This weekend, Caleb, Luigi and I decided to take a trip to Melilla, Spain, which is just a train ride away from Rabat. For those who don’t know, Spain controls two cities in mainland Africa; Ceuta and Melilla. This, as I found out later, is a controversial issue for many Moroccans who believe the cities should be controlled by Morocco. For us, however, it was a nice excuse to go to Spain without paying for a flight.

We decided to take the night train from Rabat to Beni Nsar, the border town near Melilla. This was reasonably cheap, about $20CDN, but was the coldest I’ve ever been in my life. I was wearing two sweaters, two shirts, and my snapback (obvi) and was huddled up in a ball all night trying to sleep and not to freeze. I thought Morocco was supposed to be warm….

8 hours later, at about 630am, we arrived in probably the sketchiest town in Morocco, Beni Nsar. It’s a town which...

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been able to stay away from home for weeks on end without missing home. I went away to university 4000 kilometres from my home, knowing only a few people, and never really felt homesickness. But it’s been two and a half months here in Morocco and I’m starting to really miss home.

I don’t know why. It’s honestly the weirdest feeling… one which I’ve never felt before. It all started the other when a bunch of us Canadians got together for a pancake breakfast with real maple syrup. For a second, I closed my eyes and it was like being home again. To be fair, I should’ve known this would trigger it. But then today, my phone updated the Timmy Me app for Tim Horton’s, my favourite Canadian coffee place, and then it struck me… ‘Wow I really miss home’

I think part of it is just missing Canada. I miss the little things of course; ginger ale, Tim’s, Pounair...

Saturday Afternoon, Caleb and I, accompanied by our buddy Alae, decided to check out a Hammam. For those who don’t know, a Hammam is a hot Moroccan bathhouse, where people go for a good cleaning and a social.

However, before we could go to the Hammam, we needed to go to the Medina and buy a couple important items. Firstly, we needed a beaker to pour water from big buckets onto ourselves.

Next, we needed to buy a washing mitt. Now you would expect this to be soft and nice, but it felt like sandpaper and is used to scrub dead skin and dirt off your body.

Finally we needed to buy a special soap. Called savon noir (black soap) it is made out of olive oil and good for getting all the dirt and oil off you.

When we got to the hammam, on a semi-sketchy sidestreet, we had to disrobe down to our boxers and trade our clothes for two buckets, used for bathing water. We then entered the...

It’s Sunday night and after 7 hours of travel, I’m finally back home after an amazing weekend in Portugal!

A little background on why I went to Portugal. When I was little, I was told I have a godmother, who is actually my extended aunt, who lives in Portugal but who I had never actually. After getting accepted to study in Morocco, my parents decided to remind me of this mysterious godmother and told me I should go meet her while I was on this side of the world. After chatting with her a bit over the summer, I decided to make the trip out this weekend.

After a train ride to Casablanca and a quick flight over to Lisbon, I arrived tired and a little nervous about going to stay with her for a weekend.

Upon arrival in Lisbon, I ended up taking a cab where the driver spoke zero english and charged me double what I probably should have paid. However, it was all okay when I met my...

It’s Wednesday night here in Rabat and I’m getting ready to leave for Lisbon in the morning. Both my housemates have left for the weekend; one to Rome and one to Marrakech. Being home alone has given me a chance to think about my experience here in Morocco so far.

Being in Morocco over the last month and a half has been an amazing experience. I have met so many great people, many of whom I’m blessed to call my friends. I have seen so many beautiful sights, such as this little Madrassa (religious school) in Fes which is still my favourite sight here in Morocco. Life here is good!

With some of the crew

In one of the many Fes Madrassas

Many people who have been on exchange say that when you go on exchange, at first you romanticize the destination. You fall in love with the culture and all the things which are different about your new country. It’s in this time that you are not...

I feel like I have nothing new to blog about. My life is starting to fall into a routine of waking up, going to school, going home, eating, and sleeping. However it’s definitely not boring! Here are some of the highlights!

The kids and their bombs: For some reason, maybe it’s Halloween time but someone told me it’s because of a religious month tradition, someone decided way back when that kids should be allowed to play with little exploding bombs just for the fun of it. So now, instead of writing this blogpost in peace, I’m writing with the frequent interruption of a KABOOOM part way through a…. Oh hell…. sentence. It’s nuts! Thankfully we’re inside now because if you’re nearby when one goes off, you can hear ringing in your ear for a while after. Stupid kids!

Getting involved: The people at the EGE (pronounced in the French style kinda like uhh jay uhh) are super kind. I mentioned...

As most of you know, yesterday (October 22nd), at least one armed assailant killed a Canadian soldier, Cpl Nathan Cirillo, standing guard at our National War Museum. The assailant(s) went on to fired shots inside our Parliament building, before being killed by the Parliament Sergeant at Arms, the man who’s job is to protect parliament. On Monday, another Canadian soldier was run down in cold blood by a man with ties to (the terrorist organization which calls itself) ISIS.

This act of terror has shaken the way we as Canadians see our country. We like to see ourselves as welcoming to other cultures, other ideas, other ways of life. A country of peace, of diversity, of pluralism. This is what makes these terror attacks so much more shocking; that someone who was born and raised in Canada would attack the very institutions upon which our nation stands.

As a Canadian living abroad, this...

Last weekend, a bunch of us exchange students decided to adventure out to southeastern Morocco, near the Algeria border. And what an adventure it was! After packing into a small van at 630am, we headed off to Marrakech for a tagine lunch then the adventure really started.

To get to our next destination of Ouarzazate, you need to go through the mountains. I have never been so afraid that I was going to die. The driver was driving at breakneck speeds on these windy mountain roads, passing other cars by swerving into oncoming traffic. And to make things even worse, it was right after lunch so as soon as we stopped, all of us were feeling super queasy, but thankful to be alive.

Once we got into the region of Ouarzazate, we got to see the magnificent Kasbah (fortress) Ait BenHaddou which is now used as a movie set. This is the area where the Daenerys scenes from Game of Thrones are...

Last weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving so a bunch of my international friends and I went out for a really nice dinner of tagines and pastries.

Unfortunately, it was not turkey and stuffing, but the company made it all worthwhile. At dinner, my buddy Matt from Virginia suggested we go around and mention what we are thankful for, such is the meaning of the holiday. The answers were surprisingly similar, given we all come from different backgrounds. We were all thankful for each other, for the opportunity to be in Morocco, and for the support we had from back home to make this exchange a reality. I was so touched that my international friends, many of whom didn’t even know Canadians had Thanksgiving, came out to celebrate it with me.

Here’s all of us post-dinner

The dinner got me thinking about how lucky I am to be in Morocco, and to be having such a good time here. Some of you know...

It’s currently Canadian Thanksgiving Monday and I am sitting in school without any turkey, stuffing, gravy, or anything else that we normally do for this holiday. But here in Morocco, it’s just another Monday. Instead, a bunch of us internationals are going to celebrate with Moroccan traditional tajine (pics to follow).

What I really want to write about is Eid, which was last weekend. For those who don’t know, Eid al Adha is the muslim holiday which celebrates Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to God. However, God intervened and replaced his son with a sheep. As such, many families sacrifice a sheep to celebrate this holiday.

Now as an international who has never seen anything like this, I was a bit worried about how it would all go down. The days before Eid, many families bought sheep and kept them in their homes. THis created the worst sheep smell in the building-...