Cool people most of the time :)

I've been here nearly a month, and it has been great. I feel like I'm finally getting my feet under me getting around and working with in the community here. I'm still not comforable with the taxi's that play chicken with the other cars on the road, I know I've said on more than one occasion that the traffic here is crazy but you really have to be here first hand to live the adrenaline rush of the way people drive here. Saturday was fantastic, since being here I've been told many a time that I need to lower my expectation on what I want to accomplish in a day. For those who know me well are probably chuckling to themselves now... That is really difficult for me to do, as I am demanding of myself and those around me and lets face it I would like to organize just about everything I come into contact. So back to what will be known forever as the mecah of all Saturdays, I went apartment shopping in the morning starting 9:30 am until 1pm saw 3 apartments varying to boondocks ok to boondocks royalty to average on the edge living for Casa. Then I was abl e to go to Radio Shack, yep they are everywhere! to return a transformer for my hair straightener. I think I shocked the sales guy when I brought back the first one and (thank you dad for teaching me a little bit about electricity) a list of the requirements for the straightener, volts hertz and watts. He asked me about 3 times if this info was accurate, because apparently it pulls a lot of power, apparently Moroccon women wouldn't need something so heavy duty :) After telling me on this second visit he didn't have the item at this location but "Sister if you would like to come back tomorrow, I will personally bring it in." (but he forgot he told me that the first time, and when I told my coworkers about this nice young man one chuckled and told me "ahh you need to know that here that doesn't mean anything, as I was told 6 months ago my shade of lipstick would be in tomorrow" So this nice guy refunded my money which is unheard of here, and gave me the name of the sales clerk at the other radio shack in town that had the item. I then ordered a pizza with some coworkers for lunch, to be picked up shortly. Did I mention that I've been using my trusty columbia back pack that everyone has told me that I've fantastic, which it is. We went to what one of the English girls called a "cobbler" you just have to love them! I went to a shoe guy that had a wooden booth on the side of a street that charges 20 dirham to fix just about anything, so that is about 2 dollars. So I explained to him in french that I wanted my shoes fixed, and a nice guy standing there translated my french into diriga (Moroccan Arabic) who told me they would be ready in 4 hours that same day. So as I walked away with my friends, I said "I just left my expensive shoes with a guy that I don't know and who doesn't even speak french" , who told me to blog about it to people back home :) So then we ate, grabbed a taxi to the next radio shack, got rather lost got directions a couple times, and met this really nice girl that is in her 3rd year of college in international business that would really like to work in the states, who by the way probably walked about 2 miles out of her way to personally take us to the radio shack that she didn't know where it was, but was so fantastic that she kept getting directions for us and took us all the way there. She was very shocked that I said we should get together and I would help her with her English and work on my french together too :) We then got the transformer, and walked around some more. We found a store that carries Clinique, which I'm running low on, but they wanted $43 for what I would be $20 back in the states. So needless to say I'll be finding a new skin care solution :(. We walked around some more, then went and caught a kamakazi taxi back to pick up my shoes, had someone over for dinner and got my internet charged. So basically I was able to get about a weeks worth of chores done in a day! We went to the Habbous today, which is another market and bought a $3 scarf and exchanged my only american pen for a key chain from a very cute little vendor (he looked to be about 60 :) ) took a ton of pictures so check them out. This weekend is a holiday 3 day weekend, that some are looking to go to Rabat. I'm hoping that it will work out that I will be able to go with them. After all that :) people have been fantastic I'm looking to see what everyones like when they can eat and drink regularly. I've been reading "Eat Pray Love" it's been awesome. I'll try to update more often on here,