Dad and I bought my plane tickets last week. I am leaving on January 26 and will arrive in Granada, Spain on January 27. I'm meeting ISA in Granada where we will take a bus/train and then a boat to Morocco. Its supposed to be easier to fly into Spain than it is to fly into Morocco, but I'm not so sure. I will be flying from Cleveland to Philadelphia, from Philadelphia to Madrid, Spain and then from Madrid to Granada. That's 9 hours and 48 minutes of flight time and a total of 15 hours with layover and connection times. We bought the tickets through Expedia so we were able to get a pretty good deal. Expedia allows you to mix and match airlines so my first two flights are with US Airways and my last flight is with Iberia. Now, all i have left to do is to send copies of my flight itinerary to ISA so they know exactly when I will be arriving in Granada, which I will be doing this next week.
Last Thursday, I gave a small power point presentation to my parents, grandparents, and boyfriend about Morocco. My family has been very supportive of my interests in traveling, but that doesn't mean they aren't extremely worried about my safety. I wanted to help ease their minds a bit and give them an introduction to the basic history, culture, customs, and location of Morocco. I'm not going to explain it all in full detail here because those are topics I will address later in more detail. The presentation, however, was very helpful to my family. They enjoyed learning about the culture and while they are still nervous about me being so far away from home, I believe it helped them understand a little bit better. This is the second time I am studying abroad, but the location is a little out of the ordinary so I am trying to prepare them as best I can.
Now to the really fun part :)
Jerrie got me a Build-a-Bear for Christmas. I've been wanting one for a really long time and she got two for graduation so I was super jealous. I told her I wanted a Morocco Bear that I can take with me to Morocco. The box had been sitting under the tree all week and I could barely contain my excitement about it.
Meet Omari al'Dob:
عمرئ ال دب
He is wearing a Caftan which is a traditional piece of clothing in Morocco and other North African countries. He is also wearing sandals which are the shoe of choice in Morocco. His hat is not typically Moroccan but it came with the rest of the outfit which was listed as African. His name, Omari, is a form of the name Omar which means flourishing or long lived. "al'Dob" is "the Bear" in Arabic.
We're already best friends.
