Volubilis (وليلي) & Meknes (مكناس) & First Day of School!

Hello lovely readers!

So today was my first day of school! It was also the first day I was completely confident of the route to the taxi stop from my house!! On the first day we toured the Old Medina we had quite a few conversations about the necessity of carrying a ball of string to lead us back out of the labyrinth:) 

I am taking fifth semester Arabic, which seems like it will be quite difficult from the first day even! I will be taking 20 hours of formal Arabic classes every week and a few hours of other classes in between. Essentially, by the end of these three months, I will have finished a years worth of Arabic. Whew! But the teachers are really good, I have seven other kids in my class with whom I can work through the lessons and my host father has offered to help me, so I will get through it, in shah allah. Oh, by the way, the phrase "in shah allah" is used when talking about the future, anything you hope to happen etc, and it essentially means, "if gods wills it" then it will happen!

I watched the beginning of a scary French movie with my host brothers Ahmed and Uthman last night. I could barely hear the film-which is better for my Arabic- and I feel comfortable speaking arabic with them so it was a good bonding activity:) My brother Uthman also did a spectacular magic trick for me which ended with the card I chose coming out of his mouth!! It was amazing and he said he's show me another one tonight, in shah allah!!

Our trip to Volubilis (or waleelee in Arabic) was very fun and very hot. I finally learned to appreciate the socially centered lives of the Ancient Romans. Each meal would take hours and they would all sit over a trough-like thing to relieve themselves together afterwards:) They also took jacuzzi for hours a day and drank tons of wine. Unfortunately all this togetherness eventually killed them in the way of disease and incest...oh well! The structures they built are still quite beautiful as you can see...

Corinthian style columns ( I KNOW those of you who were in sixth grade english class with me will recall that term :) )

All my new friends outside the forum!

The beautiful Meknes from a distance. It was built into this hill in two parts which now resemble the two humps of a bactrian camel.

Me in Meknes 

The grainery in Meknes...HUGE.

Beautifully tiled mosque

Dane ( one of the other students there from my university) trying his hand at a game during a gathering in the main center of the city, a daily occurrence in Meknes according to our guide! 

Well I guess I should start my homework for tomorrow!! 

Ma salaama!