We made it!

After many, many long hours of sitting, waiting, flying, and riding trains, we made it to Fez last night. And already it's beginning to look pretty eventful. I had almost forgotten, but the Festival de Fes begins this weekend, and after looking at the schedule, I'm stoked. Nass al-Ghaiwane is doing a free show next weekend, Ismael Lo of Senegal is doing the same. The Sufi Nights program (late night chants) includes Taureg music and a number of different groups from the south. Even Al-Kindi is performing, who Jonathan Shannon studies (Deborah Kapchan's husband, and we all know how I feel about their writing...). The entire schedule is at www.fesfestival.com - take a look.

Yesterday we had dinner at a place called "Ten Years," and it was excellent. The first reminder of how tasty couscous and harira can be. And no one can deny the bland familiarity of the Fez Special brew. It's bad, but local, so you can't complain. Reminds me of Costa Rican Imperial. The server was ecstatic to have someone is his restaurant, and asked us how to say things in English all night long.

Frank, I saw Si Ahmed today (for everyone else, he was our old Moroccan host), but my Arabic was so rusty I felt bad. Hichem moved to LA!

We both have phones: my new number is (from abraod) 212 76 61 17 99. Annie's is 212 76 61 08 00. You can text without any extra international charge, I think. But I make no promises. Checking of email will be sporadic, of course, especially with all the travel and wandering the country. I hope to hear from everyone soon.

B-slama w barak allahu fik.