You can take the boy out of America but you can't take the America out of the boy.

11 of us Projects Abroad volunteers departed for Fez at 5 o'clock Saturday morning. Some of the people wanted to save money instead of paying for a hotel Friday night. The trains to Fez are quick and air-conditioned. Our means of transportation were the exact opposite of our destination where the days are slow and hot.
Our first mission, after reaching the hotel which was directly inside the main gate to the medina, was to find breakfast. That took about an hour of walking deep down into the maze of alleys until a man convinced us that he could fetch us a decent breakfast. We were quite wary of this claim but were genuinely surprised when he managed to wrangle up 11 pain au chocolate and hot tea, coffee, chocolate and fresh grape juice.
After breakfast, we continued our wandering and went down one of the few streets in the world where you can find a camel's head and a shark's head for sale within 20 feet of each other. We walked until we got lost which, according to Lonely Planet, is a must-do in Fez.
We saw some fantastic souks as well. In addition to the famous jewlery and spice souks we saw the lesser known hungry cat souk and the disney channel souk.

We went to the Madersa (a very old school for Islamic studies) which some people say is the most beautiful building in Morocco. It is magnificent.
We saw a mosque that is one of the largest in North Africa. It can hold over 20,000 people. That was an amazing place because the entire outside has smaller buildings leeching onto it so its difficult to actually see how big the entire thing is.
The most interesting place we saw was a massive tannery. This is the step in the leather making process where the hides (cow, goat, camel...) are dyed with all natural colors. They use materials such as indigo and saffron which is extremely cheap and easy to find. We walked up to an observation deck where I felt amazed and terrible at the same time. Down below dozens of men were dunking the various animal skins into massive pools that were filled with the various dyes. I felt bad because I felt like I was observing a sweat shop of sorts and that the men below were working for very little money while I was up in a room surrounded by purses and coats that were priced for many times more than the cost of production.
Regardless, it was a fascinating place and I will never forget it.

On Sunday, we started off with some more aimless wandering and then set off the find the Mellah (the old Jewish quarter)
We found a Jewish cemetery where Lyall and I had a nice nap on some benches under the trees.
Craving some non-Moroccan food we went to a funny Restaurant called Mezzanine (Fooding & Clubbing) for lunch. 8 out of 11 people ordered hamburgers. They were fantastic.
Then we had a proper sprint to catch our train. I was hoping to have at least one of those during my travels. I'm glad that I got it out of the way.

Now, I am to start another week of work at the good ol' TOP MARKE CENTRE.

I hope all is well in B-More although I know Sunday was a rough day on account of the Ravens' woes.