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Being able to put my emotions into clear explicit words sometimes is a real challenge. Actually, it is a constant battle that I know I have to fight if I want people to somehow understand what is happening in my head or heart. But sometimes, I have this terrible impression that words are not enough. You would think that by knowing three different languages, one of them would have that one special word that can describe what is felt or thought. However, there is only one question that, no matter how many times I’ve been asked, I just can’t figure out a simple answer to: What is Morocco like?

This question is just a nightmare for me. I am always scared my answer would be “too much” or “not enough”. I am terrified at the idea of failing to fairly represent my country in the United States of America. It only takes one person to start making a change. One person and the whole world might become something completely different. So what if I make a mistake and end up destroying my country’s reputation? I would like people then to judge me instead of my country as a whole. But then again, what if I do something really good? Don’t I want people to think that all Moroccans are just as good as I am?

I’ve always been one of the first ones to be against stereotypes and generalizations. But after careful thinking, I realize that stereotypes have to be based on something. Someone, someday, somewhere must have done something that made the rest of the world think what they are thinking. As the French saying goes, “Il n’y a jamais de fumée sans feu”, which basically means there is no smoke without fire. Stereotypes can easily be made by generalizing one person’s behavior. And even if they are hard to get rid of, it is indeed worth trying. It only takes one person to make a change, remember?

So, what is Morocco like? Morocco is a beautiful country. It is one of these places where you can experience meeting different people from various cultures but with the same nationality (obviously the Moroccan one). We love our king and Islam is our religion. We do have cars and do NOT ride camels to go to school. The weather is perfect; not too cold during winter and not too hot during summer (but the sun is usually shining, during the four seasons). But I guess Morocco can be best described by its people. Actually, there is this one specificity of Moroccan’s nature that I never managed to find in any other country I have been to (and I did go to a lot of places): hospitality. People there are welcoming and generous. Everybody is ready to help and with a warm smile as the icing on the cake. Moroccans are tolerant and racism is honestly something that I have never heard of in my country. Yet, Morocco is still a bit behind, generally speaking. However, change is happening. May be not as fast as we would want to but that’s our generation’s role to speak up and speed up the process. As you might have guessed by now, I am completely, passionately and irrevocably in love with my country.

I am sure that by now you have an idea about what Morocco is like. However, I feel like I haven’t told you half of what I wanted to tell you. The words I used were too weak to make you really grasp the beauty of Morocco. But those words are the best I could come up with. It is ironic how I’ve always wanted to become a writer but can’t manage to accurately express what I feel towards my country.  I would love to think that it is not due to my lack of English vocabulary, even though I am sure it is partly due to that. I prefer thinking that I can’t answer that question because the love I feel for my country is simply too strong to be put into words. I believe that the power of words is infinite. Well, in this case, the love I have for Morocco is just as immeasurable. So please, come to Morocco. Visit it. Visit the only place in the world that makes me speechless. Maybe you would be able to put what I feel into words. Or, maybe you would be just as speechless as I am before the beauty of Morocco…

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I could talk about how spending more than 16 hours in a bus in less than 72 hours is both exhausting and painful. I could talk about how we spent the night in a hostel where there were no toilets and probably mice living in the heater. I could talk about how spending a whole afternoon shopping in New York made me become happy (and broke!) and I could talk about how I’ve been for the first time to Wal-Mart this weekend. However, today, I want to make you travel with me. I want you to imagine what I saw and try to feel what I felt. Today, I am taking you somewhere far away from troubles and stress. So, let the journey begin…

One second… It only took me one second to look up and stare at the most breathtaking view I’ve ever seen in my life. The word breathtaking here was not used as a simple metaphor. I literally stopped breathing for about 3 seconds, completely subjugated by the beauty of what I was facing. The staring part though lasted for hours, long hours that seemed to be unnoticeable short minutes. What I felt at that moment, the transition between looking at my feet and lifting up my head to face the landscape, it is something that can hardly be put into words. You might be wondering by now what is this thing that had such an intense effect on me. Well, how about letting you seeing it with your own eyes as:

For those of you who haven’t guessed it yet, the beautiful landscape you just saw represents the legendary Niagara Falls. There is only so much you can tell about how gorgeous they are. To be completely fair, even though the picture gives you an idea about the beauty of the place, it is absolutely nothing compared to actually standing there, right in front of them. The sound of the water falling off from up high, bursting as it hits the rocks, fiercely making its way into the flow of the river, smoothly mixing with the river and running to discover the rest of the world…I just closed my eyes and let myself be mesmerized by the grace of what I was hearing. For a second there, I couldn’t hear my friends laughing anymore. I couldn’t hear the tour guide making bad jokes about how we should carefully choose the right fall if we wanted to commit suicide. I couldn’t even hear people’s footsteps around me. Somehow (I wish I knew how so that I could do it again), I simply tuned everything out and just enjoyed the wind gently caressing my face while hearing nature’s best symphony and feeling the intensity of my heart beat. Suddenly, just like someone would wake you up from a magical dream, I opened up my eyes. You might think I would be scared after waking up from such an intense dream. Well, the view was just as mesmerizing as the sound of the water.

I took a deep breath. Then I realized: “I’m alive”. Being there, standing where I was… this is what life is all about. I was facing the immensity of the universe and you might think I was scared. But I just felt alive. I could feel life running through my veins. I wanted to scream. I wanted to let the whole world know that I was there, that I was alive. By going to the Niagara Falls, I realized my father’s dream; a dream I know he might never be able to make come true. By going there, I made my mother’s dream come true: seeing her little girl getting closer and closer every day to fulfilling her dreams. By going there, I realized how lucky I am to be who I am and where I am today.

We spent two days there. You never get tired of the landscape, and the night view is just as impressive. The only difference is that the sun gets replaced by beautiful multicolor projectors which make the falls look like huge pots of natural paint falling off a mountain. I also had the opportunity to look closely at a whirlpool (doesn’t really look like a toilet flushing but still quite spectacular). I also got to stand halfway down the falls which basically means that the water was hitting rocks and jumping on top of my head.  But then, I got to see another phenomenon that is quite stunning itself. With the water all around and the sun brightly shining on top of our heads, a proud rainbow made its appearance right in the middle of the falls. It was neither in the sky nor on the rocks. It felt like it was suspended in a vacuum, almost lost, but desperate to reveal its magical beauty to the whole world.

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English is, in my opinion, a rather beautiful language. It has this endearing quality of being simultaneously rhythmically poetic and pliable. With relatively little effort, even text in the most mundane of contexts can seem to be intricate prose. In the hands of an adept speaker, this same mundane topic can come alive with eloquence.

This innate beauty to the language, however, often goes unnoticed to those who speak it proficiently. It seems to me that English often assumes the role of merely a means to an end rather than a medium worth noting in and of itself. This is an attribute confined to major languages, even those who serve as lingua francas to mass extent. For an Icelander it provides stark contrast to the linguistic purism of my native tongue. Icelandic is regarded by its speakers as a cultural treasure, and to this day it is fiercely guarded. Where others have succumbed to the constant and overwhelming need for neologisms (the Danish word for "overhead projector" is, rather anticlimactically, "overhead projector" with a Danish accent), Icelanders have held ground (we call it "myndvarpi"). Incidentally there are a few English words that originate from Icelandic (glove has an ancestor in the Icelandic glófi).

As much as I love Icelandic, I think the radically different approach of English, in freely accepting changes to the language and influences from a wide array of sources, is indeed its greatest strength. It is a vast language with a plethora of linguistic roots, reaching far and wide, and one that freely adapts to convey tone and meaning.

A wonderful example of this is a fantastic book I recently read, called "We need to talk about Kevin", by Lionel Shriver. With her stunning use of language she paints a vivid picture of the sharp, bleak intelligence of the protagonist. The consistently cold, orotund and hopeless tone makes the book mentally exhausting to read. Shriver's mastery of language is evident.

One trademark of her writing is the ease with which she uses the outskirts of English vocabulary and literary references, freely intertwining phrases and words like; "raison d'être", naïveté or "I have crossed my Rubicon." It made me think of what is ultimately the whole point of this blog post; the mystic oddities of the English language.

Are all Americans really so well versed in ancient Roman history that one can throw around a phrase like the one above without being faced with a few puzzled looks? Have all the people that say "a rose by any other name...", with a knowing smile, actually read Romeo and Juliet? Is such proficiency in the French language to be generally expected that the intricate, almost philosophical meaning of raison d'être is widely understood?

Why is it that many words and phrases are left largely unchanged (naïve, kindergarten, ad infinatum, pro bono, ...et cedera) while others are in the process of being anglicized (envelope to provide just one example)? Why on earth is "flaccid" almost invariably pronounced as [ˈfla-səd] (flassid) when virtually all other words with a double -c have a distinctive -ks sound?

Speaking of letters; why is -w pronounced double-you? To quote the linguistic genius and poet Christian Bök, from his poem about the letter:

It is the V you double, not the U, as if to use

two valleys in a valise is to savvy the vacuum

of a vowel at a powwow in between sawteeth.

For a foreigner and eternal student of the English language, it often seems rather mystifying indeed. I might not get my questions answered this time, but in any case I highly recommend We need to talk about Kevin and the recent film adaptation, which is truly a phenomenal film. Christian Bök's ingenious study of language (each of the five chapters contain only one vowel) in his book of poesy titled Eunoia is certainly worth noting as well. In case the title leaves you puzzling, "eunoia" is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five vowels. Rather fittingly, the word means "beautiful thinking".

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Next day, back to Universal!  The sun was shining and a beautiful day full of screaming was ahead of us (no matter how old you are, a roller coaster always forces you to scream).  But first things first! A picture in front of the legendary globe was the only thing each one of us was thinking about. I don’t know how I could explain what I felt nor even why I did feel what I felt when standing next to that globe and staring at it, but it was an odd fulfilling feeling of joy and accomplishment. I had finally made it there and even though I wish I could have shared those precious moments with my friends and family from Morocco, I am still glad to know that my dreams are slowly coming true one by one.

We could hear people screaming from miles away (I exaggerate but you get my point). The screams were getting louder and louder as we were fearfully approaching the huge red structure of the scariest roller coaster in Universal Studios. I do have a video of me while riding it but I am pretty sure revealing it will destroy any ounce of social life that I may have. Even though you know people can’t possibly die on a roller coaster, you’re never quite sure. You may be the first one!

The rest of the day was full of chilling! Spending a few minutes with legendary characters such as Homer Simpson was also an enjoyable experience. As for watching people eat worms (yes! That was an attraction there), I think it was more fun for us then for those who actually had to eat them. But anyway, we headed back to the hotel after the closing of the park, impatiently waiting for the next. We reserved our last day visiting theme parks for the legendary Magic Kingdom of Disney World.

I may sound like an eight year old right now, but I got to see Cinderella, the Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and each and every character that I spent my childhood dreaming of resembling. The Castle was absolutely fantastic and seeing it light up during the night with the fireworks right behind it is exactly my definition of “magical”. So, I came back to sleep that day and in my head, hundreds of new memories were created that I could not wait to share with all the people that are important to me back home.

Our last day in Orlando was devoted to every girl’s favorite sport: Shopping (Guys, don’t you dare say shopping is not a sport). One of the biggest premium outlets in the United States of America was less than a mile away from our hotel and there was no way we would have left without paying it a long visit. Of course, we were all broke at the end of the day but the bright side was that we all had huge smiles drawn on our faces (even the boys!), proud of every single thing that we bought during that day. Unfortunately, as we came back to the hotel completely exhausted, I felt sad when I realized that this was actually our last night in Florida. The next day, the vacation would be over and we would have to come back to DC and study.

So, we did come back to DC. And we really are studying (or at least trying to). But to be completely honest, my head is not in DC right now. Next week, we are going to see the Niagara Falls. There is where my thoughts are. And after I come back from Buffalo, my head and thoughts will be all over the west coast. We are going to the west coast at the end of the semester and after I come back from that final trip, I will physically and mentally be with the people I love the most in the whole world. I will finally come back to my dear country: Morocco.

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The thing I understood after one day spent in D.C. was that living in the capital would not be cheap. I arrived on a Saturday at 4PM and when I got into my room, I realized I had two things to do: forget about the fact that it was 10PM in France and buy bed sheets and everything that could clean the sticky furniture and the disgusting toilets. I had $200 and I soon had to open a bank account with no money in it. After eating only turkey for five days, my bank account was refilled and I thought naively that those trouble were over.

After a month spent in D.C. it was worse. Yet, I am leaving in about a month and I have now drawn several conclusions that may be useful to future GW students.

1) Tell yourself cupcakes are disgusting: Believe it or not, you will have friends suggesting to go get cupcakes at least once a week, especially if you are a girl. You will have to be strong. And since cupcakes are so tempting, you will have to be even stronger. Tell yourself cupcakes are disgusting and will get you sick. It will help your diet too (yes, another problem with coming to the US: you will not get thinner). I found a very useful trick though: eat an awful cupcake, one you never ever wanted to eat. Then, convince yourself that all cupcakes taste the same. It works ! For about a month.

2) Do not listen to GW student saying "Let's take a taxi": Back in France, I lived one hour away from Paris and I had never taken a taxi in 20 years. At GW it seems that everybody is ready to waste $40 dollar to go somewhere that is either close or accessible by the metro. They always find an excuse: we would have to walk 10 minutes, it is not a safe place (which generally means it is not Foggy Bottom) or I have a bag to carry. Well, once again, be strong and convincing. I admit it is hard when you have a French accent but introduce yourself as a communist and briefly mention the Gulag and they'll be much easier to convince.

3) Walk fast: Streets are tempting in Washington D.C. And if, like me, you are very vulnerable when you see a nice skirt or lovely boots, you will have no choice other than walking fast while looking at the ground. It may be difficult in Georgetown and this may cause you to bump into people but it is still the most efficient option I have found so far.

4) Don't buy books in advance: No matter what people tell you, don't buy your books too soon. There are several reasons why and I can list several scenarios that happened to me:

- There may be an error on the list (Let me tell you will not be glad when you learn that the second week of classes).

- The professor may decide that he won't use the book (and he may decide that two weeks before the end of the semester. The bookstore may refuse to buy that book back from you. And you may have to throw it away because your suitcase is full in May when you have to come back home).

- You may find the book cheaper on Amazon (it's always good to check).

- The book may be unnecessary (like a math textbook for journalist explaining how to add and divide numbers). I know I should not say that but if you have a small budget it is better not to waste money.

5) Do not plan trips at the last minute: I am unable to plan any trip in advance (which means more than a week before I actually leave). It may be possible in France but, really, don't do this in the US. First, all your friends will have other plans by that time. It will be really hard to find a cheap hotel and your Megabus options will be significantly reduced. Yet, I am not saying that you should make an effort and force yourself to plan your trips in advance. On the contrary, invite one of your friends to join you in this trip, preferably someone very organized, and let this person organize everything. Of course, the necessary requirement is that you are both lazy and mean, which is not given to everybody.

7) Do not listen to professors, editors or anybody saying: "it is absolutely necessary": One of the sentences I have heard the most since I arrived at GW is: "You will really need it". Generally this is a lie. You will not need it and when you realize it, you will be absolutely furious. For instance, my photo teacher told us: "It is necessary to buy a tripod". I used it once. In my head this equals: "I could have borrowed it from somebody else". He also told us: "You need to sign up for an account on this website, it is about $20 a month." We never used it. My personal experience leads me to give you one piece of advice: wait a couple of weeks before you decide whether it is actually necessary.

If you follow all these advice, life will still be expensive but at least you will not tell yourself that it is your fault, which is always good.

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After a long, five hour, bus ride, we finally arrived to the destination we were all looking forward to for more than two months now: Orlando. We have never been more excited than at the moment we arrived in the city, or at least not since we came back from our trip to New York. However, we were all exhausted and the gloomy and rainy weather was not helping our situation. So, we hopped into the taxi, hoping we would soon get to our 7 dollars a night hotel.

You have to know that when you decide to book a room (for 5 people), in a hotel, that costs $7 a night, you don’t really know what to expect quality speaking. We knew we would have enough space for all of us to sleep and a bathroom, but that was it. So, when the taxi driver took us to a hotel where huge statues were at the top and where there was supposed to be an immense swimming pool, we kind of realized that this was too good to be true, way too good to be true. Now, the problem was that not only did we end up at the wrong hotel, but the taxi driver didn’t even know where our hotel was, even if we kept yelling at her the address. Therefore, when we finally made it to the right place (and yes, that hotel did not have any kind of statues), the meter was showing $110. There was no way on earth we would pay $110, even if we could afford it. We ended up paying $25 which we realized afterwards was a pretty good deal considering the tremendous amount of time we wasted sitting in that car.

After settling down at the hotel, we realized that a nice diner was less than 5 minutes away from the hotel. We had never experienced so far how it felt like to eat in a typical American diner and I have to admit that it is one of the best experiences I’ve had so far in the US. Not only was it cheap, but the food was exquisite and it was also very cozy with a homely atmosphere all around. All that remained to be done was going back to the hotel and relax. So we did. We came back to the hotel where we spent a peaceful and restful night without realizing what an exciting journey was waiting for us the next day.

Saying it was “just” a roller-coaster about the “Hulk” is a terrible underestimation. “Islands of Adventure” was the first theme park we decided to go to. We could see the famous Universal Studios’ globe from far away, but taking picture beside it was not part of Monday’s plans. We spent the whole day visiting Harry Potter’s castle, facing our fears by getting into different roller coasters and getting completely wet after being in an aquatic roller coaster. It was an exciting experience. During that day, it was not about magic like it was about to be in Disney, it was more about just letting go and having as much fun as we were having every day when we were little kids.

The following day, we woke up at 6:30 AM in order to be able to get on the shuttle that would directly take us to Epcot, one of Disney World’s theme parks. That day was what could call “relaxing”. No roller coasters and no crazy scary rides, all we did during the whole day was take pictures with Disney characters and attend to movies and shows. We got a chance to visit a few countries and imagine my surprise when I discovered that Morocco was represented in Disney World. I could not believe that people from all around the world are able to get a glimpse of my country just by coming to Disney. Unfortunately, when we went there, I realized that they were selling to people lies. The restaurants were selling people Syrian and Lebanese food while the shops were selling Egyptian clothes. Nothing about that place was Moroccan, except for the people working there which were actually imported from Morocco. It was a huge disappointment for me as I realized that it was all about marketing. However, I wasn’t about to let that destroy the rest of my day, let      alone the rest of my trip. At that moment, I didn’t quite grasp the fact that was living one of the best experiences of my entire life and I hate myself now for letting such things ruin my day.  Fortunately, I realized how lucky I was for being where I was and doing what I did at the end of the day, while watching what I thought were the most splendid fireworks I’ve ever seen. But at that moment, I still didn’t know what I was going to live during the rest of my trip…

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83 °F… Eighty three degrees Fahrenheit! At 1PM, right before the plane took off from Washington DC, I was freezing. Less than two hours later, it was 83°F! The sun was out and there was air conditioner everywhere which meant being inside of a store was actually cooler than outside. We could wear T-shirts and South beach was 2 minutes away from our hostel. Two minutes! I know that every American right now is making fun of how ridiculous I sound. I mean: Did this girl ever saw the beach before? Well yes, I did! However, it was not in the middle of a freezing exchange semester in Washington DC, 4000 miles away from home, right after leaving a midterm. Spring break was an intense experience. But let’s talk about Miami first and this time, don’t tell me it is not intense for Americans as well.

The sea is green. Saying that the sea is blue would be an insult to South Beach. I have been to a lot of different beaches in the world but not once have I seen such a clear water. The view was simply magical. However, I have to admit that I did not enjoy the experience quiet as much as the rest of my friends did. While all of them just enjoyed sun tanning at the beach, I let my eyes wonder around. People were getting drunk everywhere and at hours as early as 10AM. Every single group of friends had a radio that played a different kind of music and it was like all the girls were competing for the title of “miss most naked girl in South Beach”. I try as much as I can to not judge the culture of the United States based on my very conservative Moroccan culture. But I have to admit that in that case, the people partying in Miami took carelessness and degradation to a whole new level.

I like to think that Miami is a place where people go to just let go of their daily routine and stress and just party without thinking of the consequences, and that is fine. However, this is not the kind of lifestyle that someone can have on a daily basis. The restaurants there compete over customers by hiring the “hottest” waitresses and every single one of the nightclubs there has perfectly well-shaped girls who dance on the bar during the whole night. I can see why customers would enjoy such a “nice view” but I do have a hard time understanding why would people decide to live such a lifestyle where there is no stability and just carelessness every day, every time, everywhere...

Anyway, enough rambling about the cultural differences. The most important thing about this trip to Miami is that it made me discover a whole other side of the United States of America. A side where people are not always in a rush to get somewhere, a side where the metro doesn’t exist, a side where the only thing that matters is to enjoy the present without worrying for a single second about its consequences on the future. All of these people that I saw there seemed happy, truly happy to share unique moments with their friends. And after all, isn’t that what matters the most?

Last but not least: the food in Miami was exquisite. For sure, it was expensive but there is no way we could have gone all the way to Miami and not have seafood for at least one meal. And breakfast…Belgian waffles with whipped cream, maple syrup and strawberries. Simply delicious! In case you didn’t already notice, you need to know that food is my indulgence, a guilty pleasure that I enjoy so much I tend to forget about the guilt part. But now the question is: am I willing to go back to Miami just because of the great food? After a long and thoughtful consideration, I honestly believe that South Beach is not a place for me. On the other hand, I would go back to Orlando in a heartbeat. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I will tell you know everything about my adventures in Orlando in my next post. Meanwhile, all I can tell you is that it is really a place where age doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone just becomes a child again…

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I, like most people, sometimes feel threatened by the World. We've all at some point concluded that everyone were out to get us, that we don't deserve our misfortune. We are all, regrettably, embedded with a predisposition towards self-serving bias.

The truth is that if you're reading this there is overwhelming chance that you're fortunate enough to live comfortably in a bubble void of fear and hate. My troubles seem to me insurmountable at times, but the truth is that they're often self-inflicted and easily avoided and most certainly always trivial when put in context.

Contrast would perhaps better describe the intent. I've never experienced hate. Never once have I evoked such extreme reaction or felt so utterly enraged that the only solution was hate. For this very reason it is often far too easy to dismiss the news from around the World of terror, simply because we cannot sympathize. We've never walked in their shoes.

Times are very different now than really ever before in that we now, those of us fortunate enough to live in reasonable prosperity, live in a world of social media. This lends an opportunity to find strength in numbers, and more importantly it provides a platform to constantly remind us all of the terror and hate. To inspire us to do more to change what we can and ultimately to provide contrast.

To this end I'd like to ask anyone reading this to take 30 minutes of their no-doubt busy schedule and watch the movie below and hopefully succeed in making the monstrously hateful Joseph Kony famous.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/37119711 w=500&h=281]

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I had to wait for my brother to come visit me to finally take some time to travel outside DC. In seven days I spent 19 hours in a bus and I now have an overall opinion about the major cities of the East Coast: New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

1) Skiing in New York

Everybody loves New York. It's "the greatest city of the world" a wise man once said (when I think about it, it may just have been Ted Mosby in How I Met Your Mother). Since I am not a very adventurous tourist, I went to see the Statue of Liberty, the Public Library, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge and all those things you can see on postcards.

Everything was great I admit. Yet, it's in New York that I found the one place I never want to go back to ever again: Time Square. You never find the appropriate pace to walk at there. Either you try to go fast and someone brutally stops in front of you or you walk slowly and everybody runs around you. The last time I felt this way was when I went skying in France. You have people coming in every direction, going faster or slower than you and when you stop you have strange expensive shops all around you.

I also got the chance to see a musical: Memphis. A good experience to realize that musicals can actually be an impressive show when they have enough money. I should bring that lesson back to France.

Delicious chocolate: "Chocolate Café" (near the Flatiron)

Shopping: Brooklyn industries in Williamsburg

2) Living in the shoes of a leprechaun in Boston 

My brother reserved rooms for us via "airbnb". That's how I discovered it was better to be 2-inch tall to live in Boston. I had seen on the pictures that in our apartment everything was close to each other. What I did not know was that all the furniture were also small and that the apartment was under the level of the ground... Strange city.

Yet, Boston was great, not gigantic like New York. People were extremely nice, which is strange for a Parisian. We had only arrived in Boston for ten minutes when a middle-aged man asked us what we were looking for and walked us there.

Like everybody we went to Harvard. I touched the left foot of John Harvard and sunbathed on the grass. I personally found the place a little bit oppressive but it may because it was Spring Break and not a lot of people were there. Still, it's worth going there, at least to take a picture of yourself in front of the library (or, truly, any building) and send it to your parents.

Shopping: Gooring Bros (to buy hats) in Cambridge

Must-see: The Shoah memorial

3) Looking for one-dollar bills in Philly

Philadelphia, its history ... and its metro. I personally think that not only the constitution was signed in Philadelphia but the first metro was also created there. This was the beta version of the metro systems. They saw that it did not work and they decided never to do that ever again. Let me explain. It works with coins called "tokens". You have to buy tokens - $3.10 dollars for two tokens - but only machines sell tokens and there aren't machines at every station. When there is no machine you have to give 2 dollars to the person who works at this station. Yet, and this is where it becomes tricky, the person doesn't give change back (even though she/he must have thousands of 1-dollar bills). So you must have one-dollar bills with you all the time. Sometimes, there is a machine but it doesn't take coins. It will ask you 4 dollars and give you 90 cents back... so the machine gives you coins but doesn't take them. And if you managed to survive all this and stay calm you can enjoy a very complicated metro map and express lines that don't indicate where they don't stop.

In spite of the metro, Philly was nice. You can download Rocky's soundtrack and run in front of the Museum of Arts and, the next hour, learn about the founding fathers and American history: two activities you rarely compile in one day.

Everybody told me you could see Philadelphia in one day. I think a couple of days might be better if you want to do everything and not just go to the main tourist places. In one day we saw the Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Korean War Memorial and we walked around the city. Yet, it's true that we spent half of the day eating French Toast stuffed with maple at Sam's Glory Dinner.

Delicious cheesecake: Darling's Coffeehouse (South Street and 20th)

Must-do: take a picture with Rocky at the Museum of Arts

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83 °F… Eighty three degrees Fahrenheit! At 1PM, right before the plane took off from Washington DC, I was freezing. Less than two hours later, it was 83°F! The sun was out and there was air conditioner everywhere which meant being inside of a store was actually cooler than outside. We could wear T-shirts and South beach was 2 minutes away from our hostel. Two minutes! I know that every American right now is making fun of how ridiculous I sound. I mean: Did this girl ever see the beach before? Well yes, I did! However, it was not in the middle of a freezing exchange semester in Washington DC, 4000 miles away from home, right after leaving a midterm. Spring break was an intense experience. But let’s talk about Miami first and this time, don’t tell me it is not intense for Americans as well.

The sea is green. Saying that the sea is blue would be an insult to South Beach. I have been to a lot of different beaches in the world but not once have I seen such a clear water. The view was simply magical. However, I have to admit that I did not enjoy the experience quite as much as the rest of my friends did. While all of them just enjoyed sun tanning at the beach, I let my eyes wonder around. People were getting drunk everywhere and at hours as early as 10AM. Every single group of friends had a radio that played a different kind of music and it was like all the girls were competing for the title of “miss most naked girl in South Beach”. I try as much as I can to not judge the culture of the United States based on my very conservative Moroccan culture. But I have to admit that in that case, the people partying in Miami took carelessness and degradation to a whole new level.

I like to think that Miami is a place where people go to just let go of their daily routine and stress and just party without thinking of the consequences, and that is fine. However, this is not the kind of lifestyle that someone can have on a daily basis. The restaurants there compete over customers by hiring the “hottest” waitresses and every single one of the nightclubs there has perfectly well-shaped girls who dance on the bar during the whole night. I can see why customers would enjoy such a “nice view” but I do have a hard time understanding why would people decide to live such a lifestyle where there is no stability and just carelessness every day, every time, everywhere...
Anyway, enough rambling about the cultural differences. The most important thing about this trip to Miami is that it made me discover a whole other side of the United States of America. A side where people are not always in a rush to get somewhere, a side where the metro doesn’t exist, a side where the only thing that matters is to enjoy the present without worrying for a single second about its consequences on the future. All of these people that I saw there seemed happy, truly happy to share unique moments with their friends. And after all, isn’t that what matters the most?

Last but not least: the food in Miami was exquisite. For sure, it was expensive but there is no way we could have gone all the way to Miami and not have seafood for at least one meal. And breakfast…Belgian waffles with whipped cream, maple syrup and strawberries. Simply delicious! In case you didn’t already notice, you need to know that food is my indulgence, a guilty pleasure that I enjoy so much I tend to forget about the guilt part. But now the question is: am I willing to go back to Miami just because of the great food? After a long and thoughtful consideration, I honestly believe that South Beach is not a place for me. On the other hand, I would go back to Orlando in a heartbeat. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I will tell you know everything about my adventures in Orlando in my next post. Meanwhile, all I can tell you is that it is really a place where age doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone just becomes a child again…

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