The story thus far...

I flew by plane from Houston to Casablanca, via Atlanta and Madrid. In total, with the few delays, it took about 19 hours. This was made more confusing by the fact that for the first time in 40-odd years Morocco is observing Daylight Savings Time, and it only started at the beginning of June.

Along the way, I met a nice man from Madrid who had been in Austin for a short study abroad with the McCombs School of Business as part of his MBA. He had previously traveled to Beijing and around China with his program and told me all about it. He was also Basque, so I asked him about the situation with ETA (thanks to Thomas Agee for this; he did a briefing in our Global Issues class freshman year) which was enlightening. Afterwards, he gave me instructions on navigating the Madrid airport so I could make my connecting flight from Delta (Terminal 1) with Iberia (Terminal 4). As it turns out, I had to go through passport control, so I have 2 stamps from Madrid for the grand total of 3 hours I was there. Then came the fun part.

I knew I was switching airlines, and had been told by Delta that they would check my bags through to Casablanca, but Iberia said that they would not check my bags from Casablanca unless I physically picked them up and rechecked them myself when I received my boarding pass. Then, in the Madrid airport both Delta and Iberia said that my bags were automatically sent to my next plane, so I wasted about 20 minutes standing at the carousel stressing about lost luggage until I asked for help.

Luckily, I met an American businessman who was trying to make an Iberia connection as well and was in the same situation as myself. We both realized we didn’t have to worry about our baggage at the same time, and he escorted me to terminal 4 (a satellite terminal only reachable by bus) and after we received our boarding passes and went through security, he let me use his company blackberry to e-mail dad and Matt that I was safe in Madrid and headed to the group flight. I thanked him profusely; I didn’t want to pay the 14€ for an hour of internet, having already burned $3.51 in Atlanta for ten minutes to let my family know I was okay and pay for some apartment damages at St. Edwards on my EdWeb account (bleh).

My gate was in the secondary terminal of terminal 4 (which itself is a satellite terminal), so I had to take a train and then an elevator to finally reach the secondary terminal. At last, I found my gate. The closest thing I could see to what might be my fellow students was a group of six American girls sitting together. As it turns out they were high school students headed to spend the summer in Rabat as a graduation fling. I hung out with them, anxiously waiting for the group to arrive. The plan was for the assistant academic director, Fadoua, to meet them outside customs in Casablanca; if I was with the group, I wouldn’t have to worry about arranging my own travel to Rabat.

The group flight from JFK to Madrid was delayed, (I had opted to meet the group flight in Madrid) so I boarded the scheduled flight at the same time the group flight was landing. They did not arrive in Morocco for another nine and a half hours. As for customs, I always went through the “nothing to declare” line. Seeing as how they didn’t list what exactly you had to declare in both Madrid and Casablanca, I’m not too terribly concerned with it.

I met with Fadoua and two other students who had arrived in Casablanca earlier that day. I changed some money at the airport for the not-so-terrific rate of 7 diraham (pronounced drhm singular, Drahm plural) to the dollar, and (in reference to my previous entry) was rather mildly flirted with by the Changer. I, the Changee, stated that I wasn’t interested in “making new friends in Casablanca” because I would be staying in Rabat with a large group of people. Very large. Thanks, no thanks.

That said, I headed back to where Kasey, from Hong Kong, and Brad, from UT-Dallas, were camped out next to Fadoua. When we learned how serious the group’s delay would be, we headed to Rabat via chartered bus and checked in at the Hotel Berlin on Ave Mohammed V in Rabat Ville, mere meters away from the Medina. I met my roommate Rachel, who goes to UT and is a junior as well and we’ve gotten along famously. Fadoua led us through the medina to the Center for Cross Cultural Learning (مركز تواسل التقافات) where we met Farah, our academic director, and received a tour of the house-turned-school and a dinner of seven vegetable couscous with beef. Dessert was the most delicious grapes and peaches I have ever had. I also learned a very important lesson: do not eat until you feel full when eating couscous. Inevitably, the semolina expands in your stomach and you feel like you will burst by the time to walk to the nearest toilet. Thought I’d pass along that advice.

From there, the four of us who had arrived early went back to the Hotel while Fadoua took the bus to collect the rest of the group. We found an internet café, which was slow going because the keyboard was a European layout and included Arabic letters and way too many shift/alt/great alt options. At least an hour was only 7 dirhams ($1). A café au lait, on the other hand, is 9 dir.

The next morning, we met the rest of the group in the Café 4 Saisons next to the hotel for a quick breakfast, and then on to the CCCL for orientation. First order of business was covering the schedule and academic expectations, then a meet-and-greet. Two students hadn’t yet arrived (one was coming from Paris, the other had missed the initial group flight from JFK because he was delayed getting out of Chicago and had to be rerouted to Pittsburgh) but I got a great vibe from the group on whole.

Then we split up in to two groups – those who had experience in Arabic (6 of us, including myself) and everyone else in the beginner room. Our language instructors gave us a crash course in Darija, the local dialect. My head was spinning, but I learned a lot. I also realized I forgot a lot in the year that I haven’t taken Arabic. Then the slightly experienced took a Fusha, Standard Arabic, placement test after lunch to determine what level we were at. All six of us stated we wanted to cry afterwards. I think we’ll all test in to varying degrees of intermediacy, which is nice because I like our little subgroup. I find out tomorrow how I did. All of the beginning students are literally starting from scratch; they can’t even read the alphabet! Ok, I’ve been there before. Life is much easier in Arabic once you can at least take a stab at sounding words out.

After the placement test, we took a bus tour around Rabat with Farah’s husband, who is the Academic Director for SIT during the academic year. It was really interesting, and it helped us get oriented in a completely different city. Rumor has it we will have a “drop off” some time soon – basically they abandon you somewhere in walking distance to the center and you have to find your way back. I think I’ll be alright. My biggest challenge right now is to find someone to go to mass with downtown at the cathedral (or find somewhere else, closer to the medina) but I haven’t had any luck. I still have a few days before Sunday. Luckily, Morocco observes standard Saturday/Sunday weekends. On a side note, Bryce Bencivengo from St. Edward’s has notified me he will be in Morocco this weekend (why? I don’t know) so I’ll see if I can meet up with him if he’s in Rabat/Salé. I don’t want to go much further since we have a 3 hour Arabic class on Saturday and I will have only been with my host family for a day or two at that time.

Rock the Casbah

Typing on a regional keyboard so apologies for bad spelling. The group's flight was delayed on arrival to Madrid; but my flight plans proceeded without a hitch. Imagine our Assistant Director's surprise when only one person from a flight (supposedly) carrying 13 group members arrives. More later.

In Transit/Playing for Keeps

hi all!

At present I am sitting in the houston airport waiting for my flight. We should be boarding "momentarily."

Still excited, still scared/freaked out. Saying bye to dad and Matt was really hard; had to hold back tears. Seven weeks... I don't even think I spent 7 straight weeks in Seattle when my mom lived there. Effectively, I've only lived in Spring (might I add in the same house) since I was born until I started attending St. Edward's. Wow. Oh gosh, I just got a look at the plane. It's tiny! They just called my boarding zone.

Time to go!