*He took us to the Royal Palace, through the New City section of town, through the city's park and finally to the gates of the Medina. I'll have to save my energy to write about the Medina: it was literally stepping back into the 9th century when it was officially established. People selling meats, olives, clothes, leather, shoes, fabric, bronze, pots, pans, candy, cigarettes, jewelry, spices, herbs, medicines, rugs, and the not-so-occasional live chicken slung over your shoulder. I'll have to write a detail of the whole day and everything we saw because it was truly amazing.

*A linguistic phenomenon: the two Moroccans we met on the train spoke both french and arabic like everyone else. But half of all the words they said were in french and half were in arabic. The whole conversation was riddled with french words and they weren't they only ones I heard doing it either. Most people speak that way.

*A serious note: Although we've been here for two days and haven't yet met another American, I feel completely safe in this country. Most Morrocans talk about how afraid Americans have become of all things arab: from first-hand experience, I had to just stop and think for a few minutes in the cab ride when absolutely everything was written in arabic and the only thing I could relate that to was the images of violence I saw on a daily basis back in the states. Even today I had to do a double-take everytime I saw the arabic script: we've truly been made to fear it.

Tons more to say but I need a more familiar keyboard and this arabic rap music in the background is getting to me.

Coming here really made us realize that even though we've been outside of familiar surroundings for a while now, we really haven't had to step out of our comfort zones: Europe is completely western and even the strangest of things wasn't that far outside the realm of imagination. Being in the Medina today was by far the highlight of the trip.

*Mom, don't flip out: we're together, safe, and we're bringing our own toilet-paper.