I arrive at AUI

After a morning flight from St. Louis, 8 hours of hanging out in the Chicago airport, an overnight flight to Amsterdam on a double-decker plane, a shorter flight to Casablanca, a quick jump to Fez on a plane with 24 seats and propellers, and an hour-long van ride, I finally made to Al Akhawyan University around 9pm Moroccan time on Friday night. Everything went smoothly for me, but one girl on my flight lost her luggage in Minneapolis, and a group from KU who was supposed to fly out from Amsterdam with us missed their plane somewhere in the states and arrived a day late.

On Saturday I slept in and then went to lunch in the restaurant on campus. Typical caffeteria food. Afterwards we had a brief orientation about rules on campus, etc. (midnight curfew on school nights, expulsion for possessing drugs and alcohol and for going in the opposite sex's dorms). Then some of the TAs took the whole lot of us (almost 40 students) to Ifrane, a ten minute walk from campus. At first it all looked horribly European- Ifrane is known as the Swiss Alps of Morocco- but then we got to the marché and it was a little more like what we were expecting. We had dinner there, and it was tasty! Three other students and I decided to split off from the main group who were all eating at one restaurant, and ate around the corner. We had a half-chicken each with rice and olives and delicious bread. There are a lot of olives here, and a lot of stray cats for that matter. We also had some of the famous Moroccan mint tea, which is totally the best thing ever, mostly because it is loaded with sugar. Remember how in Shelter Gardens there is a small herb garden, with spearmint, and we would sometimes eat the leaves? It tastes like that with a spoonful of sugar. The whole meal cost us each 40 dirhams, which is about 5.50 dollars. One of the guys I was with was even brave enough to drink the tap water (no one else would do it), and when I talked to him this morning he said he was feeling fine. However, I think I will stick to bottled water when I am off-campus (the tap water on campus is fine).

This morning we had more orientation stuff, introductions to Moroccan culture, health and travel advice, etc. Also, Moroccan daylight savings time started this morning. Six of us and two TAs went to town again for lunch, and made it back just in time to catch even more orientation stuff that lasted the rest of the afternoon. Tomorrow the intermediate and advanced students will take their placement tests, while us beginners will meet our professors and hopefully go to Azrou. Classes start on Tuesday.

I have a Moroccan roommate whose stuff is all unpacked in our room, but who has not arrived yet. Most of the Moroccan students are arriving tonight or tomorrow, so I am very interested to meet her. I don't know if she will speak English or not, but most people do. A lot of people also speak what I have decided to call "frarabic," a mix of French and Arabic. I think I will be able to practice a lot of French while I am here, and have already used it a lot in the marché, seeing as I don't know any Arabic yet.

What else, what else? It is quite chilly here, especially at night, but most of us only brought one jacket, thinking summer in Africa would be warm. We are in the mountains though, but the TAs said it will warm up pretty soon, and it is already getting pretty warm during the day.

This weekend we have the opportunity to go to on a day trip to Fez or Meknes, and next weekend we have a longer trip to the desert, where we will get to watch the sun rise over the Saharan sand dunes. The weekend after that we have the opportunity to do a rural or urban homestay with a Moroccan family. There are a couple more organized trips included in the program, and a lot of other students have expressed interest in organizing weekend trips when nothing else is planned.

That is all I can think to say for right now. I will write later after classes have started and we have traveled to some intersting places. Ciao!