Hello again!

I haven't been able to write a lot recently, but I shall do my best to catch up and fill everyone in!!

First, Morocco is an amazing country! That is for sure! Don't get me wrong, I loved Egypt, but Morocco has a very different flavor. The culture pours of every crack and corner. Because of the mix of culture and history the food is unbelievable-- full of different tastes and textures that completely live

s up to my expectations. I had heard Morocco had culinary expertise, but I really didn't understand till recently.

Let me back up for a moment... after I got to Morocco, we spend two nights in a hotel, and we had a bit of orientation. On the third day, we were told that we were to go on a tour of the "Medina" or old city. That is where we were are living, so I thought that we were merely going to be shown around "here is this ... and that.." but it was actually a professional tour throughout the Medina where he pointed out so many things with historical significance. Since I and many others didn't know it was going to be that kind of tour, I didn't bring my camera!!!! Sooo that was very unfortunate. However, I hear there will be another tour later this month for new students coming to Fez.

Right after the tour we met our host family! It was a bit nerve racking, but I was excited! My host mom and dad came to pick me up and there you go, just like that off to my house. If was REALLY tough at first, because they didn't know if I was going to be able to speak Arabic with them, so it was quiet and awkward. But after a few days, I feel like family! haha It is fantastic! I have a sister who is 15 and a brother who is 20, but he lives in an apartment with his friends close to the university. I just met him today, and he is really nice too! Though he tries to speak English to me a lot of the time, so I have to remind him to speak only in Arabic. There is no language pledge in this program, but I know that I will not learn any Arabic if I speak English.

This Monday, classes start. I am going to be taking 20 hours of Modern Standard Arabic, 4 hours of Arabic Literature and Media in Arabic-- the students from Middlebury requested the class to be taught in English-- and 2 hours of Moroccan Culture with all of the students taught in English. Many of the students have not taken much Arabic. Some have barely any experience with Arabic at all or no experience. It makes it really hard to learn the language. This Monday some of my friends and I decided to try to do some sort of language pledge, but I don't know how it is going to work out. Many of the teachers and administrators assume we don't know Arabic so they automatically speak English, and there is a group of about 40 American students coming to the center to study, and I am figuring they will probably not be speaking Arabic It is unlike Middlebury where everyone is the program is told to not speak a word of English to us. I am going to try my best to mimic that. No worries. I am just glad to be here!

Today we went to Roman ruins today called Vollipolis check it out if you can! It is really neat! We also went to another Moroccan city called Meknas! It isn't as interesting as Fez, but there was a palace and a very intricate mosque.

I will post some pics and hopefully get a video up soon.