The Medina

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For two days we wandered around the medina (Fes el-Bali).

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Walking around the old, walled city was like stepping back in time.

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It was loud, hot, crowded—beautiful.

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We constantly waved “no” to people trying so hard to sell us their wares—shopping was a sport. We bargained. (I always gave in so early in the game.)

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It was exhausting and exhilarating.

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We bought paintings—and met the painter (more on that later).

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While attempting to buy tea a Moroccan woman helped us with the language and then invited us into her own home for hot tea (more on that later).

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We got lost (but only once!).

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I was a little shocked to discover that a toilet in a restaurant was merely a hole in the ground—but I hiked up my skirt and peed.

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We bought earrings and shawls and teapots and clothes.

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We watched mules walk by carrying impossibly high loads with cardboard blinders on secured with twine.

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The experience was so worth the trouble it took to get there and it’s one I will never, ever forget.

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“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” —Robert Louis Stevenson