Monterey to Morocco: the REAL adventure begins

We can officially check "travel halfway around the world with two cats" off the bucket list. In case anyone else shares the same dream, it wasn't as bad as we anticipated. Don't get me wrong, all of my worst expectations were realized within the first three hours of the trip...

1.) Remove any gaps between the hotel bed and the wall where a cat can hide when you need to put them in the carrier - thanks, Kevin.

2.) Put pet pee pads in the carriers in case someone has to pee - thanks, Kevin.

3.) Bring pet wet wipes in case someone poops in their carrier and needs to be cleaned - thanks, Kevin.

4.) Carry an extra sweater to use as a calming blanket when someone starts meowing frantically in public - thanks, Kevin and Phillip (it wasn't all just Kevin).

However, as soon as we got on the first plane the kids were angels. They started to lose it on the last flight to Rabat, but I would still argue that two adorable, meowing cats are better than one screaming baby (sorry to all of our friends with screaming babies). And getting through customs with two cats was strangely the easiest part of the trip. Regardless, the kids have forgiven us for the 36 hours of torture and they are pleased with their individual bedrooms (and Phillip wants everyone to know that he prefers American poultry).

Over the past week, we've settled into our temporary living arrangement in Rabat and we have started classes at one of the local universities. As international students, our orientation included a tour of the city and historical landmarks, such as the King's Palace, Hassan Tower, the Kasbah of the Oudayas, and of course, the Marjane (Rabat's version of Wal-Mart). As the designated photographer of our experience overseas, this was my first real opportunity to put our new DSLR to use. **side note: neither one of us is remotely experienced in photography. We have a desire to take good pictures and a decent camera...we'll see how far that gets us.** A friend of ours is a talented photographer and he explained you oftentimes take hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos and end up with only a handful of "fridge-worthy" shots...I totally get it now. After nearly a week in the city, I have FOUR - yes, FOUR - photos that are mildly good enough to post.

We have been pleased with our ability to avoid English outside of the house. With the exception of the university, where English is the only common denominator among the international students, we have been successfully using Arabic (and a little French). I didn't say "100% successfully" - we've definitely had a good amount of miscommunications, strange looks, laughs, etc. But, we have navigated customs, taxis, restaurants, Maroc Telecom (although never 100% successful here), texting in Arabic, and apartment hunting with a Moroccan rental agency. Our best friend is our door man, who has been most helpful to us and our conversations with him remind us that we know a lot of Arabic - we can hear it, speak it, and read it, and it can only get better with time! Overall, our first week in Morocco has been uplifting and we are excited to get into a routine here and continue to immerse ourselves in the community.