04/17/2014

Nadia,

Today we decided as a group to go back to the medina in Rabat. In Fes, our tour guide wasn't the best and took us to expensive places where he only had deals with. I also found that Fes was more expensive. It was tough haggling down to decent prices. Usually the stores that specified on one item (for example a scarf store), had higher prices. So we liked to go deeper in the market places to small stores that were willing to bargain. The hotel we stayed at was beautiful with tiled mosaics and good food. Last night we relished the dinner they gave us. We thought the appetizer was the meal so we were filled by the main course.

 

 Before our little adventure up to the hotel terrace, I had a personal struggle of my own. In the bathroom, there were two different soaps that came with the hotel. Of course they were in Arabic so I made an educated guess as to which soap was for what. However, there was this one soap that no one was able to identify. It was either between body wash or conditioner. The substance was green and slimy and I was completely thrown off as to what it could be. So I used it for both. After my shower I joined everyone on the terrace and found out the soap was body wash. My hair remains sticky and unmanageable.

 

 The next morning for breakfast we had the traditional bread and honey, jam or butter. In Fes, the atmosphere was more for tourists so we returned to the Souk in Rabat. After the 3 hour ride back we began our shopping. I bought 5 scarves, some jewelry, teapot, backpack which the workers cleaned with pigeon poop, a purse, and more. We went without a tour guide so we were able to explore more of the medina on our own. We walked a lot and after our little shopping spree it was difficult to find an empty cab.

 

 After half an hour of waiting we found a cab and went back to Bridges. We ate at this street store and everyone had shawarma. This is a delicious wrap filled with chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, olives (which everyone picked out) and hummus. I noticed how many cats came up to us while we were eating and ate our leftovers. I ended up giving them pieces of chicken because one was pregnant and I just love cats in general.

 
 

 

 Overall our shopping day in Rabat was successful and everyone bought what they've wanted to buy.