...

Lafo ya molana lafo!
Last night Addison, Michael and I hung out on the roof and listened to Dane Cook until 2am, while watched a fire far off in the hills outside of Meknes. It was really chill and really fun.
Today we woke up early and drove to Rabat. We did the usual tourist stuff; and we were all miserable doing it. We paid literally no attention to our poor tour guide. We saw a casbah, the palace, a mosque that was destroyed by the Lisbon earthquake forever ago…just to name a few things. The good stuff started after lunch [at 2pm! We eat so late here!] when we went to the beach to lay out. The beach in Morocco is so different from the States! The first adventure was finding a way to change into our bathing suits. I don’t change on the beach even in the liberal US, much less in ultra-conservative Rabat, but we didn’t have much of a choice. It was a really complicated procedure, and we drew a lot of attention to ourselves, strategically making sure that we didn’t flash the entire beach. There was a lot of laughing and screaming, but all four girls [Me, Julia, Lauren, and Megan] and Jared finally got changed. Then Megan, Julia and I ventured down to the water, which was completely filled with scary rocks, so we didn’t go in too far. After fifteen minutes of narrowly avoiding getting pummeled by rocks and getting splashed by evil Moroccan children, we went back up to our towels to find Jared digging a hole to Australia [seriously]. Soon, a little Moroccan boy named Hitam came and started helping and it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I talked to him a little bit, but he mostly spoke dareeja [Moroccan dialect], which I don’t speak at all [I speak Modern Standard Arabic], so all I got out of the conversation was that he was nine and from Rabat. He was sweet and really helpful with Jared’s hole though. Then, two Arabic guys [one creepy, one ridiculously good looking, and both speaking a little English] came up and talked to us for a while about a lot of random stuff. We decided the cute one had to be a prince or something because he was very vague about his life and kind of skirted some questions that a normal person wouldn’t have. Hey, we can dream, can’t we?
Finally, we were ready to leave. Ben is staying in Rabat by himself in a hotel tonight, and I wanted to stay really badly. Michael and I had talked about it, but he chickened out at the last second. Ben asked if I wanted to stay with him, but I know deep down he really wants time to explore by himself, so I got back on the bus and came back to Meknes. Two hours later, we’re home and exhausted. Tonight Addison, Michael and I are going to sleep on the roof because it’s really breezy and chilly up there. I’m excited!
Did I mention anything about the weather yesterday? It was really overcast all day like it was going to rain –it never rains here though- and the air was really heavy and hard to breathe. Then, after dark, dust storms started. Dust, sand, and trash hung in the air. We couldn’t go anywhere because the wind was blowing so hard you could barely walk, and the dust and sand was barreling towards us so fast that it hurt. My first Middle Eastern sandstorm! Very exciting.
That’s it for today. Tomorrow Iman is taking us girls to the medina to get henna. We’re all stoked. I’ll let you know how it goes and take lots of pictures!!!

Salaam wa hubb,
-Danielle