Azrou, Morocco

This is not a qwerty keyboqrd so forgive ,e for random mistypes: We,ve just had q slightly frustrqting evening, the ,ost frustrqting so far in fact. I think I was almost pickpocketed and we got almo;st diddled severql times at the restqurqnt: Other than tonight, hozever, things have been going surprisingly s,oothly: We,ve managed to get to each destination; had q clean (enough)room to sleep each night: TOO MUCH SHOPPING!!! Wer,re starting to get the hang of bargaining; but we are reaizing we are still getting good tourist prices rather than real prices: ah well, i love my rug and pottery. the souqs are always buzzing; even late at night: i think this is because this is the coolest part of the day: it makes for difficult sleeping zhen we are living inside the medina though (medinas are the old part of town). the architecture is naturally gorgeous: i love the patterns: i think it was so fitting that i zent to the Escher ,useum in the Hague before coming here since so ,uch of his inspirqtion for his 2D space filling designs comes from Islamic motifs though he took it beyond their geometric patterns: the people of Morocco, where to begin the description? For stqrters; one of hte things we had been wondering is how ze zould be treated as Asiqns (2 chinese; 1 indian). Whqt we have discovered is that there are many Japanese tourists thqt co,e here in the fall: A and I are constantly assailed with cries of Sayanara, arigato and konichiwa, while K is greeted zith Namastay (?) and Bollywood singing: For the most part ppl are very helpful and polite; though they can be very insistent when they wish to sell you something: A and I plan to write a dissertation on the art of bargaining when we get back. She and K have it down quite well:

Food ) I have not gotten sick yet! cheers! though tonight,s restaurant sort of really sucked; we have had so,e excellent tajines (stew type things) as well as couscous: I love couscous with raisins (had that yesterday night). The cooked salads are excellent too: Fresh squeezed OJ is everywhere and we have also been buying liters and liters of wqter (brands: Ciel; Sidi Ali; Sidi Harazen). And the MINT TEA!!!! I am addicted to this stuff: Iùve declared it the one item I will ,iss the ,ost when I return:

Hoping everyone gets their postcqrds: I have been diddled by corner stores for stamps a couple times now. One thing we,ve learned is to always always add things up for yourself; They tried to charge us 112Dh for our bad food tonight. It was supposed to be 75Dh: (1CAD=7.2Dh) It,s cheap; but as A says; it is a matter of principle: we,re foreigners but we are no longer fresh off the boat:

i,m not really having a bad time at all; do not get me zrong; i am very happy to be here. i just cannot believe we have been more hassled in this town than in the big cities: i think i am done trying to type now, i think i,ll do more exhaustive posting when i get ho,e and get a chance to sift through pics: