Whew. What a day! So Ohio was the easy part. After waiting 5+ hours in the airport I finally make it on my plane to Paris after an hour delay! Although my landing time stayed the same. That was strange.

The flight wasn't that spectacular, except that I could really sleep at all. I even took some melatonin, but that didn’t help much. I had two meals on the plane, so I was well taken care of.

My lovely french breakfast. Nutella included!

Not so impressive dinner

 I even had movies and games in the seat infront of my so I was well entertained. I finally got to see Guardians of the Galaxy!


 After 8 hours in the air I get to Paris with a 45 minute layover thinking my connection would be pretty close.

False.

Charles de Gaulle airport is actually a mess. I get off my flight and all there is is this long hallway that everyone else is walking down, that has signs that say connections. I wasn’t exaggerating with long either. It was a good 15 minute walk, the whole way there were no boards that showed connections or gates or anything. Just some cool photography.

Nice sign, but little help in navigation! 

We finally reach the end of the hallway and there are all the connection boards, except now everyone is crowding in front of the them. So me, with my bad eyesight, had to wait and elbow my way to the front. And then none of the terminals are in logical order. They have K,L,F and E. My gate just happened to be a train ride away, through security and at the end the terminal! I made it just in time also! They had just started boarding! That's where I met 4 of my classmates and we were on our way to Casablanca. Like most flights it wasn't very exciting. Just waiting to actually get there! 

It was in Casablanca that I learned a very important lesson from traveling. Never ever NEVER never overpack! I thought it would be worse to leave something but, overpacking was a bad idea.  Especially if you have to carry it all! I packed all of this plus a backpack.

These across... 

... this are not very fun!

 And then I had to carry it across the airport and through the train stations. Which were layed with brick. If you don’t know, brick and luggage wheels don’t work very well. Not only was it tiring and frustrating, but it was extremely embarrassing! Everyone was rushing ahead of me while I was sitting there struggling! The train into Casablanca was pretty nice and nothing spectacular. What really struck me was how everything look outside of the train. We passed through a lot of country areas with many poor looking houses. There were run down apartments by the tracks and there was trash piled up by them. None of the building were brick or steel, like I am use to seeing. They were a concrete/stone/plaster looking material and some of them, especially the apartments, were painted bright colors. Some houses only had tarps held down tires for roofs. My guess is that these people were farmers because they also had all types of goats and cows. And then in the distance you could see these huge gated estates. It was a strange contrast to the poor houses next to the tracks.

Once at the Casa Voyageurs station we took the intercity train to Fez. It was a four and a half hour ordeal. The train was so crowded that the group had to be split into different cabins, but it was a great experience because I got to sit with a group of Moroccan who helped me with my darija! They were all very nice, excited and welcoming to me! No one spoke English though! Only Darija (Moroccan Arabic) and French. I was lucky enough at one point to have a guy who was studying American Culture at University and spoke English. It seems so weird to me that people study American Culture!

The Fez Station 

The view from the station 

At the Fez train station we had to wait a bit for the University to pick us up and when they finally got there we got to ride through the city before going up the to the University. The city was amazing. Lots of apartments again, but they were nicer. All the houses were colorful and open, but had these big gated yards so it was very private. I can’t wait to get the chance to actually walk around and see things! I get chances on the weekends as well as field trips to go see so many cities for very little money!

We didn’t get to the University until about 8pm local time though. I was so jet lagged and tired from not being able to sleep that I only really had time to eat and go back to bed! I barely had time to call my mom. I think I gave a few people heart attacks because I just didn't have the internet connection to stay in touch. I had to use my roaming in order to contact my mom and that stuff is expensive!!

My dorm is nice though. I had a bit of trouble with the shower. It has only cold and lukewarm water and them if you hook the shower hose up to the overhead hook it shoots across the bathroom. So… I’m going to have to work on that one. I have a nice bed, desk, wardrobe and dresser. The food is pretty good. The student ambassadors told us that they hated it, but I think its pretty damn good!

Today was relaxing as well. I caught up on my sleep so I’m not all that jet lagged any more. I actually adapted pretty well. Although that might change when I have to wake up for orientation tomorrow! But today we went for a scenic hike around the campus. Apparently there are monkeys that are in the woods around us, but we didn’t get the chance to see any!
 

We were probably too loud for them to come near us. There are cats everywhere though! One of my classmates said that there was one just chilling in his common room. I got a little more settled in and explored campus some as well. Tomorrow is orientation and we will be going into town and learning more about the upcoming semester!

Until next time!