Weekend Visitor

This weekend, my college friend Amber came to visit from Madrid where she currently resides and where I went on my mommy vackay as we call it back in January. Of course the trip was too short, but we made the best of it and had a great time together. Amber almost didn't make it because her poor mom who was supposed to travel to Belgium then eventually home to the states is stuck due to the historic volcano craziness. Luckily, Amber was able to come down for the weekend and enjoy some sand and sun.

Amber and I indulged at the hammam and got ourselves sparkling clean. It was wonderful and something I must do at least one more time before heading back to Seattle. We had an impromptu couscous, tea and little dance party at Imad's parents house which was delicious and fun.

In the afternoon, we wanted to show Amber a little of Rabat so we went to the old medina and did a little shopping. Morocco is putting on a big earth day celebration that actually lasts the entire week. On Saturday, no parking was available because of an exclusive event happening near the old medina. Imad had the adventurous idea to go over the bridge to Sale and park by the boats that take you across the river back to Rabat. It's a really quick trip and something we've been wanting to do with Younis and hadn't had the chance to yet. Younis fell asleep in the car and managed to stay asleep as we transferred him to his stroller and took him over a rocky, sandy shore to the boats. He woke up right before getting into the boat and looked around a bit lost and confused but mostly intrigued and ready to move onto this next adventure. It cost less than a dollar for all 4 of us to cross over the river. Some people on the boat joked that it felt like they were making the trip from Morocco to Spain where many cross illegally to get to Europe, oh Moroccan humor gotta love it.

Yesterday, more earth day activities with a big group of kids doing a beach clean-up. Unfortunately there's quite a lot of trash on the beach so it was great to see this big clean-up effort happening.

We were all sad to see Amber go and Younis especially missed "mama's friend Amber" as he called her. We spent the ride home from the train station making one pretend call after another to Amber. With all the excitement and movement, Younis took his naps in the car. Here he is on the way back from dropping Amber off at the train station, one tired dude.