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Touring Fez, Touring Islam…

admin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:25:48 +0000

The view of the marketplace from the inside of Bou Inania Madrasa (built in the 13th century)

We met our guide today after breakfast for a whirlwind tour around Fez. While we learned quite a lot about Fez’s history, we also learned quite a bit about Islam (as it is practiced in Morocco, at least.) We visited various medresas (Koranic schools) and shrines–and since Fez is the artisan capital of Morocco, we also visited the tanneries and the ceramic kilns.

Fez's tanneries... those vats are filled with lye, excrement, and urine. Did you know that's how leather was made up until fairly recently (and still is when you buy "naturally made" leather!)

I knew that during Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. However, I didn’t realize that meant they also didn’t drink water. I remember saying, “I feel so terrible eating in front of these people,” when we ate at a family’s home, but Hugh responded with, “They probably feel bad for you for not believing in Allah.” Indeed, when I asked Jawad if it was difficult to fast, he said very sincerely that it was not–that it was very spiritual, and when your belief in god is strong, you can do anything. They manage to survive the day by resting or sleeping through most of it, but I had much respect and admiration for our guide and the many people I saw working today. I simply cannot imagine having belief, faith, or strength in anything enough to go a month while working every day and not eating or drinking for over 12 hours (longer when Ramadan starts in July). People were very welcoming and aware that we weren’t fasting and took efforts to make sure we were properly hydrated and fed. But people in Morocco are very kind and friendly in general, so I’m not surprised.

This city has surprised me in a lot of ways. I never really had any idea of what to expect, and my knowledge of the Muslim world is very slim (and I would argue I follow it more than the average person.) Here many women are veiled–but many are not. People dress conservatively, but after centuries of immigration (most Moroccans have roots in Spain and other parts of North Africa and the Middle East), the French, and tourism–they don’t seem to bat an eye no matter how much cleavage a tourist shows. I’ve also been very amazed at how many different people I’ve seen–blonde Moroccans, Arabs, Senegalese immigrants and pilgrims (there’s a shrine to a Senegalese saint in Fez)–the only thing which is rare are Asians, except, of course, Japanese. People keep saying “konnichi wa” to me, even after I say I’m not Japanese. ;p

Tajine of couscous cooked by Ms. Karima

Also, while touring the sights of this very, very old city, I was able to look very closely at the craftmanship from the Islamic world from 900-1400AD. At a time when a lot of other parts of the world were wallowing in squalor, Fez (well, Morocco) had fountains in every neighborhood to drink and bathe. Many of those fountains are still in use. I touched doors that were carved 800 years ago and marveled at the beautiful carved plaster that adorned shrines and schools.

Plaster art from the 12th century

The architects of the time were very smart–all around the narrow paths of the medina are doors, some nicer than others. Opening a door leads to a new world. Many people’s homes have an open courtyard, sometimes with a fountain and usually with trees, with terraces on the roof. Despite the stifling heat, many people’s homes are very cool on the lower levels–especially in the shade of the trees. Coming from a city where people die in the summer from heat, I’m amazed at how much our society seems to have lost when it comes to practical architectural building ideas.

Enjoying the terrace

Anyways, for dinner–Hugh and I took a “petit taxi” to the “ville nouvelle” which Hugh remarked looked like Cambodia. I thought more like China. Just a newly developed area that looks very “Western” and lacks architectural distinction, as so many “new cities” do around the world and took a pizza back to the riad so we could eat quietly in our room. We leave very early tomorrow morning for Marrakesh. I wish we had one more day here to get lost in the medina–oh well, an excuse to come back again, enshalla (god willing).

A small part of the Fez medina (old walled city) built in the 8th century.

Getting Lost in Fez

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:11:10 +0000

Today was our first day real day in Morocco–despite our best attempts, we missed breakfast on the terrace. The riad we’re staying at is even more lovely during the day, and the owners Alexandre and Yasmin have been fantastic so far.

We decided to go for a bit of a wander around–a walk that couldn’t have been more than 1km seriously took almost two hours. There’s so many turns and places to get lost, so many people who run up to you to give you directions, say hi, or try to have you buy their goods. It’s an assault on the senses, in a good way. I remember feeling this way when I first went to Japan, “wow, it REALLY IS exactly like it is in the movies…” (back then, it was “in the anime/manga, though.”) We’re in the old city of Fez (9th century!) and it while there are stalls selling cellphones and our beloved happy cow cheese, it feels like we’ve stepped back through time.

Hugh navigating the medina

We’re in a Muslim country, so we’re trying to be respectful–at one point, after a long slog, Hugh put a candy in his mouth and some young men shouted at us, “Stop! It is haram! Forbidden!” and died laughing when they saw our look of embarassment and shock. There are cafes open to tourists, even during Ramadan. It felt very embarassing to be eating food in front of people fasting all day, so we will probably try and avoid that again, even if it isn’t expected of us to fast. We’ll at least try and eat away from street view.

After getting lost in the medina for 4 hours, we went back to the riad and relaxed and then had dinner on the terrace which was delicious (as was lunch.)

Fez at night

30 Hours Later

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:46:04 +0000

30 hours after we left our apartment, we finally are in our riad trying to connect to a weak connection emanating from lord knows where, but more importantly, we are in a beautiful riad.

The trip itself was fairly uneventful…you’d think that after 30 hours and four separate flights, something would have gone wrong. Hugh basically slept the entire journey, waking only to drink water or eat terrible plane food (or watch that new Karate Kid movie)–whether it was in the plane, on a hard metal chair, in a taxi, whatever.

Anyways–I’ve always had this strange fascination with Morocco. I’ve always wanted to go here. I couldn’t tell you why. I’ve never seen Casablanca, have no particular affinity for the food either. But with decades of dreams, it could be pretty easy to be disappointed. However, even at 2am it has not disappointed.

Our driver picked us up and briefly described the city, “this is the new city, it was built in 14th century. This is the old city, it was built in the 9th century,” We’d stare out the window at things I’ve only seen in movies. We noted the people who were out and about at 2am–he explained that since it’s Ramadan, people usually stay up really late and have two meals before sunrise. Then they sleep through much of the day. As a semi-professional napper, that’s a lifestyle I can handle.

We finally arrived at the medina and were met by people from the raid who lead us through narrow, winding roads. It was kind of like… Indiana Jones. Dusty, tan brick walls, a bit dirty… and then he opened a small, magical door and BAM! There was this whole world inside. A courtyard, trees, a fountain! He led us to our room on the second floor. I peeked out the window (which has no glass) and could see over the roofs of buildings, and a bright white moon. Amazing.

Breakfast is soon, so we’re planning to eat as much as possible to try and tide us over till sundown. They don’t typically expect Westerners to fast, but at the same time, we know that not many things will be open, so it’s better to be prepared.

Off we go!

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:32:47 +0000

Hugh and I are off on our whirlwind tour of Morocco and Spain today. Thanks to our wonderful friends and family, much of our trip has been given to us as a wedding gift thanks to our wedding registry at TravelersJoy.com. If you were one of those generous people, please keep an eye on this space for shout outs, descriptions, and photos of the places, foods, and things that you gave us!

It’s going to be a grueling 30+ hours until we finally check into our riad in Fez, but we plan to try and sleep through as much of it as possible (it helps the flight doesn’t leave until 9:40pm.)

Honeymoon Planning, Take 2 (or Take 3?)

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:38:58 +0000

Well, after dawdling for a few months we finally got our honeymoon in order–but not without some hiccups.

When we finally decided on Spain, we targeted Barcelona as the city we wanted to base ourselves in; however, when it came time to book my frequent flier miles, United only let me go to Madrid–except we had to leave at 7am from Washington, DC. Okay, well, fine. It’s a free flight to Europe, I’ll take what I can get. We’ll go to Madrid too–we even ignored everyone who said, “Oh, but you guys would love Barcelona so much more,”

Fast forward a few months later–we’re working with our travel agent, Heritage Tours, for our Morocco leg. I decided to double check my flight schedule so the agent, we’ll call her Trisha, can make a much better itinerary for us. Low and behold, Aer Lingus had mysteriously decided to CANCEL the flight to Spain (but oddly, not the flight FROM Spain) months earlier, but failed to inform me of this very important little tidbit of information.

I called up United, ready to do battle. However, to my surprise, I got a very helpful friendly guy who acknowledged that the cancelling a flight without informing me was really uncool–and so, I managed to get a brand new flight for the same points with the only extra cost being a few dollars more for tax. Here’s the amazing part though:

We got the trip to Barcelona.
Not only that, it leaves from a better airport for us, JFK (aka in NYC).
And it leaves at 9pm…thus saving us a day of vacation we don’t have to use.

Amazing!

Well, that happened two months ago and now we’ve finally finalized every leg of our trip today.

NYC -> Fez, Morocco -> Marrakesh -> Essaouira -> Mallorca, Spain -> Barcelona -> NYC

So excited to finally go to continental Europe and Africa (well, North Africa.) And yes, even more excited as this will be the first real vacation we’ve had in a year and a half (which is eternity for us), let alone the first trip in ages where we weren’t backpackers. I mean, I loved backpacking, but carrying everything on my back got old

Spain trip, go!

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:43:01 +0000

I’m a notorious packrat. Case in point, I’ve been racking up frequent flier miles since I was 16 years old, since then I’ve managed to hoard over 140,000 miles. The weird thing was that there wasn’t a specific trip or anything that I was saving for–I was just doing it for ONE DAY when I would really need them for something.

Well, that day finally arrived, and thank my lucky stars that the airline didn’t decide to just go bankrupt or make flights cost 5x more than before.

We booked our tickets to Spain today (I still have miles left too!)

So in 7 months we’ll definitely be traveling again!

Spot-A-Tourist

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:04:05 +0000

5 types of tourist in NYC. Funny because it's true. (Jon Keegan)

So in my research about traveling in Barcelona, I came across a somewhat funny article called Barcelona Clothes and Dress Code: Tips on How to Blend in With the Locals. The primary reason for this article is to keep tourists safe from scam-artists and pickpockets, but I would argue that those people would be targets anyways no matter how you dressed them up simply because they obviously lack something vital as a traveler: common sense.

People spend all this money buying money-belts and fancy traveling gear when you could simply just dress and act like a local, as much as possible. Obviously this isn’t possible everywhere in the world, but it’s certainly possible in a worldly cosmopolitan city like Barcelona that’s full of foreign expats. For example, I live in New York City — a city that tourist guides will tell you is dangerous. Don’t do this, don’t talk to these people, don’t stop here, etc. Yet somehow millions of people live in this city without ever getting pickpocketed their entire life, yet a tourist manages to in the few days they’re here. Amazing odds, really. Like most of these tourist women do in their hometowns, I carry a purse every day, and like they probably are back home, I’m very careful with it. Yet somehow these visiting ladies come here wearing a fannypack because they’re suddenly a tourist. If you wouldn’t be caught dead in something at home, why would you wear it in a cosmopolitan world city suddenly because you’re a visitor?

Being a tourist is a state of mind! We’ve found that if you don’t act like one then most people won’t treat you like one, especially not thieves — cause really, why bother with the person who MIGHT be a savvy local expat when you could harass the tour-package couple with their map hanging out of their back pocket?

Honeymoon Planning, Take 1

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:22:49 +0000

After months of deliberation we finally narrowed down what we wanted to do on the honeymoon.

Something exotic. Something with diving possibilities. The beach.

We added the stipulation “no Asia,” since we’d lived three years of our life there and already been to various countries multiple times (as much as we love Asia, there’s many other areas of the world to explore.) We also wanted nowhere we could feasibly go “just for fun.” While the Caribbean is tempting, we rationalized that we could go there anytime we wanted as long as we had the funds. A honeymoon is one of the few times we’ll have for awhile where it’s socially acceptable to take a couple weeks off of work after only working for less than a year during a recession.

So basically that meant the only choice was Africa or South America, and we decided to go with Africa. We’ve further narrowed down the choices to Tanzania and Mauritius, with Mauritius being the strong contender. We’re going to stop by a travel agent tonight to see our options. Yay! I have travel in my future!

Update: Annnnnd…. we decided to go in the complete opposite direction and go with one of our original choices, Spain + Morocco. Oh well, at least we’re decided!

Dry Spell

Janelle — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:55:12 +0000

I haven’t been writing here because it’s been a year since I’ve left the country (the U.S). At the risk of sounding like a poor little rich girl, this one year is the longest I’ve stayed in one country in the past 10 years or so. Thinking about it, this may the longest stretch without any sort of recreational travel in my entire life.

Seeing as how practically everything I do in life is a means to allow me to travel more, this is extremely depressing. However, the economy hasn’t been great, Hugh had to get his residency issues in order, and furthermore, we’re saving money for our wedding.

Which means, of course, that I’ll have something travel related to blog about… namely, our honeymoon! We’re still trying to decide on a destination, but somewhere we’d never dreamt of going is pretty high on that list. I’ll try and keep this more updated than I have.

Under the Sea

Janelle — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:31:58 +0000

Buoyancy isn't something we'd worked on yet...

Something I’ve always wanted to do is learn how to scuba dive. Imagine my delight when I found out that not only does my cousin dive, but she was willing to take us out somewhere to go on an intro dive.

We drove out to Anilao in Batangas to a small resort. When I arrived, I looked out to the grey ocean and felt a bit anxious. It was a gloomy day and the water looked choppy and cold. Did I mention I am actually afraid of the ocean, and more importantly, putting my head under the water? It all stems from when I almost drowned trying to surf in Hawaii….but I digress… =P

I was a bit nervous during the briefing, I knew it was just an introductory course and that everything would be okay…but you know, the fear was there. So we get geared up, we get on the boat, and I’m told I need to fall backwards into the water (oh good lord, I thought!) Managing all the courage I could muster, I let the weight of the air tanks pull me backwards and…

Well, I entered a whole new world. If the sea looked grey and bleak from the surface, it was completely different below. I saw so many fish, and bright coral, and weird looking plants. You know when you go to an aquarium and you see all the neon colored anemone, and coral that look like brains, and weird stripey fish? Yeah, somehow I just thought all that stuff was fake and created for aquariums. But then I got to see it for real, and it was just amazing. All my fear washed away.

Hugh eating fresh uni out of the sea

After our intro dive, we went to shore with a bag of uni (sea urchin) which we had plucked from the rocks near the shore (apparently it is not illegal to get them in the Philippines.) I’m not a fan of uni personally, and I think I’m even less of a fan after watching the resort chef hack them open. It’s amazing how little meat is actually inside of those suckers! Anyways, Hugh and my cousin were both extremely pleased by the quality of the uni which they ate with calamansi juice.

We had so much fun we promptly decided to sign up for our certification. It took a week and with it came a whole new set of stress and tears (on my part) but when I actually accomplished the task I couldn’t do for days (clearing a mask underwater) I felt a very happy sense of accomplishment. Oh, and I also got stung by a firecoral down there so I guess now I have battle scars =P

It’s wonderful to have conquered a fear AND crossed something off my Life To-Do List!