Fez!

I can offically say that I have been in the largest car-free urban enviroment in the world. Fez's massive medina has been one of the crazies areas that we have been in all of  Morocco! There hundreds of types of people, colors and smells everywhere, and anything that you could ever think of buying.

The week before going to Fez, we pretty much went to classes and spent a little time with the Marrakesh kids. We also saw a preformance of Gnawa music, which is traditional Moroccan music. This 2 hour long concert was a ton of fun, and we all ended up getting up and dancing to it too! Overall it was a lot of fun.

Sunday it came time for us to leave for Fez, and we took the long drive and arrived just before lunch time. Our hotel was in the middle of the Souk, which really proved to us that it was a legit Moroccan house. Traditional Moroccan houses have a large courtyard in the middle of 3-4 stories of rooms. The plaster and tile work inside of these houses are very intricate as well, and the whole thing looks so beautiful!

Soon we headed out into the Souk, which was a massive maze of street after street. The reason it was car free was not because people did not try, there was no possible way to fit something as large as a car down those streets! Donkeys were used instead, and they did not tend to stop if you did not get out of their way. 

For lunch we ate at a little restaurant in the Souk, where I ate the best kebabs of my life! Then we were able to head out and complete 6 hours of shopping. By this time, we bartered only in Arabic which helped to keep the price down. Usually as soon as anybody in the Souk saw that we were american or spoke only English the price tripled. However, Mobasshir, Michael and I weren't looking for the Arabic speakers price, we were looking for the Moroccan Price! We always knew we were getting a good deal if when we walked out of the store the storekeeper was enraged at giving us such a low price. Our best experience was when we bought a leather jacket. The storekeeper asked for 900 dirham for it, but we only gave him 600. As we walked around the Souk, Moroccans guessed that we paid 700-800 dirham for it, and when we informed them of the actual price we usually got a high five and a pat on the back.

Back at the hotel all of us just hung out together. We ended up sleeping on the roof because it was so much cooler. The hotel was so beautiful. 

After fez we traveled to Ifrane, which was beautiful but didn't really have much to do. It didn't look like Morocco, it looked a lot like Switzerland.  Then we came back to Rabat and spent time with our host families, which we have to leave Thursday! I am very upset to leave them, they have been so good to us! I am missing home, but I am glad that I am in Morocco! I hope that all of your summers are going well!