home (almost) alone

It's been a strange last couple of days on the host family front. After coming back from Morocco last week, I've only seen my host parents a handful of times. Last night, no one was around at dinner time, so I made myself some pasta (because I don't know how to cook anything else). The kids came trickling in and I let them share what I made. Tonight, the same thing happened - but I made a kick-ass omelet for myself which the kids could not quite replicate. Apparently my host parents are in Paris until Saturday - which is funny, because I am going to Paris on Saturday. This isn't unusual (they are often there for business) except that they usually tell me when they are going and my eldest host sister is usually around to prepare dinner. Last night she was at dance practice, and tonight she's nowhere to be found. Hm.

On another topic, tomorrow I will be having a little shindig with two of my friends from to belatedly and collectively celebrate our birthdays, which all happened more or less over the Easter break. This will probably be the last time that the whole group of my friends are gathered together, which really makes things feel like they are drawing to a close. I have six more weeks left in Lyon - and to be honest, I am totally ready to head home. Sure, there are things that I will miss about being here. But spending time with my parents over spring break really made me realize how anxious I am to get back home. I want to bring my camera with me as often as possible in these last few weeks and take more pictures of Lyon. I have hundreds of pictures from all the fabulous places I've traveled to, but hardly any of the city that I have called home for the last 9 months. After what has happened in L'Aquila, I realize that my everyday surroundings are not something I should be taking for granted.

ouar-za-zate? why, morocco, of course!

During the course of my 10 day stay in Morocco, I became obsessed with the word OUARZAZATE (pronouced "where - zah - sat") and set it to a rap that became the soundtrack to my tour of that beautiful country. It truly is one of the most magnificent I've ever seen. We went from the seaside promenade in Casablanca to the Savoy-like ski resort of Ifrane, from the labyrinth that is Fez's ancient medina to the broad avenues of Marrakesh that recall South Beach (even though it is nowhere near any beach).

The highlight, though, was certainly my journey via dromedary (like a camel, but with only one hump) to the Mergouza sand dunes in the Moroccan Sahara. The desert is a vibrant golden orange color which seems unreal.
Since I couldn't possibly narrate every single moment of my trip, I'll let the pictures do the talking. They'll be up on Photobucket asap.

vacation has rarely felt this good

It almost seems strange to me to be leaving on a 2-week vacation when I've been spending the entire school year bouncing around Europe. But I am very much looking forward to a few relaxing days in Paris on my own. My parents arrive on Tuesday, and I've convinced them to day-trip with me to Mont-Saint-Michel on Thursday before our early flight out to Casablanca on Friday.

Since I won't have my computer on me, I'll be old-schooling it on this leg of the trip -- but I'll be back in two weeks with lots of anecdotes and photos, I'm sure!