Travel log, June 1-2, 2009

[All pictures can be found on my Flickr site. See link at left; I am moosicalmath.]

June 1, 2009

Aaagh! We're landing in Madrid at 8:00am.

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June 2, 2009

I am in Chefchaouen, Morocco!! It's about 8:15am and Beth is in the shower. :)

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(I am now on the rooftop of the FOR house in Al Hoceima.)

We spent several hours in the Madrid Barajas airport, mostly staring at each other in jetlag daze or trying to speak Spanish to random people. We got Euros from the ATM, bought jamon y queso y cafe con leche, and stressed over our luggage and EasyJet's stringent requirements. Praise the Lord--both our carry-on and checked bags passed!





We changed into "Morocco Clothes" before boarding for Tangier. There are guidelines we must follow to be respectful of the conservative Moroccans and the reputation of the Americans of FOR--and to call less attention to ourselves (if that's possible): long, loose pants (or skirts) and long-sleeved, loose shirts that cover our backsides.

Landing in Tangier was incredible. We were in AFRICA. It was hot, dry, and beautiful. In the airport, we were pulled out of the passport control line to visit the health control center. They checked all Americans and Mexicans for swine flu. Yep. We still don't have it. They interrogated us about our plans and wanted addresses for every stop we'd make. We didn't have the addresses, but promised one official to call his cell phone as soon as we got them. It was a fine first visit with the Moroccan police. The gendarme as it were. (We have since learned that one is not allowed to photograph any gov't building or official. Too bad.)

Melodie picked us up and we piled into her truck for the long, long drive. It's seven hours to AH, on windy, dusty, often not-well-paved mountain roads. As she just drove it straight there, we stopped after an hour in Tetouan to get water and ice cream, and after another hour to spend the night in Chefchaouen.

Sights on the road:






We parked outside the medina and found a hotel in the heart of it. The medina is gorgeous! Chefchaouen is famous for its blue doors contrasted by whitewashed walls and brilliantly colored goods in the market. Our hotel was very old, with stone walls and tile floors and wrought iron fixings. Beth and I shared a 650 Dh ($70ish) room whose ceiling was tiled in a blue and red star pattern. The window opened to blue walls leading up to the sky. Beth and I wanted to put the bathroom in our suitcase--it was terra cotta and copper and blue tiled. We heart.

Window:

Ceiling:

Courtyard:



Dinner was served in a restaurant across the stone street. I loved the tables (again, tiled) and couches (sooo cushy). I ate pastilla de pollo (a very Spanish dish, phyllo dough filled with ground chicken, veggies, and spices, topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon), harira (Moroccan tomato-based chicken soup), and flan. People speak a lot of Spanish here (it's just south of Spain, across the Mediterranean). It's fun trying to communicate with my long-forgotten Spanish and my new Arabic words!



After dinner, we walked around the hilly, narrow, stone medina streets and enjoyed the bustling market. (Bustling even in the dark!) Beth and Amy bought wool blankets from a fair trade/co-op stop, and I found a wrought iron hook and green tiled mirror for my new apartment. We also saw (according to Beth, according to Wikipedia on Chefchaouen) the world's ONLY octagonal minaret. Oh yes.








Then, we slept well for ten hours. :)

Travel Log, May 31, 2009

Aaack! I'm really doing it. I'm actually flying to...AFRICA. Well, currently I'm chillin' in Newark, waiting for my flight to Philly, where I'll meet up with Amy, Bethany, and Anna. From there, we'll fly overnight to Madrid, and tomorrow afternoon, fly to Tangier, Morocco. Then it's slightly up in the air: we'll be picked up by someone from FOR.

Who are the FOR? Why, they are the reason we're heading across the world! The four of us all-American, 17-24-year-old females are going to build a house for two Moroccan women. Oh yeah. We'll live in Al Hoceima, a town on the northern coast of Morocco, right on the Mediterranean.

After two weeks of hard physical labor, mint tea drinking, and hopefully some beach tripping, Bethy JO (my best childhood friend) and I will kiss Amy (my darling sister) and Anna (Amy's dear friend) goodbye and take a train from Tangier to FES. SO excited to see Fes!! We'll stay with Adrienne's host family (from a couple summers ago) for two days. Then, we'll return to Madrid and find some excellent vino y tapas for a day and then come home on June 20th. Whew.

So, how AM I FEELING about all of this? Excited, nervous, exhausted, overwhelmed, overjoyed, and rather sniffly. NO people, I don't have the swine flu. I am just being killed slowly by the Garden State's gardens. Exhausted is partially (mostly) due to Princeton Reunions weekend. The most outrageously orange and black 72-hour-long party was again fantastic, but really draining. May the Lord grant me strength and refreshment for the next crazy three weeks!!

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So, now I am sitting in the plane, in line to leave the Philly airport. We are #20 in line. Sigh.

I found Amy, Anna, and Beth!! I met them at their gate and exchanged many hugs and kisses. I LOVE MY SISTER SO MUCH. She is amazing. We got coffee and stretched our legs in preparation.






I am SO sleepy.

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We took off!!

I'm sitting next to two Spanish women who don't speak English. The captain asked for doctors to come forward, which they both happen to be. I pray the person who needs the doc will be okay.

Amy and Anna are sitting across the aisle from me in row 12. They are cuddly. Aaaaaw. Bethy is way back in row 24. Hope she is ok!





[Hahaha...at this point in my journal I drew a picture of the plane seating chart and labeled ours. I have many adorable doodles. I should scan them and post them. Yes.]

Music of choice: Love Lockdown (Kanye West), Love Story (Taylor Swift), Major Tom (Shiny Toy Guns), and anything by Owl City.

Morocco, There and Back Again

Salam alekum!

I just returned from what can only be described as an amazing trip.
Trip. It was certainly no vacation. Well...it was...from the daily
grind, New Jersey, and...the distraction of being constantly connected
to everything in the world via my phone and computer. Unlike last
year's European adventure, you may have noticed that you received no
incredibly detailed emails from me every few days. We weren't able to
check email for over two weeks! I did, however, keep very detailed
travel logs, and will be slowly adding them to this blog in the next few
weeks!


Beth, Amy, Anna, and I were blessed with so many new experiences that
it's really hard to understand and describe. It was physically,
mentally, and emotionally exhausting. Physically, because we
rolled/threw/carried rocks down a hill, loaded hundreds of bricks into
and out of trucks, carried buckets of water from a river to mix
cement, dug a septic tank using picks and shovels, and whitewashed
entire houses inside and out. Mentally, because we were often
surrounded by and had to communicate with people who only spoke Rifi
or Arabic. Emotionally, because of constantly being with people and
seeing such extreme poverty for the first time in person.

So what was so amazing about it? We traveled to North Africa! We saw
beautiful rolling hills dotted with bushy trees and several kind of
cacti. We met Moroccan Arabs and the Rifis in the mountains. We named
a wolf spider Charlotte and spent way too much quality time with a
donkey named Donkey. We swam in the Mediterranean (twice). We lived
with Moroccans and ate from common plates of food using bread chunks
as utensils. We built a house from a ditch in the hillside outlining
the foundation to spreading cement on the roof. We had tea and freshly
cracked almonds and actual charade conversations with the very women
we were building for. We stayed two nights in the gorgeous blue and
white city in the mountains, Chefchaouen. We got henna tattoos. We
haggled for rugs and visited the Moroccan police station in the old
medina in the imperial city, Fes. We took an overnight train ride from
Fes to Tanger. We ate too much ham and too many Magnums in one day in
Madrid. We did this all and more, and lived to tell about it.

Again, check the blog in the next few days!

Besalama,
Jess


My sister Amy and I in the back of a pickup truck in the Rif

To the PAIN.

I mentioned at the end of my last post that Luc, Audrey, and I were preparing for our next adventure: the Philly 1/2 marathon in September. Well, plans have changed slightly since then. Our cheerleader, Meg, is joining us in our crazy running pursuit. Sweet. But...that's not all.

3.1 miles (5k). 6.2 miles (10k). 13.2 miles (1/2 marathon). What comes next? 26.2 miles, of course! YES. All four of us have our sights set beyond half marathon in September to a full marathon in January. Which marathon? As Luc said...if you're gonna run one, it might as well be in Disney World!!!

Luc and I at Disneyworld in 2007 during the APS DPP meeting:


The Disney World Marathon takes you from Epcot, through the Magic Kingdom (and Sleeping Beauty's Castle!), down to the Animal Kingdom, over by MGM, and back to Epcot.

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***Luc, Audrey, and I are running to benefit children's cancer research. Hop on over to our Team Kinematic race site to read more!******


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I don't anticipate problems with the training (ie not doing it or getting bored), because we made it through the 10k, and learned that adding a mile or so a week is really not bad, once you get up to about four miles. HOWEVER, prayer for health would be greatly appreciated: this very week I hurt a tendon in my hip and can't run until next week. Lord willing, with proper rest and careful training we'll be STRONG!

Newport 10k, May 9, 2009

Heh heh heh we have to run in only a minute or two...
Originally uploaded by moosicalmath

"I hate math" was a constant declaration of mine as a child. Then I became a math major.

"I hate running" was another frequent statement of mine. Then I went and ran a 10k. And smiled. Most of the way.

After spending about two years "training" for a 5k (3.1 miles), I finally ran one. Then I thought, "hmmm, that's not so bad. I could do more!" So, I started training for a 10k (6.2 miles). As I love to do stuff with people, I convinced Luc to train for his first 10k, too! Audrey, our marathoner friend, needed very little convincing to join us, and Meg, our amazing in general friend, offered to drive, cheer, photograph, and sherpa for us!

We drove up to Jersey City, NJ, for the Newport 10k bright and early (6am early). We got nervous. Really nervous. We signed in, got our numbers and free (sweet long-sleeve tech) tshirts, jogged a bit to warm up, and bopped around with nervous energy.

Finally, it was almost time!! Time for a pre-race cheer, that is:
GOOOOO...

...TEEEEAAAMMMM!!!!


Finally, soon after 8:30am, we were OFF!


This is right after Audrey ditched us, and right before Luc ditched me:


I set into my rhythm, once the crowd thinned out, pleased that there were in fact a lot of people staying behind me. There was so much excitement and so much to watch, that I didn't even get a little bored. I kept pace with mostly the same group of runners the whole way, and enjoyed passing people who started out too fast and had to stop to walk. :P I didn't have to walk at all!

My first mile was 9:19, and three miles 28:52--the fastest I've timed myself. :)

Meg staked out the 3 mile marker, but sadly only Luc noticed her there. She did get each of us going by!




We ran through sketchy, run-down neighborhoods with dirty mechanics leering at us on the corner and pretty, flowered neighborhoods with father and babies smiling at us from porches; we ran over the highway and industrial buildings; we ran by rows of cars held back by police officers until the 650ish runners made it through the intersections.

The best view though, was on the last 1.5 miles. [Thankfully. One needs a good view then. Then one is only running because one WILL NOT STOP. (One wants to blog about how one didn't stop.)] We ran along the pier and looked across the water to Manhattan. It was just gorgeous.

Meg set up camp at the finish line...and watched Audrey breeze in with 43:38:


Luc fist pump in at 50:54:


And me stroll in at 1:00:39:


YAAAY WE DID IT!!!


THANKS MEG!


One reason to love races: there's FREE FOOD afterward. We munched on the best bagels and bananas ever, drank water, and sipped...beer. Strange drink for post-race, but they only served it in 1/5 cup sizes, and that was even too much. Water's the way to go.

Then, there were the prizes. The top male ran it in 28:53, 4:39 min/mile pace. He was from Kenya. The top female ran it in 32:19, 5:12 min/mile pace. She was from Ukraine. Crazy people.

The big surprise and excitement of the day: AUDREY GOT 3RD PLACE IN HER AGE GROUP!!! (In the open level section--the registered 'elite' runners didn't count. She was 7th overall in her age group.) YAAAY!!!


Whew. We had a TERRIFIC time, and are pumped for our next adventure!


I guess the moral of the story is, if I hate something, give me a few years--then I will passionately embrace it.

You know summer is approaching when...

Macho Men.
Originally uploaded by moosicalmath

...it's 90 degrees on April 26th and you go to Point Pleasant:


...the trees turn pink:


...you can sit on your patio and listen to windchimes:


...you don't freeze when you climb the GC Tower at sunrise:




...the geese start attacking:
(these two pairs live at PPL and hiss at each other. And us.)



...and you finish classes! I turned in my final project for German 102, so jetzt bin ich fertig. Ja. Sicher.

The rest of the pictures from these sets can be found heeeere!!

Mayday Relay!

YAAAY I FINISHED MY LEG!
Originally uploaded by moosicalmath

A few weeks ago, my friend invited me to run with her department (psych) in the Mayday Relay, a seven-leg relay race from Rutgers to Princeton on the towpath alongside the D&R Canal. I said, "Oh man, how awesome!!" and then "Oh hey, I could get my own department to do this, I bet!" So I did. Luc, Dan, and Dave from PPL joined Colin from Physics and Amanda, Dan's wife, with me to create a completely awesome relay team.

We drove up to New Brunswick early Sunday, May 3rd, in time to start the 10am race. Excitement was buzzing in the air, despite the misty rain and impending doom of downpour. The eleven teams were representing several graduate departments from Rutgers and Princeton.

I started the race for my team. I was SO nervous and somewhat dreading it. My fears did come true. We all started together, and immediately, everyone pulled ahead of me. Oh well. I kept pace for a while, and then just enjoyed the peacefulness of the misty towpath, which, up near Rutgers, was nice and gravely, and not muddy. My 3.7 miles ended with a less than graceful hand-off to Martin:


I am SO pleased with my time though: the official claim is that I ran 3.7 miles in 33:20, which amounts to about a whole minute faster than I train! I'm not sure I believe that! :)

We left Martin to run his four miles, and drove to the next exchange. The rain came down harder, and the trail got muddier, the farther south we traveled. This was a typical scene at the exchanges, although the crowd thinned the closer we got to the finish (as the runners spread out more):


We enjoyed getting to know more parts of the state park, including the many locks:


Martin made great time and passed it off to Amanda:


A street ran through the next exchange, so Amanda came in one side:


and Dan left on the other:


At this exchange, one team's next runner ran...back the way we came. Huh. No one could figure out why she thought she should do that. Hey, we didn't complain--this means we moved from last to second to last!!!!

Isn't New Jersey pretty?


We got a bit bored at some exchanges. And wet. Luc was SO excited to find an umbrella:


Dan came in triumphantly:


and we said goodbye to Dave, one of the two serious (like half/full marathon) runners on the team:


Two horses rode by at one exchange...


...the one where Dave passed it off to Colin:


Colin did super well for us: he passed someone, moving us up to 3rd from last!

Sadly, I missed the last leg, as I had to shower and change for another event. Meg took this fabulous photo of Luc finishing the race:


Luc passed ANOTHER person, and sprinted to the finish, giving us a team time of 3:31:43, and 8th place overall (4th from last!).

The relay ended at Princeton with a BBQ (indoors):




See official results here.