Weekend in London

This may sound crazy to someone living in the United States or New Zealand, but T and I went to London for the weekend (we left Ifrane at 4:45 PM on Thursday and were back at our apartment before 9 PM on Sunday). A few weeks ago, we found out that T's sister and her family would be in London for a few days. We decided that London is so close (about a three hour plane ride) that we had to go see them, even if it was only for two days.

Before we went there, T's sister asked what we would want to do in London. Knowing that our main focus would be visiting with family, we decided to forgo any of the usual sightseeing and focus on three goals:

1. Have a beer. (have I yet said anything about the beer in Morocco? Morocco has only three beers: Stork, Flag, and Casablanca. I am being generous when I say that these beers are somewhat uninspired. I am not the first nor last beer snob to be a bit devastated by the dearth of good beer.)
2. Eat Indian food. (By the way, Indian food is so ubiquitous in London that I got quizzical looks from the locals when I told them this was one of the goals for my visit.)
3. Go grocery shopping.

In case you're wondering, I accomplished these goals. I had Indian food two nights in a row, and I came home with a suitcase full of frozen tofu, vitamins and herbal supplements, Ziploc bags, PG tips, rice wine vinegar, sriracha sauce, and other goodies.

I also realized during my two short days in London that I was experiencing double culture shock. First of all, I had the obvious culture shock of going from a small town in a developing African country to an almost unimaginably enormous urban area in a developed country. T's sister took me to Tesco for grocery shopping, and I froze up a little when I got to the long aisle that was dedicated entirely to yogurts. I was impressed by many mundane things – pedestrian crosswalks, wheelchair accessibility and accommodations in many places, restrooms with toilet paper and soap and working hand dryers. Everything seemed so incredibly clean, organized, and orderly! In addition, I had trouble adapting to the prices of things. One day, T and I bought an "inexpensive" sandwich to share for lunch, and I realized that our shared sandwich was the same price as about 35 baguettes here in Morocco. On Sunday, on our bus from London to the Stansted airport (it was much cheaper to fly out of Stansted than Heathrow), the bus driver announced that we should buckle our seatbelts because we would be on the highway. I couldn't help but laugh, knowing that once we were back in Morocco, we would be taking a grand taxi over mountain roads, dodging donkeys and pedestrians and bicycles and motorcycles, and we almost certainly would not even have seatbelts.

London is also different from the United States, which is sometimes easy to forget because we do (basically) speak the same language. But same language does not equal same culture. I should add here that somehow I had gotten the idea that people in London would be...well, if not unfriendly, a bit reserved. I found everyone to be quite friendly, helpful, and accommodating to our occasional cluelessness about things like how to scan our credit card at the grocery store.

It was very hard to leave family members after spending only two days with them, but I was also concerned about how I would feel coming back to Morocco. On the plane to Fez, and on the taxi ride from there to Ifrane, I engaged in a little introspection. I was a bit surprised and relieved to find that I didn't feel any sense of dread or disappointment or depression about coming back here. All reservations I had related to one factor: all of my significant difficulties here have to do with the language barrier. It became very clear to me this weekend that if I am going to stay here and be able to function, I need to make an attempt to learn Darija or French. I don't know when or how I'll do it, but I need to try.

T and I have also made a resolution to go on more weekend trips to Europe. This may be the only time in our life that we have the opportunity to do that.