Morocco: The Story of How Roshan and Robyn Ended Up Butt Naked in a Room Full of Strangers.

Our story begins with two princesses named Roshan and Robyn traveling to a far off land. Or you know, it begins with two students named Robyn and Roshan flying to Morocco. (What’s the difference really?)

We rode on our princess carriage towards our new castle. (Read as: we were driven through the winding streets of Morocco where we had the pleasure of seeing this sheep’s balls and eventually ended up at our sweet hostel.)

Our castle/hostel was indeed sweet. We had a rooftop terrace:

(Robyn was really happy about it.)

A yummy Moroccan dinner:

And all the other goodies two princesses deserve:

Soon we met up with Robyn’s cousin and her cousin's posse and decided to go out and see the sites. I chilled for a bit in front of the door to the mosque:

Then we went to an amazing palace (Bahia Palace):

I held a snake:

Then while we (the two beautiful princesses) were relaxing under the warm Moroccan sun, we were attacked by a vicious creature that ran towards us and caused us to scream like little girls!! No, it wasn’t a dragon. It was this monster:

It had escaped from its owner and was sprinting towards us (ready to KILL). At the last second it turned, narrowly missing trampling us to death, and ended up racing down the freeway with its owner sprinting behind it futilely trying to keep up. Once the initial shock of almost dying wore away, the whole thing was pretty hilarious.


We also visited the Marjorelle Garden:

and the old Islamic college:

However, the most fun we had was wandering aimlessly in the souks and attempting to barter with the shopkeepers.

Here are some tips I learned while bartering:

• DO pretend not to like whatever it is you’re buying that much. Point out its flaws and shake your head a lot.
• DO NOT be alarmed when the shopkeeper starts making you a turban. Remain calm.

• DO start walking out of the store if the shopkeeper doesn’t agree to your price- either her calls you back or you go two stores over and find practically the same thing.
• DO NOT walk around with your tall blonde friend and expect shopkeepers to give you a reasonable price.
• DO set a price and then reach into your wallet and say “Oh darn I’m 200 Dirham short!” The shopkeeper will give it to you anyway.
• DO pretend not to speak English very well because you’re from Iran. Suddenly the shopkeepers are giving you things for free.
• DO NOT get lost and wander around in the hopes that there is an end to the shops at some point. There isn’t. It goes on forever. Ask someone for directions.

Finally, at the end of our trip we decided that, for two princesses, we had been through an awful lot and maybe it was time to get our princess on. So, after Mohammed described how amazing (and cheap) going to a Moroccan bath was, we were sold! All we would need were our swimsuit bottoms and a smile :D

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Soon we were in a brightly lit room with two ladies drinking tea in a corner giggling to themselves as they motioned for us to get undressed. Then two half naked wet old wrinkly ladies entered the room, rather forcefully grabbed us by the wrists, and led us to a dark humid room filled with tons of naked Moroccan women. They sat us in an empty corner of the room, pulled over two big blue buckets, and proceeded to rub us down. And I mean RUB US DOWN. To top it all off, my manhandling old lady kept insisting that I put my head in her lap and her big ole saggy boobs kept slapping me as she used the force of her whole body to rub my skin. A full hour went by with us being shoved, turned, bathed, and rubbed until we were deemed clean. We feebly thanked our old ladies and ran away with our silky soft skin.

After being skinned alive by two old ladies we realized that we weren’t actually princesses and headed back to Cordoba, two squeaky clean estudiantes.

Please note: Someone (ahem Arya) said that I talk about food too much. Notice that there is no mention of the AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS SCRUMPTIOUS AND CHEAP Moroccan food that was consumed.

Oops... how did those pictures get there?