It's been 4 months since I first came to live in the city of Tangier and in just one day, this adventure will come to its end. I can't even begin to put how much this experience has impacted me into words, but let me try to tell you the best things. I've been welcomed into an entirely different world since coming to Morocco both literally in the physical sense and mentally in the sense that it's changed me as a person. The people I've been living with and come to know through my experiences have become a second family to me, one that I will never forget for the rest of my life. To all of my new second family, I love you all and appreciate every moment that we've shared in the past months. To @badr.debbach I have to say a special thank you to you and your family for sharing your home and friendship with me, giving me my own Moroccan family. To @mourad.benkirane and @douaben thank you for all you've done to keep us all safe, happy, and loved. Finally, to @haileyfragerthank you for being the best room mate and friend a girl could ask for. You helped make this trip even more of a crazy, exciting adventure everyday. Morocco, thank you for the adventure. It's time to say goodbye. 🇲🇦Delete Commentbadr.debbachIt s been a giant pleasure to know you @emmarichard13 we ll miss u here, thank you for writing this, it means a lot, i hope to see u again soon, and it is not really a goodbye , just a goodbye for now hopefully, much love ❤❤Well everybody, it’s been just about a week since I left my adventures in Morocco behind and returned to the states. Let me tell you, I did not miss the cold, snowy weather while I was away! I thought I would do one last post and tell you about my final days in Tangier, my travels home, and the overall impact this experience has had on me, just to wrap everything up. 

So the first thing that happened in the week leading up to our departure from Morocco was a trip to my good friend Badr’s house. Now, my friend Badr lives in Tangier and a fellow student and I met him through past study abroad students and immediately became friends. He not only welcomed us into his home many times throughout the semester, but he also took care of my friend’s dog which she found in Tangier and ended up bringing home (it’s a long story, but everything worked out in the end and her dog, Kenzia, is now back in the states in a happy, loving home). Anyway, on this day, my friend, Erynn, and I headed to Badr’s house for a home made lunch and movie day with each other and all the dogs. This time around, there was not only Kenzia and Sammy, Badr’s dog, but also a new little addition to the family. Erynn and Badr had taken a little puppy off the street and brought it to a vet to be vaccinated and cared for before it was able to find a home. Badr was caring for the dog while we searched for it’s home and that’s why little Emmett joined in on our movie day. It’s always so fun to hang out with my friends and of course some loving dogs and I’m so grateful to Badr and his family for being so wonderful and giving me my own Moroccan family. 

Something else that happened during the last week was a soccer game! As a treat after final exams, the school set up a trip to one of the Tangier soccer team’s games. Because of the recent political issues that are happening around Jerusalem and the United States, the school had to take extra precautions and provide a police escort and private box for the game, but putting all of that aside, it was so much fun to watch the game and cheer on the Tangier team. What was even more exciting was that we were also watching one of the players who is on the Moroccan national team, the team that is attending the FIFA World Cup in Russia. 

The next thing to happen was an amazing opportunity that was provided to me by my room mate and good friend, Hailey. For one of her papers, she interviewed a Moroccan musician named Younes Fakhar who is most known for his skill with an instrument known as the oud. Younes has a project he is working on where he combines traditional, cultural music pieces with more modern pieces or with pieces that pertain to countries where he travels. He and Hailey had worked for several weeks on a piece that combined traditional arabic music with the well known song Hotel California to create a new and exciting piece to perform in front of the students. Because this particular piece needed a few background singers for the chorus parts, she asked if myself and a couple of other students would join in on the performance. By the end, it was such an amazing time and it was wonderful to get to know and work with Younes. 

By this point, the final week was drawing to a close and we had official come to the last night in Tangier. To our surprise, the night became quite eventful as our campus cat who we lovingly came to call Stick went into labor and had her 2 little kittens, Twig and Branch. Everyone had been waiting for quite a while for Stick to give birth and by that point we were all feeling the disappointment at the thought that we’d miss it. Low and behold, she had them just before it was too late for us to see the babies! 

But the next morning, it was time to say our goodbyes. As we started to leave and make our way towards the gate for our flights, we said our final goodbyes to our Moroccan friends and family and said a more temporary goodbye to our fellow students. Despite the fact that we will see each other again in the future, we had all formed a family while abroad and it was hard to say goodbye knowing that it would never be quite the same again. We soon boarded our first flight from Tangier to Madrid. The flight went smoothly and soon enough, we were landing and Hailey, another friend named Kayla, and myself were making our way to our hotel for the night as we had a 22 hour layover ahead of us. We spent the evening exploring a bit of Madrid and relaxing before our long overseas flight the following day. By a stroke of fate, we ended up switching hotels for no extra cost and going to a much fancier hotel. We took full advantage of the amazing accommodations getting a good rest before the next day. When we were boarding the flight from Madrid to Boston, we were dreading the thought of the next 8 hours cramped on a flight. However, we were pleasantly surprised when over half of the plane was completely empty and we were each able to move to completely empty rows and lay down comfortably for the whole time. After 8 hours of movies and mediocre plane food, we touched down in Boston, made our way through the airport, and reunited with our families after 4 long months. 

And that’s it. That’s the end of this particular adventure, but I can promise that more adventures will come in the future. Now that I’ve traveled far and wide on my own and with friends, I can feel the urge to continue traveling becoming stronger and stronger. I can't even begin to put how much this experience has impacted me into words, but let me try to tell you the best things. I've been welcomed into an entirely different world since coming to Morocco both literally in the physical sense and mentally in the sense that it's changed me as a person. The people I've been living with and come to know through my experiences have become a second family to me, one that I will never forget for the rest of my life. This whole experience is something I would do again in a heartbeat. The amount of empathy and understanding you gain of the world around you just from traveling and getting to know people in different places and different cultures is vast and unimaginable to those who have not experienced it first hand. I urge everyone to take any and every opportunity they get to travel and see the world. Go talk to people, get to know them and their stories. You can meet some of the most amazing and interesting people just by starting a conversation with them. 

Adventure is out there. Seize the day and never let it go. 

So the big trip has officially come and gone. I actually went to Ireland! This is going to be a pretty lengthy chat, so I’ll get right into the adventures!

It all began Tuesday morning at 11:30 am when my friends Abby and Nicole joined me in a taxi ride to Tangier’s Ibn Battuta airport for our flight from Tangier to Amsterdam. Everything was going smoothly. We checked in for the flight, went through security and passport control, and were sat waiting for our boarding to be called. Of course, this is when problems began to arise. When you live in Tangier for a little while, you notice that things run on Moroccan time which is the same as saying everything runs late. We finally boarded though, getting settled onto the plane 40 minutes after we were supposed to have left the tarmac. We weren’t worried though; our layover gave us plenty of time to make up for those 40 minutes. Boy were we wrong! It was at that moment that the pilot announced over the intercom that due to air traffic control problems at Amsterdam airport, our flight would not be taking off for another hour! So we were left to nervously await the departure time and hope with all our hearts that we would make our connecting flight to Dublin or that it would be delayed. When we finally made it to Amsterdam, the sprint began. Abby and I raced through the airport, separated from Nicole who had to go get her checked bag since the flight was a self-transfer. Our connection hadn’t been delayed at all! We made it to the gate, panting and sweaty, begging the flight attendants at the desk to let us on the plane that was still standing at the gate. Unfortunately, because it was a self-transfer and we had missed boarding, they were unable to put us on the flight. Luckily, they put us on one for the next morning, but they were unable to get us a place to stay in Amsterdam so we were stuck for 12 hours in Amsterdam airport rather than being in our hotel in Dublin. 

We spent an uncomfortable night trying to sleep in the airport before we finally got up and went to wait for our flight Wednesday morning. But in the end, the important thing was that we made it to Dublin eventually and we headed straight for the taxi line after landing to head to our hotel. We got in the taxi and were on our way... or so we thought. About 5 minutes into our drive, the taxi driver was forced to pull over because of a flat tire! Just our luck, huh? Thank goodness he had a spare in the trunk and was able to fix it up quickly and get us to our hotel. Once we had checked in and settled, we immediately headed off into the city for our first destination: the Guinness Storehouse. 

After a lengthy walk through the pouring rain, we finally made it to our destination. The storehouse was really neat. Each room took you through a different step in the process of making Guinness from the individual ingredients to the roasting to the bottling and advertising. We had such a fun time going through each floor and learning about how this internationally famous beer is created. We then took advantage of the amazing restaurants within the storehouse and our vouchers for a free beer and headed to get some lunch which was delicious. 

Our plan after the factory was to get a ride to the train station to purchase our tickets for our train to Waterford the following day, but we got lucky and our friendly cab driver informed us that it was easier to book online, taking us to an internet cafe near our hotel where we could get internet to check out the prices (our hotel wifi took a while to figure out). Once that was done, it was starting to get late so we did some brief shopping on our walk back before we headed into our hotel room, passing out way earlier than we expected. We obviously were super tired after the whole airport fiasco and then exploring Dublin. The next morning, though, we were up early to check out and on a train to Waterford. 

The moment we set foot in Waterford’s beautiful, riverside city, I was hooked. This place is seriously one of the most amazing places I’ve been. Sitting proudly along a beautiful river, the oldest city in Ireland is a sight to behold. There’s nothing super fancy or special about it in a factual sense, but to me it felt like I was right at home and I loved every second of being in that city. We checked into our hotel and immediately began to explore. Our first stop was the famous Waterford Crystal factory where we had a tour booked. This tour was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. I got to walk through each section of the factory and watch the men and women work right up close. Every stage from molding the crystal to cutting it was right there for me to watch live. After the tour, we were able to take a look around their sales floor and their Christmas ornaments definitely caught both our eyes. 

After that first plan had been completed, it was time to finish up one other plan I had in store while we were in Waterford: getting my hair cut. Now, I know what you’re thinking... “Why couldn’t you just wait for when you came home?” I could’ve for sure, but to be honest, I was getting really, really sick of having my hair long and I found a walk in salon so I thought, “why not?” So now my hair is short again and I can actually say I’ve gotten a haircut in Ireland of all places!

After this, we headed back to the hostel for what was supposed to be a quick stop, but ended up being pretty stressful in the end. Our original plans involved heading to the Cliffs of Moher from Waterford on Friday so we were working on the hostel’s desktop to figure out the travel plans and make sure we were set for the next day. Unfortunately, that’s when things began to fall apart again. We both realized that the cost was going to be much much more than we thought and we began to second guess our choice. After a tear-filled conversation with my aunt and some more debating about buses, trains, and taxi rides, we made the final decision to stay another day in Waterford and skip the Cliffs. We immediately felt a huge weight lift off our shoulders. Although we had both really wanted to go to the Cliffs, we ended up being very happy with our choice to stay in Waterford, especially because we were enjoying it so much already. 

The rest of our Thanksgiving day was spent wandering the streets of Waterford, experiencing the churches and other sights along the way and stopping at several of the little shops. That night, we were ready to head out to a pub for dinner, hoping to treat ourselves to a Thanksgiving type dinner. I’ll tell you right now, the pub around the corner from our hotel that was recommended by our hostel hosts did not disappoint. When we walked in, it was still fairly early for a pub so not many people were there, but I can tell you now that the owner was tickled to death that he had two Americans in his pub. While he took our orders, he happily chatted with us about our visit and study abroad experience. On top of his cheerful friendliness, he served us some amazing food. I personally had some vegetable soup with Irish soda bread to start, followed by the classic bangers and mash, ending with a scrumptious sticky toffee pudding with hot custard. Everything tasted so delicious and I got to check off several of the foods I had hoped to try in Ireland off my list! After our meal, we bid the owners a fond farewell before heading back to the hostel where we both separated to chat with our families and spend some time with them on the holiday, both of us needing the family time to get over the homesickness of missing Thanksgiving. 

The next morning, we woke to a freshly cooked full Irish breakfast, another thing I had hoped to try, made by our hostel hosts and had the dining room to ourselves to enjoy the yummy food. We then headed out into the town, spending the whole day exploring more of the tourist sights, stopping into almost every little shop we passed to see what they had to offer, and chatting to some of the locals. We were quite amused by the amount of signs exclaiming huge Black Friday sales when we were in a country that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but we weren’t complaining about some of the sales we managed to get! By the time we stopped for lunch, our ankles ached and our bellies rumbled. I was very excited to try this lunch, though, because back when I first started researching this trip, I discovered something Waterford is known for called the Burzza. Now, the Burzza is a pepperoni pizza calzone that is stuffed with a hamburger. Abby and I happily ordered one of these to share, along with a glass of Prosecco which I enjoyed, and were blown away by how good it tasted. After our late lunch, it was getting dark outside but the people in Waterford were just getting started. 

By chance, we had arrived in Waterford just as their Winterval (winter festival) was starting. The streets were filled with thousands of Christmas lights, tons of food stands cooking up delicious smelling and tasting treats, and rides for all the kids to enjoy. They had music playing from a DJ stand, a host calling out for people to win prizes by competing in a dance off, and tons of people just enjoying the atmosphere. We joined in on all the festivities as we headed towards Waterford’s ferris wheel. The night time view of the city was gorgeous from the top of this ferris wheel and a perfect way to end our walk before dinner. That night for dinner, we wanted to be sure to go to another Irish pub and ended up at one that was fairly modern, filled with colorful lights and the best Christmas music. We both ordered huge plates of fish n chips to go with our drinks, beer for Abby, wine for me. I enjoyed the wine and fish n chips, but found myself not enjoying the taste of the dark Guinness beer that Abby gave me. We spent the evening laughing and enjoying the atmosphere of the bar before heading back through the festive streets to our hotel. 

We were both sad to be leaving Waterford on Saturday morning, but we had plans to attend to in Dublin for our last day in Ireland. After the quick train ride Saturday morning, our first stop was Dublin’s National Botanic Gardens. The gardens are free and open to the public. We headed in and took our time walking around the expansive outdoor gardens and the indoor greenhouses. After the gardens, we headed to the Museum of Natural History which is also fondly known as the Dead Zoo. Filled with skeletons and stuffed animals, the museum gave us a lot of information about different animals, their evolution paths throughout history, and even their significance to Ireland/other parts of the world. After we had finished the last few stops we wanted to make, we walked the streets and went into different shops. We eventually stopped for a late lunch at a well known and busy restaurant called Gotham Cafe where I feasted on a prosciutto and goat cheese calzone paired with a bottle of Irish apple cider. Once we had finished eating, we finished up the last of our shopping, including a quick self-indulging trip to the Disney store on Grafton Street. Since it was getting late and our hotel was close to the airport, aka far from the city center, we decided to head to a grocery store and grab some dinner and other snacks before we called it a day and headed to the hotel. On our way, we happened to come across a huge crowd in front of a hotel where bagpipes were playing patriotically into the cold air. As we got closer, we realized that everyone was clustered to try to catch a glimpse of the Irish National Rugby team! How cool is that? 

Soon after, though, we headed back to our hotel for the night, getting ready for our flights back to Tangier the following day. The flights home went smoothly, thank goodness, and we met up with some other UNE students on our way. Although I never wanted to say goodbye to Ireland and its beautiful landscapes and kind people, it was time to head back for, get this, my last three weeks abroad! Now all that’s left is the last 2 weeks of classes and final exams before I’m back home in Maine. It doesn’t feel real and I find myself never wanting to leave and wanting to be back home with all my family and friends at the same time. It’s weird how the travel bug works in your system, making you want to go everywhere at once while another part of you wants to stay in one place and be with your loved ones. Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who has kept up with all my posts and adventures these past few months. This will be one of my last posts. I may post once more about these last weeks in Tangier if anything more exciting than exams occurs and I will definitely post one last time about my trip home, but for the most part, my adventures in Morocco are coming to an end. 

For anyone out there reading this who is on the edge of an adventure, go for it. Don’t wait. I can tell you from experience that you will regret it if you don’t and you will never regret it once you’ve gone. 

I know it’s been a while since you’ve last heard from me, but trust me when I saw that the last two weeks went from 0 to 60 pretty quickly! I wasn’t planning to post again until after I came back from Ireland because I had no major plans and was mainly studying or hanging around Tangier. That changed within a few days and then I got caught up getting ready for Ireland. So even though I am currently writing this 2 hours before I leave for my flight to Dublin, I needed to share some of my recent adventures with you!

First thing I want to share was a unique experience I got to have that involved the last two pictures you see on this post. Here in Tangier, there is a little gated building located near the bus station that I got to visit. This building is home to a school for the Deaf. It currently has about 110 students attending, all elementary age, and they learn things like reading, writing, and math as well as Sign Language. They use two versions of SL here in Morocco: Arabic SL and French SL (the first picture is the Arabic alphabet, the second French). Although I didn’t get to see any of the kids this time around because they were on vacation, I did get to tour the building and meet some of the staff working on the campus. I’m hoping to get the chance to go back sometime and have a day just to visit with the kids and see what their learning process is like. 

The second thing I did was kind of a last minute decision. A few of my friends and I decided to plan out a day trip to Gibraltar two days before we wanted to go, but it ended up being really successful. Sunday morning, bright and early, we all taxied down to the ferry port and grabbed the first ferry from Tangier to Spain. When we reached Spain, we hopped on two different buses that took us straight to the border of Spain and Gibraltar. That left us to just walk across the border, being checked as we went, and we had made it. I actually got to set foot on British soil and let me tell you, I was very excited. From there, we started walking into the city to meet a shuttle bus that was going to take us to the cable car station for free (it came with these tickets we bought online). The bus driver was really nice and told us a lot about the history of the city as we drove. When we hit the cable car station, we got on and cruised up to the very top of the rock where there is a nature preserve that we had tickets for. The funniest part of the trip was when we reached the top cable car station. As we exited, we began to be surrounded by monkeys, big and small. They took an interest in my friend’s bag, grabbing onto it and then even going so far as to jump from the railing at her head to grab at her glasses. Of course, she was freaked out, but we couldn’t help laughing!

Once we had gotten past the first set of monkeys (they were all over the park), we headed into the nature preserve: a pleasant hiking trail that leads down the rock and has several stops along the way. The first stop was St. Michael’s Cave. Currently, the cave is used as a concert venue, but long ago it was underwater and was then used by the Spanish during the siege of Gibraltar. There’s also myths flying around that some of the monkeys got to Gibraltar from North Africa using an underwater tunnel that lead out through the cave (we later found out that most of the monkeys were there because Winston Churchill took them from North Africa and brought them to Gibraltar to strengthen the small population already existing there). St. Michael’s cave had some really cool rock formations and it was neat to see that even Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh had been there years ago. 

The next stop was the siege tunnels which was a long, underground rock tunnel that was hand dug by soldiers during the siege of Gibraltar. It had a ton of interesting information throughout it and some neat views of the city and of Spain from the holes where cannons fired out of. Outside the tunnels was a battery from the wars where three flags stood representing Gibraltar, the UK, and the EU. 

From there, we continued the walk down until we reached our final stop: the Moorish Castle. As we walked in, we passed Queen Charlotte’s battery before continuing down the path and into the castle. There wasn’t much to see within the castle, but the view from the top was stunning and the castle itself was really neat to see. After leaving the castle, we made our way down into the city, getting a bit lost on the way, to find some dinner before we headed back to the buses. It was so nice to just walk through the very european looking city and hear the British accents around me (I even heard someone talking about their Grandad which made me excited because I, too, have a Grandad!) Once we had eaten, we began the trek back through the city towards passport control to get back to Spain for our bus home, but not before stopping to take some pictures of the airport tarmac. The interesting thing about Gibraltar’s airport is that the tarmac crosses right through the main road into the city. They have to have lights that signal to both pedestrians walking across and cars to tell them when a plane is flying in to land. Crazy! 

Nevertheless, we made it back into Spain, got onto another 2 buses, and ferried back to Tangier. The whole day was a spectacular adventure and though we were tired afterwards, I’m so glad I went along. But now, it’s time for me to head off on one of my biggest adventures yet and I can’t even begin to say how excited I am. Check back in a little over a week for some exciting stories! Thanks for reading! 

This past weekend was our last trip together as a group and our first, and only, group trip outside the country. We went to Seville, Spain where UNE also has students studying abroad. It was only a weekend, but it was a very fun time and we had a great experience in Spain.

The weekend started out Friday morning as we headed off to the ferry port in Tangier. After going through passport control and boarding the boat, we left for the 30 minute ride over to Tarifa, Spain. It was so much fun to stand on the top of the ferry and feel the breeze as we watched the land change from Morocco to Spain right before our eyes. Once we landed in Tarifa, we went through Spain’s passport control where I had a bit of a mishap that left me a bit shaky! The man in the booth took my passport and flicked through it before asking me, “Where are your stamps?” I told him they were in the back of the passport book and he flicked to the back. I could see the stamps from the Morocco airport and the ferry port clear as day in front of him but still he asked again, “Where are your Moroccan stamps?” I pointed and tried to explain that they were right there. He then asked me if I lived in Morocco or if I was just staying there. Finally, after I said I was only staying in Morocco not living there permanently, he let me through and I was able to join the rest of the group on the bus.

We then drove about 2 hours towards Seville before stopping for lunch at a little Spanish rest stop. We had an interesting time trying to communicate our orders to the waiters, but we were all finally able to get our lunches and I had bacon for the first time in more than 2 months. The food was delicious and put us all back on track for getting that last hour and a half to Seville. As we drove that last stretch, we drove under torrential rain which most of us enjoyed immensely as it has rained twice since we’ve been in Morocco. 

Finally, we arrived in the beautiful city of Seville and went to settle into our hotel quickly. After dropping our bags off, we were split into 3 smaller groups and sent on a walking tour with guides from the University that the Seville UNE students study with. My group was put with one of the Spanish mentors at the university named Irena. She took us on a tour all over the city, showing us the historical sites, the royal palace, and even a place where part of a Star Wars movie was filmed (very exciting for me)! We then hurried to meet up with the rest of the groups (in the rain) to eat a dinner of salad and seafood paella which was tasty and filling. Most of us then returned to the hotel to either get ready to go out for the night or to go to bed for the night (I bet you can guess which category I fit into)! 

The next morning, we all got up to a delicious breakfast in the hotel of pastries, eggs, meats, and cheeses. It filled us up and got us ready for another walking tour, this time with a British tour guide who took us around the city wearing little bluetooth headphones that were connected to his microphone. It was an interesting experience for a tour because we had all gotten used to our tour guides projecting their voice and gathering close to listen. We were shown some new sights as well as some familiar ones from our tour with Irena the day before. After that, we were set free to explore the city on our own. My friends and I spent the first part of the afternoon shopping before hunting down the Starbucks. I can tell you that I definitely missed my teas from Starbucks after over 2 months so when we found the Starbucks in Seville I immediately went for a chai tea latte and got the biggest size! We ended up eating lunch there as well, getting some light sandwiches and some desserts to share before we headed back to the hotel to meet up with the group. 

After meeting up, we all headed out to a flamenco show! Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos of the dancers during the show so all of it is only in my memory, but it was an incredible show filled with colorful dresses and beautiful traditional flamenco styles. After that we were given more free time, but since Spain doesn’t really start serving dinner until 8:30-9:00 PM (it was 6 at the time), my friends and I returned to the hotel once more to rest for a bit before going out to dinner. In the end, myself and my friends Abby and Delia went out to a tapas restaurant for dinner, ordering several different tapas to share along with some drinks. The tapas all tasted amazing and I can tell you that Hailey and I are both super excited to get more tapas when we stop in Madrid on our way home in December! 

That was the end of our night on Saturday. The next day was fairly uneventful as we had to say goodbye to Spain and return to Tangier. The ferry ride back was full of seasick American students, but we all made it back in the end with only a few mishaps. What’s an adventure without those, right? Now we’re back in Morocco and the only trip I have left is Ireland and the trip home! It’s crazy to think that we’ve only got about 40 days before I leave for home. I know it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to this place. I’ve made so many memories here and learned so much. I have a bunch of friends I’ve made and while some of them will be with me back in the States, a lot of them won’t. They’ll be staying behind and that’s going to be hard. But for now, I’m going to make the most of the rest of my time here and go out with a bang! The adventures don’t stop here!