Moroccan Surfing Championships

That's the pro surfer on the left. He represents Burton and O'Neill...
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So this weekend was the 12th century anniversary of the city of Fez.  I had planned on traveling to Fez to see some amazing culture and celebrations.  Then I realized, there would be about half a million people there.  It will be crowded, I'm not even sure what kind of celebrations there will be...And I've been to Fez like 10 times already!  My decision also might have something to do with the fact that I was invited to watch the national moroccan surfing championships in Media, near Kenitra.  That's a cultural experience too!  Oh well, I'll go to the next celebration 12 centuries from now.

Caitlin and I. See how large the waves are!?
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Put Long Beach in Morocco, give the hippies an Arabic accent, and you have Media!

Surf Camp    I traveled with Caitlin, Hassan, and Imad.  Hassan and Imad are Moroccans and Caitlin is a West Virginia girl.  We're kind of a funny group, Hassan and Imad going off in Arabic, my small amount of broken arabic, and Caitlin's flat out southern drawl.  But they are a great group to travel with.  We grabbed a taxi to Meknes, jumped on a train in Meknes, and two hours later we pulled into Media.  Media is a small town that is apparently entirely devoted to surfing.  Put Long Beach in Morocco, give the hippies an arabic accent, and you have Media.  My type of place!  We met our friend Ismael and he brought us to an amazing "surf camp" lodge.  He apparently goes almost every weekend, and is very close with the staff.  It is owned by a Moroccan man along with a couple French men, and they basically live to surf.  Their business is hosting surfers for a night or two, as well as giving lessons.  I was going to take a lesson but for some reason decided against it, partly because I didn't want to spend the extra 150 Dhs, partly because I was afraid of the giant waves that crash basically at the shore.  This didn't stop me from swimming however, the water was actually quite warm!  Not at first but you get used to it...so we spent the day at the beach, watching the competition, swimming in the ocean, working on our tans...well, working on our sunburns.  Do you know what the African sun does to white girls' skin?!  Let's just say that Coppertone SPF 50 couldn't even help us.  And we reapplied!  Oh well, it was such an amazing day, I don't even mind the cherry red complexion I've had for the past week.  At the surf camp, we met some great people.  The second best surfer in Morocco, Yassine, who showed us some of his videos and articles about him in magazines.  He's going to Hawaii in a month to attend some sort of championship, I wish him the best of luck!  And we met a 12 year old kid who was...crazy.  He practically lives at this surf camp with a bunch of older guys constantly around...he'll probably start smoking pot when he turns 13.  But he's funny!

haha, apparently you have to stretch before surfing
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FISH   I just want to talk about some of the food we had this weekend.  WOWW was it delicious.  The man who runs surf camp cooked for us all weekend.  The first night at dinner, we had a delicious salad (btw, their salads are much different here.  They have rice, corn, potatoes, beets, a little lettuce, egg, cheese, tomatoes, olives, and an amazing honey mustard dressing) some fried sardines (who knew I actually like them?! not me!) and then baked fish.  Then we had really fresh calamari, I know it was fresh because I watched the man cut up the dead squid.  Then he cooked it with a lot of lime and pepper, MMmm!!!  All night long they were handing out slices of pepperoni, as well as some sliced, dried pork.  This really surprised me because, in Islam, pork is a forbidden food.  Oh well, I guess the surfing crowd isn't the most conservative or religious...then we had really fresh fruit for dessert.  Canteloupe, oranges, and bananas.  And of course we drank some delicious wine and mint tea.  By the end of the night I couldn't possibly eat more.    The next morning, we had fresh coffee and tea, and homemade bread and malowi.  Malowi is a type of fried, somewhat oily pancake, and it is amazing!  I absolutely prefer it over the type of pancakes I'm used to, especially spread with the homemade raspberry jam, Aunt Jemima couldn't even bring me back....    Then, after we went swimming in the morning, we had lunch.  Another giant salad, and more fish.  And more fresh fruit.  And I still couldn't get enough.  And guess what I have been craving all week long?  Thats right, fish!!  Even if I didn't have as great of a time as I did at the surf camp, I would return simply for some of that delicious food.

Just relaxing on the beach.
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Back to Chilly Ifrane    So now I'm back in Ifrane, attending classes, dreaming about the beach.  The weather has been rainy and windy all week.  The wind is strong enough to knock me over with a heavy backpack on, or at least make it really difficult to climb up the stairs when the wind is blowing down them.  I seriously thought we would have a tornado yesterday!  And the rain is strange too.  It looks like its pouring, but you can barely feel the rain.  It's heavy and light at the same time.  But I have a long weekend as my Friday class is cancelled.  Who knows what the weekend will bring...