Kit Kat McFlurry, bonding, and the measurement of success

     Today's post is simply musings, leftover notes, and anything else that I forgot or may not have had a home these past two weeks.  I just know things don't quite feel complete here, so I wanted to do a wrap-up.

     I don't think we have Kit Kat McFlurrys here in the United States.  We should.  They are amazing.  If an opportunity arose to get one, we did.  DQ Blizzard ripoff?  Who cares.  Delicious Kit Kats and caramel all blended together in ice cream.  I wish I had one right now.

     I think learning some French would have served us better than learning Arabic/Moroccan Arabic for Casablanca.  It seemed everywhere we went in town, French would have sufficed just fine.  It wasn't easy trying to draw upon stuff from 25 years ago, but it was better than nothing.  The Arabic was definitely useful for the first stretch of the trip in Ifrane, Meknes, and Fes, though.  I'm glad Ahmed gave us some relevant words/ phrases to use.

     The gap between the wealthy and poor in Morocco is really large, but even worse is how large a percent those groups are.  The number of people who are "economically vulnerable" is close to 45%.  It is rampant in the rural areas we drove through.  Not only were we privileged with taking the trip, but we were a privileged group-- one that could, relatively speaking, purchase or do whatever we wanted to there.  The Morocco Mall is huge and filled with stores such as Gucci, Fendi, Louis Vuitton.  We could make purchases there.  According to Deyea, she thinks the average Moroccan comes to this mall to see it as a site.  Like we might go to a park or monument.  Not to actually shop there.  I guess it is built for the tourists and wealthy Moroccans, while everyone else sticks to shopping in the medinas.

     Have you ever seen a Yamazuki bike?  I hadn't until this trip.  Did I ever mention how rampant counterfeiting is in Morocco?  This thing had to be a joke.  Some hybrid Yamaha-Suzuki thing that looked like it wouldn't make it up the smallest of hills.  Whoever owned it probably thought they were cool?  I don't know.

     I don't know how the girls will get by without our little bus driver from Casablanca.  He really was pretty cool.  But they will miss him most--because he let them honk the horn.  Repeatedly.  I believe he had been trained like a Pavlovian dog to honk whenever the girls went "beep beep".  I imagine some of them are driving around Fort Wayne right now in their cars.  With a sad "beep beep" and honking their own horn.... which is probably not as widely accepted, nor expected here.  Unlike in Morocco, where it was the norm.  People honked everywhere for everything.  It was a cacophony of surprising honks and alerts that were directed at anyone and everyone.  It has been so quiet driving into school these past two days.

     I didn't know how close our group had gotten until yesterday afternoon.  I went into work at noon for a couple of hours before my class at 3pm.  As each minute ticked by, I found myself getting more eager to see the 7 others who were in my J401 class.  I couldn't wait for 3pm!  Oh, glorious Chronos, speed up these moments so I can see my brethren again.  And the time came, finally.  Ashley, Rodrigo, Lynsey, Kelsey, Kyle, Melissa, Seyoung... we were together again. We shared our own secret laughs and stories, our own glances at each other in the class, our own knowledge that we had been through many things together.  We all probably realized how close our group had gotten.  This didn't end there, as I spoke to Chadi in between classes and he said how weird it was to be eating breakfast alone.  He was right.  It felt weird to be doing anything alone.

Me.  Enjoying life.  Encouraging all of you to do the same, everyday, everywhere.

     We were going to ask Stephen his thoughts on all of this, but the bum didn't show up for class.  I think the rest of the group all managed to make it in.  Way to be odd man out, Stephen.

     This trip brought us closer together.  Through the bonding around a new, foreign culture.  Through the academic and functional work we did together there. Through the multiple benefits of travel and experience.  I think, for the most part, it was an absolute success.  Even if everything wasn't perfect, the pieces that were, counted for much, much more than the trivial misses.

This is what traveling--whether alone, with friends, or with family (or a combination of those)-- can do for you...me...anyone.

So, if I can ask you to do something, it is this:

Please. Get out. Find the money and the time. See the United States. See all the things that people who come to our country attempt to see and experience our different cultures. From Southern hospitality to the West coast lifestyle. From the Amish to New England Yankees.

And once that's done, look outside the United States. You'll be ready to leave your comfort zone and appreciate everything a lot more. You'll almost guarantee you won't come across as an obnoxious, ignorant American to the rest of our world. Nobody wants that.  Hopefully we've got a few less of us now after this trip.

Remember, be good.  And if you can't be good, be good at it.

Where's your other hand? Between two pillows.

I couldn't leave the last day out, so here it is.

     This was it.  The beginning of the end of the beginning.  The trip is at a close, but for some, the travel bug will have bitten them, so this is really just a start for those looking to expand their cultural awareness.  They're ready to turn around and head right out again.  For others, it is an affirmation of what they always knew.  They like the things they like.  It may be local, or regional, or national... but it is familiar.  It is known.  They'll take their adventure much further down the road.
But we all still need to make it through today, just to get back to Fort Wayne.  That route entails a dash of some planes, trains, and automobiles.  Well, buses actually.

     Did I mention we had to be up for breakfast at 6am?  This made the 7 or 7:30am breakfasts look like a cake-walk.  The good news eating that early was that we had put a cushion of 15 minutes in to make our bus, and for once we made it on time.  A rarity.  At least we already had our boarding passes, no luggage to check (it was already set to go to the States), and nice weather.  This bus driver proved a little more prepared for our group.  For instance, he showed up and waited for us with a nice large bus to accommodate everyone without packing us and our fragile items in like sardines.

     Now, Rodrigo's only job the entire trip was to take charge in Madrid with his mastery of the Spanish language.  The downfall here was that this "mastery" in no way proved useful in attempting to talk to the rest of us.  Needless to say, after repeating some things, pointing, and grunting (I'm sure he was half asleep still), he got us to the train to get us to our gate.  Fine job there, Fes.


We ventured on planes, trains, and automobiles buses. And we triumphed.

     American Airlines "security" agents (really--it's in quotes because this concept is a joke) proceeded to ask us the old worthless questions that we here in the US gave up on asking years ago.  Did you pack these bags yourself?  Have they been with you?  Who purchased things in the bags?

I mean, really?  Who is going to answer in any negative manner to these questions?  Only the stupidest people out there, no matter their intentions.  No further x-rays.  No random searches.  Were we supposed to feel safe?  Actually, I did, because I am never really worried about this when I fly.  But I suppose some people may have gotten nervous.  I don't know.  It was just a waste of time.

     We had a great flight into JFK.  Got in early, which just meant our 4 hour layover was more closer to 5 hours.  We found a McDonald's serving sandwiches which were both familiar and expensive, so we knew we were back in the States.  That and the fact that many people didn't speak English and people were very rude also helped to point out we were back in the States.

Now I'm wondering why we even came back.  Probably because we are out of funds for the trip.  I suggested to Tom to play the drum he got for his buddy (it had made the trip in great shape so far) down in the corridor between terminals to try to solicit some money for us.  We had a lot of baseball hats that could be filled up with change.

     Finally, 4:50pm rolled around and the boarding process started.  We were on.  We were excited.  We all had a stranger sitting between us and our classmate on both sides of the plane (it went from being empty to being full).  Yup, here it is-- 5:20pm.  We were ready to go.

We went nowhere.  Nowhere.  They tossed some pathetic announcement that it would be super fast for a quick de-icing, and we would be on our way.  By 6pm, we had heard nothing else and kept sitting there.  By 6:20pm, we moved back from the gate with no de-icing having been done.  We at least got an announcement saying it was time to go.  Yeah, right.  By 6:45pm, we were sitting in the middle of the tarmac finally getting de-iced.  And by the time we finally wheeled into position for takeoff?  7:01pm.

An hour and 51 minutes after our takeoff time.  How did we fill that time?  Well, I read, stared around, read, stared around some more.  How bad could this boredom be?  And the others?  Well some napped, some listened to music or movies, some talked.  Like Ashley, who should now be known as Chatty McChatty. She talked poor Rodrigo's ear off and seemed to be full of giggles.  For like the entire 1:51.  Pretty impressive actually.

     The flight itself had a little chop to it, but we remained aloft.  And it took about 2 hours and 9 minutes according to the lying pilot we had.  By the time we touched down, we got the great news that there was a plane in our gate that was being de-iced, so we had no where to go.  Are you kidding me?  It took 30 minutes from touchdown to get off the plane.  Nothing like spending more time on the ground than we did in the air.

     So, instead of it being 7:20pm, it is more like 9pm.  And we really, really just want to get on the coach and get to Fort Wayne.  Our simple hope is that we will actually have a bus ready when we get our luggage.  That is the sort of hope that is the worst.  Simple.  Because things can never be that simple on a trip like this.  There was no bus ready.

But it would be there soon.  5 minutes.  Sha, right.  And monkeys might fly out of my butt.  Five minutes turned into 15, while we stood outside freezing in the wind.  Our awesome bus driver had never  been to O'hare and shot right past us out in a drive-lane, rather than inside his pick-up lane.  But he eventually got there.  At least the bus was nice.  Actually, Bob the Bus Driver (really.  Bob.) was nice, too.

There are no city streets to be driven on between O'hare terminals and Fort Wayne.  At all.  None.  This is important to know.

Remember two seconds ago when I mentioned the bus driver had never been to O'hare?  Well, we no sooner left the terminal and were on I-190 coming out of the airport.  This was perfect.  Here we go.

No.  Wait.  We are on a ramp going slower.  And slower.  Slower.  Why?  We got onto a city street.  Are you kidding me?  I am so awake and alert now because I have no idea what he is doing, we all have no patience, and most of the others are in a stupor.  I watched him drive around a block and get back to I-90.  Clearly, a wrong turn, but he figured it out.  Probably was using Apple Maps.

He makes his way to I-294 South.  This will work perfect, so I close my eyes for some much needed sleep, knowing that it would be hard to screw this up at this point.  There are giant signs saying "Indiana" everywhere you look on the road.

Bob the Bus Driver and his Apple Maps screwed up again.  Took us north of where we needed to be because he didn't jump onto I-80/90 when he had his chance.  What else could go wrong?  Fortunately, nothing.  He got us to Fort Wayne at about 2:20am Tuesday morning, 3/19/2013.

It was the end of our journey.  People were either too tired or too excited (or both) to think much about this.  I know I was.  I climbed in my car, got home, crawled into bed.  At that point, it was like I had never even left.  I was out.

Well, there you have it.  My trip to Morocco.  I am going to write one more post today or tomorrow with some general insights and some post-trip comments.  Read it.  Don't read it. Up to you.

    

Wrapping up Madrid and St. Patty's Day

The continuation of St. Patty's Day...
     When we last saw our weary travelers, they had just been abandoned by the little Spanish bus driver dude.  Fortunately, this was after he had shoved us and our luggage off the bus at the Crowne Plaza.  Little did we know what awaited us after this.

     Communication suffered a bit of a breakdown while we all headed to our rooms, with the plan to meet in the lobby at 4pm (30 minutes).  The original plan was to all board the bus and head into Madrid for some afternoon/ evening sightseeing.  Once Ahmed saw the bus driver was gone, he quickly called the travel agent in Fort Wayne, who allegedly was in contact with the bus operator.  Trouble was, the bus operator (again, allegedly) could not get the driver on the radio or phone.  So, we had no mode of transportation other than our own feet.  In Rodrigo's case, this was pretty worthless, since his own two feet carried him no more than a block at a time before he became lazy and sat down wherever he could.

     Ahmed offered a cab to anyone who wanted to still go out when he saw that the bus was a bust, however when he saw that everyone wanted to go and we would need some 4 or 5 cabs to get us around, the idea was shot-down.  This left us to entertain ourselves in the hotel.  Not a difficult prospect, since we had been entertaining each other for almost two weeks.  What made it harder was the disappointment that we were so close to everything Madrid had to offer, but weren't going to get there.

     Fortunately, delicious pizzas and drinks in the lobby bar helped quell the disappointment.  Even better, the first drinks were free due to a promotion they were running.  All one had to do was basically check-in via social media at their location and beer/wine/pop was on the house.  Some of us stayed down there, while others headed upstairs to play some cards before dinner.  The evening was relaxing, quiet, and rather uneventful-- all things I imagine it would not have been had we gone into town.

     Probably the best part of dinner was the smiling prawns in Tami and Ahmed's paella.  Tami laughed repeatedly everytime she looked down at them staring up at her.  The rest of our food was good, but not as personable as hers.  My cow was long dead.  Wait.  That reminds me of Lynsey's food.  Her cow was barely dead for the beef covered with mozerella she ordered-- or something like that.  All I know is, it was some mooing beef strips, redder than any meat I have had in years.

     After dinner, people were crashing early since we had to be up for breakfast at 6am.  This was it.  Only one morning left.  We hadn't lost anyone, yet.  Hopefully, tonight would not be our first.

The bus driver who took off

So it begins.  The awkward journey home.  Bliss to those who have been away from family for too long, for those who miss the United States, for thoese who are ready for familiarity.  Disappointment, or even discontent, to those of us who wanted to stay longer, to experience more, to drink in the gloriousness of travel and other cultures.

Have I waxed poetic enough?  I thought so.  I'll just get back to the heart of the matter.  Like Don Henley.

I was not ready to leave.  But we did.  Early.  I think Kyle was up at like 6:30am.  I managed to sleep until 7am, and we both made it to breakfast, grabbed our bags, and made the bus by 8am.

After having a great coach bus for a week, we were back to two little ones for this ride.  We appeared to put 12 people in one, and 6 of us rode in the other.  Which was nice for the six of us, since we weren't packed in like sardines.  The bus drivers were about normal, which means they managed to drive in reverse on city streets for some reason.  This is normal, really.  I think we drove in reverse almost every day of our trip.  Except yesterday.  You remember yesterday?  We took 2 hours to drive 2500 feet to the beach?  There was no need to go backwards there.  The entire dumb trip felt backwards yesterday.

But, we got to the airport safe and sound.  The importance of this is that Kathy (faculty chaperon) only had two blank incident reports.  In case we needed them.  Happy to say that we never needed them.  I'm sure she is more happy to say the same.  One more batch of airport great news is that no one had overweight bags they had to pay for.  A few people had to shuffle things.  Actually, no.  I think only Ahmed had to shuffle things.  That was because he went in the Business Class line for Iberia and annoyed the lady.  So when his bag was a few kilograms over, she made him change things around.  When we saw her again at our gate to get on the plane, I suggested he not talk to his new friend, for fear she would subject him to who knows what.

An easy flight from Casablanca to Madrid.  Less than 2 hours, and most of the crew tried to sneak a cat nap in, because of all our big plans in Madrid for the afternoon and night (we landed in Madrid at 2:30pm).

We made it through everything imaginable at the airport--passport control, customs, etc.-- in just a few minutes and our little bus driver dude was waiting at the exit with an IPFW sign for us.  Straight out of a movie, or something.  Pepe (Rodrigo) was there to speak his broken Spanglish with him, but turns out, he didn't need to hear anything from us.  He waved us to the bus.  Loaded us on, all the while pitching our fragile collectibles and bags into every conceivable empty space, and took us to the Crowne Plaza.

In just 30 minutes, we would be boarding the bus and headed into Madrid's city center.  Only that didn't happen.  Because the little bus driver dude took off the moment he threw us and our bags at the hotel.

You know what happened next?  To be honest, I am tired, so I am going to finish this story tomorrow.  Really.  I hope you all are enjoying St. Patrick's Day.  I did.

We're at the end, but it isn't over

     I haven't taken any time to stop and look back at the trip really.  It's all been spent looking forward to later the same day, or what we're doing the next day.  Today was simply a day to relax, with nothing we needed to worry about or fixate on.

This was a good thing because we had quite a journey this morning.  Two hours to make it to the coast.  Which was about 5 blocks from our hotel.  How could that have happened?  Well, it all started with a picnic.  This required food, which we didn't have.  Since we didn't have food, that required a trip to the grocery store.  The grocery store wasn't close, so that required a trip 45 minutes in the opposite direction of the coast.  Getting a feeling where this is going?

We made it to the grocery store.  Oh, and did I mention no one really wanted a picnic?  No one knows how that idea started, because no one was willing to speak up about it.  So here we are in Marjane (grocery store), and I finally speak up to let Ahmed know we don't want a picnic.  He probably wanted to kill us, since we had wandered around for 20 minutes at this point.  We'll probably spend our first class back at IPFW with him working on our communication.  After threatening us about leaving us in the grocery store (He didn't really.  I would have.), we headed back to the coast.

This is the sun setting.  If I was looking east and it looked like that, it would be the sun rising.

     I think we may have had some some travelers who had never been to the beach/ ocean, but I'm not sure.  They did have fun wading into the surf to their ankles--way too cold for swimming.  After some sand and shell collecting, it was off to grab a bite of lunch and rest up at the hotel for the afternoon.

It was nice being able to pack early and have everything ready to go before dinner.  We kept dinner simple and just went to Pizza Hut, actually.  This was a fantastic choice because it was close and simple.  I feel like something happened there that was blog worthy--because Chadi told me it was--but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.  I know Pedro (Rodrigo--in case you forgot) tried to trick me into rubbing the hair on my arm into a knot (didn't fall for it).  I don't think that was it though.  Maybe someone will jog my memory tomorrow.  Anyhow, we ate and headed back, and it it getting late.  And we leave tomorrow.  Can you believe it?

Before you know it, our time is at an end.

But it isn't over.  We still have Madrid on St. Patty's Day.  Coming tomorrow:  the quest to find an Irish beer.

Birthdays galore. And some surveys.

Ingredients
One breakfast
A dash of some shopping in the medina and cooperatives near it
One trip to the Jewish Club for lunch
About 80 surveys for our marketing research
About 160 product samples
A sprinkle of cookies and cakes from a local patisserie
Two (okay, three) birthday wishes
Zero headaches
Tons o' fun


Instructions
     Wake up in time to make it to breakfast.  This should have been an easy thing, but we got to sleep in an extra hour and a half until 9am.  So it wasn't.  Almost all of the food was gone.  No orange juice was left.  I had a knife but no fork.  There were locusts.  A flood.  I thought the world was ending.  But they had a yummy sweet croissant left, so things ended up okay.

     Breakfast being finished, we added some shopping into the mix again.  Today was some medina and a local artisan cooperative.  The co-op was nice because we got to see some retail prices for an idea of what we were bargaining for in the medina.  The medina was nice because we got some great prices on the last batch of gifts everyone wanted.

     Slowly blend in some Jewish Club lunch.  The significance of this was thus:  While the small Jewish population remained in Islamic Morocco, the hostilities between the peoples of the two religions gradually grew less.  Lunch was a symbolic gesture of the peacefulness between the two parties, and a chance for our class to partake in the new Morocco.  A country of tolerance, peacefulness, and integration of all people and religions.

     Let all of the students sit for about an hour relaxing and rising.  Like yeast.  Only we are cooler.  Once they reach a level of restfulness and readiness, unleash them with 80 marketing surveys on the unsuspecting public of Casablanca.  The trick to this step is to make sure that the unsuspecting public has decent English, or else the whole recipe could go wrong.  Fortunately, we met some capable individuals who helped us get this done in about 90 minutes.  We also passed out the bulk of all our samples, so there won't be anything left to take home.

     Now that things were under control, we needed to sift in the cookies and cakes from the bakery.  Why did we need cakes?  Birthday parties!  Why did we need cookies?  I don't know!  Neither do any of the guys.  We sat around outside yelling at local bums to leave us alone while the girls were inside.  It didn't work.  Meanwhile, the girls loaded up on boxes of good stuff to take home.

     The easy part of this recipe involved getting the night club at the hotel for our birthday celebration.  Josey, Lynsey, and Deyae all had birthdays these past 7 days, so we did one big celebration for them all here at the hotel in the night club.  We committed to 10 drinks, which was a joke since we had more than was worth counting while we danced the night away.  Poorly.

     The best way to finish this recipe is by making sure it is headache-free and adding tons o' fun to it.  This evening was.  Drinks, bad dancing, and birthday cake wrapped things up nicely.  I really loved the time we had.

Just hoping we can find a way to duplicate it.  In case we want seconds.

******  If I don't get tomorrow's blog posted in the next 24 hours, it will be due to packing and an early night to get ready to head out from Casablanca to Madrid on Sunday.  We'll see how it goes.  For now, let me see what sort of photo I can tuck in here.  Ma salama.

Sunset over the Atlantic.  From Rabat.  I need to edit some of these photos.  Ah, well.  Enjoy.

To Rabat ... and beyond

     Day 10...
11am ... An antiquated mode of  transportation known as a "bus" has brought us to the city of Rabat, capital of Morocco, home of the King of Morocco's palace.  Step one for us-- jump off the bus as it begins to come to a stop there, so most of us can run into the WC.  It is sweet relief.  Two hours after breakfast, and we don't know when we will get to go again.

     We hope to get a glimpse of the elusive Prince Moulay Rachid ben Hassan of Morocco.  A former student of Ahmed and Samir's, the hope is that he may want to say 'hi' and we would get a chance to meet him.  This does not come to pass, and we are deterred.  Other sites and locales await.

12pm... We arrive at the ruins of Chella, a necropolis of the Roman era.  Got some great documentation via notes and photos.  It probably dates back close to 1000 years, with numerous prehistoric creatures roaming free-- mostly storks and fat, lazy cats.  The bus hasn't broken down on us yet, so we board it again.

1pm... A visit to the tomb of the late King Hassan II and King Mohammed V are our next destination.  It is a magnificent structure adjacent to a large minaret and unfinished mosque.  Restlessness of our group begins to set in.  Hunger pains and concern for our ever-changing itinerary begin to weight heavy on our minds.  Without food soon, anarchy may reign.

2pm... We have met up with Abdellah Benlamhidi (legal council for MMA star Lee Murray--who was arrested for a $92 million bank heist in London) for lunch.  Delicious kabobs, tea, and dessert have quelled the uprising.  For now.

3:30pm... We walked around the block after lunch.  No one knows why.  Questions about the itinerary begin to surface again.  Will we make it back to Morocco?  No one knows.

4pm... Shopping in the Rabat medina.  We split into 3 groups.  Most of the guys get the group with Samir, myself included.  This is good, because Samir can communicate our haggling in the market.  Rodrigo, who we now refer to as Pedro, Pepe, or Fez, has gotten himself a great deal on a wood box.  He even kicks in a few Peruvian Soles because the artisan wanted every last coin that was in his wallet.  We all find something, actually.  Which is rare.

6pm... We all escape the medina.  But not before some of us used the bathroom there.  Which wasn't a western bathroom.  We went native, which here was nothing more than some porcelain surrounding a hole in ground.  And a faucet to wash your feet.  There was that there, too.

8pm...Communication has reached an impasse.  No matter how hard we try to establish consensus, we can't choose something for dinner.  We don't know what to do.  Tara takes charge and commandeers the bus in order to get answers out of us.  It mostly works, as we manage to only separate into two groups.

10pm... Drinks downstairs.  Work to be done.  Blogs to write.  More drinks to have.  It gets late.  Fun laughs with Ashley and Josey.  And I live again to make it to another day.

I'll leave you with a picture of me looking good.

Me.  Looking good.  I know that is no surprise.

The day we dressed up. For very little.

     This was to be one of our bigger days.  We had Proctor and Gamble marketing presentations this morning at their North Africa corporate offices here in Casablanca, a visit to see how they do product promotions at a local hamam (bath house), we were supposed to check out the Moroccan stock market, and then surveys were to be done on behalf of our two businesses at the mall, with dinner to follow.

     Pretty much none of that happened.  After an early breakfast, I ended up going with Lynsey and Samir ( one of our local educators helping out from Akhawayan University) to get her credit card from an ATM machine that ate it yesterday after the bank had closed.  Samir was very concerned about Lynsey getting her card.  Lynsey was mildly concerned about getting her card.  I wasn't too concerned about her card at all.  Many of us would have given her cash if she needed it.  But, Samir's concern won out.

     We ditched the first part of Proctor and Gamble to go back to the ATM at the building we spent yesterday afternoon in.  As we pulled away from the hotel to go do this, we got a great view of Hamid's car (another AUI educator), which had been side-swiped in the night, right in front of our hotel doors.  Samir informed us of how Hamid's car had been "hurt".  It was a mess-- he spent all day dealing with the insurance companies, actually.  Meanwhile, Lynsey, Samir, and I were off on the card chase.

     Which, mainly, proved fruitless.  Apparently, their version of Brinks handles ATMs, so we needed to wait for them to show up and get the card.  The bank couldn't do it.  After waiting about 90 minutes, we gave up, made some photocopies of her IDs, and headed to meet up with our group at the hamam.

     That was an adventure in and of itself.  Samir had obtained the nickname "James Bond" due to his manner of driving his car in the Casa traffic.  Traffic in Casa has little rhyme or reason.  They have lines striped on the streets for no apparent reason.  The traffic lights are just there to look nice and bring color to the town.  And everyone's horn works really well.  It has to, because they use it all of the time.  We encountered a taxi trying to cut in front of us, which Samir would have none of.  So, as we got closer and closer, neither wanted to back off.  Samir's passenger side mirror hit the driver's side mirror of the taxi (I was in the passenger seat watching this from about 8" away).  Neither driver liked this, but Samir got ahead.  And then proceeded to drive his car down the middle of both lanes.  Moroccan style, he said.  Lynsey and I had our jaws hanging open.  Mostly, mine was in laughter with 10% fear.  Pretty sure we won, though.  And to make sure, he turned right from the left lane on the road.  James Bond, indeed.  But we made it to the hamam.

     The hamam we went to was in some lower class part of town, apparently.  Honestly, it didn't look any different than most other parts of town.  I didn't want to tell them that, though.  We walked down the street to get to it a couple blocks.  Which were unpaved.  And it was raining.  Most everyone ended up with red mud all over their shoes and pants.  You may think this wouldn't be a problem, since we were headed to a bath house, anyhow.

Wrong.

     We were there in our suits--and not bathing or birthday--for our marketing efforts.  With mud all over.  But it didn't stop us from hiking into 110 degree saunas to watch naked old men (us guys) or naked old women (the girls) using Proctor and Gamble products, such as Head and Shoulders or Gillette.  Or some weird camera being run over a scalp to check for dander and bad stuff in the hair.  There aren't pictures.  You wouldn't want pictures.  My eyes are still burning from some images, and it was 12 hours ago.

     After the traumatic bath house, naked old dudes, and magnified images of dander on a stranger's scalp, we headed back to the hotel.

     Well, not me.  I went with Samir and Lynsey back to the ATM/bank to *finally* get her card.  And we did.  And it was glorious.  Thus ends the credit card portion of today.

Meanwhile, back at the secret meetings going on at the hotel....

     The plan for surveys at the mall was worked out and approved.  By 1/4 of the group.  But, whatever.  We would have a good, productive afternoon.

Wrong.

     We got to the mall, and didn't have all of the "permissions" we needed to set up shop and survey people.  So, the HR guy got all our stuff to look over and basicall told us to come back Friday to do it.  I think.  I have no idea.  The schedule still keeps changing.

So, we shopped around--it is a pretty nice mall-- the Morocco Mall.  I didn't get anything except some frozen yogurt samples that were free.  They quenched nothing.  Not a problem, because after the mall, we headed to Rick's Cafe.

     You remember Rick's Cafe?  Casablanca-the movie?  Yup.  Pretty cool place, and the food was amazing.  I think a few of the meats weren't cooked the way some folks expected, but overall, a pretty good reception of the place.  My filet was perfect.  I wish we could go there every night.  And guess what happened next?  We went back to the hotel.

To no wi-fi in our room again.  It is like they are using a hamster running on a wheel to generate the power to run a router here at this hotel.  But such are the perils of a 2nd world country.  So, I am in the lobby now.  I forgot to upload pictures of the day, so I have nothing there.

You'll need to simply use your imagination.  Imagine someone you dislike that is unattractive, but you tolerate them.  Like a nasty postman or someone from the IRS.  Now, imagine them naked.  Welcome to the hamam.  See you tomorrow.

That isn't a small sink in our bathroom

     Busy day today.  Met with the Moroccan Investment office, the American Chamber of Commerce here, and Coca-Cola.  Walked around the outside of Hassan II mosque.  Hit the grocery store for some necessities.  These being beer, wine, snacks, and cash.  And made sure our trips on the bus today were memorable.  But the day started differently.

Not a mini-sink.  Don't put your head near this.

What should have been a smooth morning getting ready turned into a learning experience for me.  We had this awesome stand-alone, mini-sink in the bathroom.  Right next to the tub.  I was all set to put my head into it and get all shampooed up.  After doing a little research, turns out this is, in fact, not a mini-sink.  It is a bidet.  To be honest, this is way better than a mini-sink.  Especially since our housekeeper didn't bother to put a new role of toilet paper on for us, and we didn't have a spare.  Good news is, Kyle swiped his 1/2 roll from the Inn in Ifrane, so we are covered in all sorts of ways here.  Ultimately, I'm glad that my head was not down in that bidet.  Besides that, we got ready and headed to a great breakfast at our restaurant in the hotel before heading to the Moroccan Investment office.

The Investment office was pretty great.  A nice presentation coupled with tea and cookies (very normal everywhere we go).  It is a one-stop shopping office.  They can have a foreign business up and running in five days, which is right on track with us here in the US.  To be honest, it isn't easy keeping awake for some of these early morning lectures.  It isn't the material, just the time, circumstance, etc.  I find myself fidgeting.  Some of the others do that too.  Ashley doesn't even try to do that.  At one point I looked over at her, and she blinked (I thought).  Only, it wasn't a blink.  The eyes closed and they stayed closed.  And they stayed closed.  And they stayed closed some more.  Then, her head fell forward and she jumped awake.  That was the last time she blinked that long.

After our morning shift, we walked around the outside of Hassan II mosque.  It is huge.  I thought Sultanahmet (Blue Mosque--Istanbul) was big.  This had to be bigger.  It was so windy out there, at one point we were almost blown like tumbleweeds across the square.  We'll be back here Friday.

After lunch we had great meetings with the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and Coca-Cola.  They gave us some ideas about our companies we are researching for and for the most part, we all stayed awake.  But it was close a few times.  Stephen sat in front for AmCham and had some serious head-nodding going on.  But no snoring, at least.

Stopping into Marjane's (like a Walmart Supercenter) right next door was the only stop on the way to our hotel.  We all wanted cheaper means to grab some drinks and snacks.  This worked out great, except for the fact that Hotel Idou Anfa doesn't let in outside food and drinks (technically).  So, we did what any of us would do.  I had brought my bag (empty) and we purchased a gym-style bag and loaded them up.  I think I smuggled two 50lb bags through the front door of the hotel.  It wasn't as dramatic as I had it ramped up in my head.  Probably because these bags weren't loaded with cash from a big bank heist or something like that.

To wrap up the evening, I headed a group of six of us over to KFC for some late-night chicken strips.  Ahmed put me in charge.  Mistake?  Hopefully not.  I got us back and we were all a little fuller and happier for it.

Now, wrapping up the night watching Hot Fuzz with Kyle before we crash.  Another long day tomorrow.  Proctor and Gamble and surveys at the Morocco Mall.  Should be great!

*****Please note that the entire bidet portion of the story is fictionalized.  My head went nowhere near that thing, as I have been in love with the concept of the bidet for more than 20 years, and am well aware of it's magnificent purpose.  For those of you who were not familiar with the bidet, I hope this keeps you from making any embarrassing mistakes or experiencing anything traumatizing.  You've been warned.

The road to Casablanca

     In case you missed the warnings, this is my travels from Monday the 11th.  I should have written down the day.  Now, I have to think back on it.  Give me a moment to collect my thoughts.  While I do, here is a photo I took during our trip:

No fences. Restless farm animals.  Vehicles moving at 65 miles per hour.  You do the math.

     This was the sight for the 4 hours between Ifrane and Casablanca.  People here drive terrible.  Quick, reckless.  The livestock is everywhere.  Bottom line... I don't know how we didn't smear a cow across the toll road on our journey to Casa.  For that matter, I don't know how we didn't end up off the road driving through the fields.  After cruising through Rabat, we headed south and finally got into Casablanca.  Traffic is atrocious here.  Must have taken 50 minutes to go 10 miles.  I barely jest.

The hotel is pretty nice though.  Except for the obvious problem that we all noticed immediately.  The wi-fi is practically non-existent.  Not sure how business people get anything done.  Hopefully it will be fixed soon (sort of like I can see the future on this one, huh?).

We went out to the medina today just for a quick walk-around and some shopping.  Everyone found something they were looking for, I think.  The thing is, it wasn't everything they were looking for.  Not to worry.  Pretty sure there is more time for shopping on Friday and Saturday.  We headed to the coast after shopping.

I could not believe the waves breaking here.  Sort of looked like down at Bondi.  Half the crew wanted to get onto the beach and go in the water.  It got dark. It got cold.  It got late.  It got to be a bad idea, so that was skipped.  I'm sure we will head there again too before the week is out.  Thing is, these things that keep getting pushed back may be building up to the point where we never get them in.  Ah, well.  We will just have to wait and see.

I'm not sure where all the restaurants are around here, but I think it was 9pm before we had us something to eat.  Ended up at a French shop for some pretty tasty sandwiches.  I was glad they were still serving because I was starved and grumpy.  Food made all the difference, but it was once again late when we got back and it was going to be an early morning.

Today's side note:  My spelling.  I looked back over a lot of these posts this past year, and I see there are errors.  I have no intention of changing them.  That is more work than I care to do.  I see I have a spellcheck on this, so my plan is to start using it.  We'll see if it makes any diferance. difference.

Fes Fez The place with the little hats

     Today's visit to Fes really began with the trip preparations during breakfast.  I was not really prepared for detailed instructions at 8am, but Ahmed (Dr. Rachdi) jumped into a seat at our table with a game plan for the day.  Not just any game plan, but who would be on security detail.  Why would we need to take such precautions, you might ask?  Because we were going to a place that offers things like this:

Just another day in the Fes medina.  We passed on these guys, though.

     Actually, the Fes medina is an incredibly safe place overall, although you don't want to walk through it blindly waving money or valuables around, on the off chance there are unsavory characters about.  Because we were a large group, Ahmed laid out his idea.  We would be forming a group of guys around the women and travel up and down the 9500 alleys (sort of roads--but there are no cars) in our bunch.  Also, we would have a trustworthy, loyal guide who knew everything about the medina and Fes.  Now that we all knew the gameplan, we boarded the bus for another nauseating ride to Fes that lasted just over an hour.  It was time to meet the tour guide.  I never got his name.

     Getting his name would turn out to not be too important, because this trustworthy, loyal guide would turn out to be some shady local tour guide who attempted to take the poor lost American tourists (us) into stores he had probably already been getting kickbacks from to get us to buy there.  When he saw we weren't buying, he took off.  Yup.  Our tour guide ditched us completely.  Pretty sure Ahmed had some choice words for him, but my Moroccan Arabic is pretty rusty.  Pretty non-existent may be more like it.  This was not a problem, because this was Ahmed's hometown and he knew just where to take the girls to get kaftans.  And because the girls wanted to go, the guys went too.  This worked out just fine though, because the people that owned the store were the same people whose home we would be having lunch in.

After the kaftan shop, we formed back into our ranks.  This worked for all of five minutes (it never really worked better than that) because we had locals cutting through our group non-stop.  If the girls felt any safer, they wouldn't tell us.  Rodrigo admitted he would be the first to run away if there was a problem, anyhow.  None of them wanted him next to them.

     Lunch was another amazing meal that could have fed probably 50 people, even though there were about 21 of us.  Dish after dish after dish kept coming out and finally, when we couldn't eat anymore, the fruit showed up signaling the end of our lunch.

     The excitement of being a "guard" for the girls eventually wore off, when I realised the extent of my offering was nothing more than shooing-off toothless, 90-year-old beggar women.  I became very good at this, but I doubt yelling at homeless panhandlers in Arabic in Chicago will be very beneficial to keeping them away.  I guess it is one of those specialty skills I will file away.

     The evening ended with McFlurries for everyone.  Sometimes, there is just no avoiding McDonald's.  Especially when you are busing an hour home and it is the easiest place to stop at.

Tomorrow morning we are up early to head to Casablanca for the week.  I am not exactly ready to leave Ifrane, but it will be nice to get to our next base of operations.  Should mean a whole lot less time on the bus.  Wish us luck.

Life is an English Highway

     Pretty great day today, both in weather and activities.  Meknes (our destination) is an hour away, so that was an hour in the back of a bus with my breakfast sloshing around in my stomach on a bunch of winding roads.  A terrible combination for someone who dislikes riding in the back of anything anymore.  Hopefully the Maalox I chewed up was from an uncontaminated lot.  I don't know.  They were old and probably will not settle my stomach anyhow.

     The good news for the drive is that it wasn't raining.  Our first stop was the English Highway in Meknes.  This is a newly formed English Language school.  It was developed and implemented by Abdellatif Filali, an absolutely engaging fellow who spent the entire day with us providing some Moroccan socio-cultural lectures, sightseeing, and an amazing dinner at a restaurant located in a riad (Riad d'Or).  Filali has three Master's degrees from Louisville, Arkansas, and AUI and had some great information for our class.

Me and Filali.  Probably being awesome.

     One of the best parts was a trip to Volubilis.  This is a Roman city (ruins now) dating to 215 BC (or so).  A few of us had a great talk with Filali out there regarding the complete lack of promotion, control, and use of Volubilis--especially because it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Right as we were leaving Volubilis, the rain started.  For now, we made it on the bus and stayed dry.  We headed to the riad for dinner.  The riads used to be large, shared homes with beautiful courtyards, many levels, and many rooms.  A lot of them are now almost like boutique hotels and restaurants.  Ours was a combination of both.  My end of the table (we were big--23 of us today) thought we had eaten through the appetizers and entree courses, only to find we were only about 1/2 way done.  I was about ready to burst by the time fruit came (dessert--typically oranges, bananas, and strawberries.  Heaping on a plate).

Another hour ride back to Ifrane, and our day was done.  I am beat, but it was totally worth it.  Tomorrow we head to Fes, and plan on spending a lot of time walking around the medina there.

Today's side note:  In a rush into the bathroom (2 stalls), Rodrigo ran into one and me, the other.  Mine was apparently the women's (they were identical).  I come out and Kelsey is standing there recording my face right next to the women's sign.  I don't know what I was thinking, but there is too much proof to deny this happened.  Later this evening--at dinner in the riad-- the glass light fixture just decided to fall off the wall while I was standing in there.  The crash was pretty loud and I'm not sure they liked my explanation of the events.  Which was pretty much... I don't know what happened.  It just fell..... anyhow, they didn't kick me out of Morocco for that one, so I've got that going for me.

Wild monkeys and me

     As I sit to write this, I am amazed at what a small, quiet little town I am in.  I think the population is only around 25,000 or so (about half of the Magic Kingdom attendance on any given busy day).  I am used to staying in hostels in large towns, so there is rarely a moments quiet or noise-free scenario.  The sleepiness of this village is making up for it in a way that makes me wish I actually had a little more sounds of the big city around me.

     But it makes for great sleeping these past couple nights, anyhow.  And we needed a good rest for another busy day.  More lectures and a chance to check out Hillary Clinton's office she used while she was at Al Akhawayan University.  Apparently she isn't the only US official to have made their rounds out here.  In the school's almost 20 years, there has been a large number of global leaders making the visit with their photos hanging all throughout the school.  If any of our presidents have been to IPFW, I don't think I knew it.  I suppose our governor knows where Fort Wayne is, and perhaps has been told there is a 4-year state school there.  But I wouldn't know about that either.

     I haven't met my own new chancellor at IPFW, but we had a great introduction and meeting with the president here at AUI, Driss Ouaouicha.  He reports to King Mohammed VI, so I thought that was pretty cool.  I think Chancellor Vicky (IPFW) probably reports to someone at Purdue University or something like that.  So... eh, not quite as special.  Driss Ouaouicha did his Master's work at University of Texas, so when he was walking out, I gave him a great big Hook 'Em Horns!  At that point, I think my classmates were probably aghast that I would embarrass them all like that.  Turns out, I knew best.  He absolutely loved it, as did Dr. Rachdi.  I had them both smiling and cracking up as he gave me a Hook 'Em back.  Ahmed told me that was perfect, which allowed the other 14 of my peers to relax considerably.  Probably wished they had thought to do something like that themselves.

After that, we went to find monkeys.  All the way in the wild.  I was intrigued, as I had never seen wild monkeys before.  So, why not.  It is only about 40 minutes outside of town up in the mountains (allegedly).  Dr. Rachdi swears he had seen them once before (allegedly).  We piled onto the bus.

If you look to the left of my bald spot, you will notice a cool monkey.

     After driving into the mists (note, not gorillas in the mist.  It was monkeys we were after), and hoping the rain and fog would lift, we made our way to the park.  It is a national park that I don't have the name of.  I'll have to look it up.  Inside the park, we hiked our way 20 minutes or so into the woods, and there they were.  Up in the trees, making their way down for all of the fruits we had been smuggling off the dining room tables for the past 48 hours.  I was pretty impressed and we all absolutely loved it.  Some literally tugged on your pants and looked up at you, wanting more.  It was cute and pathetic at the same time--greedy little guys.

     Definitely worth the trip up there.  I would love to go again, but I'll probably have to settle for a zoo in the near future.

Tonight, after the 3 hour dinner, I am exhausted.  And we are out the door at 7am tomorrow for an all-day trip to Meknes.  I'll keep you posted if we make it back.

Go check on Chris. Make sure he isn't dead.

     That is how my morning started after the train wreck that was yesterday (which you'll remember was my post from about 8 hours ago).

Dr. Rachdi sent Kyle to knock on my door this morning.  Presumably to make sure I wasn't dead.  I confirmed this with Kyle, who said in fact, that that was almost exactly why he came knocking.  I suspect it was for the selfish reason that he will be sharing my room in Casablanca this week and hoped I was going to have to be shipped off in some manner-- freeing up the room for just him.

Since I was feeling about 1 million times better, we went down for a great breakfast to start a busy day at the Akhawayn University.

We received a tour of the campus to start us off.  At least that was what we were told.  I rather suspect they took us around and showed us off throughout the campus to the faculty and students, in a manner reminiscent of parading us around like some reverse carnival side show.



I think the Moroccan students were taking in the sights.  Namely, our D490 group.

No.  That couldn't have been it, because after the tour, a couple of lectures from the faculty there, and a great lunch--where I was applauded for being back in action, we got to meet our Business School counterparts.  They were all pretty fantastic.

We had some great back and forth about some products they are working on for businesses, as well as our own.  They offered us some great information and were a lot of help, and it was very interesting to hear someone from here talk about the town you are living in.  I felt bad they had to do any research on Fort Wayne.  After they provided us with the number of annual visitors to Fort Wayne, I spent the next few minutes wondering how that number could be reach, and more importantly why it would be reached.  I don't remember how many people visit Fort Wayne, but I personally feel it was way too many for what is there.  They are all probably just coming for the Vera Bradley clearance sale, so the numbers are skewed.

A great dinner followed all of this with all of the students in our group and their class.  They had arranged a bunch of guys singing Berber poems and doing some dancing as we entered the hall; this in turn had a bunch of our group and their group up and dancing with them.  Well, our group was all of the ladies and Stephen.  None of the guys wanted to do it except for Stephen, who was good-natured about it all and had a blast.  Good thing he kept the great relations going with our new friends as the other guys sat back, clapped, and laughed.

And that was the day.  Wait.  Almost forgot.  I locked myself in the room briefly.  Really.
You use a key from the inside to lock your door for the deadbolt (if you wanted it locked while in the room).  Well, turns out, you can rotate the key twice, and it sends the deadbolt in further.  Yeah, I didn't know this and did that by accident.  So when I turned it once to unlock it, it just kept it locked.  I kept going back and forth, but it stayed locked.  Then, panic and embarrassment began to set in.

So, I waited to hear Stephen head to his room (he is next door).  Started to pound on the door and shout his name (too embarrassed to use the phone for the front desk--in fact, I was much closer to climbing out the window.  I'm only on the 2nd floor).  Stephen starts laughing and asking what I'm doing as I explain the situation.  He is clearly a genius and suggested I turn the key to unlock it twice in succession.

This worked, and I suspect he cleared out as soon as I thanked him to run tell everyone of my ordeal.  Like I haven't had enough going on this past 24 hours.

But, at least I won't do that again while I am here.

My worst jet lag ever

Behind already.  These are the events from March 6th.

Wow.  Yesterday pretty much killed me.  Mom and Dad could hear it when I talked to them on the phone, even.

I have rarely had any extreme issues with jet lag in all of my travels, but for some reason this time was different.  Let's go back a day here.

The last you knew, I was leaving Dallas en route to (eventually) Ifrane, Morocco.  The flight from Dallas to Madrid was enjoyable, probably because I actually had people I know to talk to.  They probably wished I had talked less, but they were nice enough to not say anything. The flight ran out of complimentary beer after their first trip through the cabin.  Not very impressive, American Airlines.  So, I switched to red wine.  This was not very good, but at least it did not come out of a box.

As the red wine flowed and the flight progressed, the volume of my voice gradually increased.  I probably thought I was compensating for all of the loud noise from everyone else who was sleeping quietly.  The flight attendant mentioned she didn't care, but I may make the other passengers annoyed if I woke them up.  I concurred, and promptly fell asleep until we were basically touching down in Madrid.  The whole process of going through Madrid was fine, other than we boarded our flight to Casablanca from a bus that simply dropped us on the tarmac and left.

Both the front and rear doors of the plane were boarding, so people went wherever.  This created a madhouse inside the plane (1 aisle), where people just shoved each other to get by.  Wrestling style, only real.  Even better, in the middle of getting on the plane, it started raining outside.  Buckets.  Fortunately, I had just made it off the stairs and was standing in there getting shoved around.

I quickly fell asleep and woke up when we were touching down in Casablanca.
Now at this point, I've slept a ton, eaten and snacked a lot, had plenty of water... and should have felt pretty much okay.  I mean, it's only a 5 hour time change from EST.

But I didn't.  In fact, I kept feeling worse as we waited for our luggage, until I felt like sprawling on the ground in the middle of baggage claim.  I kept my composure (barely), got our bags, and we made it on to the shuttle (we were split into two smaller 16 passenger buses).  Here I promptly dropped my head onto the seat next to me and tried again to sleep for the next hour until our stop for lunch.

Things only got worse.  As I headed into the restaurant, I must have looked like death.  Which is accurate since I felt like a zombie walking around.  I don't really know what a zombie feels like walking around.  Maybe he doesn't feel anything.  Maybe he feels terrible (because he is eating brains).  Maybe he feels slow and lazy because he isn't contributing to society in any beneficial way.

My definition is feeling so bad you want to curl up into a little ball in a little corner and cry a little bit.  I wasn't looking for even a little bit of sympathy, but I got a whole lot of it from everyone.  They could see how rough I was looking and all wondered what they could do.  What a great group I'm with!

After lunch (at about 4:30pm), we jumped back on the buses--just what I wanted to do--get whipped around in the back seat of a bus traveling into the Middle Atlas mountains.  In what would be mostly dark.  While I felt the way I did.

We eventually made it to Ifrane.  At like 8pm.  Ugh.  I gotta say though, I have a great room.  In fact, we all have 1-bedrooms at their executive hotel on campus.  And I crashed hard.  Dr. Rachdi, Tom, and Josh came up after dinner since I ditched them to make sure I wasn't laying in my bed, dead.  I barely jest.  That is how I felt, and certainly how I looked to the 17 of them.

But things got better after last nights sleep.  So I will try to fill you in on my day here later tonight.

On the road again

Oh, Willie.  At least you provide us with great lyrics and melodies.  Even though you don't provide us with your share of taxes.

Here we are in Dallas, waiting for our flight to Madrid.  Everyone made it this morning.  Not exactly on time, but they made it.  Two of our group had never flown before, which shouldn't amaze me, but it does.  It just reminds me how fortunate I've been in my life to have had parents that took Matt and I so many different places.  But back to the girls who hadn't flown.

Kelsey* and Josey* had quite a few questions about everything.  Well, Kelsey more than Josey.  I didn't get to sit next to them on the flight from Fort Wayne to Dallas, but here is how it went down afterwards:

Me:  I am going to eat at Popeye's.  Anyone else is welcome to come.
                   So 4 others came, including Josey and Kelsey.  We got awesome chicken and sat down.
Me:  So, how did you two do on the flight.
                   At this point it turned into a conversation about the potential for puking, where they have
                   puked, and what may cause them to puke.

If you know me, then you realize this didn't phase me at all.  Although the people around us appeared to take a mild interest of the negative manner at this topic.

Me: Besides the chance of puking, how was it?
                     The answer:  Not too bad.

There you have it.  A qualified answer to the question:  Is flying fun?

No. Not really.  They probably aren't the two best people to speak on the subject.  Flying is fun.  It's not scary.  It is safe.  It frequently gets you places much, much faster than any other means possible.  So get out there and fly.

I brought Kyle* with me to the Delta Sky Club, because no one else felt like hopping the train to the terminal it was in.  I would pretty much go anywhere for a free drink or two, some snacks, and a nice relaxing atmosphere.  I wish there would be time to hit the lounge in Madrid to clean up tomorrow morning.  Maybe there will be.

*No names have been changed in this blog.  These events are real, as are the people they happened to.  Plus, I wasn't about to make up names and then try to remember what I called people for two weeks.

Now, excuse me while I enjoy delicious bottle of Shiner Bach.  I mean Bock.

Getting close to launch

We have had an ever-changing itinerary for the Morocco trip up to this point.  I think we've lost count to the number of revisions.  In fact, I am leary of actually printing it up, since it will probably just change tomorrow.  Maybe I'll just write it in ballpoint on the palm of my hand.

Don't get me wrong.  The changes are good, as Dr. Rachdi has gotten us meet-and-greets with a couple more businesses there, such as Coca Cola and Unilever.  Perhaps we'll get lucky and they will load us up with some product samples.  Like Ben and Jerry's or Wish-Bone dressing.  Mostly the Ben and Jerry's, though.  I don't even know if they distribute that there, but if there can be a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in Istanbul, I figure anything can happen.

We'll be spending five nights in Ifrane--which sits about a mile high in the Middle Atlas mountains and has *maybe* just 15,000 residents.  This portion of the trip involves some lectures, marketing work, and interaction with students at the Al Akhawayn University.  I feel like my mediocre beer pong and flip cup skills will not really be very useful in this college setting.  But who knows?  If I've learned anything in my travels, it's that no matter where you go, people really aren't all that different.

The following six nights will be spent in Casablanca.  Many of you may remember Casablanca as this fictional place in a movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.  Turns out, the place was real and the movie is fictional.  In fact, the movie never got close to filming in Casablanca  It was shot almost exclusively at the Warner Bros. Pictures studio.

So, we are going to be checking out this very real place, meeting some marketing teams from the aforementioned companies, and talking with the managing director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Morocco.

Mixed in with all of this is plenty of free time to see some sights and do whatever.  I know that an actual Rick's Cafe opened in Casablanca almost 10 years ago and has been incredibly popular, so Dr. Rachdi wants to take us there.  We will be hitting the medinas (old parts w/ the markets) of the towns we'll be spending some time in (Fes, Meknes, Rabat, Casablanca, Ifrane) to do some marketing work, but also just to walk around and "take it all in".  Ugh, what a cliché.

So, there's the simplified version of my itinerary.  We leave in three days, and Dr. Rachdi has already been over there for a week.  Traveling as our faculty leaders will be Dr. (Myeong) Kim and Dr. Kathy (Pollock).  We had to promise them we'd show up by 10am at the airport for our flight out-- I imagine so they weren't left a worrying, frantic wreck.

Since I'll have hours sitting around the airport in Fort Wayne, I'm sure I'll fill some of the time writing something.  The rest of the time will be spent wishing there was more to do at the airport.