Category: travel
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Solo Travel to Marrakech
For the Eid holiday weekend I traveled alone from Ifrane to Marrakech via a one-hour car ride followed by a seven-hour train ride. The train taught me about the limits of my patience and the tolerance of my stomach against motion sickness, as I persisted in reading my book despite my better judgement (For future-me,…
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Seven. Eight, if you include the sheep.
As I have done in the past, this is my “first week in Morocco” post to compliment my first week in India and first week in France posts from 2013 and 2014, respectively. Predictably, moving to Morocco has been full of challenges and successes. Challenge: Having a few unstructured days before I began work in…
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The Beginning of a Moroccan Adventure
Below you will find a variation on the now-obligatory blog post announcing that I will be leaving the United States for Morocco. I do actually plan to occasionally blog (*gasp*). I can make a few promises just so that you have some baseline at which to establish your expectations: There will be lists. And lots…
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Leaving Home for Home
The word “home” for me evokes the aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, the soft patter of thick snowflakes on my windowsill, and the golden rays of evening sunlight as it filters through the trees in the backyard. Nothing quite compares to the tranquility of being home. And in a few short days, I…
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Profite Bien: 102 Days in France
What do I love about France? After living here for exactly 3.5 months, I find myself defaulting to see the negative aspects about this temporary home. For that I’ve made a list of things I do love about this country (there are many more, but these stand out). Sunny blue-sky days: Though rare during these…
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Learning French
Learning a language is difficult. The one-in-the-morning commercials for Rosetta Stone could tell you that. In my twenty years of life I have tried my hand at Spanish, Latin, and, most recently, French. Considering my memories from Spanish class are only of the songs about the colors and alphabet and considering also that Latin is…
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Syria via Normandy
In mid-October the Davidson program traveled to northern France to see Mont Saint Michel and the beaches of Normandy. The region’s beauty contrasted starkly with the horrific violence that took place there seventy years ago. Bayeaux, France, a tiny town in Normandy, is home to a nearly 1,000 year old tapestry telling the story of…
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Touring around Tours
When compared to Paris, Tours smells like a bouquet of fresh flowers on a warm spring afternoon. That’s because it actually does. The Loire and Cher Rivers sparkle. The Seine in Paris sparkles if you catch it on a good day and if the wind is blowing in the right direction, but every time I…
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Slowing down life
La vie se passe plus lentement ici. Life passes much slower here. Yes, I know Paris is a sprawling city which houses more than 2,000,000 people in twenty arrondissements (quarters) and an additional 8+ million people in the outlying banlieues (suburbs). For all the city’s hustle and bustle, however, les Parisiens find and revel in…
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Paris: La Ville-Lumière
As of today we have been in Paris for four whole days. In those four whole days we have thoroughly exhausted ourselves in our lengthy explorations of the city. Below I’ve included some highlights. Most memorable eating spot: eating a delicious chocolate pastry under the pleasant shade of trees… while in a cemetery (in my…
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From South India to Paris, France
While clearing out my bookshelves as I packed for a semester abroad in France I realized something about myself. I am a young woman in transition. As I sorted through the books, out went the Pendragon and Princess Diaries series, in came my favorite books from my last two years of college. Books like In…
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Summarizing a Semester Abroad
“How was India?” is the most common question I have gotten since returning home. Friends, family, and even strangers all ask. I always answer with “It was great!,” which it was. In reality, my answer should be “I have no clue.” I have no clue how to summarize 3 ½ months of my life into…