Ifrane or Bust

The past two weeks have involved a fair number of trials and tribulations:

• Tribulation: the overnight flight from Portland to Detroit went smoothly … our friends Ben and Amber drove me and my pile of luggage (three rolling bags, a large backpack, a carry-on backpack and a guitar) to the airport, and fortunately Ben helped me carry all of this crap in so that I didn’t have to deal with one of those annoying luggage carts. I spent five excellent days with my parents in Mason, and on Wednesday, we prepared to pick Samantha up in Detroit.
  
• Trial: Sam’s Royal Air Maroc flight (an airline boasting an impressive lack of timeliness and creaky, old-school airplanes) from Casablanca to New York is postponed for 12 hours. She spends five hours in horrendous lines hoping to find some other flight to the States, but the language barrier and questionable customer service turn up no other possibilities. Eventually, the airline ships all of the flight’s passengers to a hotel in Casablanca to rest for a while. Sam gets in touch with me, and I start looking into ways of getting her from New York to Detroit since she is inevitably going to miss her connecting flight. This proves to be quite a chore since the international flight is with Royal Air Maroc and the domestic flight is with Delta. Delta suggests I talk to Royal Air Maroc. Royal Air Maroc says they don’t have any authority to issue free tickets, Sam will have to talk with their New York office when she arrives at 1:05 a.m. I question whether or not the office will be open at 1:05 a.m. Royal Air Maroc says SURE. I say REALLY. Royal Air Maroc says YES, THE OFFICE STAYS OPEN UNTIL ALL FLIGHTS ARRIVE. Still in disbelief, I buy a brand new ticket on Northwest as a precaution. Sam's flight takes off an hour and a half late, she arrives in New York at 2:30 a.m. to find the Royal Air Maroc office closed (which is potentially a good thing, judging by the amount of agitation in her voice at 3:00 a.m.). She has a lovely night of rest on the chairs in JFK and arrives in Detroit at 11:00 a.m., 16 hours later than expected.
• Tribulation: we had an awesome time hanging out with our Detroit posse (very little sleep had) and being a part of our friend Brian’s wedding. The celebration was really a great time, and a large number of attendees were up until 3:30 or so, some literally toppling into their beds (Jer).
• Trial: 8:00 a.m. came very quickly. We caught a taxi with our friend Rob to Detroit Metro and arrived with enough time for our last greasy American breakfast for a while. Due to all of the bullshit described in Trial #1, Sam and I had different flights to New York. Also, since I had not printed the itineraries for our flights, I could not check baggage all the way through to Morocco. This precaution is obviously bullet-proof, since it would take a computing GENIUS with years of hacking experience and some incredibly sophisticated hardware and software to create a FAKE flight itinerary in Photoshop. Yay TSA. They also made us throw out some small cans of tuna and apple sauce, all less than 3 oz., because “they’re liquids”. Another ingenius plot foiled. Sam and I met up at JFK, grabbed our baggage and re-checked it on our Royal Air Maroc flight. We then had several hours to eat and drink some coffee, which was VERY nice. Finally we boarded our 8:00 p.m. flight … and sat on the tarmac until 9:30 p.m.
• Tribulation: the Royal Air Maroc plane did not fall apart on its trip to Casablanca.
• Trial: the Royal Air Maroc flight from Casablanca to Fez was an hour late.
• Tribulation: Whatever. We didn’t have to be anywhere. The Fez airport was beautifully uncrowded, just one baggage carousel, and all of our luggage arrived (though I think the flip-flops I had strapped to the outside of my backpack were stolen).
• Trial: The taxi ride to Ifrane started off a bit strange: we negotiated with a guy who spoke English very well, then were driven by a guy who spoke no English, no Spanish and only “un peu” of French. He was incredibly nice, but we quickly realized he was not taking us toward Ifrane, but rather into downtown Fez. It ultimately turned out that he needed to take us to the police station for them to register our passports, then get a voucher stamped before he could take us to Ifrane. At least I think that’s what happened.
• The Last Tribulation: we arrived in Ifrane and made our way to our new apartment. (The apartment is actually 6 km from Al Akhawayn, the driver had no idea where to go, we didn’t know how to say “right” or “left” in French, so we ended up pointing and grunting the whole way). We napped for a bit, then headed to the school for a new faculty welcome and dinner. The two hours of welcome presentations were pretty boring, especially considering how much sleep we’d gotten over the past several days, but the dinner was huge and delicious. Sam had to get up and introduce herself twice since she’s both THE counselor and an instructor at the school. (One bizarre detail: Sam’s credentials on the Power Point presentation said “GIS and Remote Sensing”, which are actually my credentials. We’re not really sure how that happened).

And we’re now getting over jet lag and adapting to life here. Sam is a bit stressed since she missed a few days of work and has started her responsibilities at the local K-12 school on top of her other duties … she is planning on writing a posting on her experiences thus far when she has a moment. Check out the link to some pictures of our apartment: “Ifrane Apartment”.