A Week full of Travel :)

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a great week. Last week was an amazing week for me because of the traveling I was able to do. When I wrote to you all last I was in Malta. After Malta, I flew to Marrakech, Morocco with my friend Chris for two days and then we went to Paris, France for a day after that. I was very impressed with Morocco and I was surprised by how much I was able to communicate in Arabic with the people living there. At times it was difficult to understand their Arabic because there is a heavy French influence on the language. Overall, I was able to overcome this barrier because I spoke to them in “Fusha” otherwise known as MSA (Modern Standard Arabic). There was one point in the trip where the taxi driver did not understand the time to pick us up in English and I told him it in Arabic and he actually understood me. Additionally, the majority of the people living in Marrakesh thought that I was a local and asked me if I was from Egypt or Morocco. My favorite thing I was able to do in Morocco was visiting the Atlas Mountains and the Berber village within it. The Berber people live an extremely hard life today but they told us how much the quality of their life has improved because of tourism in the area. One thing that surprised me was how happy the less fortunate people in Marrakech are with the current king of Morocco. I heard from many locals how the King has improved life for the less fortunate and truly cares for the people. Paris was amazing as well. The city reminded me of New York in many ways. While we were in Paris, my friend Jemima who I met back in Israel in the international school met up with us for the day. She showed us around the city and we visited many places including the Louvre, Sainte Chapelle, and the Eiffel Tower. I returned back to Israel on Thursday January 17th. I was very tired upon my return but didn’t have much time to rest because I had to finish my final papers for two of my classes. I am currently on my way back to Ben Gurion Airport to travel to South Africa until Jan 30th. I will be staying with my one of my best friends Heaven from the United States who is currently studying abroad in Stellenbosch. I am looking forward to this trip and can’t wait to share everything about it with you all. Thank you for reading 😁