New Blog

I am not going to be posting on this blog for the next couple of months. Robyn and I are riding our bikes to Utah and so for that trip we have created a new blog. So check it out at www.robynandalana.blogspot.com

oh yeah one more video....

Here I am paddling with Robyn in the OC2

OC2 Video

Some videos

Although I dont have my videos from Morocco posted yet, I have some videos of Vancouver. Check them out:

Virgin Fest 2007

Kitsilano Beah

Granville Island Waterpark

Back in Vancouver

So after almost be cut from my flight in London, I amde it back to Vancouver as planned. I had my interview with the Vancouver School Board, but I did not get the job. Actually I have had some fun looking at other options so it is not too bad. Since I have been back I have been hanging out with friends and family and getting ready for my bike trip with Robyn. I have also been very busy with tons of babysitting so that is great! I have also been look for a job in September. So I have been pretty busy. Here are some photos of Tess and I at Virgin fest, Lisa and Charley at the granville island water park and me paddling and a blue hern that has been hanging out in Alder Bay.

The rest of Morocco 2007

So after Noora and Topi left, ALi and I spent a couple of days in Settat before heading back to Oujda. Pretty much as soon as we got back to Oujda we went down to Figuig to spend the weekned with his family there. It ended up getting extended to Tuesday morning because that way we could get a ride back to Oujda. While we were in Figuig we just kinda hung out. I learned to make couscous!...and then lost the paper where I wrote the directions...brilliant! When we got back to Oujda we were busy trying to finish the immigration stuff and Ali's family had a small lunch to celebrate his marriage (it was more for his mom, we were only there for about one hour). Then we went back to Settat and on to Marrakech where I caught my flight to London. Sad to leave :-( Oh and just before I left Melika (alis aunts, husbands, brithers wife) had her baby girl and I got to see her when she was less than 24hrs old...sooooo cute.

Yey Me!!!!

I have an interview at the Vancouver School Board 16 hrs after my flight from Morocco arrives in Vancouver...wish me luck...SOOO excited, and a bit nervous too.

Vancouver Video

Check out this video that Robyn made for me of the last time I was in Vancouver.

Vancouver Video

The Atlantic Coast With Noora and Topi

The wedding celebrations ended at 6am and we were on the 7am train to Marrakech to meet up with my friends from Finland, Noora and Topi. The next day we met them and headed off to Essaouira, on the Atlantic ocean. As soon as we got of the bus we found a great little house for rent for 20 euros a night for the four of us. We ended up spending 5 nights in Essaouira, mainly hanging out on the beach, cooking tagines and yummy salads and wandering around the port and the Medina. One day we walked 35 kms along the beach to the next town to the south Sidi Kakoui, it was great cause the sand dunes almst touch the ocean! We left Essaouira for Safi early on the morning of my birthday adn I celebrated my birthday in Safi. We checked out the fortress and the medina. We also bought some beautiful Safi Pottery. The evening we went to the Hammam and out for a birthday dinner and cake at the hotel. The next day we went to El Jadida where we explored the Cite Portugais and then I slept alot cause I had a fever. We too a Grand Taxi to the next little beach town the next day and hung around there. That evening we tried to get to Settat, and although it proved to be extremley difficult even though it is only an hour and a half away it ended up taking like four hours....Moroccan buses. The next morning we took Noora and Topi to the train station and Alia nd i stayed on in Settat to paly with Rayan and visit with his family.

Our First wedding Celebration

So Ali and I had a small wedding ceremony with his family in Oujda on the 2& of April. Moroccan weddings are so much fun. Start saving you money so that you can come to our big wedding celebration in Oujda Morocco in the summer of 2009. It is going to be AMAZING. Here are some photos.

A Week with with Nat and David

After getting married, Ali and I headed to Meknes to meet with Nat and David and spend a week touring around with them. The first couple days were a repeat of the begining of the tour d'Ali, we saw the sights in Meknes, Fes, Voulibilis and Moulay Idriss. Nat and David had rented a car, which meant that we had time for some time for a couple side trips to places like Sidi Harazem, where the bottled water comes from and some little town, where after a bit of confusion we found the caves that are lived in by old people that were described in the guide. We set off in the car on the third day to check out some of the things between Meknes and Beni Mellal...our first stop was the Cedre Gourard and the BArnaby Apes near Azrou. then we stopped at this amazing place with a river and a waterfall for lunch, the setting was great but it was not the greatest Tagnie that we had eaten. We hung out in Beni Mellal that evening and then headed to the Cascade d'Ouzoud the next day. It is an amazing waterfall...when we were there it had been rainign so hard that instead of being its nromal blue watery colour, tghe water was a light brown, more like a mudfall. We had to be very careful when heading down cause the ground was really slippery, but it was cool still. That night we went to Marrakech where we stayed in the apartment of someone who we had met in Figuig. The next evening we went to visit Alis family in Settat, where Mina had prepared my favourite dish, rafissa. It was enormous, adn she had place three entire chickens on top! CRAZY amount of rafissa, but MMM MMM GOOD! We got up early on Saturday morning to see the Hassan 2 Mosque in Casablanca before Nat and DAvid had to head to the airport. After they left, ALi and I tried to get a Taxi tot he train station to return to Oujda, but we found out the hard way that taxis only pick up tourisits at the Mosque. They can make more money that way. We neded up walking to the train station, but we still got to Oujda as planned, about 12 hrs later.

THANKS NATHALIE AND DAVID IT WAS FUN!

Ali and I are Married

I would never have guessed how difficult it was to get married in Morocco.After returning from Figuig, Ali and I spent four days in Oujda running back and forth between the police station, city hall and the courthouse. Honestly, it felt more like handing in a thesis than getting married, I was relieved that we had finally completed everyhting that was asked of us. I was a crazy long process, but we were happy to be finally married, two days later we set out to Meknes to meet my French but living in Spain friends, NAthalie and DAvid.

Getting there...

After collecting all the papers that we needed we headed to the Adul in Oujda and he had enought time to quickly look through our papers to let us know that we were ready to start. Since it was a holiday, we could not do anyhting for the next couple of days so we took the opportunity to head down to figuig to celebrate Eid Almawled Ennabawi, or the birthday of the prophet Mohamed. THere was lots of drumming and dancing and people exploding things in the street. It was fun. After we just spend a couple of days wandering around Figuig and eating and we also met some Spanish tourists who were staying at Alis familys hotel and so I got to pratice some Spanish. We headed back to Oujda where we spent the next four days running around oujda getting our whole folder stamped and signed and authorized by too many different people. On Friday night we were in the aduls office and they brought in this 80 year old belgian who signed some papers as my father...not too sure about the replacement. Anyways since I didnt undersand Arabic, I had no idea til after at we were finally married...so we decided that we whould have a party...we were already planning a big wedding party in Morocco in the summer 2009...Inshallah. Start saving up your money. Then we decided that we wanted a celebration now since it was kinda anti-climatic getting married without a party. So we started planning a small one just with ALis family in Oujda for April 21st. But then we stopped cause we had to meet NAt and DAvid my friends from MAdrid, in Meknes, so we took the bus to Meknes...

The photos are of ALi and I and his family in Figuig

Are we married yet??????

So if you have ever considered getting married to a Morrocian in Morocco, give yourself at least a month to get all the papers that you need and a goods chunk of money as well. So after spending a week getting things ready in SEttat, ALi and I thought we were pertty well prepared for Rabat, the Canadian embassy and getting the marriage act. Hmmmmm...not the case. We ended up spending a week in Rabat running around like crazy. We each needed about 15 different documents, and then each if those documents had to be stamped, signed, and stamped again by like three different people. Then some needed to be translated, notorized and anything else that they could possibly ask to make things expensive and difficult. At least while we were in Rabat we got to visit all the touris attactions, since official things tend to close in the evening so we had our evenings free. We hung out around the ocean for a bit and saw where the old kings are buried. Finally we got all the papers that we needed and headed back to Oujda, where ali is from, to see the adul, like a Morrocan Justice of the Peace.

Back to Morocco

So I left Geneva early Sunday mroning, with a very grumpy taxi driver. I flew to MAdrid and spent the day with Nathalie and DAvid, hanging out at their place and at the outdoor market. In the evening I flew to MArrakech where ALi was witing at the airport. We had dinner in Jma El Fnaa, Harira with huge wodden spoons and dates followed by spicy tea, my fave Marrakech meal, and only about one euro for two people. The next day we were wanderiong around the city when we ran into some of ALis school friends from Oujda so we spent most of the day in a cafe with them. The next day we headed to Settat to see Ali's Grandma, Aunt, Oncles and cousin. We ended up spendin a week there, preparing stuff for the marriage and just hanging out. There was a small carnival that was in town and we went on a couple of rides. It was soo funny. ALi had never been on anything like them before and when the one that spins in the air started moving he was freaking out, his knuckles were white from gripping the bar so hard. But then he relaxed nad it was funny. THe other thing that I found really amusing was that when we went on the bumper cars... the Moroccains drive like mainaics on the street, but I think someone needs to explain to them that the point of bumper cars is to crash. They all drove around in a nice circle, being careful to avoid everyone else...how safe it would be if they drove like that on the roads. At first I could not stop laughing, but then once I had calmed down, I starrted crashing into everyone and they were all looking at me like I was the one who was crazy...anywayz...

The photos are of ALi's fmily in SEttat

Check it out

This is a cool photo that I took of ALi yesterday. It is on the sand dunes near Eassouaira.