The last few weeks have been full of traveling for me. My family flew into Morocco on July 16th (It was supposed to be the 15th, but their flight got canceled.) I met them at the Casablanca airport and we took the train to Marrakech. It was a nice change to ride first class and have a compartment full of my family. While everyone else fell asleep, my mom and I got to chat the whole way to Marrakech.
In Marrakech, we stayed at a very cute riad called Riad Nejma Lounge. It only had about 6 rooms, but was decorated in a very fun way and had a beautiful roof we had breakfast on each morning. I think the riad was a nice introduction to Morocco for my family, as it had a Moroccan "flavor" but still had air conditioning, clean towels and hot water.
Because of the travel problems, we had to make our visit to my site a daytrip instead of spending the night as we originally planned. While our time in my village was rushed, we did have time to see the weekly souk, visit the cooperative and meet a few of the women, and have a spaghetti lunch at my house. My family also got their first introduction to "real" Moroccan travel - hours smashed together in a grand taxi. For those of you that haven't experience the joy of a grand taxi ride, imagine riding with four people smashed together in the back seat of a normal sized sedan with another two sitting together in the front passenger seat.
The next day, we set out for the waterfalls at Ozoud. On the way we stopped by my host family from training. We had tea and I think both my family and my host family enjoyed the visit. Plus, my family got a real glimpse of how I lived for my first few months in Morocco. I was really lucky that I got placed with such a great host family and am really glad my real family got to meet them.
The rest of our Morocco vacation flew by, with just a few more hours spent in Marrakech and a night spent in Casablanca (where we went to Rick's Cafe.) After Casablanca, we took a plane to Rome, where we spent the night. Since only Emily and I had visited Rome before, we had to make the most of our time there. In just a few hours, we saw the Trevi fountain, the colosseum, and the Pantheon.
Our time in Egypt was great but went by too fast! Katie had found some amazing hotels for us to stay at in every city we visited. In Giza we got to see the pyramids and the sphinx. In Luxor, we got to see some amazing temples and visited the valley of the Queens and the valley of the king's (where King Tut's tomb is.) It was really cool to see all the hieroglyphics and go inside the pyramids. Plus, we had a few hours each day to relax by the pool (where I got horribly sunburned) and just hang out in the shade.
In addition to all the cool ancient relics, we took time to ride camels and take a felluca ride on the Nile. Although neither turned out to be exactly what I imagined, they were still fun. (The camel ride was through the ghettos on Luxor and the felluca had to be towed by a motor boat because there wasn't any wind.) Our last night in Egypt we stayed at the Grand Hyatt, which is on an island in the Nile in Cairo. It was AMAZING! We had great hotel rooms, a beautiful pool to swim in, and had a wonderful meal on the terrace overlooking the Nile.
It was a perfect vacation. Although it was really hard to say goodbye to my family, I'm so glad they got to come visit me. It was wonderful to share a bit of my daily life in Morocco and really cool to see all the ancient tombs and temples in Egypt. Take a look at my facebook to see more pictures of my trips.
