The other weekend I took a day trip to Fez. How did I get there? Shameless parasitism.

There is a group of students here from Wooster Polytechnical Institute. They're only here for another two weeks, but they come equipped with a faculty adviser and a group travel schedule for the weekends. Hanging out with two WPI kids on a Friday night, I heard a rumor of empty seats on a van going to Fez the next morning and inquired whether I might play stowaway. Victor told me that he would ask the prof if it would be okay. He seemed optimistic so the next morning I found myself sitting in a rapidly-filling van, wondering if I was usurping someone's seat. Eventually, though, the resident professor (with the interesting nickname "Bland") arrived on the scene and said "Well, it looks like we've got another" in a rather jolly tone. And I was on board.

Traveling with a group and tour guide and everything had its perks. This guy talked to shopkeepers in the medina on our behalf and got prices lowered. It's always nice to have a local in your corner, even if he was probably getting a cut from the places he took us to. They showed us what can only be described as a ceramics complex, a series of buildings where they made all things pottery related. There was one man there who worked with a large slab of clay on a foot powered wheel. He would fashion a bowl out of a section of this giant block of clay, cut it off, and do it again. He repeated this process every forty seconds or so. Quite impressive.

From there we toured the medina, or old walled section of the city. Picture any movie set in the Middle East. The medina is sort of like the prototypical bazaar. The streets are very narrow, windy and steep. Shops of all kinds line the road, crammed with all sorts of food and merchandise. The medina in Fez is well known for being especially big and especially old. Throughout the day, we saw the tannery, a weavers, a shrine for the long-dead patron of Fez, a madrassa, and a synagogue in the Jewish quarter. All in all a good time. Although, owing to it being Ramadan, it would have been imprudent to have a bottle of water with me on this long, hot day. More on Ramadan later.