Weekend part 1

Friday
So luckily I finally got my boring day. The only reason it was boring, in my opinion, is because I chose not to go out tonight to a Mexican restaurant with my friends because we have to be at the student center at 7:45 tomorrow morning. So the only excitement today was that I learned how to make the awesome peppermint tea and I guess Chayma and Ahmed's aunt is coming back from Saudi Arabia after spending 2 months there. So instead of writing about crazy things that have happened, here are some fun facts.

Muslims are expressly forbidden to eat pork but alcohol seems to be quietly debated.
A woman would rather admit to being a prostitute than be caught drinking in public.
Moroccans side with Palestine 99.9% of the time.
A Moroccan looked at my arabic and said it wasn't bad.
A guy here is also applying for an internship with the State Department so luckily I have someone to fill out the application with.
I got soooooooo lucky with my host family. My friend's family has been using her face cream, computer, and taking her jewelry and has her drink her tea in her room. Alone. My family is amazing and invites me everywhere, makes tea for me every time I get home and, most importantly, has toilet paper which is more than most people in the program have.


So tomorrow we depart for Meknes, Moulay Idriss, Volubilis and Fes. I'm so pumped!!
Saturday
OOOOHhhh man was it a long day! So I woke up at 6:45, and had breakfast with Ahmed at 7. We got on the bus and left for Mecknes!! It was awesome! The bus ride itself was great. I sat with one of my friends here and really got to know her a lot better. And the view was just amazing! there were mountains and 10 minutes of driving in between houses! We stopped in Mecknes at these beautiful gates that were just incredible! Then we went to the mausoleum of Moulay Ismail, which was in a mosque that we could actually go into! After, we went to a cool little store with a bunch of awesome plates, jewelry and sculptures with silver. It was probably for the best that I had left my money on the bus because I think I would have bought the whole store! We left the store and went to this golf course that I guess is supposed to be pretty cool. As we got back onto the bus, one of our arabic professors pointed out an underground prison!
After Mecknes we went to Moulay Idriss for lunch, then on to Volubilis, ancient Roman ruins. They were so cool! we took some pretty great pictures not gonna lie. From there we went on to Fes, where we got to our beautiful hotel. We showered and got a little dressed up for a nice dinner out. Me and some of my friends started watching Aladdin, then at 8 we went down to meet for dinner.
Dinner was hilarious. 2 of the arabic teachers and our program director sat with me and some of my friends and we just had an awesome time. One of them is engaged to be married this December, so we had a bunch of questions for him. The whole time they had Moroccan music, then these awesome traditional dances. I have no idea how to describe it but it was awesome. They had a few belly dancers perform (totally not what you think of when you think of belly dancing... fully clothed but with a belt around the hips that jingles when they dance) and a magician. it was so much fun! Then when we got back we were talking about going out dancing because one of my friends said she knows a good place but she couldn't remember the name. Then we were going to have a dance party in the room, but we were all so tired at this point (it was almost midnight) that we just hung out and chatted until it was late and we realized we have another early morning tomorrow.