Morocco Part 1: Tangier and Asilah

I went to Morocco for four days at the end of November and had the most amazing experience ever! I went with a program called Morocco Exchange that's designed for students studying in Spain. I'm so glad I went with the program because we got to meet so many people and get a really authentic view of the country instead of just doing the touristy stuff (although we got to do a little of that too!).

So, we took a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangier! It was really windy on the upper deck, but we got great views as we approached AFRICA!

This is what Moroccan Durhams look like - they have the pictures of the current king and his two predecessors (aka dad and gramps).

We didn't spend too much time in Tangier, but we got to wander around the old part of the city before lunch. This is the main square...

Trash can with ARABIC!!!! Speaking of Arabic, I learned embarassingly little Arabic while there - "thank you," "the food is delicious," "peace be upon you" (hello), "goodbye," "let's go," "cat," and "dog."

We went the the DARNA women's center for lunch where we met with some students from the University of Tangier to talk about Morocco (and to eat AMAZING food - couscous!!!!!!!!!!). We talked about Morocco and learned so much! Morocco was the first country to recognize the USA as an independent country after our split from England - never knew that (makes sense, considering Morocco had been a French colony...). Morocco is the most progressive Islamic country in the world - the women's rights movement is very active and successful, and although almost everyone in the country is Muslim, there's freedom of religion - right next to Tangier's largest mosque are the church and synagogue. It is, however, illegal to say anything against Islam or the king of Morocco. The king seems very popular, and he's been funding a lot of progressive projects with divorce/custody laws and public transport options.
We took a group photo on the rooftop - the two Moroccan students are on the far right.

and some YUMMY YUMMY COUSCOUS!

We drove along the ocean towards Asilah, and stopped on the way to ride CAMELS on the beach! It was pretty darn exciting, and we took so many pictures...

The camels smiled for the photo:

We continued south to Asilah, the prettiest little town ever.

Hooray for the Atlantic Ocean!! (Jazz hands!)

That night we drove to Rabat to meet our host families. I'll talk about that in the next post...