So many decisions to make

• Couscous or tajine?
• Lamb or chicken or fish?
• Red or white wine?
• Walk or sit?
• Sit on a terrace or in a courtyard?
• Mint tea or absinthe?
• Green olives or black olives? Or red olives? Or pink olives? And for that matter, is it possible to overdose on olives? Because I've tried. 35 in one sitting.
• Sit by the fire in the main room or in our room?

Oooh the water...

The night before we left Agadir, I had this dream. I was going towards my backpack, getting ready to leave, and a black cat stepped in my way. I woke up and thought, "Shit that might be a bad omen for our trip tomorrow." The next day we got on our bus to Essaouira. It started out fine, but soon we got into the mountains, twisting and turning, bumping up and down. I closed my eyes, sang folk songs to myself, and tried to tune out the puking lady in the next aisle. After three hours, we made it to Essaouira and the ride was totally worth it. This town is amazing. It's so laid back, no hassling or heckling... Just a really nice beach town. Unfortunately, there was a MASSIVE storm that shut down the whole city, so the sea is now the color of the Essequibo River in Guyana. Some chocolate river references were made. But today has been sunny sunny sunny. 

The first night in Essaouira, as a reward for the miserable bus ride, Jeff and I got to visit the hammams. Holy. Crap. 

So this lady came to pick me up from the riad and she could only speak three words in French - and hey, so can I - and she took me to my first ever hammam. I got inside and was instructed to take off all my clothes, except my... um... knickers. I'm not exactly an exhibitionist, so that was a big step for me. I didn't take off my bra at first, but then my lady snapped my brastrap, which I took to mean, "silly white girl." Then we walked into the bath part and I saw all of these practically naked women, laughing, smiling, playing in the water, and I felt instantly comfortable. We went into a corner and she dumped a bucket of boiling hot water all over me and started scrubbing with - I want to call it a loufa, but it was way rougher. It was like a cloth version of a pummel stone - isn't that what the foot scruber thing is called? Holy hell that hurt. She scrubbed LITERALLY every inch of my body with that. At one point, everyone left, including my lady, and I was left in a whole hammam by myself. So obviously I treated it like a giant slip n' slide and imagined I was Tom Cruise in Risky Business dancing to Bob Seger. Then my lady came back in (thankfully I had stopped dancing just in time) and the bathing continued. She scrubbed me from head to toe with Argon oil, which is huge here and smells like a bunch of spices mixed together. For some reason, I never felt uncomfortable. It was such a friendly, feminine environment. And even when she made me lie face down on a bench and I wondered how many women had sat right where my face was, I thought, "who the hell cares?" Probably thousands of women sat there and thousands more will sit there and I got to be one of them, which is pretty amazing I think. How many people get to say they've done something like that? How many people have felt like they have no more skin left to scrub, but then realize they've probably never been so clean? How many people have been asked to dance like a seagull whilst completely naked and have done it? I don't know. What I do know is that I'm loving Morocco.

The last few days, during the worst of the storm, we've been staying in this B&B far away from town that has been so wonderful. It's run by these nice French women and the food is so insane. It's like one giant family with all the people here -- two French families, one German family, an English family, an English couple, and a cranky old English dude. Sadly, we leave tomorrow and the next day we'll make our way to Marrakesh for the last day of our trip. 

This place is crazy.

Sensory overload in Marrakesh

We arrived in Marrakesh Tuesday night and took a taxi which dropped us off outside the old part of the Medina. We then had to walk about ten minutes to get to our Riad. Not gonna lie, I was a bit scared seeing as we basically were walking through a different world and a different time. Our eight year old escorts pointed out the local mosque and hammam on the way. Our Riad was amazing and the owner was so nice and got us another escort to take us to dinner.
The next day we walked to the market in the center square. All the shopkeepers would hassle us and say things like,"hello my friend! Bonjour! Hola!" which was fun at first but got a bit old. We drank fresh OJ and ate couscous and tajine at a restraunt with a terrace overlooking the insane scene below. That night we ate dinner at the food stands in the center. The waiters there can hassle in English, French, Spanish, German, and Berber... I was very impressed. Then we went on another terrace and drank more OJ and watched the night scene. The theme of the day was, "Oh life is tough."
The following day we checked out the Jewish part of town, which was... Depressing. To say the least. We got so lost, and it doesn't help that the locals think it's hilarious to mislead tourists either by pointing you in the wrong direction or by saying, "road is closed!" when it is clearly not.
Then we did dinner at the market again, but at a different stand. Wanted a drink, (not easy to find) and wound up at the fanciest hotel I've ever seen with the worst piano man I've ever heard. I thought of you, Bethy, he played "Once, Twice, Three Times A Lady."
This morning we packed up and decided to fly south. Well, bus south. That brings me to now. Chillin in the train station because it's way nicer than the bus station, just waiting for our bus. Jeff taught me how to play bridge and is letting me use his iPhone.

New discovery: too many to list. Let's just say that after two tours through spice shops I now can identify many different spices by their appearance and smell.

Frequently used phrases:
"No merci, no thank you, no gracias."
"Can we get a drink in this town?"
"I don't know, let's find out!"
"I'm Canadian."
"I'm English."
"We're from California."
"More tea, please."

Peace out, Marrakesh. Hello, Agadir.

I'm all alone, there's no one here besiiiiiiide meeeee

All my problems, they are gone
There's no one to deriiiiiiide meeeeeee

All my freshies have gone back home and I am left in this sad dorm all by myself. I leave for London tomorrow and then Jeff and I leave for Morocco (YESSSSS) on Tuesday.

So, I'm doing some laundry, watching some Much Ado (oh Keanu Reeves, what made you think you could act?), drinking some tea, dunking some biscuits.

Last night I watched the first part of the X Factor finale, and I'm glad to say my favorite contestant, Olly, got through! So now it's between him and my flat mate's pick. Ultimate showdown.

All's Well was fantastic. I'm excited to get involved with more Shakespeare stuff next term, which I definitely will (Taming of the Shrew, anyone?) It was interesting how lots of parts we laughed at during rehearsal were met with silence during the performances. But the audience did laugh at really random parts --- like when Helena comes on stage preggo at the end of the play. People laughed both nights at that. BAHAHA she's been knocked up! It was a pretty big baby bump...

The other night at a club in Coventry, they played "All I Want for Christmas Is You" and proceeded to drop foam from the ceiling. It was nice, but (I'm going to regret saying this) I miss real snow -- But not when it accumulates and makes it impossible to walk, and then it rains and turns the top layer into ice so I slip and fall and give myself whiplash.  Just when it's snowflakes and they fall on your pea coat and you can look at all the different shapes while you're waiting for your bus and trying to avoid talking to the crazy man who always happens to take the bus at the same time as you.

So... I think I should probably start packing for Morocco. Let's see... what should I bring? Flipflops, sunglasses, hat, shorts, raincoat, bathing suit, sunscreen -- Funny how I haven't touched any of these things since I came to England. In fact, they're all stuffed in the back of my wardrobe.

And what songs should I listen to whilst packing? I'm thinking "Under African Skies," "Roam Around the World," "On the Road to Find Out," "See the World," "She's Got Her Ticket,""Send Me on My Way," maybe a little "Like a Rolling Stone," and just for you, Bearz, how about some "Strangers Like Me." There's my playlist!

"Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?"

There's a lot of turkey in this turkey...

So, Thanksgiving came and I made my first Thanksgiving meal. I had help from my friend Dani (she's an English major from Wisconsin, too), and we did pretty well overall. There was no canned pumpkin in the store, so we had to make pumpkin pie out of real pumpkins. It ended up tasting like cinnamon egg pie. Not so good. However, the turkey went well, which was surprising seeing as our oven is prone to only cooking the top half of things. Dani made great mashed potatoes and we bought some pretty good stuffing mix, where you only had to add boiling water and stick it in the oven.

Yummy Turkey

Yummy Dinner

My English flatmates seemed to like the food. They kept saying, "I feel like I'm on Friends!" Two of them got stomach aches and passed out, which I consider to be an indication of a successful Thanksgiving meal. Too bad we couldn't play football afterward (American football).

Two of my flatmates were bickering at the time, which made everything feel a little more like Thanksgiving.

It's getting to the point in my study abroad experience where I stop thinking about the differences between English people and Americans (or Californians), and start thinking about how we're similar. Small town Americans are really not all that different from small town English people. There are English words I can't say because it sounds weird with my accent, and there are American words English people can't say because it sounds weird (some of these include "sweatpants," "dang," and "sidewalk").  They hate Sarah Palin, I hate Sarah Palin. Actually, they think she's kind of funny... and I see how she would be hilarious to people who didn't have to worry about her ruining their country.

All's Well That Ends Well is taking up my entire life.... I actually dream in Elizabethan English now. How sad.

New discovery: Lauren from the Catherine Tate Show. Youtube it.