Wednesday Marrakech

We woke up and ate breakfast at the riad.  Good thing we were early bc the riad apparently did not accept credit cards. I had to RUN around the medina looking for a bank. The first one was broken or just being weird so I ran to a different one.  Literally ran. In my fleece and a scarf- I am lucky to be alive.  I got the money and we paid. We got to the station in time to get some snacks and meet a british guy who has been renting a vacation apartment in Meknes for a long time.  We spoke about real estate and shot the u-kno-what till the train came. 

                  Our first class train car was unfortunately crowded.  We had to kick a Berber grandma out of one of our seats (she was laying down & was unhappy to move).  We had two middle seats, but it was actually fine bc nobody spoke to me. I sat in peace and did some ISP reading & ate the delicious snacks that I picked for us. It was a LONG train ride... Not a lot to say about it though. The bathrooms were surprisingly a-okay (probably the same level as Amtrak-without TP...) and that's it.

We took a petit taxi to the hotel.  

        The riads were nice and of COURSE mom had to stay in at least one, but the Meriden Casablanca was UNREAL.  So beautiful and comfortable. It smelled great and all of the people were friendly and helpful. It was happy hour and all I wanted to do was sit poolside, but I told Aniko (my boss for the summer) that I would meet her for tea. We settled and I reluctantly left my mom at the hotel to go to Aniko's. 

      Long story short. Aniko's was great. After the meeting I became SO excited for my summer with EFA.  I am going to be totally safe & have an assistant that knows everything and will be very helpful. They are gathering ~15 families that I will speak with in order to evaluate the Moroccan school system (for my senior project) and then EFAs impact (for EFA).  The first week I will be participating with a lot of the volunteers and girls in a mountain clean-up, so I can become orientated before starting real work.  Aniko said that I will have a key to her house in Marrakech to use at my disposal (as she said- "when (I) need to escape the mountains and go to a pool or something.”). Sounds GOOOOOOOD to me.   I ran back to the hotel to find a clean mother sitting in the hotel bathrobe. I was jealous. We explored around the hotel a little. It really was beautiful.  So many fragrant flowers and plants , and a lot of nice art too.  We came back to our room and I took a nice shower.
            We decided to eat in the hotel tonight.  We chose the Italian place over the Moroccan restaurant.  Mom got ravaoli and I got eggplant parm.  Both dishes were really really delicious.  We walked around the hotel a little more after dinner and then went in for the night.  

NB- Currently as I post this, I am at an internet café procrastinating my ISP paper, which I want to finish TODAY, and wishing I was back at Le Meriden Marrakech-  See u in ~11 days!!