Our Lady of the Olives

Entrance to the church compound

Our Lady of the Olives is the one and only Catholic church in Meknes. It was built back during the time of the French occupation, but the French left before construction was finished.

Entrance to the main church

The congregation is mostly sub-Saharan African students who are also studying at the university in Meknes. There are a few French families as well, but not many. Mass is entirely in French, although sometimes they have the readings printed out in English for us. There is one priest, who is actually from Italy, that knows English. We talked a little bit after mass. The other priests are African and French.

the main church

The small chapel, the flags represent all the countries that the students are from

The Tabernacle in the chapel

  I have gone to mass a couple times now and for the most part, there is about 60 people attending, 25-30 of which are the choir. The choir is the most amazing church choir I have ever heard. It is made up of all sub-Saharan African students and the songs are a mixture of English, French, and African languages.

The Arabic script above the tabernacle used to read God is the place of love, but many years ago someone broke in and stole the word God (Allah) so now it just reads his place of love.

The main church is a little sparse in decorations because it was never completed. The one really beautiful piece of artwork they have is the Our Lady of the Olives statue that is above the alter. The story goes that it was carved by a Christian prisoner in an Arab king's dungeon. 

This depiction of the Virgin is the Mary standing on a dragon and giving birth to  the baby Jesus  from Revelations

 Although it is a Catholic church and a Catholic mass, the congregation is pretty mixed between Catholic and Protestant. There is not enough population of either to constitute a separate space so many Protestants attend the Catholic mass. There is also a separate Protestant service in another room in the compound. Even the combined services can be to small to justify being in the big church so they have a smaller chapel near the Priests' house. 

The priests' house. Originally the whole building was intended for their use, but because of money issues, they second floor and half of the first floor are being rented out to Moroccan families.

Travels Within Morocco: Merzouga

This is it guys! The post I've been waiting for this whole trip. I have finally ridden a camel in the desert. Not just any desert either, but the Sahara Desert. It was absolutely fantastic.

Look at that! That is me on a camel at the edge of the Sahara Desert!

We left Friday morning at 8 am for the all day drive to Merzouga, the very small town on the edge of Erg Chebbi. An erg is an area of desert that is covered with wind-swept sand(sand dunes) and has no vegetation. I know what you're thinking, isn't that what a desert is? False, a desert is an area with extremely low amounts of precipitation. They can be sandy or not sandy, have some vegetation and animal life or have none. To be considered an erg, an area of sand dunes must be at least 125 square kilometers. Anything smaller is just a dune field.

Storm in the distance

The bus ride to the desert was filled with stormy weather. So when we finally got to Merzouga we had to change out plans a bit. Originally, we were going to spend Friday night camping in Berber tents out in the sand and Saturday night at Hotel Riad Nezha but because of the storms, the tents had blown away. So we spent Friday night at the hotel, which was amazing to say the least. It had a very nice pool, a roof top terrace, lavish rooms, and (maybe most importantly) fabulously hot showers. 

Rooftop Terrace

Tiffany, Alaina, and my room, we each had a very big bed with lots of pillows.

The shower! In Morocco most of the hotels that we have been to do not have a bathroom for every room, let alone a shower. The shower was big, the tile was beautiful, and there was plenty of hot water to go around.

That balcony above the entry way belonged to our room.

The pool! They had just put chlorine in so we had to wait until the next day to swim.

We had some free time Friday evening so we all made our way to the shopping area of Merzouga in search of turbans. By shopping area, I mean one street with 5 or 6 small touristy shops, out of which only 2 were open. Everything, of course, was covered in dirt and sand. Turbans are basically really long scarves or sheets of fabric that are then wrapped around the head in varying styles in order to protect your head and neck from the heat and sun in the desert. Almost everyone bought a turban, they cost anywhere from 30 Ds ($4) to 50Ds($6.50) depending on your bargaining skills. Tiffany and I bought shorter turbans,about half the length of  the rest. They can be wrapped just like a long turban, they are just shorter in length and so do not provide as much protection, and they can also be worn like regular scarves because they are not as long and bulky.

Blue is the most common color of the turban in Morocco so many of the ISA students opted for that color

Mine is purple, and I chose to wear it in a head scarf style, I wasn't a big fan of the turban style. It felt a little suffocating to me. 

Saturday morning we got going around 9:30. We all piled into 4X4s that were going to trek us around the desert for a mini tour. Alaina, Tiffany, Hannah, Kahn, Kamel and I all ended up in a white Land Rover which sped through the desert on a barely visible path. At some points we had to drive through or over sand. Driving through sand feels extremely similar to driving through snow. You kind of sink in a little bit and slide around. At one point, one of the other 4X4s got stuck in a sand dune and everybody had to get out to help push it loose.

We drove around in the sand for awhile and at good picture taking places we stopped and walked around for a bit. At one point, we were all allowed to climb on top of the 4X4s and sit up there for a short distance. That was soo much fun. My car sang songs from Disney movies during our rooftop tour. 

We took a break from the 4X4s and Daniel, our director, led us off into the desert. We climbed a few sand dunes and then just laid back and enjoyed the heat. 

The 4X4 trek ended at about 2:30, we then went back to the hotel for lunch and about a 3 hour period of free time. I swam and laid by the pool and showered before getting ready for our camel ride and camping in the desert. We got on the camels at 5:30 on Saturday and didn't return to civilization until Sunday morning.

  
Camel riding through sand dunes is exactly as fantastic as it sounds. My roommates and I meticulously picked out our outfits for the occasion so that we could take fabulous pictures. Alaina went for the imperial European look with a sun hat and white flowing skirt while I went for the Arabian princess look complete with a small sword and head scarf. The camels took us to the second largest sand dune in the world, which we then climbed.

World's 2nd largest sand dune

 We stayed at the top of the sand dune for a good two hours. Some members of our group had rented sand boards and were experimenting with riding the dunes. Everyone looked like they loved it until they had to carry the board back up the dune so someone else could have a turn. I don't know how they did it. I was struggling to get up the dune the first time around without carrying a sand board.  I didn't get too many pictures from the top of the sand dune because the wind was very strong. Strong wind plus sand does not equal good things for a camera, one grain of sand getting inside can destroy the whole thing. We all had our cameras wrapped in plastic bags or in scarves. Sadly, quite a few people's cameras are no longer working because of this trip. I did manage to get a few good sunset pictures before I ziplocked my camera away.

 Exhausted, we climbed down the giant sand dune, got back on our camels, and took about an hours ride under the stars to our campsite. We all wanted to eat and go straight to bed, we were so tired. But in true Moroccan fashion, the food was not ready and our bags had not yet been delivered. The tents that we were in were basically a lot of blankets sewn together and held up by wooden beams.

Meal tent

Dinner was served after about a half an hour. It was delicious and we were starving so there wasn't much food left. After dinner, the hotel guys who had been escorting us this entire trip brought out drums and began to play tribal music. We listened for awhile, and a few ISA students were given drums so they could participate. At about 11:30, my roommates and I were ready for bed. Only problem was our bags were still not there, it was cold, and I needed somewhere to put my contacts. Tiffany lent me her water bottle and I dropped my contacts in. We crawled into bed and quickly fell asleep. I woke up again at about 12:30, everybody was up and about making noise, our bags had just got there. I ran out into the cold, got my bags, put on about three more layers, and went back to sleep. The sleeping mats, the sheets, the pillows, every inch of the tent was covered in sand, but it didn't matter. Everyone was too exhausted to care and the place was silent within 15 minutes. 

The outhouse, which was surprisingly nice because it had a normal toilet instead of the Moroccan style hole in the ground.

We woke up bright and early on Sunday, packed up our bags, and walked back to the hotel. We had about an hour and a half for breakfast and showers and then we were back on the bus. The bus ride home took a ridiculously long amount of time. We stopped for bathrooms, tourist sites, and lunch that altogether probably added about 4 hours to the trip. My dad and his minimal stops policy would not have handled this well. In fact, I did not handle this well. To make matters worse, the weather got very bad on the drive home. It was very cold and the bus does not have any sort of climate control. Rain was streaming in through cracks in the windows and it was very very cold. At one point it even started snowing! We were amazed that we could experience the Sahara Desert and a snow storm all in one day. 

snow!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland

This trip to Morocco and the subsequent trip to Ireland have checked off tons of boxes on my life's to do list. Many of which were not on the list until I got to Morocco, like going to the Hammam, visiting the Hassan II mosque,and  riding the Kanguroo. The spring break trip to Ireland, however, let me check off things that have been on my list for a very long time. Visit St. Patrick's Cathedral: Check. St. Patrick's was not what I expected, but it was still very cool and very interesting. 

The building(completed in 1192) was not originally a cathedral, but was elevated to cathedral status in 1224. This cathedral is one of two Church of Ireland(very similar to the church of England, all beliefs are the same as Catholicism except that the Pope does not have universal power) cathedrals on the island. St. Patrick's was originally a Catholic cathedral, but after the English Reformation it became part of the Church of England around 1535, even though a majority of its constituents remained Catholic. It is located directly next to the spot where the "well of St. Patrick" was supposed to have been. St. Patrick used this well to convert and baptize the native Irish people. 

There are many famous and important people of Irish history buried in St. Patrick's. One of the most important being Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. Swift was dean of the cathedral from 1713-1745 and many of his writings were delivered in the church. 

A fantastic church choir was practicing in the church when Tiffany and I arrived. It made the whole experience a little surreal. Surrounded by beautiful stained glass, historic artifacts, and angelic music is exactly my idea of a good time in a cathedral. 

All the keys to the cathedral for the past 100 years or so.

One really interesting artifact was a book encased in glass containing the names of the 50,000 Irish men who died in World War I. The information panel said that "from time to time, the Cathedral staff turn the pages of the volume so that all names may be seen." 

The Doyles: Richard, Robert, Stephan, Thomas, Vincent and William (a good 20 of these are Thomas and William)

Legend has it, that a Romeo and Juliet-esque family feud was going on in Dublin in 1492. Both parties were getting quite sick of the warfare however. Seeking respite, Gerald the King of Kildare and his men found shelter in the cathedral. He was of course pursued by his rival, James of Ormond, but he promptly shut the door in his face. After an amount of time, trying to wait it out, and realizing that James was not going anywhere, Gerald cut a whole in the door and stuck his arm through in order to shake on a truce. This is supposedly the origin of phrase "chancing your arm" as in taking a risk. 

National Leprechaun Museum

After the Irish Writer's Museum, Tiffany and I made our way over to the National Leprechaun Museum. This was a very entertaining, little museum. The atmosphere is definitely geared towards children, but I think its something that everyone can enjoy. It reminded me a little bit of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. You begin in this little anteroom filled with Leprechaun memorabilia and "facts." I learned that leprechauns are shoe makers to the fairies. Fairies are not like Disney fairies, they are tall, beautiful people-like creatures who love to dance. They dance so much that they always need new shoes and so the leprechauns have a lot of business and in turn a lot of gold.

After a brief introduction to the history of leprechauns by our guide, the first order of business was to shrink us to the size of leprechauns.

Then we got to experience the difficulties of being so small.

After that, we all sat around a pot of gold and our guide told us leprechaun tales.

We then passed through a forest and learned the story of Tom Fitzpatrick and how he almost got a leprechaun's gold.

 We emerged from the forest and found ourselves returned to normal size and in the museum gift shop. It was a fantastic little adventure.