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.