life in february

like i said at the beginning, i knew i would be terrible at keeping up with this. so here is a bit of a recap of the last two months or so- mostly traveling/visitors for 2 straight months aka AWESOME.
1) moroccans learn victorian english
in february, i went to morocco and spain for 2 weeks with four of my lady assistant friends. we spent almost a full week in marrakech, which every single person on this planet should go to because it is awesome. we stayed in a hostel that is an old riad (guesthouse) which was so beautiful and right off djamaa el fna, the main square in the old city. it was an insane week of couscous and donkey carts and bargaining for 2 euro jewelry and fresh squeezed orange juice and blasting chants and prayers from the mosques 5 times a day and amazing sunsets from the terrace of the hostel. but one of the funniest parts of the whole trip were the things that store owners/men in general would shout at us to try to get these 5 20 somethings (also i was the only nonblonde) to come into their shops or pay attention to them- things like "fish and chips! lovely jubbly! harrods! big behinds!" basically lots of hilariously antiquated phrases from england. in general morocco was wonderful, we went out into the desert for two days for a camel trek which was very different from marrakech which has a large modernish city outside the medina walls.
2) the spanish do not sleep
at least that is how it appeared to us. we went to granada, sevilla and madrid and had an awesome time running around cathedrals and moorish palaces and ancient cities during the day and celebrating carnaval at night. the low point came in madrid when i thought i had purchased a cat costume (aka ears, tail, and BOWTIE. because we all know cats wear bowties.) and later realized i was in fact a zebra. identity crisis which was only solved by spending the entire night at a private club with about 10 portuguese men all dressed either as the joker from batman or pirates. it was confusing.
3) having visitors is awesome
since february break, my parents, jane and molly from wash u, katie from england and my brother and sister have all come to visit. plus jane and i have started seeing our french guy friends from the program we did 3 years ago almost every weekend, so life feels like one big vacation slash party all rolled into one. being able to show my parents my favorite creperie or my brother and sister my favorite bar is a really cool way to semi wrap up my time here and has made me realize how much of a life i have in france. and how hard it will be to go back. but luckily there are still two more months before that happens...