New Blog

I am not going to be posting on this blog for the next couple of months. Robyn and I are riding our bikes to Utah and so for that trip we have created a new blog. So check it out at www.robynandalana.blogspot.com

oh yeah one more video....

Here I am paddling with Robyn in the OC2

OC2 Video

Some videos

Although I dont have my videos from Morocco posted yet, I have some videos of Vancouver. Check them out:

Virgin Fest 2007

Kitsilano Beah

Granville Island Waterpark

Back in Vancouver

So after almost be cut from my flight in London, I amde it back to Vancouver as planned. I had my interview with the Vancouver School Board, but I did not get the job. Actually I have had some fun looking at other options so it is not too bad. Since I have been back I have been hanging out with friends and family and getting ready for my bike trip with Robyn. I have also been very busy with tons of babysitting so that is great! I have also been look for a job in September. So I have been pretty busy. Here are some photos of Tess and I at Virgin fest, Lisa and Charley at the granville island water park and me paddling and a blue hern that has been hanging out in Alder Bay.

The rest of Morocco 2007

So after Noora and Topi left, ALi and I spent a couple of days in Settat before heading back to Oujda. Pretty much as soon as we got back to Oujda we went down to Figuig to spend the weekned with his family there. It ended up getting extended to Tuesday morning because that way we could get a ride back to Oujda. While we were in Figuig we just kinda hung out. I learned to make couscous!...and then lost the paper where I wrote the directions...brilliant! When we got back to Oujda we were busy trying to finish the immigration stuff and Ali's family had a small lunch to celebrate his marriage (it was more for his mom, we were only there for about one hour). Then we went back to Settat and on to Marrakech where I caught my flight to London. Sad to leave :-( Oh and just before I left Melika (alis aunts, husbands, brithers wife) had her baby girl and I got to see her when she was less than 24hrs old...sooooo cute.

Yey Me!!!!

I have an interview at the Vancouver School Board 16 hrs after my flight from Morocco arrives in Vancouver...wish me luck...SOOO excited, and a bit nervous too.

Vancouver Video

Check out this video that Robyn made for me of the last time I was in Vancouver.

Vancouver Video

The Atlantic Coast With Noora and Topi

The wedding celebrations ended at 6am and we were on the 7am train to Marrakech to meet up with my friends from Finland, Noora and Topi. The next day we met them and headed off to Essaouira, on the Atlantic ocean. As soon as we got of the bus we found a great little house for rent for 20 euros a night for the four of us. We ended up spending 5 nights in Essaouira, mainly hanging out on the beach, cooking tagines and yummy salads and wandering around the port and the Medina. One day we walked 35 kms along the beach to the next town to the south Sidi Kakoui, it was great cause the sand dunes almst touch the ocean! We left Essaouira for Safi early on the morning of my birthday adn I celebrated my birthday in Safi. We checked out the fortress and the medina. We also bought some beautiful Safi Pottery. The evening we went to the Hammam and out for a birthday dinner and cake at the hotel. The next day we went to El Jadida where we explored the Cite Portugais and then I slept alot cause I had a fever. We too a Grand Taxi to the next little beach town the next day and hung around there. That evening we tried to get to Settat, and although it proved to be extremley difficult even though it is only an hour and a half away it ended up taking like four hours....Moroccan buses. The next morning we took Noora and Topi to the train station and Alia nd i stayed on in Settat to paly with Rayan and visit with his family.

Our First wedding Celebration

So Ali and I had a small wedding ceremony with his family in Oujda on the 2& of April. Moroccan weddings are so much fun. Start saving you money so that you can come to our big wedding celebration in Oujda Morocco in the summer of 2009. It is going to be AMAZING. Here are some photos.

A Week with with Nat and David

After getting married, Ali and I headed to Meknes to meet with Nat and David and spend a week touring around with them. The first couple days were a repeat of the begining of the tour d'Ali, we saw the sights in Meknes, Fes, Voulibilis and Moulay Idriss. Nat and David had rented a car, which meant that we had time for some time for a couple side trips to places like Sidi Harazem, where the bottled water comes from and some little town, where after a bit of confusion we found the caves that are lived in by old people that were described in the guide. We set off in the car on the third day to check out some of the things between Meknes and Beni Mellal...our first stop was the Cedre Gourard and the BArnaby Apes near Azrou. then we stopped at this amazing place with a river and a waterfall for lunch, the setting was great but it was not the greatest Tagnie that we had eaten. We hung out in Beni Mellal that evening and then headed to the Cascade d'Ouzoud the next day. It is an amazing waterfall...when we were there it had been rainign so hard that instead of being its nromal blue watery colour, tghe water was a light brown, more like a mudfall. We had to be very careful when heading down cause the ground was really slippery, but it was cool still. That night we went to Marrakech where we stayed in the apartment of someone who we had met in Figuig. The next evening we went to visit Alis family in Settat, where Mina had prepared my favourite dish, rafissa. It was enormous, adn she had place three entire chickens on top! CRAZY amount of rafissa, but MMM MMM GOOD! We got up early on Saturday morning to see the Hassan 2 Mosque in Casablanca before Nat and DAvid had to head to the airport. After they left, ALi and I tried to get a Taxi tot he train station to return to Oujda, but we found out the hard way that taxis only pick up tourisits at the Mosque. They can make more money that way. We neded up walking to the train station, but we still got to Oujda as planned, about 12 hrs later.

THANKS NATHALIE AND DAVID IT WAS FUN!