Study Abroad kids do Spring Break right. Well, technically it wasn’t Spring Break, it was a break before final essay time. But either way, my friends and I went to Morocco after making a spontaneous decision. We were looking at cities on an airline website, came across Marrakesh and said, “Where’s that?” “Morocco. Let’s go there.”
Morocco was a lot to take in. The culture was very different from anything found in Western Europe, but that was mostly why we wanted to go. Plus, friends, beautiful weather and the conversion rate are what made our trip one we will never forget. 
Here are the highlights: Sitting outside at night talking with a couple of nice guys about culture, religion, politics, and personalities was an experience. Seeing the merchants at the lower end of the economy and comparing it to our high-end resort tour was remarkable. Meeting the nicest people, like our Riad manager Abraham and our hostel-mate Monica, and the not-so-nice people who grab your hand and demand money was very interesting.
One of the funniest moments was when we were heading down the other side of this 
mountain we climbed in Ourika. We had driven out to the mountains where the native Berber people lived. There was a lot of rock, loose gravel and sand. I fell about twice and my friend Alyssa fell once. Our other friend Jessica ended up being aided by Mohammed, our tour guide, down one slippery part and they kind of slid at the same time. He called it Berber dancing. This was the same tour guide who said he had a food baby and said, “OMG Camels!” He told us about the Berber people. When we were taking pictures, I held up my pitchfork and he asked what that was. I told him it was for my school and he held up three fingers and said that
the hand sign resembled the Berber’s sign for free people. Learning that was really cool. It felt like ASU was connected to the northern people in Africa. My friends and I now put up the three fingers for fun too.
Our trip back to London was pretty great too except for our train horror story. The plane ride back was filled with dancing, lip-syncing and silliness. Same with the train rides until two trains turned into five trains. The first wrong one was going the wrong direction, the second passed our stop without stopping, and then on the third Alyssa got up 
to get off at the wrong stop because she was so delirious. We were laughing/crying the whole way.
Morocco was good to us. Choukran (thank you in Arabic), for the memories.
Photos (from top): Our Riad (aka Hostel); Climbing the Ourika Mountains; OMG Camels; The Berber sign for “Free People”; Teapot
Sun Devils Go Global 