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.