Prelude

It’s over. My sophomore summer – days spent lounging at Rye beach, nights spent serving foie gras and Kobe cap steaks in downtown Portsmouth – has ended. Tomorrow I will board a Boeing 757 at Logan Airport and 19 long hours later I will touch down in Rabat, Morocco and begin my junior year abroad. Despite the stuffed suitcase next to my bed and the boarding pass on my nightstand, I’m still finding it hard to believe the day has arrived. After months of imagination, reality is about to hit. And while there’s no denying I have slight case of the jitters, I am extremely excited about the opportunities and experiences that lie ahead. Many people have questioned why I chose to go to Morocco in the first place. I responded by telling them of my interest (both academic and personal) in the Middle East and of my desire to practice my French language skills (Morocco was a French protectorate and more than 50% of the population speaks French). But while these factors certainly influenced me, to be honest, I was really just looking for something different. Something that would take me away from my culture, expose me to new ideas, and challenge my preconceptions. A much superior travel writer than I, Mark Twain, had a similar desire. In his travel book The Innocents Abroad he writes that he and his companions “wanted something thoroughly and uncompromisingly foreign – foreign from top to bottom – foreign from center to circumference – foreign inside and outside and all around – nothing anywhere about it to dilute it foreignness – nothing to remind us of any other people or any other land under the sun. And lo! In Tangier we have found it.”* Twain and his companions found their foreign oasis in Morocco. I hope to do the same. The summer is over but my adventure is just beginning. 

*Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (New York: Library of America, 1984), 61.