Visiting and Visas

So it’s been a very busy 2 weeks since I last wrote! Our new house is still going really well. We even bought a fridge together and we just managed to fit it down our street with about 2cm to spare!  We’re both loving living in the medina too. It’s so much easier for Karim’s work, he can come back and have a siesta between tours! And in the evenings we’re just a few minutes’ walk from all the cafes, so we finish every day with mint tea and some pumpkin seeds (which I’ve become obsessed with) and sit to watch the world go by. 

I only had a week to unpack and settle in though before I jetted off to England for a week. Although my holiday was nearly over before it had begun because the passport control man nearly didn’t let me in the country! Apparently he didn’t believe I had enough money to support myself because I didn’t have enough cash (seriously, who uses cash these days?) or my bank statement or payslips. It was a very stressful 15minutes and he nearly made me miss my bus. But thankfully he let me through and I was in England!

I spent a few days with my sister in Brighton and a few days with some friends in London. And I was busy the whole week! I got my haircut, went winter clothes shopping, saw Harry Potter (finally!), ate a lot of ham and bacon, ate a lot of Asian food, ate a lot of minstrels (that was for you meags), drank some cider, watched English TV (a lot of ‘come dine with me!’), went out to dinner, went to a comedy night, went to the Camden markets, the list goes on! It was a very enjoyable week! So another thank you to my hosts – Sister Sophie and Ness and Haylee. It was great to catch up with you all and hopefully I will catch up with you again next year!

So with a few essential items from the supermarket (broccoli, cheddar cheese and wraps) and a train, bus, plane and taxi ride later, I was back home in Fes. Driving from the taxi I was struck with how different those 2 worlds are, but how comfortable I feel in both. It was so easy going from dodging donkeys through the narrow streets of Fes to waiting for the green man to cross the wide clean streets of London. Although the cold wasn’t as easy to adapt to. England is cold! And the weather when I was there wasn’t even that bad. But here in Fes – we’re still sleeping with the fan on! So as nice as it was to have a mini holiday in England, it was nice to come back to Karim and to our home here. Still for another 6.5 weeks.

And finally, we had a very momentous day today. For the last 2 months or so we have been trying to gather together all the necessary paperwork for Karim’s visa application to live in Australia. The final piece of the puzzle, Karim’s passport, arrived when I was in England so we put everything together and sent it off today! I have thought of nothing else basically for the last 2 months, and it has already caused a lot of stress and tears, so it’s definitely a relief to have it in. And now it is out of our hands. They say the decision can take up to 12 months, so we still have a long and uncomfortable wait ahead of us with our fingers and toes permanently crossed! Feel free to put in some positive thinking on our behalf and hopefully one day our dream will come true!

The empty cinema for Harry Potter

Pudding time in London with Haylee and Kez!

On the tube with Ness

Waiting for the show to start

Pub meal with soph

Juicy delicious steak and cider

750g of paperwork

Karim and the visa application. Fingers crossed!

Our New Home!

On Monday Karim and I said our final goodbyes to our palace. It was sad to leave – we had a lot of good memories there. It was where we celebrated my birthday party and where we got engaged. I’ll also miss the neighbourhood; the supermarket within walking the distance, the patisserie shop that was even closer and the waiters at the local cafe that would automatically bring me my orange juice. I will miss you Santa Rosa Cafe!

So my last few days there were filled with frantic packing. We had so much stuff we had to order a small truck to help us move! (How I’m going to get my things back to Australia I have no idea!) And then I had to unpack it all at the other end! We are still getting things organised in our new place. It is a lot smaller than the palace, but perfectly adequate for us two. There is a living room, bedroom, small kitchen and bathroom. Again it is on the top floor but now only 31 stairs instead of 70. The number of cushions has also been downgraded from 50+ to 4. We have hot water (one of my prerequisites) but no TV and no fridge. We are thinking of buying a small fridge, but we’re not sure we will be able to fit it down our street and up the stairs! (Remember, our street is one of the skinny people streets!) Again there is glitter on the walls and we have replaced our flashing disco light in the old bedroom with a red light bulb in this one. It looks like a brothel!

So we are on the top floor, but it’s not really an apartment building, it’s more like one traditional old house. Each floor is a separate apartment, but being the one house they are all sort of connected by the central open space.  When I look down in the middle, I can see into their apartments and they can see up into ours. It’s like we’re living in the same house as 2 other families. And we can hear everything! Music, TV shows, every word of every conversation, screaming children. When someone opens or closes a door, it feels like it’s in our apartment! And Moroccans are generally not known for their quietness! On the brighter side (literally), this central space is open to the sky. During the day we get heaps of natural sunlight and at night time I can stand in my apartment and look at the moon and the stars! I just hope there is a cover for it when it rains!

The best part about our new place is that we walk outside and we are immediately in the midst of the medina bustle. I can hear the roosters and donkeys from our house! Everything we need is literally at our doorstep, and Karim’s work is about 2 minutes down the street. We are here for the next 2 months, and I think we will be very happy! So that is our new place and I have included a few photos as well. And again, if anyone wants to see it in person, you are of course more than welcome! 

Our skinny street leading to our skinny door!

The, ummm, pet store near our house

Our kitchen

Our living room

Our internal balcony

Looking down from our balcony into the other aparments

Looking up from the balcony at the moon!

R.I.P Russell

Firstly, as most of you have figured out by the title, my poor fish Russell passed away this week. Actually I think the correct term would be committed suicide (we found his lifeless body on the floor next to the tank.) It was a very sad time, and I have to admit a few tears were shed. He was the best friend a housewife could have and he will be sorely missed. On the other hand, it does solve the problem of how we were going to move him to our new place...

That’s right, in a few days we will be saying goodbye to our amazing palace that we have called home for the past 4 months and moving into an apartment in the old town. For those of you who have been to Fes, it’s about 2 minutes from the blue gate, right in the middle of the butcher section, next to the butcher that has a cage full of bunnies and pigeons (for pets, I’m sure..) Our street is one that Karim would describe as being too small for ‘fat Americans’, so I better not eat too much while I’m there otherwise I may get stuck! I’m really looking forward to being able to explore the medina, learning the streets and alleys so I don’t get lost and just generally soaking up the atmosphere (and getting to play with all the cats!) What I’m not looking forward to is packing up all our stuff for the move. It’s crazy how much stuff you can accumulate in the space of 4 months!

Speaking of crazy – how amazing is it to eat and drink during the day! Ramadan ended about a week ago and it took a bit of time to get used to. I would have to think twice every time I went to eat or drink something, but now everything is back to normal! At the end of Ramadan was Eid, where everyone spends the day visiting family and friends, dressed in their new clothes and fresh haircuts. I had a new jellaba made with matching slippers and Karim and I spent most of the day with his family – where I met even more of his extended family (I’ve never known anyone with so many uncles!)

And with the end of Ramadan we were finally able to crack open the bottle of champagne I had bought in Spain and toast our engagement – nearly 6 weeks after Karim proposed! Better late than never though, and we enjoyed a lovely romantic candlelight dinner. The champagne was nice, but the highlight for me was definitely the crepes I made for dessert. Lemon and sugar would have to be the best flavour combination in the world! Karim definitely saw a new side of me that night as I fanatically licked my plate clean, but assured me he still wanted to marry me anyway! 

R.I.P Russell, loving fish, devoted friend

I'm glad one of us likes cooking!

Gigantic peach!

Eid - my new jellaba

Eid clothes

Finally we get to pop the bubbly!

How romantic...

Engaged!