winding down, jumping up

so, we officially have one week left in tangier.

i have thoroughly enjoyed this summer, and cannot believe it's almost over. i guess i can never believe that summers ever end, but this one is especially hard to see ending.

despite the fact that i put myself through yet ANOTHER summer of CLASSES, and despite the fact that it was incredibly difficult to leave kalamazoo, this summer turned out to be indescribably wonderful. indescribable. don't ask me to describe it.

so, we're finishing up the last full week of classes, cranking out a term paper in arabic, getting ready for our final exam, doing last-minute souvenir shopping, and trying to squeeze in time at all our favorite places... and we have to take these frickin oral proficiency interview/exams again.

dang.

we took the exams on sunday. and despite the fact that i left the interview feeling like an arabic-blundering idiot, i found out that i jumped four levels in my speaking ability. i can now officially claim advanced-low proficiency. whatever the hell that means. regardless of my cynicism though, i am really happy with those results. i still think my initial scoring (novice-high???) was not correct. but i'll take the final result, no questions asked.



money well-spent, state department.

my future home

this past weekend (this post is surprisingly up-to-date), we visited a city close to tangier called assilah. i intend to live there for some period of time at some point in my life. and so far, that is the only foreign city i've been able to say that about. it was a great little city along the atlantic coast - kind of like chefchaun, but cooler. we happened to visit this city on this particular weekend because it happened to be the opening of this month-long international arts festival that is held in assilah. we didn't get to see any of the actual opening ceremonies, because it is by invitation only, but i may be returning this weekend to check it out.

due to this month-long art festival, there are a great number of artists that live in assilah, who make art for the festival... duh. perhaps someday, when i get the urge to be an artist for real, i will more to assilah. also due to this festival and the fact that there are so many artists living in the city to produce art for this festival, there were great murals all over the place. it was great. i took pictures. and it was a bonus that the old part of the city (the 'medina') was located right along the coast. a lot of times, the medina is more centrally located, but this one was right on the coast. and it was just wonderful.