The real work starts...on a beach, in Southern Spain

It’s finally over. The intensive “review” month seems like a distant memory now, and with that means a new timetable which, consisting of three half days, it really doesn’t help settle my mind that this is what is being addressed as ‘intensive’ (fingers crossed I don’t get a JCB pouring work onto me tomorrow). Along with having finished the review month, it also means that we no longer have Moroccan Arabic classes, and whilst that’s all well and good, the only way we’d be seeing off that module is by taking a final exam. The shock horror in having an exam that counts towards the final mark for the year this early on was enough to get to the best of us, but thankfully the majority of said test was reading comprehension. The elation when leaving that room wasn’t quite the “schools out for summer” type which after years of taking external exams has become almost a right of way as soon as you leave the humdrum atmosphere of an exam.

The “special relationship” (get your political thinking caps on for that one) was once again at the foray over the weekend, since we had our fellow Trans-Atlantic cousins over for dinner, who we’d met whilst traversing the fringes of the Moroccan desert. Although no politics were mentioned, things such as the sheer crudity of British English were discussed at length, and made me realise how awful my language had gotten since I graced the doors of Leeds Uni last year. It was nice to actually sit and chat with them like civilised human beings instead of simply going for the old antiquated arguments about the Empire and other typically annoying ‘yarth’ as one of my housemates calls it.

With Eid drawing closer (in a matter of days in fact), the sheer thrill of not having to study for a week is enough to make even the most studious pupil happy. It has to be said as well, you can certainly feel the sense of celebration in the Medina. Unfortunately we had to decline celebrating the day at our neighbours’ house due to travelling, but the streets have been increasingly busy in the past few days, with not only humans, but sheep, cows, all being taken to their respective homes in time for the big day. The worst case of congestion as it were appears to be in the local Carrefour, where queues are getting out of hand as people ‘Hail Mary’ various groceries from one end of the supermarket to the other in order to keep their space in the long, winding queues which are reminiscent of the pre-Christmas rush back home.

Finally, everything is planned for our big crossing back into Europe for the week via the Spanish town of Tarifa, where I await to indulge in some of Spain’s finest gastronomical offerings, since the sights of tagines and mint tea is starting to grate a little, despite the fact that if someone offered me either I’d still happily accept them, but they come nowhere near some churros con chocolate or boquerones fritos. Oh and there's a beach, where I intend to sleep. A LOT.