Photos

Well, I'm home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am exhausted but here are my photos (I will just update this as I put the photos up on picasa)... you can just watch the slideshow on here but you wont see my captions, or you can just click on it and watch the full size thing... enjoy! and comment!

last day...

so i'm leaving morocco tomorrow morning to fly to dublin (via london), and then i'll be back in chicago friday around noon. crazy! i cant believe i've been gone 5 weeks! i am looking forward to seeing my family though, and uploading pictures and everything. yesterday i went to essaouira which is on the coast, and it was beautiful! there wasnt much to do other than wade in the water and walk around the souks (markets). I was glad i went but i didn't need to be there longer than a day. today i'm just going to walk around, maybe visit my buddy jamal, buy some shit. we'll see. i'll be sad to leave here though, it's so nice and relaxing!
i wish i was just flying directly home tomorrow, it would make things a lot easier. i'm not particularly looking forward to going to dublin, since it will just be to sleep. oh well. i will be home soon enough i suppose.
anyway, i probably won't post again before i get home, at which point i'll probably just post a link to photos if anybody wants to have a look (i have many many photos, so i'll split them up by country, and it will be easier to look at them that way i think). anyway i'll talk to you all later, i will probably be making some phone calls this weekend! i'm excited to have my phone and computer again!

good day

So yesterday was a pretty great day, I walked to the menara gardens which are a bit outside the city, but it was a good walk (it's along a main street, and the guys on their mopeds are hilarious cuz they will just yell things and wave and smile and be generally creepy but it makes me laugh). Then i went to a museum type thing back in the old city (near to the hostel), and i was getting a little lonely/bored and decided to go back to the hostel and read my book or something, but on my way i was stopped by this shop owner who asked me where i was from and stuff. That is not too unusual because they all try to stop you as you are walking by, but he didn't even try to sell me anything, he just said he had friends coming from chicago on wednesday and he wanted to give me his store info so i could come back and meet them or something. so we went in to the back of his store and he wrote down his info and then we were chatting away, he wrote my name for me in arabic calligraphy which was cool, and we just kept talking, and eventually he said he wanted to have tea with me (moroccan mint tea which is awesome stuff, as you should all know from the philly restaurants). so we drank some mint tea and talked and then his british friend came by and we talked to him for a bit, and in the end i was there for like 2 hours! it turns out this guy (i forget his name now, jamal or something) wants to travel in the states, so i told him to email me if he comes to chicago. haha! he is pretty cool, i think he just likes to talk to people and make connections and stuff. so yeah, that was interesting. then i came back to the hostel and met this aussie guy who is new in town and we had dinner on the square, and i think we're going to both go to essaouira tomorrow on the bus (he is travelling alone as well, so i think he's happy enough to have a travel buddy), i am looking forward to that! marrakesh is the most amazing place, i am definitely going to come back when i get the chance. if any of you do come here, stay at this hostel (it's called equity point hostel).
anyway that's all for now. i dunno what i'm doing today, maybe trying to buy a pair of slippers for my dad.

couscous, minfadlik

so today is another beautiful, warm, cloud free day in marrakesh. i made a friend named kim from south korea and we went to the marjorelle gardens and the musee marrakesh this morning. we went for couscous for lunch and it was delicious, although i couldnt eat it all cuz there was sooo much...
anyways, we came back to the hostel and i have been sitting out on the roof in the sun reading my book {the golden compass, teehee} so i might be sunburned but thats ok. as long as it fades to a tan, ill be happy.
i am not sure what the plans are for the rest of the day but i might laze about for a bit longer and then wander out to the jemaa el fna again. it is always entertaining.