tangier

Morocco has been my dream destination since I was 12, which is why I showed up at the Rabat airport in February even though I had no travel companions or personal connections in the country.

The trip to Tangier only materialized because of my saving grace, Eden. When I first showed up at my host family’s doorstep, stumbling over my French, a pretty 22-year-old from Maryland emerged from her bedroom to say hi. As my veteran host-sister, she quickly helped translate using a mix of French and Arabic, which she’d been studying in Rabat since September.

Eden knew I wanted to see the north of the country, as I mentioned on the first day, and even though she’d seen the cities already, she began organizing a weekend trip for the both of us.

Friday afternoon, we took the high-speed train from Rabat to Tangier, getting to the northmost tip of the country in an hour and a half. Used to the level streets of Rabat, the slopes and steep paths of the mountain city left us heaving more breaths than we’d admit. To get to dinner, we decided to take a route that almost got us lost in the twisting medina. The narrow paths and vanishing turns would have felt more claustrophobic had the walls not been washed in a blueish-white. The scent of sweet citrus is lingering. The word for tangerine comes from the name of the city, after all.

Dinner was heart-shaped falafel and pomegranate hummus.

fulfilling fifth-grade dreams, pt. 2

Anticipation had long been simmering in my stomach for our grand event: a day in Chefchaouen, the infamous blue city. As we sat for the 3-hour drive, taking in the lush landscape of the north, I recounted to Eden that we were about to fulfill a long-held dream of mine.

I can’t remember if it was exactly fifth grade, but sometime during my early French education, I completed a project on a city that seemed too good to be true. Like the next kid at my age, my favorite color was blue. Enough said.

Soon, we entered Chaouen and I was engulfed in blue. I saw it cast an interesting shade on my skin when I accidentally opened the front-facing camera trying to capture yet another alleyway. I took so many pictures—on my phone, with my digital camera until it died, and in my memory—nothing could quite capture what I was seeing. Feeling.

Plus, when you look back at the pictures you notice the parts that aren’t exactly blue. Maybe only half of the city is, actually. And just like that, half of the magic disappears.

Here are a few more photos anyway.

I learned through the guided tour that Eden booked for us that Chefchaouen, or just Chaouen, organically developed its blue walls by mixing lapis lazuli with limestone paint to make it last longer. And while a tourist-beckoning restaurant may capitalize on as many hues of blue as it can, humble riads in hidden alleys have been painted blue for centuries.

Trailing behind a tour guide also meant, unfortunately, not being able to linger and explore as extensively as I wanted to. In any case, I was elated to be walking my old French project in real life.

us-morocco relations

On the Sunday we’d have to be back in our beds in Rabat, we spent the morning at the American Legation Museum. But not before we had a plate of orange slices, blossoms, syrup, and cinnamon for breakfast.

Morocco was the first to officially recognize our fledgling nation and gifted us a beautiful building in Tangier, a port city central to its diplomatic relations. As Eden and I stood inside the legation, looking at the exhibits, and surrounded by beautiful Moroccan architecture, we felt the most patriotic we had in a while.

Within our Territories there are no Mines, either of Gold, or Silver, and this young Nation, just recovering from the Waste and Desolation of a long War, have not, as yet, had Time to acquire Riches by Agriculture and Commerce. But our Soil is bountiful, and our People industrious; and we have Reason to flatter ourselves, that we shall gradually become useful to our Friends. 

From George Washington to Sidi Mohammed, Sultan of Morocco

December 1st, 1789

The sultan would probably be the richest man on Wall Street today.

It’s my last week in Rabat! I’ll soon be home for a couple of weeks before I leave for Japan in early April.

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